A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER XXXIX.

FOR­EST SCENERY IL­LU­MI­NAT­ED BY ELETRIC­ITY

For an­oth­er half hour we trod up­on a pave­ment of bones. We pushed on, im­pelled by our burn­ing cu­rios­ity. What oth­er mar­vels did this cav­ern con­tain? What new trea­sures lay here for sci­ence to un­fold? I was pre­pared for any sur­prise, my imag­ina­tion was ready for any as­ton­ish­ment how­ev­er as­tound­ing.

We had long lost sight of the sea shore be­hind the hills of bones. The rash Pro­fes­sor, care­less of los­ing his way, hur­ried me for­ward. We ad­vanced in si­lence, bathed in lu­mi­nous elec­tric flu­id. By some phe­nomenon which I am un­able to ex­plain, it light­ed up all sides of ev­ery ob­ject equal­ly. Such was its dif­fu­sive­ness, there be­ing no cen­tral point from which the light em­anat­ed, that shad­ows no longer ex­ist­ed. You might have thought your­self un­der the rays of a ver­ti­cal sun in a trop­ical re­gion at noon­day and the height of sum­mer. No vapour was vis­ible. The rocks, the dis­tant moun­tains, a few iso­lat­ed clumps of for­est trees in the dis­tance, pre­sent­ed a weird and won­der­ful as­pect un­der these to­tal­ly new con­di­tions of a uni­ver­sal dif­fu­sion of light. We were like Hoff­mann’s shad­ow­less man.

Af­ter walk­ing a mile we reached the out­skirts of a vast for­est, but not one of those forests of fun­gi which bor­dered Port Gräuben.

Here was the veg­eta­tion of the ter­tiary pe­ri­od in its fullest blaze of mag­nif­icence. Tall palms, be­long­ing to species no longer liv­ing, splen­did pal­macites, firs, yews, cy­press trees, thu­jas, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the conifers. were linked to­geth­er by a tan­gled net­work of long climb­ing plants. A soft car­pet of moss and hep­at­icas lux­uri­ous­ly clothed the soil. A few sparkling streams ran al­most in si­lence un­der what would have been the shade of the trees, but that there was no shad­ow. On their banks grew tree-​ferns sim­ilar to those we grow in hot­hous­es. But a re­mark­able fea­ture was the to­tal ab­sence of colour in all those trees, shrubs, and plants, grow­ing with­out the life-​giv­ing heat and light of the sun. Ev­ery­thing seemed mixed-​up and con­found­ed in one uni­form sil­ver grey or light brown tint like that of fad­ing and fad­ed leaves. Not a green leaf any­where, and the flow­ers - which were abun­dant enough in the ter­tiary pe­ri­od, which first gave birth to flow­ers - looked like brown-​pa­per flow­ers, with­out colour or scent.

My un­cle Lieden­brock ven­tured to pen­etrate un­der this colos­sal grove. I fol­lowed him, not with­out fear. Since na­ture had here pro­vid­ed veg­etable nour­ish­ment, why should not the ter­ri­ble mam­mals be there too? I per­ceived in the broad clear­ings left by fall­en trees, de­cayed with age, legu­mi­nose plants, ac­er­ineæ, ru­biceæ and many oth­er eat­able shrubs, dear to ru­mi­nant an­imals at ev­ery pe­ri­od. Then I ob­served, min­gled to­geth­er in con­fu­sion, trees of coun­tries far apart on the sur­face of the globe. The oak and the palm were grow­ing side by side, the Aus­tralian eu­ca­lyp­tus leaned against the Nor­we­gian pine, the birch-​tree of the north min­gled its fo­liage with New Zealand kau­ris. It was enough to dis­tract the most in­ge­nious clas­si­fi­er of ter­res­tri­al botany.

Sud­den­ly I halt­ed. I drew back my un­cle.

The dif­fused light re­vealed the small­est ob­ject in the dense and dis­tant thick­ets. I had thought I saw - no! I did see, with my own eyes, vast colos­sal forms mov­ing amongst the trees. They were gi­gan­tic an­imals; it was a herd of mastodons - not fos­sil re­mains, but liv­ing and re­sem­bling those the bones of which were found in the marsh­es of Ohio in 1801. I saw those huge ele­phants whose long, flex­ible trunks were grout­ing and turn­ing up the soil un­der the trees like a le­gion of ser­pents. I could hear the crash­ing noise of their long ivory tusks bor­ing in­to the old de­cay­ing trunks. The boughs cracked, and the leaves torn away by cart­loads went down the cav­ernous throats of the vast brutes.

So, then, the dream in which I had had a vi­sion of the pre­his­toric world, of the ter­tiary and post-​ter­tiary pe­ri­ods, was now re­alised. And there we were alone, in the bow­els of the earth, at the mer­cy of its wild in­hab­itants!

My un­cle was gaz­ing with in­tense and ea­ger in­ter­est.

“Come on!” said he, seiz­ing my arm. “For­ward! for­ward!”

“No, I will not!” I cried. “We have no firearms. What could we do in the midst of a herd of these four-​foot­ed gi­ants? Come away, un­cle - come! No hu­man be­ing may with safe­ty dare the anger of these mon­strous beasts.”

“No hu­man crea­ture?” replied my un­cle in a low­er voice. “You are wrong, Ax­el. Look, look down there! I fan­cy I see a liv­ing crea­ture sim­ilar to our­selves: it is a man!”

I looked, shak­ing my head in­cred­ulous­ly. But though at first I was un­be­liev­ing I had to yield to the ev­idence of my sens­es.

In fact, at a dis­tance of a quar­ter of a mile, lean­ing against the trunk of a gi­gan­tic kau­ri, stood a hu­man be­ing, the Pro­teus of those sub­ter­ranean re­gions, a new son of Nep­tune, watch­ing this count­less herd of mastodons.

Im­ma­nis pecoris cus­tos, im­man­ior ipse. [1]

[1] “The shep­herd of gi­gan­tic herds, and huger still him­self.”

Yes, tru­ly, huger still him­self. It was no longer a fos­sil be­ing like him whose dried re­mains we had eas­ily lift­ed up in the field of bones; it was a gi­ant, able to con­trol those mon­sters. In stature he was at least twelve feet high. His head, huge and un­shape­ly as a buf­fa­lo’s, was half hid­den in the thick and tan­gled growth of his un­kempt hair. It most re­sem­bled the mane of the prim­itive ele­phant. In his hand he wield­ed with ease an enor­mous bough, a staff wor­thy of this shep­herd of the ge­olog­ic pe­ri­od.

We stood pet­ri­fied and speech­less with amaze­ment. But he might see us! We must fly!

“Come, do come!” I said to my un­cle, who for once al­lowed him­self to be per­suad­ed.

In an­oth­er quar­ter of an hour our nim­ble heels had car­ried us be­yond the reach of this hor­ri­ble mon­ster.

And yet, now that I can re­flect qui­et­ly, now that my spir­it has grown calm again, now that months have slipped by since this strange and su­per­nat­ural meet­ing, what am I to think? what am I to be­lieve? I must con­clude that it was im­pos­si­ble that our sens­es had been de­ceived, that our eyes did not see what we sup­posed they saw. No hu­man be­ing lives in this sub­ter­ranean world; no gen­er­ation of men dwells in those in­fe­ri­or cav­erns of the globe, un­known to and un­con­nect­ed with the in­hab­itants of its sur­face. It is ab­surd to be­lieve it!

I had rather ad­mit that it may have been some an­imal whose struc­ture re­sem­bled the hu­man, some ape or ba­boon of the ear­ly ge­olog­ical ages, some pro­to­pithe­ca, or some meso­pithe­ca, some ear­ly or mid­dle ape like that dis­cov­ered by Mr. Lartet in the bone cave of Sansau. But this crea­ture sur­passed in stature all the mea­sure­ments known in mod­ern palæon­tol­ogy. But that a man, a liv­ing man, and there­fore whole gen­er­ations doubt­less be­sides, should be buried there in the bow­els of the earth, is im­pos­si­ble.

How­ev­er, we had left be­hind us the lu­mi­nous for­est, dumb with as­ton­ish­ment, over­whelmed and struck down with a ter­ror which amount­ed to stu­pe­fac­tion. We kept run­ning on for fear the hor­ri­ble mon­ster might be on our track. It was a flight, a fall, like that fear­ful pulling and drag­ging which is pe­cu­liar to night­mare. In­stinc­tive­ly we got back to the Lieden­brock sea, and I can­not say in­to what va­garies my mind would not have car­ried me but for a cir­cum­stance which brought me back to prac­ti­cal mat­ters.

Al­though I was cer­tain that we were now tread­ing up­on a soil not hith­er­to touched by our feet, I of­ten per­ceived groups of rocks which re­mind­ed me of those about Port Gräuben. Be­sides, this seemed to con­firm the in­di­ca­tions of the nee­dle, and to show that we had against our will re­turned to the north of the Lieden­brock sea. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly we felt quite con­vinced. Brooks and wa­ter­falls were tum­bling ev­ery­where from the pro­jec­tions in the rocks. I thought I recog­nised the bed of sur­tur­brand, our faith­ful Hans­bach, and the grot­to in which I had re­cov­ered life and con­scious­ness. Then a few paces far­ther on, the ar­range­ment of the cliffs, the ap­pear­ance of an un­recog­nised stream, or the strange out­line of a rock, carne to throw me again in­to doubt.

I com­mu­ni­cat­ed my doubts to my un­cle. Like my­self, he hes­itat­ed; he could recog­nise noth­ing again amidst this monotonous scene.

“Ev­ident­ly,” said I, “we have not land­ed again at our orig­inal start­ing point, but the storm has car­ried us a lit­tle high­er, and if we fol­low the shore we shall find Port Gräuben.”

“If that is the case it will be use­less to con­tin­ue our ex­plo­ration, and we had bet­ter re­turn to our raft. But, Ax­el, are you not mis­tak­en?”

“It is dif­fi­cult to speak de­cid­ed­ly, un­cle, for all these rocks are so very much alike. Yet I think I recog­nise the promon­to­ry at the foot of which Hans con­struct­ed our launch. We must be very near the lit­tle port, if in­deed this is not it,” I added, ex­am­in­ing a creek which I thought I recog­nised.

“No, Ax­el, we should at least find our own traces and I see noth­ing -“

“But I do see,” I cried, dart­ing up­on an ob­ject ly­ing on the sand.

And I showed my un­cle a rusty dag­ger which I had just picked up.

“Come,” said he, “had you this weapon with you?”

“I! No, cer­tain­ly! But you, per­haps -“

“Not that I am aware,” said the Pro­fes­sor. “I have nev­er had this ob­ject in my pos­ses­sion.”

“Well, this is strange!”

“No, Ax­el, it is very sim­ple. The Ice­landers of­ten wear arms of this kind. This must have be­longed to Hans, and he has lost it.”

I shook my head. Hans had nev­er had an ob­ject like this in his pos­ses­sion.

“Did it not be­long to some preadamite war­rior?” I cried, “to some liv­ing man, con­tem­po­rary with the huge cat­tle-​driv­er? But no. This is not a rel­ic of the stone age. It is not even of the iron age. This blade is steel -“

My un­cle stopped me abrupt­ly on my way to a dis­ser­ta­tion which would have tak­en me a long way, and said cool­ly:

“Be calm, Ax­el, and rea­son­able. This dag­ger be­longs to the six­teenth cen­tu­ry; it is a poniard, such as gen­tle­men car­ried in their belts to give the coup _de grace._ Its ori­gin is Span­ish. It was nev­er ei­ther yours, or mine, or the hunter’s, nor did it be­long to any of those hu­man be­ings who may or may not in­hab­it this in­ner world. See, it was nev­er jagged like this by cut­ting men’s throats; its blade is coat­ed with a rust nei­ther a day, nor a year, nor a hun­dred years old.”

The Pro­fes­sor was get­ting ex­cit­ed ac­cord­ing to his wont, and was al­low­ing his imag­ina­tion to run away with him.

“Ax­el, we are on the way to­wards the grand dis­cov­ery. This blade has been left on the strand for from one to three hun­dred years, and has blunt­ed its edge up­on the rocks that fringe this sub­ter­ranean sea!”

“But it has not come alone. It has not twist­ed it­self out of shape; some one has been here be­fore us!

“Yes - a man has.”

“And who was that man?”

“A man who has en­graved his name some­where with that dag­ger. That man want­ed once more to mark the way to the cen­tre of the earth. Let us look about: look about!”

And, won­der­ful­ly in­ter­est­ed, we peered all along the high wall, peep­ing in­to ev­ery fis­sure which might open out in­to a gallery.

And so we ar­rived at a place where the shore was much nar­rowed. Here the sea came to lap the foot of the steep cliff, leav­ing a pas­sage no wider than a cou­ple of yards. Be­tween two bold­ly pro­ject­ing rocks ap­peared the mouth of a dark tun­nel.

There, up­on a gran­ite slab, ap­peared two mys­te­ri­ous graven let­ters, half eat­en away by time. They were the ini­tials of the bold and dar­ing trav­eller:

[Runic ini­tials ap­pear here]

“A. S.,” shout­ed my un­cle. “Arne Saknussemm! Arne Saknussemm ev­ery­where!”