Jules Verne

“ But Kencraf was not fortified, and in case a hostile flotilla came to attack Antekirtta its very position constituted a danger. In fact the islet would easily become a solid base of operation. With the facility of landing munitions and food, with the possibility of establishing a battery, it would afford an assailant an excellent center, and all the more because there was now no time to put it into a proper state of defense.
The position of this island and the advantages it would give to an enemy of Antekirtta made the doctor uneasy. ”

“ In preparation for the danger which seemed imminent the doctor took all possible precautions. During the last three weeks of October, Pierre and Luigi were busy helping him, and the whole of the colonists placed their services at his disposal. Several times Point Pescade was secretly dispatched to the coast, and returned with the news that the danger was not imaginary. The pirates of Ben Ghazi had been re-enforced by quite a mobilization of the confederates in the province, and were preparing an expedition of which Antekirtta was the objective. ”

“ Antekirtta was about twenty miles from the Cyrenaic coast, and would have been quite isolated in the gulf, had it not been for an islet known under the name of Kencraf which measured about three hundred yards around, and emerged from the sea about a couple of miles to the south-west. The doctor's idea was that this islet would do for the prison if any of the colonists were sentenced to be imprisoned after conviction by the regular judicial authority of the island and which event had not yet happened And a few buildings had been erected for this purpose. ”

“ More manageable than nitro-glycerine and more portable, for it only requires two isolated liquids whose mixture does not take place until the moment of using them, it is refractory to congelation down to six below zero, while dynamite turns to jelly at ten below freezing, and is only liable to explode from a violent shock, such as that from a fulminating capsule. ”