A Journey To The Center Of The Earth Part 23

"Is the eruption stopping?"

"I hope not."

I rose. I tried to look around me. Perhaps the raft itself, held up by a projection in the rock, was offering a temporary resistance to the volcanic ma.s.s. In that case we had to hurry up and release it as quickly as possible.

But it was not so. The column of ashes, scoriae, and rock fragments itself had ceased to rise.

"Might the eruption be coming to a halt?" I exclaimed.

"Ah!" said my uncle between clenched teeth, "that's what you fear, my boy. But don't worry, this moment of calm can't last long; it has already lasted five minutes, and we'll shortly resume our journey to the mouth of the crater."

As he spoke, the professor continued to check his chronometer, and he would again be right in his prediction. Soon the raft was seized again by a rapid but irregular movement that lasted about two minutes, and then stopped again.

"Good," said my uncle, checking the time; "in ten minutes it'll start again."

"Ten minutes?"

"Yes. We're dealing with an intermittent volcano. It lets us breathe along with it."

Nothing could be more true. At the predicted time we were again hurled along at extreme speed. We were forced to grip the wood beams tight so as not to be thrown off the raft. Then the surge stopped.

I have since reflected on this strange phenomenon without finding a satisfactory explanation for it. At any rate it was obvious that we were not in the main vent of the volcano, but in a secondary tunnel that was subject to a reflux effect.

How often this maneuver repeated itself I cannot say. All I can say is that at each new start we were hurled forward with increasing force and as if carried along by a real projectile. During the short halts, we choked; during the moments of upward rush, the hot air cut off my breath. I thought for a moment how delightful it would be to find myself suddenly transported to the arctic regions and a cold of 30C below freezing. My overstimulated imagination went for a stroll on the snowy plains of arctic lands, and I longed for the moment where I would roll on the icy carpets of the pole! Little by little, at any rate, I lost my head, shattered by the repeated shocks. If it had not been for Hans' strong arm, I would have more than once broken my skull against the granite wall.

I have therefore no exact memory of what happened during the following hours. I have a confused recollection of continuous detonations, the movement of the rock, and a spinning movement that seized the raft. It floated on the flood of lava, amidst a hail of ashes. Roaring flames engulfed it. A hurricane that seemed to come from an enormous ventilator kindled the subterranean fires. One last time, Hans' face appeared to me in a reflection of fire, and then I no longer had any feeling other than the dark terror of the condemned tied to the mouth of a cannon, at the moment when the shot is fired and scatters their limbs into the air.

It floated on the flood of lava, amidst a hail of ashes.

XLIV.

WHEN I OPENED MY eyes again, I felt the guide's strong hand hold me by the belt. With the other hand he supported my uncle. I was not seriously injured, but rather bruised by a general aching. I found myself lying on the slope of a mountain, two steps away from a chasm into which I would have fallen with the slightest movement. Hans had saved me from death while I was rolling down the side of the crater.

"Where are we?" asked my uncle, who seemed to me very angry that we had come back to earth.

The hunter shrugged his shoulders as a token of ignorance.

"In Iceland;" I said.

"Nej," replied Hans.

"What! Not Iceland?" exclaimed the professor.

"Hans is mistaken," I said, raising myself up.

After the innumerable surprises of this journey, yet another amazing turn was in store for us. I expected to see a mountain cone covered with eternal snow, in the midst of the barren deserts of the northern regions, under the pale rays of an arctic sky, beyond the highest lat.i.tudes ; but contrary to all these expectations, my uncle, the Icelander, and I were mid-slope on a mountain charred by the heat of a sun that consumed us with its fire.

I could not believe my eyes; but the all-too-real broiling of my body left no room for doubt. We had come half naked out of the crater, and the radiant star, to which we had owed nothing for two months, was generous to us with light and heat, and poured floods of splendid radiation on us.

When my eyes adjusted to this brightness of which they had lost the habit, I used them to correct the errors of my imagination. At least I wanted to be in Spitzbergen, and I was in no mood to give up this idea easily.

The professor was the first to speak and said: "Indeed, this doesn't look much like Iceland."

"But Jan Mayen Island?" I replied.

"Not that either. This is no northern volcano with granite peaks and a snow cap."

"Nonetheless ..."

"Look, Axel, look!"

Above our heads, at a height of at most five hundred feet, we saw the crater of a volcano, from which a tall pillar of fire mixed with pumice stones, ash and lava shot out every fifteen minutes with a loud explosion. I could feel the heaving of the mountain, which breathed like a whale and from time to time ejected fire and wind from its enormous blow-holes. Beneath us, down a rather steep slope, sheets of eruptive matter stretched over eight or nine hundred feet, which meant that the volcano's total height was less than three hundred fathoms. Its base disappeared in a real abundance of green trees, among which I noticed olive trees, fig trees, and vines covered with purple grapes.

This did not have the appearance of an arctic region, admittedly.

When the eye moved beyond this green enclosure, it quickly lost itself on the waters of an admirable ocean or lake, which meant that this enchanted place was an island, scarcely a few leagues wide. To the east one could see a little harbor with a few houses scattered around it, where boats of a peculiar shape floated on the waves of the azure water. Beyond, groups of islets emerged from the watery plain, so numerous that they resembled a big anthill. To the west, distant coasts lined the horizon; on some, blue mountains were outlined in a harmonious arrangement; on others, more distant, there appeared an extremely tall mountain with a plume of smoke at its summit. In the north, an immense expanse of water glittered in the sunlight, with the top of masts or the convex shape of wind-blown sails showing here and there.

The unexpectedness of this spectacle increased its marvelous beauty a hundredfold.

"Where are we? Where are we?" I repeated in a low voice.

Hans closed his eyes with indifference, and my uncle stared without understanding.

"Whatever mountain this may be," he said at last, "it's very hot here. The explosions are still going on, and it really wouldn't be worth escaping from an eruption only to be hit on the head by a piece of rock. Let's go down, and we'll find out what's going on. Besides, I'm dying from hunger and thirst."

The professor was definitely not of a contemplative disposition. I for my part would have stayed in this place for many hours still, forgetting need and exhaustion, but I had to follow my companions.

The side of the volcano had very steep slopes; we slid into real potholes full of ashes, and avoided the lava streams that flowed down like serpents of fire. While we climbed down, I chattered volubly, for my imagination was too full not to overflow into words.

"We're in Asia," I exclaimed, "on the coasts of India, on the islands of Malaysia, or in the middle of the Pacific Islands! We have pa.s.sed through half the globe and ended up almost at the antipodes of Europe."

"But the compa.s.s?" replied my uncle.

"Yes! The compa.s.s!" I said with a confused look. "According to the compa.s.s we've always gone north."

"So has it lied?"

"Lied!"

"Unless this is the North Pole!"

"The Pole! No, but .. :"

This was a fact I could not explain. I did not know what to think.

But now we were approaching the greenery, which was a pleasure to look at. Hunger tormented me, and thirst as well. Fortunately, after two hours of walking, a pretty countryside appeared before our eyes, completely covered with olive trees, pomegranate trees, and vines that looked as if they belonged to everybody. At any rate, in our dest.i.tute state we were not likely to be particular. What pleasure it was to press these tasty fruits to our lips, and to eat grapes by the mouthful from the purple vines! Not far off, I discovered a spring of fresh water in the gra.s.s, under the delicious shade of the trees, into which we plunged our faces and hands voluptuously While each of us surrendered to all the sweetness of rest, a child appeared between two cl.u.s.ters of olive trees.

"Ah!" I exclaimed, "an inhabitant of this happy land!"

It was a poor little wretch, miserably clothed, rather sickly, and apparently very frightened at our appearance; indeed, half naked, with unkempt beards, we looked very bad, and unless this was a land of thieves, we were likely to frighten its inhabitants.

Just as the child was about to run away, Hans went after him and brought him back, in spite of his cries and kicks.

I could feel the heaving of the mountain.

My uncle began by rea.s.suring him as well as he could, and asked in good German: "What is this mountain called, my little friend?"

The child did not answer. "Well," said my uncle. "We are not in Germany"

And he repeated the same question in English.

Again, the child did not answer. I was very curious.

"Is he mute?" exclaimed the professor who, proud of his polyglottism, now reiterated the same question in French.

The same silence.

"Now let us try Italian," resumed my uncle, and he said in that language: "Dove noi siamo?"cd "Yes, where are we?" I impatiently repeated.

The child still did not answer.

"Now then! Will you speak?" shouted my uncle, who began to lose his temper, and shook the child by the ears. "Come si noma questa isola?" "Come si noma questa isola?"

"Stromboli"ce replied the little shepherd, who slipped out of Hans' hands and headed for the plain through the olive trees. replied the little shepherd, who slipped out of Hans' hands and headed for the plain through the olive trees.

We had not thought of that! Stromboli! What effect this unexpected name had on my imagination! We were right in the Mediterranean, in the middle of the mythological Aeolian archipelago, on ancient Strongyle, where Aeolus kept the winds and the storms chained up. And those blue mountains curving up in the east were the mountains of Calabria! And that volcano rising up on the southern horizon was Mt. Etna, the fierce Mt. Etna!

"Stromboli! Stromboli!" I repeated.

My uncle accompanied me with his gestures and words. We seemed to be singing like a choir!

Ah! What a journey! What a wonderful journey! Having entered through one volcano, we had exited through another, and that other one was more than twelve hundred leagues away from Snaefells, and from that barren landscape of Iceland at the edge of the world! The coincidences of the expedition had taken us into the heart of the most harmonious areas of the earth. We had exchanged the regions of perpetual snow for those of infinite green, and had left the grayish fog of the icy regions over our heads only to come back to the azure sky of Sicily!

After a delicious meal of fruits and fresh water, we set off again to reach the port of Stromboli. Revealing how we had arrived on the island did not seem advisable to us: Italians with their superst.i.tious tendency would inevitably have cast us as demons vomited up from the pit of h.e.l.l; so we had to resign ourselves to pretending we were only victims of a s.h.i.+pwreck. It was less glorious, but safer.

On the way I heard my uncle murmuring: "But the compa.s.s! The compa.s.s that pointed due north! How to explain that?"

"Indeed!" I said with an air of great disdain, "it's easier not to explain!"

"Absolutely not! A professor of the Johanneum unable to find the reason for a cosmic phenomenon, that would be a disgrace!"

As he spoke these words, my uncle, half-naked, with his leather purse around his waist and adjusting his gla.s.ses on his nose, became once more the fearsome professor of mineralogy.

One hour after we had left the olive grove, we arrived at the port of San Vicenzo, where Hans claimed the price of his thirteenth week of service, which was paid out to him with warm handshakes.

At that moment, even if he did not share our natural emotion, he at least allowed himself an unusual expression of feeling.

He lightly squeezed our hands with the tips of his fingers, and began to smile.

XLV.

THIS IS THE END of a story that even people who are not usually amazed at anything may refuse to believe. But I am armed in advance against human incredulity.

The Stromboli fishermen received us with the care that is due to victims of s.h.i.+pwreck. They gave us clothing and food. After forty-eight hours of waiting, a small rowboat took us to Messinacf on August 31, where a few days of rest helped us recover from all our exhaustion. on August 31, where a few days of rest helped us recover from all our exhaustion.

On Friday, September 4, we embarked on the steamer Volturne, Volturne, one of the steams.h.i.+ps used by the imperial French postal services, and three days later we landed in Ma.r.s.eilles, with only one worry left on our minds, that of the accursed compa.s.s. This inexplicable fact kept bothering me very seriously. On the evening of September 9, we arrived in Hamburg. one of the steams.h.i.+ps used by the imperial French postal services, and three days later we landed in Ma.r.s.eilles, with only one worry left on our minds, that of the accursed compa.s.s. This inexplicable fact kept bothering me very seriously. On the evening of September 9, we arrived in Hamburg.

Martha's amazement and Grauben's joy I will not even try to describe.

"Now that you're a hero, Axel," said my dear fiancee to me, "you won't need to leave me ever again!"

I looked at her. She cried and smiled at the same time.

I will leave it to you to guess whether Professor Lidenbrock's return to Hamburg caused a sensation. Thanks to Martha's indiscretion, the news of his departure for the center of the earth had spread around the whole world. People refused to believe it, and when they saw him again, they refused to believe even more.

But Hans' presence and various pieces of information that had come from Iceland gradually changed public opinion.

Then my uncle became a great man, and myself the nephew of a great man, which is at least something. Hamburg gave a party in our honor. A public lecture took place at the Johanneum, where the professor told the story of his expedition and omitted only the facts relating to the compa.s.s. On the same day, he deposited Saknussemm's doc.u.ment in the munic.i.p.al archives and expressed his deep regret that circ.u.mstances more powerful than his will had prevented him from following the traces of the Icelandic traveler to the center of the earth. He was humble in his glory, and his reputation increased even more.

So much honor inevitably had to create envy. It did, and since his theories, supported by solid facts, contradicted existing scientific theories on the question of core heat, he had remarkable discussions with scholars of all countries, in writing and in person.

For my part, I cannot agree with his theory of cooling: in spite of what I have seen, I believe and will always believe in core heat; but I admit that certain as yet ill-defined circ.u.mstances can modify this law under the impact of natural phenomena.

At the moment when these questions were most exciting, my uncle experienced a real distress. Hans, in spite of his entreaties, had left Hamburg; the man to whom we owed everything did not want to let us pay him our debt. He was overcome by nostalgia for Iceland.

"Farval," he said one day, and with that simple word of farewell he left for Reykjavik, where he arrived safely.

We were extremely attached to our brave eider-down hunter; in spite of his absence, he will never be forgotten by those whose lives he has saved, and certainly I will not die before I have seen him again one last time.

To conclude, I should add that this Journey to the Center of the Earth caused an enormous sensation in the world. It was printed and translated into all languages; the leading newspapers s.n.a.t.c.hed the main episodes from each other, which were commented on, debated, attacked and defended with equal conviction in the camp of the believers as in that of the skeptics. A rare thing! My uncle was able to enjoy in his lifetime all the fame he had attained, and even Mr. Barnum himself proposed to "exhibit" him in the States of the Union for a very high price.

But one concern, one might even say a torment, remained in the middle of this glory One fact remained inexplicable, the one involving the compa.s.s; now, for a scholar, such an unexplained phenomenon becomes torture for the intelligence. Well! Heaven had destined my uncle to become completely happy One day, when I was arranging a collection of minerals in his study, I noticed that famous compa.s.s in a corner, and I began to examine it.