But if the inhabitants of Back Cup are not bound to each other by ties of race, they certainly are by instinct and inclination.  What forbidding, savage-looking faces they have, to be sure!  They are men of violent character who have probably never placed any restraint upon their passions, nor hesitated at anything, and it occurs to me that in all likelihood they have sought refuge in this cavern, where they fancy they can continue to defy the law with impunity, after a long series of crimes—­robbery, murder, arson, and excesses of all descriptions committed together.  In this case Back Cup is nothing but a lair of pirates, the Count d’Artigas is the leader of the band and Serko and Spade are his lieutenants.

I cannot get this idea out of my head, and the more I consider the more convinced I am that I am right, especially as everything I see during my stroll about the cavern seems to confirm my opinion.

However this may be, and whatever may be the circumstances that have brought them together in this place, Count d’Artigas’ companions appear to accept his all-powerful domination without question.  On the other hand, if he keeps them under his iron heel by enforcing the severest discipline, certain advantages, some compensation, must accrue from the servitude to which they bow.  What can this compensation be?

Having turned that part of the bank under which the tunnel passes, I find myself on the opposite side of the lagoon, where are situated the storerooms containing the merchandise brought by the Ebba on each trip, and which contain a great quantity of bales.

Beyond is the manufactory of electric energy.  I gaze in at the windows as I pass and notice that it contains machines of the latest invention and highest attained perfection, which take up little space.  Not one steam engine, with its more or less complicated mechanism and need of fuel, is to be seen in the place.  As I had surmised, piles of extraordinary power supply the current to the lamps in the cavern, as well as to the dynamos of the tug.  No doubt the current is also utilized for domestic purposes, such as warming the Beehive and cooking food, I can see that in a neighboring cavity it is applied to the alembics used to produce fresh water.  At any rate the colonists of Back Cup are not reduced to catching the rain water that falls so abundantly upon the exterior of the mountain.

A few paces from the electric power house is a large cistern that, save in the matter of proportions, is the counterpart of those I visited in Bermuda.  In the latter place the cisterns have to supply the needs of over ten thousand people, this one of a hundred—­what?

I am not sure yet what to call them.  That their chief had serious reasons for choosing the bowels of this island for his abiding place is obvious.  But what were those reasons?  I can understand monks shutting themselves behind their monastery walls with the intention of separating themselves from the world, but these subjects of the Count d’Artigas have nothing of the monk about them, and would not be mistaken for such by the most simple-minded of mortals.