A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE WORST PER­IL OF ALL

It must be con­fessed that hith­er­to things had not gone on so bad­ly, and that I had small rea­son to com­plain. If our dif­fi­cul­ties be­came no worse, we might hope to reach our end. And to what a height of sci­en­tif­ic glo­ry we should then at­tain! I had be­come quite a Lieden­brock in my rea­son­ings; se­ri­ous­ly I had. But would this state of things last in the strange place we had come to? Per­haps it might.

For sev­er­al days steep­er in­clines, some even fright­ful­ly near to the per­pen­dic­ular, brought us deep­er and deep­er in­to the mass of the in­te­ri­or of the earth. Some days we ad­vanced near­er to the cen­tre by a league and a half, or near­ly two leagues. These were per­ilous de­scents, in which the skill and mar­vel­lous cool­ness of Hans were in­valu­able to us. That unim­pas­sioned Ice­lander de­vot­ed him­self with in­com­pre­hen­si­ble de­lib­er­ation; and, thanks to him, we crossed many a dan­ger­ous spot which we should nev­er have cleared alone.

But his habit of si­lence gained up­on him day by day, and was in­fect­ing us. Ex­ter­nal ob­jects pro­duce de­cid­ed ef­fects up­on the brain. A man shut up be­tween four walls soon los­es the pow­er to as­so­ciate words and ideas to­geth­er. How many pris­on­ers in soli­tary con­fine­ment be­come id­iots, if not mad, for want of ex­er­cise for the think­ing fac­ul­ty!

Dur­ing the fort­night fol­low­ing our last con­ver­sa­tion, no in­ci­dent oc­curred wor­thy of be­ing record­ed. But I have good rea­son for re­mem­ber­ing one very se­ri­ous event which took place at this time, and of which I could scarce­ly now for­get the small­est de­tails.

By the 7th of Au­gust our suc­ces­sive de­scents had brought us to a depth of thir­ty leagues; that is, that for a space of thir­ty leagues there were over our heads sol­id beds of rock, ocean, con­ti­nents, and towns. We must have been two hun­dred leagues from Ice­land.

On that day the tun­nel went down a gen­tle slope. I was ahead of the oth­ers. My un­cle was car­ry­ing one of Ruhmko­rff’s lamps and I the. oth­er. I was ex­am­in­ing the beds of gran­ite.

Sud­den­ly turn­ing round I ob­served that I was alone.

Well, well, I thought; I have been go­ing too fast, or Hans and my un­cle have stopped on the way. Come, this won’t do; I must join them. For­tu­nate­ly there is not much of an as­cent.

I re­traced my steps. I walked for a quar­ter of an hour. I gazed in­to the dark­ness. I shout­ed. No re­ply: my voice was lost in the midst of the cav­ernous echoes which alone replied to my call.

I be­gan to feel un­easy. A shud­der ran through me.

“Calm­ly!” I said aloud to my­self, “I am sure to find my com­pan­ions again. There are not two roads. I was too far ahead. I will re­turn!”

For half an hour I climbed up. I lis­tened for a call, and in that dense at­mo­sphere a voice could reach very far. But there was a drea­ry si­lence in all that long gallery. I stopped. I could not be­lieve that I was lost. I was on­ly be­wil­dered for a time, not lost. I was sure I should find my way again.

“Come,” I re­peat­ed, “since there is but one road, and they are on it, I must find them again. I have but to as­cend still. Un­less, in­deed, miss­ing me, and sup­pos­ing me to be be­hind, they too should have gone back. But even in this case I have on­ly to make the greater haste. I shall find them, I am sure.”

I re­peat­ed these words in the fainter tones of a half-​con­vinced man. Be­sides, to as­so­ciate even such sim­ple ideas with words, and rea­son with them, was a work of time.

A doubt then seized up­on me. Was I in­deed in ad­vance when we be­came sep­arat­ed? Yes, to be sure I was. Hans was af­ter me, pre­ced­ing my un­cle. He had even stopped for a while to strap his bag­gage bet­ter over his shoul­ders. I could re­mem­ber this lit­tle in­ci­dent. It was at that very mo­ment that I must have gone on.

Be­sides, I thought, have not I a guar­an­tee that I shall not lose my way, a clue in the labyrinth, that can­not be bro­ken, my faith­ful stream? I have but to trace it back, and I must come up­on them.

This con­clu­sion re­vived my spir­its, and I re­solved to re­sume my march with­out loss of time.

How I then blessed my un­cle’s fore­sight in pre­vent­ing the hunter from stop­ping up the hole in the gran­ite. This benef­icent spring, af­ter hav­ing sat­is­fied our thirst on the road, would now be my guide among the wind­ings of the ter­res­tri­al crust.

Be­fore start­ing afresh I thought a wash would do me good. I stooped to bathe my face in the Hans­bach.

To my stu­pe­fac­tion and ut­ter dis­may my feet trod on­ly - the rough dry gran­ite. The stream was no longer at my feet.