"A man who has engraved his name somewhere with this dagger. That man wanted once more to indicate the way to the center of the earth with his own hand. Let's search! Let's search!"

And with meticulous attention we walked along the high wall, peeping into the most minute fissures that might open out into a tunnel.

So we came to a place where the sh.o.r.e got narrower. The sea almost came to lap the foot of the cliffs, leaving a pa.s.sage of at most a fathom. Between two boldly projecting rocks one could see the mouth of a dark tunnel.

There, on a granite slab, appeared two mysterious graven and half-eroded letters, the initials of the daring and fantastic traveler:

"A. S.!" shouted my uncle. "Arne Saknussemm! Always Arne Saknussemm!"

XL.

SINCE THE BEGINNING OF the journey, I had been amazed so many times that I would have believed myself inured to surprises and blase about any astonishment. Yet at the sight of these two letters engraved three hundred years ago, I fell into an amazement akin to stupidity. Not only was the learned alchemist's signature readable on the rock, but I even held the stylus which had engraved it in my hands. Unless I wanted to demonstrate glaring bad faith, I could no longer doubt the existence of the traveler and the reality of his journey.

While these reflections whirled around in my head, Professor Lidenbrock indulged in a fit of eulogy for Arne Saknussemm.

"Wonderful genius!" he exclaimed, "you did not forget anything to open up the path through the terrestrial crust to other mortals, and your fellow humans can find the traces that your feet left three centuries ago at the bottom of this dark underground! You reserved the contemplation of these wonders for other eyes besides your own! Your name, engraved at every stage, leads the traveler who is bold enough to follow you straight to his destination, and at the very center of our planet, we will once again find it inscribed with your own hand. I too will inscribe my name on that last page of granite! But for ever henceforth let this promontory that you saw, next to the ocean you discovered, be known by the name of Cape Saknussemm!"

That is what I heard, more or less, and I could not resist the enthusiasm that these words exuded. An inner fire flamed up again in my breast! I forgot everything, the dangers of the journey, and the perils of the return. What another had done I also wanted to do, and nothing human seemed impossible to me!

"Onward! Onward!" I shouted.

I was already rushing toward the dark tunnel when the professor stopped me, and he, the man of impulse, advised me to keep patience and calm.

"Let's first return to Hans," he said, "and let's bring the raft to this spot."

I obeyed this order, not without displeasure, and slid rapidly among the rocks on the sh.o.r.e.

"You know, Uncle," I said during the walk, "that circ.u.mstances have served us extraordinarily well so far?"

"Ah! You think so, Axel?"

"No doubt; even the tempest has put us back on the right path. Blessed be that storm! It has brought us back to this coast from which good weather would have removed us. Suppose for a moment that we had touched the southern sh.o.r.e of the Lidenbrock Sea with our prow (the prow of a raft!), what would have become of us? We wouldn't have seen the name Saknussemm, and we would now be abandoned on some beach without exit." "Yes, Axel, there is something providential in the fact that while we were sailing south, we were precisely going back north and toward Cape Saknussemm. I must say that this is more than astonishing, and it's a fact whose explanation eludes me."

"Ah, no matter! The point is not to explain facts, but to benefit from them!"

"Undoubtedly, my boy, but .. :"

"But we'll resume the northern route, pa.s.s under the northern regions of Europe, Sweden, Siberia, who knows! instead of burrowing under the deserts of Africa or the waves of the ocean, and that's all I want to know!"

"Yes, Axel, you're right, and it's all for the best, since we're leaving behind that horizontal ocean which leads nowhere. Now we'll go down, down again, and always down! Do you know there are only 1,500 leagues left to the center of the globe?"

"Bah!" I shouted. "That's not even worth talking about! Let's go! Let's go!"

This crazy talk was still going on when we rejoined the hunter. Everything was made ready for an instant departure. Every package was put on board. We took our places on the raft, and with our sail hoisted, Hans steered us along the coast to Cape Saknussemm.

The wind was not well-suited for a kind of vessel that was unable to maneuver against it. So in many places we were forced to push ahead with the iron-tipped sticks. Often the rocks, lying just beneath the surface, forced us to take rather long detours. At last, after three hours' sailing, that is to say at about six in the evening, we reached a place that was suitable for landing.

I jumped ash.o.r.e, followed by my uncle and the Icelander. This pa.s.sage had not calmed me down. On the contrary. I even proposed to burn 'our ships' so as to cut off any retreat. But my uncle opposed it. I thought him strangely lukewarm.

"At least," I said, "let's take off without wasting a minute."

"Yes, my boy," he replied; "but first let's examine this new tunnel, to see if we should prepare our ladders."

My uncle turned on his Ruhmkorff device; the raft, moored to the sh.o.r.e, was left behind; at any rate, the mouth of the tunnel was less than twenty steps away, and our little party, with myself at the head, walked toward it without delay.

The aperture, more or less round, was about five feet in diameter; the dark tunnel was cut into the live rock and coated with the eruptive matter that had formerly pa.s.sed through it; the interior was level with the ground outside, so that we were able to enter without any difficulty.

We followed an almost horizontal plane, when only six paces in, our progress was interrupted by an enormous block across our way.

"d.a.m.ned rock!" I shouted in a rage when I suddenly saw myself stopped by an insurmountable obstacle.

We searched right and left, up and down, but there was no pa.s.sage, no bifurcation. I felt deeply disappointed, and I did not want to admit the reality of the obstacle. I bent down. I looked underneath the block. No opening. Above. Same granite barrier. Hans shone his lamp at every part of the rock, but it offered no possibility for continuing. We had to give up all hope of getting past it.

I sat down on the ground; my uncle strode up and down the tunnel.

"But what about Saknussemm?" I exclaimed.

"Yes," said my uncle, "was he stopped by this gate of stone?"

"No! no!" I replied eagerly. "This piece of rock has suddenly blocked the pa.s.sage after some tremor or one of those magnetic phenomena which move the earth's crust. Many years have gone by since Saknussemm's return and the fall of this block. Isn't it obvious that this tunnel was once a pa.s.sageway for lava, and that the eruptive material flowed freely at that time? Look, there are recent fissures that groove this granite roof; it's made of pieces that were brought here, enormous stones, as if some giant's hand had worked on this foundation; but one day there was a more powerful push, and this block, like the keystone of a falling arch, slid down to the ground, blocking the pa.s.sage completely. It's only an accidental obstruction that Saknussemm did not encounter, and if we don't overturn it, we're not worthy of reaching the center of the earth!"

That is how I spoke! The professor's soul had completely pa.s.sed into me. The spirit of discovery inspired me. I forgot the past, I scorned the future. Nothing existed for me anymore at the surface of this globe into whose interior I had burrowed, neither the cities nor the fields, nor Hamburg, nor the Konigstra.s.se, nor my poor Grauben, who must have given us up as lost forever in the bowels of the earth!

"Well!" resumed my uncle, "with our picks, with our pickaxes, let's make a way! Let's overturn the wall!"

"It's too hard for the pick," I cried.

"Well, then, the pickaxe!"

"It's too long for the pickaxe!"

"But ... !"

"All right! Gunpowder! A mine! Let's make a mine and blow up the obstacle!"

"Gunpowder!"

"Yes, it's only a piece of rock to break apart!"

"Hans, to work!" shouted my uncle.

The Icelander returned to the raft and soon came back with a pick that he used to bore a hole for the charge. This was no easy work. We needed to make a hole large enough to hold fifty pounds of guncotton, whose explosive force is four times that of gunpowder.

My mind was in a state of tremendous overexcitement. While Hans was at work I helped my uncle eagerly in preparing a long fuse of wet powder inside a cotton tube.

"We'll make it!" I said.

"We'll make it," repeated my uncle.

By midnight our mining work was finished; the charge of guncotton was pushed into the hole, and the long fuse ran along the tunnel and ended outside.

A spark would now suffice to start up this formidable device.

"Tomorrow," said the professor.

I had to resign myself and wait another six long hours!

XLI.

THE NEXT DAY, THURSDAY, August 27, is a famous date in our underground journey It never comes back to my mind without terror making my heart beat faster. From that moment on, our reason, our judgment, our inventiveness no longer play any role, and we are about to become playthings of the earth's phenomena.

At six we were up. The moment approached when we would blast a pa.s.sage through the granite crust with the powder.

I asked for the honor of lighting the fuse. That task accomplished, I was supposed to join my companions at the raft, which had not yet been unloaded; we would then move away in order to avoid the dangers of the explosion, whose effects might not remain confined to the interior of the rock.

The fuse would burn for ten minutes, according to our calculations, before setting fire to the powder hole. So I had enough time to get back to the raft.

I got ready to fulfill my task, not without some anxiety.

After a hasty meal, my uncle and the hunter embarked while I remained on sh.o.r.e. I was equipped with a lighted lantern that I would use to set fire to the fuse.

"Go, my boy," my uncle told me, "and come back immediately to join us.

"Don't worry," I replied. "I'll not entertain myself along the way."

I immediately walked toward the mouth of the tunnel. I opened my lantern, and I took hold of the end of the fuse.

The Professor had the chronometer in his hand.

"Are you ready?" he called to me.

"I'm ready."

"Well then! Fire, my boy!"

I rapidly plunged the fuse into the lantern, which crackled on contact, and returned running to the sh.o.r.e.

"Come on board quickly," said my uncle, "and let's push off."

Hans pushed us back into the ocean with a powerful thrust. The raft shot twenty fathoms out to sea.

It was a thrilling moment. The professor watched the hand of the chronometer.

"Five more minutes!" he said. "Four! Three!"

My pulse beat half-seconds.

"Two! One! ... Crumble, granite mountains!"

What happened then? I think I did not hear the noise of the explosion. But the shape of the rocks suddenly changed under my eyes; they opened up like a curtain. I saw a bottomless pit open up on the sh.o.r.e. The ocean, overcome by vertigo, turned into nothing but a huge wave on whose back the raft was lifted up vertically.

We all three fell down. In less than a second, the light turned into unfathomable darkness. Then I felt solid support give way, not under my feet, but under the raft. I thought it was sinking. But it was not so. I would have liked to speak to my uncle, but the roaring of the waves would have prevented him from hearing me.

In spite of darkness, noise, surprise, and anxiety, I understood what had happened.

Beyond the rock that had exploded, there was an abyss. The explosion had triggered a kind of earthquake in this ground riven by fissures, the abyss had opened up, and the ocean turned current was taking us down into it.

I gave myself up for lost.

An hour, two hours pa.s.sed, what do I know! We gripped each other's elbows, clutched each other's hands so as not to be thrown off the raft. Extremely violent shocks occurred whenever it hit against the wall. Yet these shocks were rare, from which I concluded that the tunnel was widening considerably. It was no doubt the path that Saknussemm had taken; but instead of taking it by ourselves, we had through our carelessness brought a whole ocean along with us.

These ideas, it will be understood, came to my mind in a vague and obscure form. I had difficulty putting them together during this headlong race that resembled a fall. Judging by the air that was lashing my face, its speed was faster than an express train. Lighting a torch in these conditions was therefore impossible, and our last electric device had broken at the moment of the explosion.

I was therefore very surprised when I suddenly saw a light shining near me. It lit up Hans' calm face. The skillful hunter had managed to light the lantern, and even though it flickered and seemed about to go out, it threw some light into the awful darkness.

The tunnel was large. I was right in that. The dim light did not allow us to see both its walls at once. The slope of the water that was carrying us along exceeded that of the most difficult rapids in America. Its surface seemed made up of a sheaf of arrows shot with extreme force. I cannot convey my impression with a better comparison. The raft, sometimes seized by an eddy, spun round as it moved along. When it approached the walls of the tunnel I shone the light of the lantern on them, and I could judge its speed by seeing rock projections turn into continuous shapes, so that we seemed caught in a net of moving lines. I estimated that our speed was close to thirty leagues an hour.

My uncle and I looked at each other with frantic eyes, clinging to the stump of the mast which had snapped at the moment of the catastrophe. We turned our backs to the air current so as not to be choked by the speed of a movement that no human power could check.

In the meantime, hours pa.s.sed. Our situation did not change, but an incident complicated matters.

When I tried to put our cargo into somewhat better order, I found that the greater part of the items...o...b..ard had disappeared at the moment of the explosion, when the sea broke in on us so violently! I wanted to know exactly what to count on as far as resources, and with the lantern in my hand I began my investigation. Of our instruments nothing was left except the compa.s.s and the chronometer. Our stock of ropes and ladders was reduced to a bit of cord coiled around the stump of the mast. No pickaxe, no pick, no hammer and, irreversible misfortune, we had only one day's food supplies left!

I searched every nook and cranny on the raft, the smallest s.p.a.ces between the wood beams, the joints and the planks. Nothing! Our food supplies were reduced to one bit of dried meat and a few biscuits.

I stared stupidly! I did not want to understand! And yet, why worry about this danger? Even if we had had food supplies for months, for years, how could we get out of the depths where the irresistible torrent was taking us? Why fear the tortures of hunger when death threatened us in so many other forms? Would there be enough time to die of starvation?

Nevertheless, due to an inexplicable vagary of the imagination, I forgot the immediate peril next to the dangers of the future, which appeared to me in all their horror. At any rate, perhaps we would be able to escape from the fury of the torrent and return to the surface of the globe. How? I do not know. Where? No matter. One chance in a thousand is still a chance, while death from starvation left us no hope, however remote.

It occurred to me that I should tell my uncle everything, show him the straits to which we were reduced, and calculate exactly how much time we had left to live. But I had the courage to keep silent. I wanted to leave him all his calm.

At that moment the light from our lantern became dimmer and dimmer, and then went out completely. The wick had burnt itself out. The darkness became absolute again. We could no longer hope to chase away the impenetrable blackness. We still had one torch left, but we could not have kept it lighted. So, like a child, I closed my eyes firmly so as not to see all that darkness.

After a rather long interval of time, our speed increased. I noticed it by the sensation of the air on my face. The slope of the water torrent became extremely steep. I really believe we were no longer gliding along. We were falling. I had the inner impression of an almost vertical fall. My uncle's and Hans' hands, clutching my arms, held on to me forcefully.

Suddenly, after an interval of time I could not estimate, I felt something like a shock; the raft had not struck against any hard object, but had suddenly stopped in its fall. An enormous spout of water, an immense liquid column crashed down on us. I was choking. I was drowning ...

But this sudden flood did not last. In a few seconds I found myself in the open air again, which I inhaled with all the force of my lungs. My uncle and Hans squeezed my arm to the point of almost breaking it, and the raft was still carrying all three of us.

XLII.