"I've got an idea, Pierre, my boy! What a fool I was not to think of it before! This stream that we've been following is the Larve, and we've got to the very place where it falls through the cleft. Now if we can only get out with whole bones, it's fifteen hundred francs apiece to us. Come along, quick!"
All Pierre's weariness was gone in a minute. Already, in his mind's eye, he saw his ailing father comfortably provided for, and Jack and himself standing out to sea in a brand-new boat. The instant the candle was lighted they were off again at a pace which would have seemed impossible a few minutes before.
Guided by the increasing din of the water-fall, they were not long in reaching a huge perpendicular funnel or chimney in the rock, down one side of which poured a stream of water, while through a cleft above, dazzlingly radiant after the darkness of the buried passage, came a bright gleam of sunshine. Just then a big stone, flung from above, came thundering down into the chasm, falling close to the feet of the two explorers.
"That's the boys at their fun," said Jack, laughing. "I've done it many a time myself. Above there—hoy!"
The only answer was a howl of terror and the sound of flying feet. Pierre, alarmed at the thought of being deserted, shouted in his turn,
"Help, comrades! help!"
"Who's that calling?" asked a gruff voice from above, while the light was obscured by a broad visage peering down into the hole.
"Holloa, Gaspard! is that you?" cried Pierre, recognizing the voice of one of his father's fisher cronies.
"What, Pierre Lebon! you down there? Well, who ever saw the like? Just wait a minute, while I run for a rope."
But before he could return there were already more than a hundred people gathered around the hole, for the news of a human voice having been heard out of the "Larve Chimney," as the chasm was called, had spread far and wide.