Voyage to the Center of the Earth

by Jacques Collin de Plancy

  Clairancy had promised to come to our aid with his guards and to exterminate the High Priest and all his armed men; but when he told the soldiers who served him to march against the sacred militia, they all threw down their arms and fled. He therefore came running alone, and appeared beside us at the moment when Tristan was about to be seized and thrown into the subterrain.

  He drew a long scimitar, crying that all loyal Sanorlians should imitate their Emperor and exterminate the cowards. As he shouted those words he struck the High Priest of Sanor and threw him, dying, into the pit.

  He expected to be supported, but all the spectators took flight at the sight of our crime, heaping us with maledictions.

  We therefore remained alone, facing two or three hundred archers in the pay of the priests of the realm. But the fury that animated us, redoubling our strength and our courage, was such that in less than half an hour, that entire troop had been dispersed or laid in the dust.

  After that, we returned to our residence; each of us collected the things that he might need on the journey, and we got ready to leave. Before then, Clairancy wanted to go bid farewell to his Empress, whom he loved veritably. We told him in vain that it would be better to avoid the sadness of such a separation; he did not listen to us. It was therefore necessary to accompany him, in order to prevent him from weakening.

  As soon as the Empress perceived her accursed spouse, however she ran away, crying out to him to purify himself before going near her.

  “Since everyone here is brutalized by superstition,” Clairancy said, “let’s go.”

  Night was beginning to take the place of day. We left the city. Everyone fled at the sight of us. When we had reached the gate nearest to the port, we were quite astonished to hear a voice calling to Martinet. He stopped, and recognized his wife.

  “My God,” he said, “I thought you were in bed.”

  “My illness isn’t dangerous,” she said, “and you were leaving me. I want to go with you. I’ve brought my riches…they’ll serve you in another country...”

  That tenderness, and the good intelligence of the woman, who had no fear of mingling with accursed individuals, immediately gave us esteem for her. It was decided that we would march more slowly, and that the Manseau’s wife would be our faithful companion.

  “In the next village,” said Martinet, “I’ll dress my wife as a man. She’ll replace poor Williams, and we can still imagine that we’re six.”

  As he spoke, we were advancing toward the port. It was so well-guarded that it was impossible to attempt to approach it. Our plan was to seize some vessel and return as soon as possible to the realm of Albur. After having deliberated for a quarter of an hour as to what to do, it was decided that we would go along the shore until we reached another port, which we knew to be six leagues away from the first.

  We were scarcely two leagues from Sanor when a hot wind announced an imminent and terrible storm. Violent storms are less frequent on that small globe than on ours, but we had already heard thunder rumbling several times and lightning had flashed before our eyes with as much glare and force as in the sublunar world. Rain and wind, quite rare in Albur, were very common in Sanor, but throughout the subterranean globe, violent storms were announced by a southerly wind that blew furiously, uprooting plants and trees.

  The thunder was soon growling overhead; the night was frightfully dark, and the wind driving the clouds accumulated them without dissipating them. We could not go any further because we could no longer see our feet. The fear of falling into some precipice or into the sea that was to our right urged us to veer left and go into a nearby forest, where we hoped to find some shelter.

  We spent a horrible night there, without finding anything to protect us from the rain that was falling in floods, and without daring to lean against trees that the wind and the lightning might break at any moment.

  The storm calmed down when daylight appeared; but then, on emerging from the forest, we might have fallen into the hands of the people of the country, who were doubtless pursuing us. It was therefore decided to traverse a considerable extent of the dense woodland—with which, fortunately, several hunting parties had already familiarized us—and only to appear after nightfall in the port where we wanted to embark.

  We made little progress that day. We had counted on finding some nourishing fruits in the forest, but our expectation was mistaken; there was nothing around us but sterile trees. Edward and Clairancy hunted wild animals; they killed a kind of small white deer the size of a six-day-old kid, and brought it back to us, but we fell back into a new embarrassment: we had no means of lightning a fire. Our weapons were a kind of bronze, well-tempered and almost as hard as iron, good for the use for which they were destined, but the impact of a stone did not cause any spark to spring forth. I tried to ignite two sticks by rubbing them forcefully against one another, as certain savage peoples of our world do, but the rain had soaked everything. So, we were dying of hunger. We had a fine morsel before our eyes, but we could not eat it unless we swallowed it raw.

  We had not eaten anything since the morning of the previous day; it would soon be dark, and chagrins, fears, the battle we had fought and the previous night’s storm gave us a devouring appetite. Some of us were already eating leaves from the trees, while awaiting more nourishing fate, when Clairancy stopped them and told the famished troop that he was going to go to a large village a short distance away; that the Sanorlians might perhaps have retained a little respect for their Emperor, and that he would bring back some food.

  Martinet’s wife, who had forgotten her malady and who was sharing our misfortunes with the greatest courage, did not let him finish.

  “Don’t count on respect,” she told him. “You’re publicly cursed for having raised a sacrilegious hand against the High Priest of Sanor. All citizens have orders to kill you, since night has passed over your crime, and you must expect to be sought assiduously, because the storm that has just swept over us will be regarded as a mark of the wrath of Heaven...”

  The courageous woman finished by offering to go to fetch food herself, telling us that she had no danger to fear. As her pregnancy was advanced, and she was further inconvenienced by hunger, we did not want to consent at first to seeing her go away from us, but she did not yield to our arguments, and was obstinate in departing alone, making us promise to wait where she left us, and telling us that she would rather suffer a little fatigue than die of starvation with us, along with the child she was carrying in her womb.

  XXIV. The brigands’ cave. Execrable murder.

  Furious vengeance. Departure from the island of Sanor.

  Two hours of daylight still remained to us; we were close to the edge of the wood and the village to which Martinet’s wife was directing her steps was only a quarter of a league away, so we expected to see her again by the end of the day at the latest—but night gradually fell without her reappearing.

  When it was completely dark, we began to get impatient; then we feared that some misfortune had overtaken her, and after waiting for a little longer, we decided to go to meet her. Unfortunately, the darkness deceived us; instead of going south we took paths that led us westwards, and we were astonished, after walking for a full hour, to find ourselves deeper than ever in the dense forest.

  The best thing to do was to retrace our steps, and that is what we did, but so maladroitly that it was impossible for us to get our bearings. Toward the middle of the night, Edward thought he perceived a light a few hundred paces away. Some of us thought that it might be the village. Martinet imagined that his wife was searching for us with a torch.

  “Whatever it is,” said Clairancy, “let’s go on.”

  When we got closer, the light proved to be a big fire, and we soon perceived three or four human faces, warming themselves in a deep cavern. We were no more than twenty paces away, and we were consulting one another in low voices as to what might be happening before us when the slight sounds we were making were heard by the people in the cave
rn. Immediately, a crowd of armed men came out, surrounded us and put knives to our throats. Clairancy, believing that it was a troop of foot-soldiers sent in pursuit of us, shouted loudly: “Wretches! Lower your arms and respect the Emperor of Sanor!”

  Scarcely had those words been pronounced than more men emerged from the cavern, with lighted torches. We were recognized, and all those who were surrounding us lowered their weapons.

  “That’s different,” said one of them. “Come in, and be welcome.”

  I had no difficulty divining that we were dealing with brigands, although the governor of the large port had told me that there were very few of them on the island. I would have regarded that as a political boast even if I had not known from experience that governments usually do not know the half of what is happening under their noses.

  Meanwhile, the troop of brigands, who were four or five leagues from the capital, in the very forest where the princes went hunting, introduced us with some politeness into their cavern, where we found a good fire.

  “Sit down,” said the one who had already spoken, and, having counted us, offered us five stools. “You’re accursed, and doubtless sought by fools; here you have nothing to fear.”

  That protection appeared singular to us, but we were not thinking about delicacy, and the Emperor of Sanor, remembering that he was hungry, asked for something to eat. We were immediately served cold meat, bread and wine. We had brought the deer with us that Edward had killed; it was immediately roasted, and in the meantime, we all ate with a good appetite.

  While we were eating, the brigands who were giving us hospitality went out of the cavern in order to discuss a matter that, they said, concerned us greatly.

  Their deliberation did not last long; they soon returned, and the oldest of the band said to us: “Gentlemen, given that it is natural for everyone to think of prospering in his estate, we believe that we would make a good acquisition in receiving you into our company. You are proscribed on the island; if you want to stay here, you can only do so by living in the woods. Here, your stature and your strength will be advantageous to us, and simultaneously render you redoubtable. We will even take a few steps for you that will doubtless please you—we’ll go to the distant mountains, where you won’t have the disagreeable proximity of the capital. If our offer pleases you, the one who held the scepter of Sanor yesterday can take it up today in our company.”

  “Things are going marvelously,” I said to Clairancy, laughing. “You were truly born to lead; yesterday you were an Emperor, today, here you are a brigand chief.”

  “We’re not brigands as you understand it,” said the band’s orator. “Honor is in vogue in our society. We don’t kill, and anyone among us who causes death without being obliged to do so immediately receives it from our hands, but we rob those who have too much of a few superfluous riches. We give a tenth part of our takings to the unfortunate and share the rest as brothers. The captain does not receive a greater share than the cook; his only advantage is being obeyed. For eighteen years I have acquitted that responsibility honorably, but the company would obtain so much advantage by having you that I will surrender it with a good heart in favor of the accursed Prince.”

  That discourse appeared to us to be quite extraordinary, and I confess, for my part, that I would willingly have stayed among those honest bandits—but Clairancy did not want to accept such a steep fall.

  “Gentlemen,” he replied to the brigands, who were awaiting his response, “I believe that I am expressing the sentiments of all my companions is saying that your proposal does us the greatest honor, that we could not be more sensible to your procedure, and that we would gladly spend the rest of our lives with you if we were free, but sacred engagements recall us to the realm of Albur, and we are obliged to return there. However, to prove our esteem for you, we will leave you, on quitting you, one of our scimitars, and share our gold with you. Before then, we will ask of your kindness a great service...”

  Clairancy then explained how we had gone astray while searching for Martinet’s wife. That poor husband, who had even more tenderness for his wife since she had so generously gone with him, and who was dying of anxiety at not seeing her again, told them the whole story of our flight, and concluded by asking them to send some of their number in search of the lost wife.

  The men of the cave were perfectly familiar with the village to which she had gone as well as the place where we were to wait for her, and all the most hidden places in the woods. Twelve of them therefore set forth and plunged into the forest, promising us to return within the hour and asking us to think again, during that time, about the offer they had made to us. Two others, dressed as peasants, went to the village in question.

  While waiting for them, those who remained redoubled their insistences, begging us to remain with them, and our obstinate refusals seemed to cause them chagrin. We informed ourselves at the same time regarding their way of life; we recognized that they would have been honest men is they had not been highway robbers. Edward, astonished by their moderation and their wisdom, asked them what misfortune had drive them to become brigands.

  “What do you expect?” replied a young man of the company. “We are obliged to do so.”

  “Obliged!” I exclaimed. “Who can have forced you to take the road to the gallows?”

  “The laws of the land,” he replied. “We’re accursed, like you, for having scorned ridiculous ceremonies. Everyone has the right to kill us. The only means we have of avoiding death is the one we have adopted.”

  We then became companions in misfortune; we ceased to be astonished by the interest that they were taking in us. We testified our regrets once again at being unable to remain in the cave. Some of our hosts replied that they sympathized with our reasons, that they would not press us any longer, and would even offer us their help to get off the island. We were accepting with gratitude that further evidence of generosity when the men who had spread out in the forest began to return. They had searched as best they could, but all twelve came back without having discovered anything.

  The Manseau was in an agitation difficult to describe. We were no longer anxious for ourselves, since we had eaten, but we could not lose an amiable and courageous companion without dolor, in addition to sharing in the desolation of our poor comrade.

  Some said that she had doubtless returned to the capital, having thought that we had left without her, others that she might perhaps have fallen prey to some ferocious beast. The chief of the band told us that there was surely nothing in those two suppositions, firstly because there were no ferocious beasts in the vicinity, and secondly because, being accursed like us, for having gone with us, her life would be in danger in the capital of she were recognized, and that she doubtless had too much sense to have thrown herself into the claws of death.

  “Alas,” cried Martinet, excitedly, “that peril about which you have told me, which she confronted without my knowing it, she has doubtless found in the village to which we let her go. Perhaps the people who live there recognized her! My poor wife!”

  With those words, he started to weep; some of the brigands were afflicted with him, and we did not have the courage to console a grief that was perhaps well-founded.

  All our fears were soon realized. The two men who had been sent to the village finally came back, an hour after the others. Their consternated expressions, their furious gestures and the speed with which they were running all announced to us, as soon as we perceived them, a frightful event, which we would have liked to hide from the unfortunate Manseau—but he had seen them before us. He ran to meet them, and asked them whether they were bringing him despair.

  The two men’s only response was: “Have courage and you will be avenged!”

  He knew his misfortune then, and uttered heart-rending sobs. The emotional manner in which he regretted his wife proved to us that if his mind was bizarre, his heart was made to love powerfully. However, we wanted to know what the messengers had discovered.

 
As soon as they were in our midst, the more ardent of the two started speaking. “Pick up your weapons,” he said to us, “and let’s march to vengeance. A frightful murder has just been committed; it’s time to defend our own cause. Vain maledictions, which are an affront to the Eternal, still conserve their credit with the vulgar. The woman for whom we were searching was recognized yesterday in the village that she had just entered. The populace, who had her description, uttered cries of death against her.

  “All the hands of those vile beings, who burden the earth a few paces away from us, armed themselves; your unfortunate companion was pursued. She thought she might find refuge with the governor of the village, but she only found death there, and the child that she bore, forcibly born before its time, was pierced by a thousand thrusts on the bloody cadaver of the mother.

  “This morning, the two victims were exposed in the public square, where everyone made it a duty to outrage and insult them. Only one man—the one who recounted the catastrophe that I mourn with you—took no part in that hideous murder. He has fled the village where the crime was committed, because vengeance is about to annihilate it...”

  That discourse had rendered us mute with horror. We only broke the silence to talk about avenging ourselves. The Manseau was no longer weeping; he threw himself to his knees and cried out in a furious voice: “God of vengeance, protect the most just of causes! Exterminate the horde that has outraged you!”

  We were all furious. The brigands, who were forty in number, armed themselves in haste.

  “It’s necessary not to deliberate any longer!” shouted the captain. “Let’s march to vengeance!”

  We all repeated the cry of vengeance, and, after a quarter of an hour, we fell like a thunderbolt upon the criminal village. The crowd was still assembled in the public square, around the victims that the barbarians were striking and insulting by turns. At that horrible aspect, and the sight of our companion lacerated and bloody, our fury no longer new any bounds. All of us hurled ourselves like hungry lions upon that vile populace. The carnage was horrible.