The Incredible Science Fiction Tales of Jules Verne (Illustrated Edition) - Жюль Верн

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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.

      CHAPTER XLII.

      Headlong Speed Upward Through The Horrors Of Darkness

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      It might have been, as I guessed, about ten at night. The first of my senses which came into play after this last bout was that of hearing. All at once I could hear; and it was a real exercise of the sense of hearing. I could hear the silence in the gallery after the din which for hours had stunned me. At last these words of my uncle’s came to me like a vague murmuring:

      “We are going up.”

      “What do you mean?” I cried.

      “Yes, we are going up - up!”

      I stretched out my arm. I touched the wall, and drew back my hand bleeding. We were ascending with extreme rapidity.

      “The torch! The torch!” cried the Professor.

      Not without difficulty Hans succeeded in lighting the torch; and the flame, preserving its upward tendency, threw enough light to show us what kind of a place we were in.

      “Just as I thought,” said the Professor “We are in a tunnel not four-and-twenty feet in diameter The water had reached the bottom of the gulf. It is now rising to its level, and carrying us with it.”

      “Where to?”

      “I cannot tell; but we must be ready for anything. We are mounting at a speed which seems to me of fourteen feet in a second, or ten miles an hour. At this rate we shall get on.”

      “Yes, if nothing stops us; if this well has an aperture. But suppose it to be stopped. If the air is condensed by the pressure of this column of water we shall be crushed.”

      “Axel,” replied the Professor with perfect coolness, “our situation is almost desperate; but there are some chances of deliverance, and it is these that I am considering. If at every instant we may perish, so at every instant we may be saved. Let us then be prepared to seize upon the smallest advantage.”

      “But what shall we do now?”

      “Recruit our strength by eating.”

      At these words I fixed a haggard eye upon my uncle. That which I had been so unwilling to confess at last had to be told.

      “Eat, did you say?”

      “Yes, at once.”

      The Professor added a few words in Danish, but Hans shook his head mournfully.

      “What!” cried my uncle. “Have we lost our provisions?”

      “Yes; here is all we have left; one bit of salt meat for the three.”

      My uncle stared at me as if he could not understand.

      “Well,” said I, “do you think we have any chance of being saved?”

      My question was unanswered.

      An hour passed away. I began to feel the pangs of a violent hunger. My companions were suffering too, and not one of us dared touch this wretched remnant of our goodly store.

      But now we were mounting up with excessive speed. Sometimes the air would cut our breath short, as is experienced by aeronauts ascending too rapidly. But whilst they suffer from cold in proportion to their rise, we were beginning to feel a contrary effect. The heat was increasing in a manner to cause us the most fearful anxiety, and certainly the temperature was at this moment at the height of 100° Fahr.

      What could be the meaning of such a change? Up to this time facts had supported the theories of Davy and of Liedenbrock; until now particular conditions of non-conducting rocks, electricity and magnetism, had tempered the laws of nature, giving us only a moderately warm climate, for the theory of a central fire remained in my estimation the only one that was true and explicable. Were we then turning back to where the phenomena of central heat ruled in all their rigour and would reduce the most refractory rocks to the state of a molten liquid? I feared this, and said to the Professor:

      “If we are neither drowned, nor shattered to pieces, nor starved to death, there is still the chance that we may be burned alive and reduced to ashes.”

      At this he shrugged his shoulders and returned to his thoughts.

      Another hour passed, and, except some slight increase in the temperature, nothing new had happened.

      “Come,” said he, “we must determine upon something.”

      “Determine on what?” said I.

      “Yes, we must recruit our strength by carefully rationing ourselves, and so prolong our existence by a few hours. But we shall be reduced to very great weakness at last.”

      “And our last hour is not far off.”

      “Well, if there is a chance of safety, if a moment for active exertion presents itself, where should we find the required strength if we allowed ourselves to be enfeebled by hunger?”

      “Well, uncle, when this bit of meat has been devoured what shall we have left?”

      “Nothing, Axel, nothing at all. But will it do you any more good to devour it with your eyes than with your teeth? Your reasoning has in it neither sense nor energy.”

      “Then don’t you despair?” I cried irritably.

      “No, certainly not,” was the Professor’s firm reply.

      “What! do you think there is any chance of safety left?”

      “Yes, I do; as long as the heart beats, as long as body and soul keep together, I cannot admit that any creature endowed with a will has need to despair of life.”

      Resolute words these! The man who could speak so, under such circumstances, was of no ordinary type.

      “Finally, what do you mean to do?” I asked.

      “Eat what is left to the last crumb, and recruit our fading strength. This meal will be our last, perhaps: so let it be! But at any rate we shall once more be men, and not exhausted, empty bags.”

      “Well, let us consume it then,” I cried.

      My uncle took the piece of meat and the few biscuits which had escaped from the general destruction. He divided them into three equal portions and gave one to each. This made about a pound of nourishment for each. The Professor ate his greedily, with a kind of feverish rage. I ate without pleasure, almost with disgust; Hans quietly, moderately, masticating his small mouthfuls without any noise, and relishing them with the calmness of a man above all anxiety about the future. By diligent search he had found

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