A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE RES­CUE IN THE WHIS­PER­ING GALLERY

When I re­turned to par­tial life my face was wet with tears. How long that state of in­sen­si­bil­ity had last­ed I can­not say. I had no means now of tak­ing ac­count of time. Nev­er was soli­tude equal to this, nev­er had any liv­ing be­ing been so ut­ter­ly for­sak­en.

Af­ter my fall I had lost a good deal of blood. I felt it flow­ing over me. Ah! how hap­py I should have been could I have died, and if death were not yet to be gone through. I would think no longer. I drove away ev­ery idea, and, con­quered by my grief, I rolled my­self to the foot of the op­po­site wall.

Al­ready I was feel­ing the ap­proach of an­oth­er faint, and was hop­ing for com­plete an­ni­hi­la­tion, when a loud noise reached me. It was like the dis­tant rum­ble of con­tin­uous thun­der, and I could hear its sound­ing un­du­la­tions rolling far away in­to the re­mote re­cess­es of the abyss.

Whence could this noise pro­ceed? It must be from some phe­nomenon pro­ceed­ing in the great depths amidst which I lay help­less. Was it an ex­plo­sion of gas? Was it the fall of some mighty pil­lar of the globe?

I lis­tened still. I want­ed to know if the noise would be re­peat­ed. A quar­ter of an hour passed away. Si­lence reigned in this gallery. I could not hear even the beat­ing of my heart.

Sud­den­ly my ear, rest­ing by chance against the wall, caught, or seemed to catch, cer­tain vague, in­de­scrib­able, dis­tant, ar­tic­ulate sounds, as of words.

“This is a delu­sion,” I thought.

But it was not. Lis­ten­ing more at­ten­tive­ly, I heard in re­al­ity a mur­mur­ing of voic­es. But my weak­ness pre­vent­ed me from un­der­stand­ing what the voic­es said. Yet it was lan­guage, I was sure of it.

For a mo­ment I feared the words might be my own, brought back by the echo. Per­haps I had been cry­ing out un­known to my­self. I closed my lips firm­ly, and laid my ear against the wall again.

“Yes, tru­ly, some one is speak­ing; those are words!”

Even a few feet from the wall I could hear dis­tinct­ly. I suc­ceed­ed in catch­ing un­cer­tain, strange, undis­tin­guish­able words. They came as if pro­nounced in low mur­mured whis­pers. The word ‘_for­lorad_’ was sev­er­al times re­peat­ed in a tone of sym­pa­thy and sor­row.

“Help!” I cried with all my might. “Help!”

I lis­tened, I watched in the dark­ness for an an­swer, a cry, a mere breath of sound, but noth­ing came. Some min­utes passed. A whole world of ideas had opened in my mind. I thought that my weak­ened voice could nev­er pen­etrate to my com­pan­ions.

“It is they,” I re­peat­ed. “What oth­er men can be thir­ty leagues un­der ground?”

I again be­gan to lis­ten. Pass­ing my ear over the wall from one place to an­oth­er, I found the point where the voic­es seemed to be best heard. The word ‘_for­lorad_’ again re­turned; then the rolling of thun­der which had roused me from my lethar­gy.

“No,” I said, “no; it is not through such a mass that a voice can be heard. I am sur­round­ed by gran­ite walls, and the loud­est ex­plo­sion could nev­er be heard here! This noise comes along the gallery. There must be here some re­mark­able ex­er­cise of acous­tic laws!”

I lis­tened again, and this time, yes this time, I did dis­tinct­ly hear my name pro­nounced across the wide in­ter­val.

It was my un­cle’s own voice! He was talk­ing to the guide. And ‘_for­lorad_’ is a Dan­ish word.

Then I un­der­stood it all. To make my­self heard, I must speak along this wall, which would con­duct the sound of my voice just as wire con­ducts elec­tric­ity.

But there was no time to lose. If my com­pan­ions moved but a few steps away, the acous­tic phe­nomenon would cease. I there­fore ap­proached the wall, and pro­nounced these words as clear­ly as pos­si­ble:

“Un­cle Lieden­brock!”

I wait­ed with the deep­est anx­iety. Sound does not trav­el with great ve­loc­ity. Even in­creased den­si­ty air has no ef­fect up­on its rate of trav­el­ling; it mere­ly aug­ments its in­ten­si­ty. Sec­onds, which seemed ages, passed away, and at last these words reached me:

“Ax­el! Ax­el! is it you?”

. . . .

“Yes, yes,” I replied.

. . . .

“My boy, where are you?”

. . . .

“Lost, in the deep­est dark­ness.”

. . . .

“Where is your lamp?”

. . . .

“It is out.”

. . . .

“And the stream?”

. . . .

“Dis­ap­peared.”

. . . .

“Ax­el, Ax­el, take courage!”

. . . .

“Wait! I am ex­haust­ed! I can’t an­swer. Speak to me!”

. . . .

“Courage,” re­sumed my un­cle. “Don’t speak. Lis­ten to me. We have looked for you up the gallery and down the gallery. Could not find you. I wept for you, my poor boy. At last, sup­pos­ing you were still on the Hans­bach, we fired our guns. Our voic­es are au­di­ble to each oth­er, but our hands can­not touch. But don’t de­spair, Ax­el! It is a great thing that we can hear each oth­er.”

. . . .

Dur­ing this time I had been re­flect­ing. A vague hope was re­turn­ing to my heart. There was one thing I must know to be­gin with. I placed my lips close to the wall, say­ing:

“My un­cle!”

. . . .

“My boy!” came to me af­ter a few sec­onds.

. . . .

“We must know how far we are apart.”

. . . .

“That is easy.”

. . . .

“You have your chronome­ter?”

. . .

“Yes.”

. . . .

“Well, take it. Pro­nounce my name, not­ing ex­act­ly the sec­ond when you speak. I will re­peat it as soon as it shall come to me, and you will ob­serve the ex­act mo­ment when you get my an­swer.”

“Yes; and half the time be­tween my call and your an­swer will ex­act­ly in­di­cate that which my voice will take in com­ing to you.”

. . . .

“Just so, my un­cle.”

. . . .

“Are you ready?”

. . . .

“Yes.”

. . . . . .

“Now, at­ten­tion. I am go­ing to call your name.”

. . . .

I put my ear to the wall, and as soon as the name ‘Ax­el’ came I im­me­di­ate­ly replied “Ax­el,” then wait­ed.

. . . .

“Forty sec­onds,” said my un­cle. “Forty sec­onds be­tween the two words; so the sound takes twen­ty sec­onds in com­ing. Now, at the rate of 1,120 feet in a sec­ond, this is 22,400 feet, or four miles and a quar­ter, near­ly.”

. . . .

“Four miles and a quar­ter!” I mur­mured.

. . . .

“It will soon be over, Ax­el.”

. . . .

“Must I go up or down?”

. . . .

“Down - for this rea­son: We are in a vast cham­ber, with end­less gal­leries. Yours must lead in­to it, for it seems as if all the clefts and frac­tures of the globe ra­di­at­ed round this vast cav­ern. So get up, and be­gin walk­ing. Walk on, drag your­self along, if nec­es­sary slide down the steep places, and at the end you will find us ready to re­ceive you. Now be­gin mov­ing.”

. . . .

These words cheered me up.

“Good bye, un­cle.” I cried. “I am go­ing. There will be no more voic­es heard when once I have start­ed. So good bye!”

. . . .

“Good bye, Ax­el, _au revoir!_”

. . . .

These were the last words I heard.

This won­der­ful un­der­ground con­ver­sa­tion, car­ried on with a dis­tance of four miles and a quar­ter be­tween us, con­clud­ed with these words of hope. I thanked God from my heart, for it was He who had con­duct­ed me through those vast soli­tudes to the point where, alone of all oth­ers per­haps, the voic­es of my com­pan­ions could have reached me.

This acous­tic ef­fect is eas­ily ex­plained on sci­en­tif­ic grounds. It arose from the con­cave form of the gallery and the con­duct­ing pow­er of the rock. There are many ex­am­ples of this prop­aga­tion of sounds which re­main un­heard in the in­ter­me­di­ate space. I re­mem­ber that a sim­ilar phe­nomenon has been ob­served in many places; amongst oth­ers on the in­ter­nal sur­face of the gallery of the dome of St. Paul’s in Lon­don, and es­pe­cial­ly in the midst of the cu­ri­ous cav­erns among the quar­ries near Syra­cuse, the most won­der­ful of which is called Diony­sius’ Ear.

These re­mem­brances came in­to my mind, and I clear­ly saw that since my un­cle’s voice re­al­ly reached me, there could be no ob­sta­cle be­tween us. Fol­low­ing the di­rec­tion by which the sound came, of course I should ar­rive in his pres­ence, if my strength did not fail me.

I there­fore rose; I rather dragged my­self than walked. The slope was rapid, and I slid down.

Soon the swift­ness of the de­scent in­creased hor­ri­bly, and threat­ened to be­come a fall. I no longer had the strength to stop my­self.

Sud­den­ly there was no ground un­der me. I felt my­self re­volv­ing in air, strik­ing and re­bound­ing against the crag­gy pro­jec­tions of a ver­ti­cal gallery, quite a well; my head struck against a sharp cor­ner of the rock, and I be­came un­con­scious.