I had discovered, near the Punjab lasso, in a groove in the floor, a black-headed nail of which I knew the use. At last I had discovered the spring! I felt the nail.⁠ ⁠… I lifted a radiant face to M. de Chagny.⁠ ⁠… The black-headed nail yielded to my pressure.⁠ ⁠…

And then.⁠ ⁠…

And then we saw not a door opened in the wall, but a cellar-flap released in the floor. Cool air came up to us from the black hole below. We stooped over that square of darkness as though over a limpid well. With our chins in the cool shade, we drank it in.

And we bent lower and lower over the trapdoor. What could there be in that cellar which opened before us? Water? Water to drink?