Chapter 12 - Page 2

and chatting. The island therefore could not have
been attacked during the night. Yet I was awakened by the report of
cannon, this I will swear.

At this moment Ker Karraje goes off towards his abode and Engineer
Serko, smilingly ironical, as usual, advances to meet me.

"Well, Mr. Simon Hart," he says, "are you getting accustomed to
your tranquil existence? Do you appreciate at their just merit the
advantages of this enchanted grotto? Have you given up all hope of
recovering your liberty some day or other?"

What is the use of waxing wroth with this jester? I reply calmly:

"No, sir. I have not given up hope, and I still expect that I shall be
released."

"What! Mr. Hart, separate ourselves from a man whom we all esteem--and
I from a colleague who perhaps, in the course of Thomas Roch's fits of
delirium, has learned some of his secrets? You are not serious!"

So this is why they are keeping me a prisoner in Back Cup! They
suppose that I am in part familiar with Koch's invention, and they
hope to force me to tell what I know if Thomas Koch refuses to give up
his secret. This is the reason why I was kidnapped with him, and why
I have not been accommodated with an involuntary plunge in the lagoon
with a stone fastened to my neck. I see it all now, and it is just as
well to know it.

"Very serious," I affirm, in response to the last remark of my
interlocutor.

"Well," he continues, "if I had the honor to be Simon Hart, the
engineer, I should reason as follows: 'Given, on the one hand, the
personality of Ker Karraje, the reasons which incited him to select
such a mysterious retreat as this cavern, the necessity of the said
cavern being kept from any attempt to discover it, not only in the
interest of the Count d'Artigas, but in that of his companions--'"

"Of his accomplices, if you please."

"'Of his accomplices,' then--'and on the other hand, given the
fact that I know the real name of the Count d'Artigas and in what
mysterious safe he keeps his riches--'"

"Riches stolen, and stained with blood, Mr. Serko."

"'Riches stolen and stained with blood,' if you like--'I ought
to understand that this question of liberty cannot be settled in
accordance with my desires.'"

It is useless to argue the point under these conditions, and I switch
the conversation on to another line.

"May I ask," I continue, "how you came to find out that Gaydon, the
warder, was Simon Hart, the engineer?"

"I see no reason for keeping you in ignorance on the subject, my dear
colleague. It was largely by hazard. We had certain