It was the 20th of February.  Yet another month must elapse before the vessel would be ready for sea.  Would the island hold together till then?  The intention of Pencroft and Cyrus Harding was to launch the vessel as soon as the hull should be complete.  The deck, the upperworks, the interior woodwork and the rigging might be finished afterwards, but the essential point was that the colonists should have an assured refuge away from the island.  Perhaps it might be even better to conduct the vessel to Port Balloon, that is to say, as far as possible from the center of eruption, for at the mouth of the Mercy, between the islet and the wall of granite, it would run the risk of being crushed in the event of any convulsion.  All the exertions of the voyagers were therefore concentrated upon the completion of the hull.

Thus the 3rd of March arrived, and they might calculate upon launching the vessel in ten days.

Hope revived in the hearts of the colonists, who had, in this fourth year of their sojourn on Lincoln island, suffered so many trials.  Even Pencroft lost in some measure the somber taciturnity occasioned by the devastation and ruin of his domain.  His hopes, it is true, were concentrated upon his vessel.

“We shall finish it,” he said to the engineer, “we shall finish it, captain, and it is time, for the season is advancing and the equinox will soon be here.  Well, if necessary, we must put in to Tabor island to spend the winter.  But think of Tabor island after Lincoln Island.  Ah, how unfortunate!  Who could have believed it possible?”

“Let us get on,” was the engineer’s invariable reply.

And they worked away without losing a moment.

“Master,” asked Neb, a few days later, “do you think all this could have happened if Captain Nemo had been still alive?”

“Certainly, Neb,” answered Cyrus Harding.

“I, for one, don’t believe it!” whispered Pencroft to Neb.

“Nor I!” answered Neb seriously.

During the first week of March appearances again became menacing.  Thousands of threads like glass, formed of fluid lava, fell like rain upon the island.  The crater was again boiling with lava which overflowed the back of the volcano.  The torrent flowed along the surface of the hardened tufa, and destroyed the few meager skeletons of trees which had withstood the first eruption.  The stream, flowing this time towards the southwest shore of Lake Grant, stretched beyond Creek Glycerine, and invaded the plateau of Prospect Heights.  This last blow to the work of the colonists was terrible.  The mill, the buildings of the inner court, the stables, were all destroyed.  The affrighted poultry fled in all directions.  Top and Jup showed signs of the greatest alarm, as if their instinct warned them of an impending catastrophe.  A large number of the animals of the island had perished in the first eruption.  Those which survived found no refuge but Tadorn Marsh, save a few to which the