Chapter 9

INSIDE BACK CUP.

The next morning I am able to make a first inspection of the vast
cavern of Back Cup. No one seeks to prevent me.

What a night I have passed! What strange visions I have seen! With
what impatience I waited for morning!

I was conducted to a grotto about a hundred paces from the edge of
the lake where the tug stopped. The grotto, twelve feet by ten, was
lighted by an incandescent lamp, and fitted with an entrance door that
was closed upon me.

I am not surprised that electricity is employed in lighting the
interior of the cavern, as it is also used in the submarine boat. But
where is it generated? Where does it come from? Is there a manufactory
installed somewhere or other in this vast crypt, with machinery,
dynamos and accumulators?

My cell is neatly furnished with a table on which provisions are
spread, a bunk with bedding, a basket chair, a wash-hand-stand with
toilet set, and a closet containing linen and various suits of
clothes. In a drawer of the table I find paper, ink and pens.

My dinner consists of fresh fish, preserved meat, bread of excellent
quality, ale and whisky; but I am so excited that I scarcely touch it.
Yet I feel that I ought to fortify myself and recover my calmness of
mind. I must and will solve the mystery surrounding the handful of men
who burrow in the bowels of this island.

So it is under the carapace of Back Cup that Count d'Artigas has
established himself! This cavity, the existence of which is not even
suspected, is his home when he is not sailing in the _Ebba_ along the
coasts of the new world or the old. This is the unknown retreat he has
discovered, to which access is obtained by a submarine passage twelve
or fifteen feet below the surface of the ocean.

Why has he severed himself from the world? What has been his past?
If, as I suspect, this name of d'Artigas and this title of Count are
assumed, what motive has he for hiding his identity? Has he been
banished, is he an outcast of society that he should have selected
this place above all others? Am I not in the power of an evildoer
anxious to ensure impunity for his crimes and to defy the law by
seeking refuge in this undiscoverable burrow? I have the right of
supposing anything in the case of this suspicious foreigner, and I
exercise it.

Then the question to which I have never been able to suggest a
satisfactory answer once more surges into my mind. Why was Thomas Roch
abducted from Healthful House in the manner already fully described?
Does the Count d'Artigas hope to force from him the secret of his
fulgurator with a view to utilizing it for the defence of Back Cup in
case his retreat should by chance be discovered? Hardly. It would be
easy