LITMIR.BIZ

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without a moment’s delay.

      The aperture, which was almost round, was about five feet in diameter; the dark passage was cut out in the live rock and lined with a coat of the eruptive matter which formerly issued from it; the interior was level with the ground outside, so that we were able to enter without difficulty. We were following a horizontal plane, when, only six paces in, our progress was interrupted by an enormous block just across our way.

      “Accursed rock!” I cried in a passion, finding myself suddenly confronted by an impassable obstacle.

      Right and left we searched in vain for a way, up and down, side to side; there was no getting any farther. I felt fearfully disappointed, and I would not admit that the obstacle was final. I stopped, I looked underneath the block: no opening. Above: granite still. Hans passed his lamp over every portion of the barrier in vain. We must give up all hope of passing it.

      I sat down in despair. My uncle strode from side to side in the narrow passage.

      “But how was it with Saknussemm?” I cried.

      “Yes,” said my uncle, “was he stopped by this stone barrier?”

      “No, no,” I replied with animation. “This fragment of rock has been shaken down by some shock or convulsion, or by one of those magnetic storms which agitate these regions, and has blocked up the passage which lay open to him. Many years have elapsed since the return of Saknussemm to the surface and the fall of this huge fragment. Is it not evident that this gallery was once the way open to the course of the lava, and that at that time there must have been a free passage? See here are recent fissures grooving and channelling the granite roof. This roof itself is formed of fragments of rock carried down, of enormous stones, as if by some giant’s hand; but at one time the expulsive force was greater than usual, and this block, like the falling keystone of a ruined arch, has slipped down to the ground and blocked up the way. It is only an accidental obstruction, not met by Saknussemm, and if we don’t destroy it we shall be unworthy to reach the centre of the earth.”

      Such was my sentence! The soul of the Professor had passed into me. The genius of discovery possessed me wholly. I forgot the past, I scorned the future. I gave not a thought to the things of the surface of this globe into which I had dived; its cities and its sunny plains, Hamburg and the Königstrasse, even poor Gräuben, who must have given us up for lost, all were for the time dismissed from the pages of my memory.

      “Well,” cried my uncle, “let us make a way with our pickaxes.”

      “Too hard for the pickaxe.”

      “Well, then, the spade.”

      “That would take us too long.”

      “What, then?”

      “Why gunpowder, to be sure! Let us mine the obstacle and blow it up.”

      “Oh, yes, it is only a bit of rock to blast!”

      “Hans, to work!” cried my uncle.

      The Icelander returned to the raft and soon came back with an iron bar which he made use of to bore a hole for the charge. This was no easy work. A hole was to be made large enough to hold fifty pounds of guncotton, whose expansive force is four times that of gunpowder.

      I was terribly excited. Whilst Hans was at work I was actively helping my uncle to prepare a slow match of wetted powder encased in linen.

      “This will do it,” I said.

      “It will,” replied my uncle.

      By midnight our mining preparations were over; the charge was rammed into the hole, and the slow match uncoiled along the gallery showed its end outside the opening.

      A spark would now develop the whole of our preparations into activity.

      “Tomorrow,” said the Professor.

      I had to be resigned and to wait six long hours.

CHAPTER XLI.

      THE GREAT EXPLOSION AND THE RUSH DOWN BELOW

      Table of Contents

      The next day, Thursday, August 27, is a well-remembered date in our subterranean journey. It never returns to my memory without sending through me a shudder of horror and a palpitation of the heart. From that hour we had no further occasion for the exercise of reason, or judgment, or skill, or contrivance. We were henceforth to be hurled along, the playthings of the fierce elements of the deep.

      At six we were afoot. The moment drew near to clear a way by blasting through the opposing mass of granite.

      I begged for the honour of lighting the fuse. This duty done, I was to join my companions on the raft, which had not yet been unloaded; we should then push off as far as we could and avoid the dangers arising from the explosion, the effects of which were not likely to be confined to the rock itself.

      The fuse was calculated to burn ten minutes before setting fire to the mine. I therefore had sufficient time to get away to the raft.

      I prepared to fulfil my task with some anxiety.

      After a hasty meal, my uncle and the hunter embarked whilst I remained on shore. I was supplied with a lighted lantern to set fire to the fuse. “Now go,” said my uncle, “and return immediately to us.” “Don’t be uneasy,” I replied. “I will not play by the way.” I immediately proceeded to the mouth of the tunnel. I opened my lantern. I laid hold of the end of the match. The Professor stood, chronometer in hand. “Ready?” he cried.

      “Ay.”

      “Fire!”

      I instantly plunged the end of the fuse into the lantern. It spluttered and flamed, and I ran at the top of my speed to the raft.

      “Come on board quickly, and let us push off.”

      Hans, with a vigorous thrust, sent us from the shore. The raft shot twenty fathoms out to sea.

      It was a moment of intense excitement. The Professor was watching the hand of the chronometer.

      “Five minutes more!” he said. “Four! Three!”

      My pulse beat half-seconds.

      “Two! One! Down, granite rocks; down with you.”

      What took place at that moment? I believe I did not hear the dull roar of the explosion. But the rocks suddenly assumed a new arrangement: they rent asunder like a curtain. I saw a bottomless pit open on the shore. The sea, lashed into sudden fury, rose up in an enormous billow, on the ridge of which the unhappy raft was uplifted bodily in the air with all its crew and cargo.

      We all three fell down flat. In less than a second we were in deep, unfathomable darkness. Then I felt as if not only myself but the raft also had no support beneath. I thought it was sinking; but it was not so. I wanted to speak to my uncle, but the roaring of the waves prevented him from hearing even the sound of my voice.

      In spite of darkness, noise, astonishment, and terror, I then understood what had taken place.

      On the other side of the blown-up rock was an abyss. The explosion had caused a kind of earthquake in this fissured and abysmal region; a great gulf had opened; and the sea, now changed into a torrent, was hurrying us along into it.

      I gave myself up for lost.

      An hour passed away - two hours, perhaps - I cannot tell. We clutched each other fast, to save ourselves from being thrown off the raft. We felt violent shocks whenever we were borne heavily against the craggy projections. Yet these shocks were not very frequent, from which I concluded that the gully was widening. It was no doubt the same road that Saknussemm had taken; but instead of walking peaceably down it, as he had done, we were carrying a whole sea along with us.

      These

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