A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER XXVII.

LOST IN THE BOW­ELS OF THE EARTH

To de­scribe my de­spair would be im­pos­si­ble. No words could tell it. I was buried alive, with the prospect be­fore me of dy­ing of hunger and thirst.

Me­chan­ical­ly I swept the ground with my hands. How dry and hard the rock seemed to me!

But how had I left the course of the stream? For it was a ter­ri­ble fact that it no longer ran at my side. Then I un­der­stood the rea­son of that fear­ful, si­lence, when for the last time I lis­tened to hear if any sound from my com­pan­ions could reach my ears. At the mo­ment when I left the right road I had not no­ticed the ab­sence of the stream. It is ev­ident that at that mo­ment a de­vi­ation had pre­sent­ed it­self be­fore me, whilst the Hans­bach, fol­low­ing the caprice of an­oth­er in­cline, had gone with my com­pan­ions away in­to un­known depths.

How was I to re­turn? There was not a trace of their foot­steps or of my own, for the foot left no mark up­on the gran­ite floor. I racked my brain for a so­lu­tion of this im­prac­ti­ca­ble prob­lem. One word de­scribed my po­si­tion. Lost!

Lost at an im­mea­sur­able depth! Thir­ty leagues of rock seemed to weigh up­on my shoul­ders with a dread­ful pres­sure. I felt crushed.

I tried to car­ry back my ideas to things on the sur­face of the earth. I could scarce­ly suc­ceed. Ham­burg, the house in the Königstrasse, my poor Gräuben, all that busy world un­der­neath which I was wan­der­ing about, was pass­ing in rapid con­fu­sion be­fore my ter­ri­fied mem­ory. I could re­vive with vivid re­al­ity all the in­ci­dents of our voy­age, Ice­land, M. Fridrikssen, Snæfell. I said to my­self that if, in such a po­si­tion as I was now in, I was fool enough to cling to one glimpse of hope, it would be mad­ness, and that the best thing I could do was to de­spair.

What hu­man pow­er could re­store me to the light of the sun by rend­ing asun­der the huge arch­es of rock which unit­ed over my head, but­tress­ing each oth­er with im­preg­nable strength? Who could place my feet on the right path, and bring me back to my com­pa­ny?

“Oh, my un­cle!” burst from my lips in the tone of de­spair.

It was my on­ly word of re­proach, for I knew how much he must be suf­fer­ing in seek­ing me, wher­ev­er he might be.

When I saw my­self thus far re­moved from all earth­ly help I had re­course to heav­en­ly suc­cour. The re­mem­brance of my child­hood, the rec­ol­lec­tion of my moth­er, whom I had on­ly known in my ten­der ear­ly years, came back to me, and I knelt in prayer im­plor­ing for the Di­vine help of which I was so lit­tle wor­thy.

This re­turn of trust in God’s prov­idence al­layed the tur­bu­lence of my fears, and I was en­abled to con­cen­trate up­on my sit­ua­tion all the force of my in­tel­li­gence.

I had three days’ pro­vi­sions with me and my flask was full. But I could not re­main alone for long. Should I go up or down?

Up, of course; up con­tin­ual­ly.

I must thus ar­rive at the point where I had left the stream, that fa­tal turn in the road. With the stream at my feet, I might hope to re­gain the sum­mit of Snæfell.

Why had I not thought of that soon­er? Here was ev­ident­ly a chance of safe­ty. The most press­ing du­ty was to find out again the course of the Hans­bach. I rose, and lean­ing up­on my iron-​point­ed stick I as­cend­ed the gallery. The slope was rather steep. I walked on with­out hope but with­out in­de­ci­sion, like a man who has made up his mind.

For half an hour I met with no ob­sta­cle. I tried to recog­nise my way by the form of the tun­nel, by the pro­jec­tions of cer­tain rocks, by the dis­po­si­tion of the frac­tures. But no par­tic­ular sign ap­peared, and I soon saw that this gallery could not bring me back to the turn­ing point. It came to an abrupt end. I struck against an im­pen­etra­ble wall, and fell down up­on the rock.

Un­speak­able de­spair then seized up­on me. I lay over­whelmed, aghast! My last hope was shat­tered against this gran­ite wall.

Lost in this labyrinth, whose wind­ings crossed each oth­er in all di­rec­tions, it was no use to think of flight any longer. Here I must die the most dread­ful of deaths. And, strange to say, the thought came across me that when some day my pet­ri­fied re­mains should be found thir­ty leagues be­low the sur­face in the bow­els of the earth, the dis­cov­ery might lead to grave sci­en­tif­ic dis­cus­sions.

I tried to speak aloud, but hoarse sounds alone passed my dry lips. I pant­ed for breath.

In the midst of my agony a new ter­ror laid hold of me. In falling my lamp had got wrong. I could not set it right, and its light was pal­ing and would soon dis­ap­pear al­to­geth­er.

I gazed painful­ly up­on the lu­mi­nous cur­rent grow­ing weak­er and weak­er in the wire coil. A dim pro­ces­sion of mov­ing shad­ows seemed slow­ly un­fold­ing down the dark­en­ing walls. I scarce­ly dared to shut my eyes for one mo­ment, for fear of los­ing the least glim­mer of this pre­cious light. Ev­ery in­stant it seemed about to van­ish and the dense black­ness to come rolling in pal­pa­bly up­on me.

One last trem­bling glim­mer shot fee­bly up. I watched it in trem­bling and anx­iety; I drank it in as if I could pre­serve it, con­cen­trat­ing up­on it the full pow­er of my eyes, as up­on the very last sen­sa­tion of light which they were ev­er to ex­pe­ri­ence, and the next mo­ment I lay in the heavy gloom of deep, thick, un­fath­omable dark­ness.

A ter­ri­ble cry of an­guish burst from me. Up­on earth, in the midst of the dark­est night, light nev­er ab­di­cates its func­tions al­to­geth­er. It is still sub­tle and dif­fu­sive, but what­ev­er lit­tle there may be, the eye still catch­es that lit­tle. Here there was not an atom; the to­tal dark­ness made me to­tal­ly blind.

Then I be­gan to lose my head. I arose with my arms stretched out be­fore me, at­tempt­ing painful­ly to feel my way. I be­gan to run wild­ly, hur­ry­ing through the in­ex­tri­ca­ble maze, still de­scend­ing, still run­ning through the sub­stance of the earth’s thick crust, a strug­gling denizen of ge­olog­ical ‘faults,’ cry­ing, shout­ing, yelling, soon bruised by con­tact with the jagged rock, falling and ris­ing again bleed­ing, try­ing to drink the blood which cov­ered my face, and even wait­ing for some rock to shat­ter my skull against.

I shall nev­er know whith­er my mad ca­reer took me. Af­ter the lapse of some hours, no doubt ex­haust­ed, I fell like a life­less lump at the foot of the wall, and lost all con­scious­ness.