There were two or three living rooms on the surface of the ground.
Walking through the first of these you clambered down some slippery
stairs into what was once a breathless subterranean vault hewn out of
the soft and dry pumiceous rock and used, as was customary, for storing
barrels and other paraphernalia. In the course of time, as more barrels
accumulated, the grotto was excavated further and further into the
entrails of the island. There seemed no reason why it should ever cease
growing when suddenly, one day, the perspiring workmen were struck in
the face by a cool blast of wind laden with marine moisture. They knew
what this meant. They had encountered one of those mysterious and
dangerous fissures that lead down to unknown depths, opening upon the
world of sunshine often at the water's edge, four hundred feet below.
It was deemed prudent to suspend excavations. These rents in the
interior of the earth had a knack of enlarging themselves, without a
word of warning, from cracks of a few inches to black gulfs several
hundred feet across.
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