"To work!" he cried.
"Certainly, chief, but would you explain . . . ?"
"It's quite simple. I want to dig round this pillar a passage, three or four yards long, which will join the tunnel on the other side of the door and allow us to escape."
"But it will take us hours; and meanwhile, the water is rising."
"Show me a light, Gourel."
"In twenty minutes, or half an hour at most, it will have reached our feet."
"Show me a light, Gourel."
M. Lenormand's idea was correct and, with some little exertion, by pulling the earth, which he first loosened with his implement, towards him and making it fall into the tunnel, he was not long in digging a hole large enough to slip into.
"It's my turn, chief!" said Gourel.
"Aha, you're returning to life, I see! Well, fire away! . . . You have only to follow the shape of the pillar."