by Jules Verne
The Professor shook his head with the air of a man who does not want to be convinced. I tried to continue the conversation, but he did not reply and gave the signal to go on. I saw that his silence was nothing but concentrated ill-humour.
However, I bravely shouldered my burden again and hurried after Hans, who was following my uncle. I was anxious not to be left behind and my chief preoccupation was not to lose sight of my companions. I shuddered at the thought of losing my way in this maze.
Besides, if the upward path was becoming increasingly tiring, I consoled myself with the thought that it was bringing me nearer to the surface. This was a hope which every step confirmed, and I rejoiced at the thought of seeing my little Gräuben again.
At noon a change occurred in the walls of the gallery. I noticed this by a decrease in the amount of light reflected by the sides. The coating of lava had given place to solid rock, arranged in sloping and often vertical strata. We were passing through rocks of the transitional period, the Silurian Period.
‘It’s all quite clear!’ I exclaimed. ‘In the second period the water deposits formed these schists, limestones, and shales! We are turning our backs on the granite mass! We are like people from Hamburg taking the Hanover road to go to Lübeck!’
I ought to have kept these remarks to myself, but my geological temperament got the better of my prudence and Uncle Lidenbrock heard my exclamations.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Look!’ I replied, pointing to the succession of shales and limestones, and the first signs of slate.
‘Well?’
‘We have come to the rocks of the period when the first plants and animals appeared.’
‘Oh! Do you think so?’
‘Have a good look yourself.’
I made the Professor move his lamp over the walls of the gallery, expecting him to show some sign of surprise. But he did not say a word, and simply walked on.
Had he understood me or not? Was he refusing, out of avuncular or scientific vanity, to admit that he had made a mistake in choosing the eastern tunnel? Or was he determined to explore this passage to the end? It was obvious that we had left the lava route, and that this path could not possibly lead to the furnace of Sneffels.
All the same, I wondered whether I might not be attributing too much importance to this change in the rock, and making a mistake myself. Were we really choosing these layers of rock superimposed on the granite foundation?
‘If I am right,’ I thought, ‘I am bound to find some remains of primitive plants, and then there will be no denying the evidence of our eyes. I must keep my eyes skinned.’
I had not gone a hundred yards before I found incontrovertible proof. This was scarcely surprising, for in the Silurian epoch, the seas contained over fifteen hundred vegetable and animal species. My feet, which had grown accustomed to the hard lava floor, suddenly began stirring up a dust composed of the debris of plants and shells. On the walls there were distinct impressions of rock weeds and club mosses. Professor Lidenbrock must have recognized them, but he shut his eyes, I imagine, and pressed on at an unvarying pace.
This was carrying stubbornness too far, and I could not stand it any longer. I picked up a perfectly preserved shell which had belonged to an animal rather similar to the present-day woodlouse; then, catching up with my uncle, I said:
‘Look at this!’
‘Well,’ he said calmly, ‘it’s the shell of a crustacean of the extinct species of the trilobites, that’s all.’
‘But don’t you conclude …?’
‘What you conclude yourself? Yes, I do. We have left the granite mass and the lava route. I may have made a mistake, but I cannot be sure of that until we reach the end of this gallery.’
‘That is the right course to adopt, Uncle, and I would approve wholeheartedly if we weren’t threatened by an ever-increasing danger.’
‘And what is that?’
‘A shortage of water.’
‘Well, Axel, we must ration ourselves.’
20
A Dead End
It was indeed essential for us to ration ourselves. Our stock of water could not last more than three days, as I realized that evening at supper-time. And unfortunately we had little hope of finding a spring in these Silurian layers.
The whole of the next day the gallery unfolded its endless series of arches before us. We walked on almost without a word, as if Hans’s silence had infected us.
The path was not rising now, at least not perceptibly. Sometimes it even seemed to slope downwards. But this tendency, which was very slight in any case, could not reassure the Professor, for there was no change in the nature of the beds, and the transitional characteristics were more and more obvious.
The schist, limestone, and old red sandstone sparkled magnificently in the electric light. We might have imagined that we were passing through an open trench in Devonshire, which has given its name to this sort of ground. Specimens of magnificent marbles lined the walls, some of agate-grey capriciously streaked with white veins, others of crimson, and yet others of a yellow splashed with red; while farther on there were dark-coloured griottes relieved by the lighter hues of limestone.
Most of these marbles bore impressions of primitive organisms. Creation had obviously made considerable progress since the previous day. Instead of the rudimentary trilobites, I noticed remains of a more advanced order of creatures, including ganoid fishes and some of those saurians in which palaeontologists have detected the earliest reptile forms. The Devonian seas were inhabited by a vast number of creatures of this species, and deposited them in thousands on the newly formed rocks.
It was becoming obvious that we were climbing the ladder of animal life on which man occupies the highest rung. But Professor Lidenbrock seemed to be taking no notice.
He was waiting for one of two things to happen: either for a vertical shaft to appear at his feet, down which he might continue his descent, or for an obstacle to arise which would force us to turn back. But evening came without either expectation having been realized.
On the Friday, after a night during which I began to feel the pangs of thirst, our little band set off again along the winding passages of the gallery.
After ten hours’ walking, I observed that the reflection of our lamps from the walls was greatly diminishing. Marble, schist, limestone, and sandstone were giving place to a dark, lustreless lining.
At one point, where the tunnel was becoming very narrow, I leaned against the left-hand wall. When I took my hand away, it was quite black. I looked more closely and saw that we were surrounded by coal.
‘A coal-mine!’ I exclaimed.
‘A mine without any miners,’ replied my uncle.
‘Oh! Who knows?’
‘I know,’ retorted the Professor curtly. ‘I am positive that this gallery driven through these beds of coal is not the work of man. But whether it is or it isn’t is all one to me. It’s time to eat. Let’s have supper.’
Hans prepared some food. I ate scarcely anything, but drank the few drops of water which comprised my ration. Half the guide’s flask was all that remained to slake the thirst of three men.
After their meal, my two companions stretched out on their rugs and found in sleep a remedy for their fatigue. But I could not sleep, and counted the hours until morning.
At six o’clock on the Saturday morning we set off again. Twenty minutes later we reached a vast cavern, and I then realized that this mine could not have been dug by the hand of man; if it had, the ceiling would have been shored up, whereas in fact it seemed as if only a miracle of equilibrium were holding it up.
This cavern was a hundred feet wide and a hundred and fifty high. The ground had been torn apart by a subterranean disturbance. Yielding to some powerful jolt, it had broken asunder, leaving this huge hollow into which human beings were now penetrating for the first time.
The whole history of the coal period was written on these dark walls, and a geologist could easily follow
all its various phases. The beds of coal were separated by compact strata of sandstone or clay, and gave the impression of being crushed by the upper layers.
At that age of the world which preceded the Secondary Period, the earth was covered with vast stretches of vegetation, the product of the dual action of tropical heat and constant moisture. A misty atmosphere enveloped the earth, screening it from the rays of the sun.
Hence the conclusion that the high temperature then prevailing was not due to the sun, which may not even have been ready yet to play the brilliant part it now acts. There were no ‘climates’, as yet, and a torrid heat, equal at the equator and at both poles, was spread over the whole surface of the globe. This heat came from the interior of the earth.
Despite Professor Lidenbrock’s theories, a violent fire was blazing in the bowels of the sphere, and its action extended as far as the outer layers of the earth’s crust. The plants, deprived of the beneficent rays of the sun, produced neither flowers nor scent, but their roots drew vigorous life from the burning soil of this early period.
There were few trees, only herbaceous plants – tall grasses, ferns, lycopods, sigillarias, and asterophyllites, belonging to families which are now rare but at that time contained thousands of species.
Now it is to this exuberant vegetation that the coal measures owe their origin. The as yet elastic crust of the earth obeyed the movements of the liquid mass underneath. Countless fissures and depressions resulted, and the plants, sinking beneath the surface of the waters, gradually formed huge accumulations.
Then natural chemistry came into action; in the depths of the seas the vegetable masses were turned into peat to begin with, and then, under the influence of the gases and the heat of fermentation, were completely mineralized.
Thus were formed those huge beds of coal which, despite their size, the industrial nations will exhaust within three centuries unless they limit their consumption.
These reflections occurred to me while I was considering the mineral wealth accumulated in this particular portion of the earth.
‘These beds,’ I told myself, ‘will probably never be worked. The exploitation of such deep, out-of-the-way mines would be far too costly. Besides, why should anyone attempt it when there is still plenty of coal just under the surface in a great many countries? So these beds will doubtless remain as they are now, intact, until the last trump.’
Meanwhile we were pressing on, and I was probably the only one who was forgetting the length of the journey in my absorption in geological considerations. The temperature remained more or less what it had been during our passage through the lava and the schist, but my sense of smell detected a strong odour of protocarburet of hydrogen. I immediately recognized the presence in this gallery of a considerable quantity of that dangerous gas which miners call firedamp, and the explosion of which has caused so many dreadful catastrophes.
Luckily our light was provided by Ruhmkorff’s ingenious apparatus. If we had had the misfortune and imprudence to explore this gallery with torches, a terrible explosion would have put an end to the expedition by annihilating the explorers.
This journey through the coal-mine lasted till evening, with my uncle scarcely able to restrain his impatience at the horizontal nature of the path. The darkness, which was always complete twenty yards ahead, prevented us from estimating the length of the gallery; and I was beginning to think it would never come to an end when, all of a sudden, at six o’clock, a wall unexpectedly appeared before us. To the right, to the left, above and below, there was no way through. We had come to a dead end.
‘Well, so much the better!’ cried my uncle. ‘Now at least we know where we stand. We are not on Saknussemm’s road, and there’s nothing we can do but turn back. Let us take a night’s rest, and in less than three days we shall be back at the place where the paths fork.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘if we have the strength!’
‘And why shouldn’t we?’
‘Because tomorrow we shall have no water left.’
‘And no courage either?’ asked the Professor, giving me a stern look.
I did not dare to reply.
21
The New Columbus
The next day we started early in the morning. We had to hurry, because we were three days’ walk from the fork.
I will not dwell on the hardships we suffered on this return journey. My uncle bore them with the anger of a man conscious of being in the wrong; Hans with the resignation of his calm nature; and I, I must admit, with loud complaints. I lacked the spirit to stand up to this bad luck.
As I had foreseen, our water gave out completely at the end of our first day’s march. After that we had nothing to drink but gin, but this infernal liquor burnt my throat and I could not even bear the sight of it. I found the heat stifling and was paralysed with fatigue. More than once I nearly fell in a dead faint. Then the others would stop, and my uncle or the Icelander would do his best to revive me. But I could see that the former was already suffering acutely from extreme fatigue and the tortures of thirst.
At last, on Tuesday, 7 July, crawling on our hands and knees, we arrived half-dead at the junction of the two galleries. There I dropped like a lifeless mass, stretched out on the lava floor. It was ten in the morning.
Hans and my uncle, sitting with their backs against the wall, tried to nibble a few pieces of biscuit. Long moans escaped from my swollen lips. I fell into a deep sleep.
After a while my uncle came over to me and raised me in his arms.
‘Poor child!’ he murmured in tones of genuine pity.
I was touched by these words, not being accustomed to displays of affection by the stern Professor. I seized his trembling hands in mine. He let me hold them and looked at me with tears in his eyes.
Then I saw him take the flask hanging at his side. To my amazement he put it to my lips.
‘Drink,’ he said.
Had I heard right? Was my uncle out of his mind? I looked at him stupidly, incapable of understanding.
‘Drink,’ he said again.
And raising his flask, he poured the contents into my mouth.
Oh, what bliss I knew at that moment! A mouthful of water slaked my burning thirst – just one mouthful, but it was enough to recall the life which was ebbing away from me.
I thanked my uncle with clasped hands.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a mouthful of water – but it’s the last, you understand, the very last. I had kept it carefully at the bottom of my flask, resisting a score of times the terrible temptation to drink it. But no, Axel, I kept it for you.’
‘Dear Uncle!’ I murmured, with my eyes full of tears.
‘Yes, poor boy, I knew that as soon as you reached this fork you would drop half-dead, and I kept these last drops of water to revive you.’
‘Thank you! Thank you!’ I cried.
Although my thirst had only been partially quenched, I had recovered a little of my strength. The muscles of my throat, which had been contracted till then, relaxed, and my lips were less inflamed. I found that I could speak.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘there’s only one thing left for us to do; we have no water, so we must go back.’
While I was saying this, my uncle avoided looking at me; he hung his head, and his gaze shifted away from mine.
‘We must go back,’ I exclaimed: ‘we must return to Sneffels. May God give us the strength to climb up to the top of the crater again!’
‘Go back!’ said my uncle, as if he were answering himself rather than me.
‘Yes, go back, and without losing a single minute.’
A rather long silence followed.
‘So, Axel,’ the Professor went on in a strange tone of voice, ‘those few drops of water didn’t restore your courage and energy?’
‘Courage?’
‘You seem just as downhearted as before, and you still express nothing but despair.’
What sort of man was I dealing with, and what plans was that fearless mind of his h
atching now?
‘What, you don’t want to go back?’
‘And give up this expedition, just when success seems assured? Never!’
‘Then we must resign ourselves to dying?’
‘No, Axel, no. You must go back. I don’t want you to die. Hans will go with you. Leave me here alone.’
‘Leave you here!’
‘Leave me, I tell you. I have begun this journey, and I mean to finish it, or never return. Go back, Axel, go back!’
My uncle was in a state of extreme excitement. His voice, which had been gentle and affectionate for a moment, had become hard and threatening again. He was fighting with sombre determination against the impossible and I could not bear to abandon him at the bottom of this abyss, but on the other hand the instinct of self-preservation urged me to leave him.
The guide followed this scene with his usual unconcern. Yet he understood what was going on between his two companions. Our gestures were sufficient in themselves to show the different courses which each of us was trying to urge upon the other; but Hans seemed uninterested in this question which concerned his very existence, ready to set off if he was given the signal for departure or to stay if his master so wished it.
How I longed at that moment to be able to make him understand me! My words, my groans, my tone of voice would have got the better of that cold temperament. Those dangers which the guide seemed incapable of understanding I would have made real and intelligible to him. Together we might have convinced the stubborn Professor; if necessary we would have forced him to regain the heights of Sneffels.
I went over to Hans and laid my hand on his. He did not budge. I pointed along the passage leading back to the crater. He remained motionless. My anguished expression and panting breath revealed my sufferings. The Icelander gently shook his head, and calmly pointing to my uncle, he said:
‘Master.’
‘Master?’ I cried. ‘No, you madman, he isn’t the master of your life! We must go back! We must take him with us! Do you hear me? Do you understand?’
I had seized Hans by the arm and was trying to force him to get up. While I was struggling with him my uncle intervened.
