A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER XLI.

THE GREAT EX­PLO­SION AND THE RUSH DOWN BE­LOW

The next day, Thurs­day, Au­gust 27, is a well-​re­mem­bered date in our sub­ter­ranean jour­ney. It nev­er re­turns to my mem­ory with­out send­ing through me a shud­der of hor­ror and a pal­pi­ta­tion of the heart. From that hour we had no fur­ther oc­ca­sion for the ex­er­cise of rea­son, or judg­ment, or skill, or con­trivance. We were hence­forth to be hurled along, the play­things of the fierce el­ements of the deep.

At six we were afoot. The mo­ment drew near to clear a way by blast­ing through the op­pos­ing mass of gran­ite.

I begged for the hon­our of light­ing the fuse. This du­ty done, I was to join my com­pan­ions on the raft, which had not yet been un­load­ed; we should then push off as far as we could and avoid the dan­gers aris­ing from the ex­plo­sion, the ef­fects of which were not like­ly to be con­fined to the rock it­self.

The fuse was cal­cu­lat­ed to burn ten min­utes be­fore set­ting fire to the mine. I there­fore had suf­fi­cient time to get away to the raft.

I pre­pared to ful­fil my task with some anx­iety.

Af­ter a hasty meal, my un­cle and the hunter em­barked whilst I re­mained on shore. I was sup­plied with a light­ed lantern to set fire to the fuse. “Now go,” said my un­cle, “and re­turn im­me­di­ate­ly to us.” “Don’t be un­easy,” I replied. “I will not play by the way.” I im­me­di­ate­ly pro­ceed­ed to the mouth of the tun­nel. I opened my lantern. I laid hold of the end of the match. The Pro­fes­sor stood, chronome­ter in hand. “Ready?” he cried.

“Ay.”

“Fire!”

I in­stant­ly plunged the end of the fuse in­to the lantern. It splut­tered and flamed, and I ran at the top of my speed to the raft.

“Come on board quick­ly, and let us push off.”

Hans, with a vig­or­ous thrust, sent us from the shore. The raft shot twen­ty fath­oms out to sea.

It was a mo­ment of in­tense ex­cite­ment. The Pro­fes­sor was watch­ing the hand of the chronome­ter.

“Five min­utes more!” he said. “Four! Three!”

My pulse beat half-​sec­onds.

“Two! One! Down, gran­ite rocks; down with you.”

What took place at that mo­ment? I be­lieve I did not hear the dull roar of the ex­plo­sion. But the rocks sud­den­ly as­sumed a new ar­range­ment: they rent asun­der like a cur­tain. I saw a bot­tom­less pit open on the shore. The sea, lashed in­to sud­den fury, rose up in an enor­mous bil­low, on the ridge of which the un­hap­py raft was up­lift­ed bod­ily in the air with all its crew and car­go.

We all three fell down flat. In less than a sec­ond we were in deep, un­fath­omable dark­ness. Then I felt as if not on­ly my­self but the raft al­so had no sup­port be­neath. I thought it was sink­ing; but it was not so. I want­ed to speak to my un­cle, but the roar­ing of the waves pre­vent­ed him from hear­ing even the sound of my voice.

In spite of dark­ness, noise, as­ton­ish­ment, and ter­ror, I then un­der­stood what had tak­en place.

On the oth­er side of the blown-​up rock was an abyss. The ex­plo­sion had caused a kind of earth­quake in this fis­sured and abysmal re­gion; a great gulf had opened; and the sea, now changed in­to a tor­rent, was hur­ry­ing us along in­to it.

I gave my­self up for lost.

An hour passed away - two hours, per­haps - I can­not tell. We clutched each oth­er fast, to save our­selves from be­ing thrown off the raft. We felt vi­olent shocks when­ev­er we were borne heav­ily against the crag­gy pro­jec­tions. Yet these shocks were not very fre­quent, from which I con­clud­ed that the gul­ly was widen­ing. It was no doubt the same road that Saknussemm had tak­en; but in­stead of walk­ing peace­ably down it, as he had done, we were car­ry­ing a whole sea along with us.

These ideas, it will be un­der­stood, pre­sent­ed them­selves to my mind in a vague and un­de­ter­mined form. I had dif­fi­cul­ty in as­so­ci­at­ing any ideas to­geth­er dur­ing this head­long race, which seemed like a ver­ti­cal de­scent. To judge by the air which was whistling past me and made a whizzing in my ears, we were mov­ing faster than the fastest ex­press trains. To light a torch un­der these’ con­di­tions would have been im­pos­si­ble; and our last elec­tric ap­pa­ra­tus had been shat­tered by the force of the ex­plo­sion.

I was there­fore much sur­prised to see a clear light shin­ing near me. It light­ed up the calm and un­moved coun­te­nance of Hans. The skil­ful hunts­man had suc­ceed­ed in light­ing the lantern; and al­though it flick­ered so much as to threat­en to go out, it threw a fit­ful light across the aw­ful dark­ness.

I was right in my sup­po­si­tion. It was a wide gallery. The dim light could not show us both its walls at once. The fall of the wa­ters which were car­ry­ing us away ex­ceed­ed that of the swiftest rapids in Amer­ican rivers. Its sur­face seemed com­posed of a sheaf of ar­rows hurled with in­con­ceiv­able force; I can­not con­vey my im­pres­sions by a bet­ter com­par­ison. The raft, oc­ca­sion­al­ly seized by an ed­dy, spun round as it still flew along. When it ap­proached the walls of the gallery I threw on them the light of the lantern, and I could judge some­what of the ve­loc­ity of our speed by notic­ing how the jagged pro­jec­tions of the rocks spun in­to end­less rib­bons and bands, so that we seemed con­fined with­in a net­work of shift­ing lines. I sup­posed we were run­ning at the rate of thir­ty leagues an hour.

My un­cle and I gazed on each oth­er with hag­gard eyes, cling­ing to the stump of the mast, which had snapped asun­der at the first shock of our great catas­tro­phe. We kept our backs to the wind, not to be sti­fled by the ra­pid­ity of a move­ment which no hu­man pow­er could check.

Hours passed away. No change in our sit­ua­tion; but a dis­cov­ery came to com­pli­cate mat­ters and make them worse.

In seek­ing to put our car­go in­to some­what bet­ter or­der, I found that the greater part of the ar­ti­cles em­barked had dis­ap­peared at the mo­ment of the ex­plo­sion, when the sea broke in up­on us with such vi­olence. I want­ed to know ex­act­ly what we had saved, and with the lantern in my hand I be­gan my ex­am­ina­tion. Of our in­stru­ments none were saved but the com­pass and the chronome­ter; our stock of ropes and lad­ders was re­duced to the bit of cord rolled round the stump of the mast! Not a spade, not a pick­axe, not a ham­mer was left us; and, ir­repara­ble dis­as­ter! we had on­ly one day’s pro­vi­sions left.

I searched ev­ery nook and cor­ner, ev­ery crack and cran­ny in the raft. There was noth­ing. Our pro­vi­sions were re­duced to one bit of salt meat and a few bis­cuits.

I stared at our fail­ing sup­plies stupid­ly. I re­fused to take in the grav­ity of our loss. And yet what was the use of trou­bling my­self. If we had had pro­vi­sions enough for months, how could we get out of the abyss in­to which we were be­ing hurled by an ir­re­sistible tor­rent? Why should we fear the hor­rors of famine, when death was swoop­ing down up­on us in a mul­ti­tude of oth­er forms? Would there be time left to die of star­va­tion?

Yet by an in­ex­pli­ca­ble play of the imag­ina­tion I for­got my present dan­gers, to con­tem­plate the threat­en­ing fu­ture. Was there any chance of es­cap­ing from the fury of this im­petu­ous tor­rent, and of re­turn­ing to the sur­face of the globe? I could not form the slight­est con­jec­ture how or when. But one chance in a thou­sand, or ten thou­sand, is still a chance; whilst death from star­va­tion would leave us not the small­est hope in the world.

The thought came in­to my mind to de­clare the whole truth to my un­cle, to show him the dread­ful straits to which we were re­duced, and to cal­cu­late how long we might yet ex­pect to live. But I had the courage to pre­serve si­lence. I wished to leave him cool and self-​pos­sessed.

At that mo­ment the light from our lantern be­gan to sink by lit­tle and lit­tle, and then went out en­tire­ly. The wick had burnt it­self out. Black night reigned again; and there was no hope left of be­ing able to dis­si­pate the pal­pa­ble dark­ness. We had yet a torch left, but we could not have kept it alight. Then, like a child, I closed my eyes firm­ly, not to see the dark­ness.

Af­ter a con­sid­er­able lapse of time our speed re­dou­bled. I could per­ceive it by the sharp­ness of the cur­rents that blew past my face. The de­scent be­came steep­er. I be­lieve we were no longer slid­ing, but falling down. I had an im­pres­sion that we were drop­ping ver­ti­cal­ly. My un­cle’s hand, and the vig­or­ous arm of Hans, held me fast.

Sud­den­ly, af­ter a space of time that I could not mea­sure, I felt a shock. The raft had not struck against any hard re­sis­tance, but had sud­den­ly been checked in its fall. A wa­ter­spout, an im­mense liq­uid col­umn, was beat­ing up­on the sur­face of the wa­ters. I was suf­fo­cat­ing! I was drown­ing!

But this sud­den flood was not of long du­ra­tion. In a few sec­onds I found my­self in the air again, which I in­haled with all the force of my lungs. My un­cle and Hans were still hold­ing me fast by the arms; and the raft was still car­ry­ing us.