The feeling was so clear in him that he was half inclined to say to Lupin:
“Look here, you’re running another, a more serious danger; Holmlock Shears is on your track.”
“Come along!” said Lupin, before Isidore had made up his mind to speak.
He obeyed and let Lupin lead him to the boat, the shape of which struck him as peculiar and its appearance quite unexpected.
Once on deck, they went down a little steep staircase, or rather a ladder hooked on to a trap door, which closed above their heads. At the foot of the ladder, brightly lit by a lamp, was a very small saloon, where Raymonde was waiting for them and where the three had just room to sit down.
Lupin took the mouthpiece of a speaking tube from a hook and gave the order:
“Let her go, Charolais!”
Isidore had the unpleasant sensation which one feels when going down in a lift: the sensation of the ground vanishing beneath you, the impression of emptiness, space. This time, it was the water retreating; and space opened out, slowly.
“We’re sinking, eh?” grinned Lupin. “Don’t be afraid—we’ve only to pass from the upper cave where we were to another little cave, situated right at the bottom and half open to the sea, which can be entered at low tide. All the shellfish-catchers know it. Ah, ten seconds’ wait! We’re going through the passage and it’s very narrow, just the size of the submarine.”
“But,” asked Beautrelet, “how is it that the fishermen who enter the lower cave don’t know that it’s open at the top and that it communicates with another from which a staircase starts and runs through the Needle? The facts are at the disposal of the first-comer.”