But when we had ascended to an elevation of about 250 feet, we were stopped by insurmountable obstacles.
The converging inside walls changed into overhangs, and our climb into a circular stroll.
At this topmost level the vegetable kingdom began to challenge the mineral kingdom.
Shrubs, and even a few trees, emerged from crevices in the walls.
I recognized some spurges that let their caustic, purgative sap trickle out.
There were heliotropes, very remiss at living up to their sun–worshipping reputations since no sunlight ever reached them; their clusters of flowers drooped sadly, their colors and scents were faded.
Here and there chrysanthemums sprouted timidly at the feet of aloes with long, sad, sickly leaves.
But between these lava flows I spotted little violets that still gave off a subtle fragrance, and I confess that I inhaled it with delight.
The soul of a flower is its scent, and those splendid water plants, flowers of the sea, have no souls!
We had arrived at the foot of a sturdy clump of dragon trees, which were splitting the rocks with exertions of their muscular roots, when Ned Land exclaimed:
"Oh, sir, a hive!"
"A hive?"
I answered, with a gesture of utter disbelief.
"Yes, a hive," the Canadian repeated, "with bees buzzing around!"
I went closer and was forced to recognize the obvious.
At the mouth of a hole cut in the trunk of a dragon tree, there swarmed thousands of these ingenious insects so common to all the Canary Islands, where their output is especially prized.
Naturally enough, the Canadian wanted to lay in a supply of honey, and it would have been ill–mannered of me to say no.
He mixed sulfur with some dry leaves, set them on fire with a spark from his tinderbox, and proceeded to smoke the bees out.
Little by little the buzzing died down and the disemboweled hive yielded several pounds of sweet honey.
Ned Land stuffed his haversack with it.
"When I've mixed this honey with our breadfruit batter," he told us,
"I'll be ready to serve you a delectable piece of cake."
"But of course," Conseil put in, "it will be gingerbread!"
"I'm all for gingerbread," I said, "but let's resume this fascinating stroll."
At certain turns in the trail we were going along, the lake appeared in its full expanse.
The ship's beacon lit up that whole placid surface, which experienced neither ripples nor undulations.
The Nautilus lay perfectly still.
On its platform and on the embankment, crewmen were bustling around, black shadows that stood out clearly in the midst of the luminous air.
Just then we went around the highest ridge of these rocky foothills that supported the vault.
Then I saw that bees weren't the animal kingdom's only representatives inside this volcano.
Here and in the shadows, birds of prey soared and whirled, flying away from nests perched on tips of rock.
There were sparrow hawks with white bellies, and screeching kestrels.
With all the speed their stiltlike legs could muster, fine fat bustards scampered over the slopes.
I'll let the reader decide whether the Canadian's appetite was aroused by the sight of this tasty game, and whether he regretted having no rifle in his hands.
He tried to make stones do the work of bullets, and after several fruitless attempts, he managed to wound one of these magnificent bustards.
To say he risked his life twenty times in order to capture this bird is simply the unadulterated truth; but he fared so well, the animal went into his sack to join the honeycombs.
By then we were forced to go back down to the beach because the ridge had become impossible.
Above us, the yawning crater looked like the wide mouth of a well.
From where we stood, the sky was pretty easy to see, and I watched clouds race by, disheveled by the west wind, letting tatters of mist trail over the mountain's summit.
Proof positive that those clouds kept at a moderate altitude, because this volcano didn't rise more than 1,800 feet above the level of the ocean.
Half an hour after the Canadian's latest exploits, we were back on the inner beach.
There the local flora was represented by a wide carpet of samphire, a small umbelliferous plant that keeps quite nicely, which also boasts the names glasswort, saxifrage, and sea fennel.
Conseil picked a couple bunches.
As for the local fauna, it included thousands of crustaceans of every type: lobsters, hermit crabs, prawns, mysid shrimps, daddy longlegs, rock crabs, and a prodigious number of seashells, such as cowries, murex snails, and limpets.
In this locality there gaped the mouth of a magnificent cave.
My companions and I took great pleasure in stretching out on its fine–grained sand.
Fire had polished the sparkling enamel of its inner walls, sprinkled all over with mica–rich dust.
Ned Land tapped these walls and tried to probe their thickness.
I couldn't help smiling.
Our conversation then turned to his everlasting escape plans, and without going too far, I felt I could offer him this hope: Captain Nemo had gone down south only to replenish his sodium supplies.