“And when they are here,” observed Engineer Serko, “I will piece them together and fix up the frames for firing them. But beforehand, there is a job to be done which it seems to me is indispensable.”
“What is that?”
“To cut a tunnel through the wall of the cavern.”
“Through the wall of the cavern?”
“Oh! nothing but a narrow passage through which only one man at a time could squeeze, a hole easy enough to block, and the outside end of which would be hidden among the rocks.”
“Of what use could it be to us, Serko?”
“I have often thought about the utility of having some other way of getting out besides the submarine tunnel. We never know what the future may have in store for us.”
“But the walls are so thick and hard,” objected Ker Karraje.
“Oh, with a few grains of Roch’s explosive I undertake to reduce the rock to such fine powder that we shall be able to blow it away with our breath,” Serko replied.
It can easily be imagined with what interest and eagerness I listened to this. Here was a ray of hope. It. was proposed to open up communication with the outside by a tunnel in the wall, and this held out the possibility of escape.