I thanked the captain and went to look for my two companions, who hadn't yet left their cabin. I invited them to follow me, not telling them where we were.

我谢了船长，我去找我的两个同伴，他们还没有出他们的房门呢。我请他们跟着我来，没有告诉他们现在在什么地方。

They climbed onto the platform. Conseil, whom nothing could startle, saw it as a perfectly natural thing to fall asleep under the waves and wake up under a mountain.

他们走到平台上。康塞尔是对什么都不觉得奇怪的，两眼看着，觉得在水波下面睡过后，醒来在山底下，是很自然的事。

But Ned Land had no idea in his head other than to see if this cavern offered some way out.

尼德·兰没有别的思想，只是找寻这洞是不是有出路。

After breakfast near ten o'clock, we went down onto the embankment.

吃了早饭，十点左右，我们下船来，到岸上去。

So here we are, back on shore, Conseil said.

我们又在陆地上了。康塞尔说。

I'd hardly call this shore, the Canadian replied. And besides, we aren't on it but under it.

我不叫这个是陆地，加拿大人回答，并且我们不是在上，而是在下。

A sandy beach unfolded before us, measuring 500 feet at its widest point between the waters of the lake and the foot of the mountain's walls.

在山崖脚下和湖水之间，有一片是沙的堤岸，最宽的地方有五百英尺。

Via this strand you could easily circle the lake.

沿着这沙滩，我们可以很容易地环湖走一周。

But the base of these high walls consisted of broken soil over which there lay picturesque piles of volcanic blocks and enormous pumice stones.

但悬崖的下边，地势崎岖不平，上面累积得很好看，堆着许多火山喷出的大块石头和巨大的火山浮石。

All these crumbling masses were covered with an enamel polished by the action of underground fires, and they glistened under the stream of electric light from our beacon.

所有这些大堆石头分解了，受地下火的力量上面浮起一层光滑的珐琅质，一经探照灯的照射，发出辉煌的光彩。

Stirred up by our footsteps, the mica-rich dust on this beach flew into the air like a cloud of sparks.

堤岸上云母石的微粒，在我们步行时掀扬起来，像一阵火花的浓云一般飞地面渐渐远离湖水，

The ground rose appreciably as it moved away from the sand flats by the waves, and we soon arrived at some long, winding gradients, genuinely steep paths that allowed us to climb little by little; but we had to tread cautiously in the midst of pudding stones that weren't cemented together, and our feet kept skidding on glassy trachyte, made of feldspar and quartz crystals.

显然渐渐往上升起，我们不久便抵达很长、很弯曲的石栏，那是真正的斜坡，可以缓缓地上去，不过在这些累积形成的岩石中间，并没有洋灰把它们接合起来，走路要很小心，并且在这些长石和石英晶体所造成的玻璃质的粗面岩石上，脚步也很容易滑下去。