A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER XXXV.

AN ELEC­TRIC STORM

_Fri­day, Au­gust 21_. - On the mor­row the mag­nif­icent geyser has dis­ap­peared. The wind has risen, and has rapid­ly car­ried us away from Ax­el Is­land. The roar­ings be­come lost in the dis­tance.

The weath­er - if we may use that term - will change be­fore long. The at­mo­sphere is charged with vapours, per­vad­ed with the elec­tric­ity gen­er­at­ed by the evap­ora­tion of saline wa­ters. The clouds are sink­ing low­er, and as­sume an olive hue. The elec­tric light can scarce­ly pen­etrate through the dense cur­tain which has dropped over the the­atre on which the bat­tle of the el­ements is about to be waged.

I feel pe­cu­liar sen­sa­tions, like many crea­tures on earth at the ap­proach of vi­olent at­mo­spher­ic changes. The heav­ily vo­lut­ed cu­mu­lus clouds low­er gloomi­ly and threat­en­ing­ly; they wear that im­pla­ca­ble look which I have some­times no­ticed at the out­break of a great storm. The air is heavy; the sea is calm.

In the dis­tance the clouds re­sem­ble great bales of cot­ton, piled up in pic­turesque dis­or­der. By de­grees they di­late, and gain in huge size what they lose in num­ber. Such is their pon­der­ous weight that they can­not rise from the hori­zon; but, obey­ing an im­pulse from high­er cur­rents, their dense con­sis­ten­cy slow­ly yields. The gloom up­on them deep­ens; and they soon present to our view a pon­der­ous mass of al­most lev­el sur­face. From time to time a fleecy tuft of mist, with yet some gleam­ing light left up­on it, drops down up­on the dense floor of grey, and los­es it­self in the opaque and im­pen­etra­ble mass.

The at­mo­sphere is ev­ident­ly charged and sur­charged with elec­tric­ity. My whole body is sat­urat­ed; my hair bris­tles just as when you stand up­on an in­su­lat­ed stool un­der the ac­tion of an elec­tri­cal ma­chine. It seems to me as if my com­pan­ions, the mo­ment they touched me, would re­ceive a se­vere shock like that from an elec­tric eel.

At ten in the morn­ing the symp­toms of storm be­come ag­gra­vat­ed. The wind nev­er lulls but to ac­quire in­creased strength; the vast bank of heavy clouds is a huge reser­voir of fear­ful windy gusts and rush­ing storms.

I am loth to be­lieve these at­mo­spher­ic men­aces, and yet I can­not help mut­ter­ing:

“Here’s some very bad weath­er com­ing on.”

The Pro­fes­sor made no an­swer. His tem­per is aw­ful, to judge from the work­ing of his fea­tures, as he sees this vast length of ocean un­rolling be­fore him to an in­def­inite ex­tent. He can on­ly spare time to shrug his shoul­ders vi­cious­ly.

“There’s a heavy storm com­ing on,” I cried, point­ing to­wards the hori­zon. “Those clouds seem as if they were go­ing to crush the sea.”

A deep si­lence falls on all around. The late­ly roar­ing winds are hushed in­to a dead calm; na­ture seems to breathe no more, and to be sink­ing in­to the still­ness of death. On the mast al­ready I see the light play of a lam­bent St. El­mo’s fire; the out­stretched sail catch­es not a breath of wind, and hangs like a sheet of lead. The rud­der stands mo­tion­less in a slug­gish, wave­less sea. But if we have now ceased to ad­vance why do we yet leave that sail loose, which at the first shock of the tem­pest may cap­size us in a mo­ment?

“Let us reef the sail and cut the mast down!” I cried. “That will be safest.”

“No, no! Nev­er!” shout­ed my im­petu­ous un­cle. “Nev­er! Let the wind catch us if it will! What I want is to get the least glimpse of rock or shore, even if our raft should be smashed in­to shiv­ers!”

The words were hard­ly out of his mouth when a sud­den change took place in the south­ern sky. The piled-​up vapours con­dense in­to wa­ter; and the air, put in­to vi­olent ac­tion to sup­ply the vac­uum left by the con­den­sa­tion of the mists, rous­es it­self in­to a whirl­wind. It rush­es on from the far­thest re­cess­es of the vast cav­ern. The dark­ness deep­ens; scarce­ly can I jot down a few hur­ried notes. The helm makes a bound. My un­cle falls full length; I creep close to him. He has laid a firm hold up­on a rope, and ap­pears to watch with grim sat­is­fac­tion this aw­ful dis­play of el­emen­tal strife.

Hans stirs not. His long hair blown by the pelt­ing storm, and laid flat across his im­mov­able coun­te­nance, makes him a strange fig­ure; for the end of each lock of loose flow­ing hair is tipped with lit­tle lu­mi­nous ra­di­ations. This fright­ful mask of elec­tric sparks sug­gests to me, even in this dizzy ex­cite­ment, a com­par­ison with preadamite man, the con­tem­po­rary of the ichthyosaurus and the megath­eri­um. [1]

[1] Rather of the mam­moth and the mastodon. (Trans.)

The mast yet holds firm. The sail stretch­es tight like a bub­ble ready to burst. The raft flies at a rate that I can­not reck­on, but not so fast as the foam­ing clouds of spray which it dash­es from side to side in its head­long speed.

“The sail! the sail!” I cry, mo­tion­ing to low­er it.

“No!” replies my un­cle.

“_Nej!_” re­peats Hans, leisure­ly shak­ing his head.

But now the rain forms a rush­ing cataract in front of that hori­zon to­ward which we are run­ning with such mad­den­ing speed. But be­fore it has reached us the rain cloud parts asun­der, the sea boils, and the elec­tric fires are brought in­to vi­olent ac­tion by a mighty chem­ical pow­er that de­scends from the high­er re­gions. The most vivid flash­es of light­ning are min­gled with the vi­olent crash of con­tin­uous thun­der. Cease­less fiery ar­rows dart in and out amongst the fly­ing thun­der-​clouds; the va­porous mass soon glows with in­can­des­cent heat; hail­stones rat­tle fierce­ly down, and as they dash up­on our iron tools they too emit gleams and flash­es of lurid light. The heav­ing waves re­sem­ble fiery vol­canic hills, each belch­ing forth its own in­te­ri­or flames, and ev­ery crest is plumed with danc­ing fire. My eyes fail un­der the daz­zling light, my ears are stunned with the in­ces­sant crash of thun­der. I must be bound to the mast, which bows like a reed be­fore the mighty strength of the storm.

(Here my notes be­come vague and in­dis­tinct. I have on­ly been able to find a few which I seem to have jot­ted down al­most un­con­scious­ly. But their very brevi­ty and their ob­scu­ri­ty re­veal the in­ten­si­ty of the ex­cite­ment which dom­inat­ed me, and de­scribe the ac­tu­al po­si­tion even bet­ter than my mem­ory could do.)

Sun­day, 23. - Where are we? Driv­en for­ward with a swift­ness that can­not be mea­sured.

The night was fear­ful; no abate­ment of the storm. The din and up­roar are in­ces­sant; our ears are bleed­ing; to ex­change a word is im­pos­si­ble.

The light­ning flash­es with in­tense bril­lian­cy, and nev­er seems to cease for a mo­ment. Zigzag streams of bluish white fire dash down up­on the sea and re­bound, and then take an up­ward flight till they strike the gran­ite vault that over­ar­ch­es our heads. Sup­pose that sol­id roof should crum­ble down up­on our heads! Oth­er flash­es with in­ces­sant play cross their vivid fires, while oth­ers again roll them­selves in­to balls of liv­ing fire which ex­plode like bomb­shells, but the mu­sic of which scarce­ly-​adds to the din of the bat­tle strife that al­most de­prives us of our sens­es of hear­ing and sight; the lim­it of in­tense loud­ness has been passed with­in which the hu­man ear can dis­tin­guish one sound from an­oth­er. If all the pow­der mag­azines in the world were to ex­plode at once, we should hear no more than we do now.

From the un­der sur­face of the clouds there are con­tin­ual emis­sions of lurid light; elec­tric mat­ter is in con­tin­ual evo­lu­tion from their com­po­nent molecules; the gaseous el­ements of the air need to be slaked with mois­ture; for in­nu­mer­able columns of wa­ter rush up­wards in­to the air and fall back again in white foam.

Whith­er are we fly­ing? My un­cle lies full length across the raft.

The heat in­creas­es. I re­fer to the ther­mome­ter; it in­di­cates . . . (the fig­ure is oblit­er­at­ed).

_Mon­day, Au­gust 24._ - Will there be an end to it? Is the at­mo­spher­ic con­di­tion, hav­ing once reached this den­si­ty, to be­come fi­nal?

We are pros­trat­ed and worn out with fa­tigue. But Hans is as usu­al. The raft bears on still to the south-​east. We have made two hun­dred leagues since we left Ax­el Is­land.

At noon the vi­olence of the storm re­dou­bles. We are obliged to se­cure as fast as pos­si­ble ev­ery ar­ti­cle that be­longs to our car­go. Each of us is lashed to some part of the raft. The waves rise above our heads.

For three days we have nev­er been able to make each oth­er hear a word. Our mouths open, our lips move, but not a word can be heard. We can­not even make our­selves heard by ap­proach­ing our mouth close to the ear.

My un­cle has drawn near­er to me. He has ut­tered a few words. They seem to be ‘We are lost’; but I am not sure.

At last I write down the words: “Let us low­er the sail.”

He nods his con­sent.

Scarce­ly has he lift­ed his head again be­fore a ball of fire has bound­ed over the waves and light­ed on board our raft. Mast and sail flew up in an in­stant to­geth­er, and I saw them car­ried up to prodi­gious height, re­sem­bling in ap­pear­ance a ptero­dactyle, one of those strong birds of the in­fant world.

We lay there, our blood run­ning cold with un­speak­able ter­ror. The fire­ball, half of it white, half azure blue, and the size of a ten-​inch shell, moved slow­ly about the raft, but re­volv­ing on its own ax­is with as­ton­ish­ing ve­loc­ity, as if whipped round by the force of the whirl­wind. Here it comes, there it glides, now it is up the ragged stump of the mast, thence it light­ly leaps on the pro­vi­sion bag, de­scends with a light bound, and just skims the pow­der mag­azine. Hor­ri­ble! we shall be blown up; but no, the daz­zling disk of mys­te­ri­ous light nim­bly leaps aside; it ap­proach­es Hans, who fix­es his blue eye up­on it steadi­ly; it threat­ens the head of my un­cle, who falls up­on his knees with his head down to avoid it. And now my turn comes; pale and trem­bling un­der the blind­ing splen­dour and the melt­ing heat, it drops at my feet, spin­ning silent­ly round up­on the deck; I try to move my foot away, but can­not.

A suf­fo­cat­ing smell of ni­tro­gen fills the air, it en­ters the throat, it fills the lungs. We suf­fer sti­fling pains.

Why am I un­able to move my foot? Is it riv­et­ed to the planks? Alas! the fall up­on our fat­ed raft of this elec­tric globe has mag­ne­tised ev­ery iron ar­ti­cle on board. The in­stru­ments, the tools, our guns, are clash­ing and clank­ing vi­olent­ly in their col­li­sions with each oth­er; the nails of my boots cling tena­cious­ly to a plate of iron let in­to the tim­bers, and I can­not draw my foot away from the spot. At last by a vi­olent ef­fort I re­lease my­self at the in­stant when the ball in its gy­ra­tions was about to seize up­on it, and car­ry me off my feet ….

Ah! what a flood of in­tense and daz­zling light! the globe has burst, and we are del­uged with tongues of fire!

Then all the light dis­ap­pears. I could just see my un­cle at full length on the raft, and Hans still at his helm and spit­ting fire un­der the ac­tion of the elec­tric­ity which has sat­urat­ed him.

But where are we go­ing to? Where?

* * * *

_Tues­day, Au­gust 25._ - I re­cov­er from a long swoon. The storm con­tin­ues to roar and rage; the light­nings dash hith­er and thith­er, like broods of fiery ser­pents fill­ing all the air. Are we still un­der the sea? Yes, we are borne at in­cal­cu­la­ble speed. We have been car­ried un­der Eng­land, un­der the chan­nel, un­der France, per­haps un­der the whole of Eu­rope.

* * * *

A fresh noise is heard! Sure­ly it is the sea break­ing up­on the rocks! But then . . . .