Voyage au centre de la terre. English Page 26

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  WATER DISCOVERED

  For a whole hour I was trying to work out in my delirious brain thereasons which might have influenced this seemingly tranquil huntsman.The absurdest notions ran in utter confusion through my mind. Ithought madness was coming on!

  But at last a noise of footsteps was heard in the dark abyss. Hanswas approaching. A flickering light was beginning to glimmer on thewall of our darksome prison; then it came out full at the mouth ofthe gallery. Hans appeared.

  He drew close to my uncle, laid his hand upon his shoulder, andgently woke him. My uncle rose up.

  "What is the matter?" he asked.

  "_Watten!_" replied the huntsman.

  No doubt under the inspiration of intense pain everybody becomesendowed with the gift of divers tongues. I did not know a word ofDanish, yet instinctively I understood the word he had uttered.

  "Water! water!" I cried, clapping my hands and gesticulating like amadman.

  "Water!" repeated my uncle. "Hvar?" he asked, in Icelandic.

  "_Nedat,_" replied Hans.

  "Where? Down below!" I understood it all. I seized the hunter'shands, and pressed them while he looked on me without moving a muscleof his countenance.

  The preparations for our departure were not long in making, and wewere soon on our way down a passage inclining two feet in seven. Inan hour we had gone a mile and a quarter, and descended two thousandfeet.

  Then I began to hear distinctly quite a new sound of somethingrunning within the thickness of the granite wall, a kind of dull,dead rumbling, like distant thunder. During the first part of ourwalk, not meeting with the promised spring, I felt my agonyreturning; but then my uncle acquainted me with the cause of thestrange noise.

  "Hans was not mistaken," he said. "What you hear is the rushing of atorrent."

  "A torrent?" I exclaimed.

  "There can be no doubt; a subterranean river is flowing around us."

  We hurried forward in the greatest excitement. I was no longersensible of my fatigue. This murmuring of waters close at hand wasalready refreshing me. It was audibly increasing. The torrent, afterhaving for some time flowed over our heads, was now running withinthe left wall, roaring and rushing. Frequently I touched the wall,hoping to feel some indications of moisture: But there was no hopehere.

  Yet another half hour, another half league was passed.

  Then it became clear that the hunter had gone no farther. Guided byan instinct peculiar to mountaineers he had as it were felt thistorrent through the rock; but he had certainly seen none of theprecious liquid; he had drunk nothing himself.

  Soon it became evident that if we continued our walk we should widenthe distance between ourselves and the stream, the noise of which wasbecoming fainter.

  We returned. Hans stopped where the torrent seemed closest. I satnear the wall, while the waters were flowing past me at a distance oftwo feet with extreme violence. But there was a thick granite wallbetween us and the object of our desires.

  Without reflection, without asking if there were any means ofprocuring the water, I gave way to a movement of despair.

  Hans glanced at me with, I thought, a smile of compassion.

  He rose and took the lamp. I followed him. He moved towards the wall.I looked on. He applied his ear against the dry stone, and moved itslowly to and fro, listening intently. I perceived at once that hewas examining to find the exact place where the torrent could beheard the loudest. He met with that point on the left side of thetunnel, at three feet from the ground.

  I was stirred up with excitement. I hardly dared guess what thehunter was about to do. But I could not but understand, and applaudand cheer him on, when I saw him lay hold of the pickaxe to make anattack upon the rock.

  "We are saved!" I cried.

  "Yes," cried my uncle, almost frantic with excitement. "Hans isright. Capital fellow! Who but he would have thought of it?"

  Yes; who but he? Such an expedient, however simple, would never haveentered into our minds. True, it seemed most hazardous to strike ablow of the hammer in this part of the earth's structure. Supposesome displacement should occur and crush us all! Suppose the torrent,bursting through, should drown us in a sudden flood! There wasnothing vain in these fancies. But still no fears of falling rocks orrushing floods could stay us now; and our thirst was so intense that,to satisfy it, we would have dared the waves of the north Atlantic.

  Hans set about the task which my uncle and I together could not haveaccomplished. If our impatience had armed our hands with power, weshould have shattered the rock into a thousand fragments. Not soHans. Full of self possession, he calmly wore his way through therock with a steady succession of light and skilful strokes, workingthrough an aperture six inches wide at the outside. I could hear alouder noise of flowing waters, and I fancied I could feel thedelicious fluid refreshing my parched lips.

  The pick had soon penetrated two feet into the granite partition, andour man had worked for above an hour. I was in an agony ofimpatience. My uncle wanted to employ stronger measures, and I hadsome difficulty in dissuading him; still he had just taken a pickaxein his hand, when a sudden hissing was heard, and a jet of waterspurted out with violence against the opposite wall.

  Hans, almost thrown off his feet by the violence of the shock,uttered a cry of grief and disappointment, of which I soon under-.stood the cause, when plunging my hands into the spouting torrent, Iwithdrew them in haste, for the water was scalding hot.

  "The water is at the boiling point," I cried.

  "Well, never mind, let it cool," my uncle replied.

  The tunnel was filling with steam, whilst a stream was forming, whichby degrees wandered away into subterranean windings, and soon we hadthe satisfaction of swallowing our first draught.

  Could anything be more delicious than the sensation that our burningintolerable thirst was passing away, and leaving us to enjoy comfortand pleasure? But where was this water from? No matter. It was water;and though still warm, it brought life back to the dying. I keptdrinking without stopping, and almost without tasting.

  At last after a most delightful time of reviving energy, I cried,"Why, this is a chalybeate spring!"

  "Nothing could be better for the digestion," said my uncle. "It ishighly impregnated with iron. It will be as good for us as going tothe Spa, or to Toeplitz."

  "Well, it is delicious!"

  "Of course it is, water should be, found six miles underground. Ithas an inky flavour, which is not at all unpleasant. What a capitalsource of strength Hans has found for us here. We will call it afterhis name."

  "Agreed," I cried.

  And Hansbach it was from that moment.

  Hans was none the prouder. After a moderate draught, he went quietlyinto a corner to rest.

  "Now," I said, "we must not lose this water."

  "What is the use of troubling ourselves?" my uncle, replied. "I fancyit will never fail."

  "Never mind, we cannot be sure; let us fill the water bottle and ourflasks, and then stop up the opening."

  My advice was followed so far as getting in a supply; but thestopping up of the hole was not so easy to accomplish. It was in vainthat we took up fragments of granite, and stuffed them in with tow,we only scalded our hands without succeeding. The pressure was toogreat, and our efforts were fruitless.

  "It is quite plain," said I, "that the higher body of this water isat a considerable elevation. The force of the jet shows that."

  "No doubt," answered my uncle. "If this column of water is 32,000feet high--that is, from the surface of the earth, it is equal tothe weight of a thousand atmospheres. But I have got an idea."

  "Well?"

  "Why should we trouble ourselves to stop the stream from coming outat all?"

  "Because--" Well, I could not assign a reason.

  "When our flasks are empty, where shall we fill them again? Can wetell that?"

  No; there was no certainty.

  "Well, let us allow the water to run on. It will flo
w down, and willboth guide and refresh us."

  "That is well planned," I cried. "With this stream for our guide,there is no reason why we should not succeed in our undertaking."

  "Ah, my boy! you agree with me now," cried the Professor, laughing.

  "I agree with you most heartily."

  "Well, let us rest awhile; and then we will start again."

  I was forgetting that it was night. The chronometer soon informed meof that fact; and in a very short time, refreshed and thankful, weall three fell into a sound sleep.