XLI
XLI
THE NEXT DAY, THURSDAY, August 27, is a famous date in our underground journey It never comes back to my mind without terror making my heart beat faster. From that moment on, our reason, our judgment, our inventiveness no longer play any role, and we are about to become playthings of the earth’s phenomena.
At six we were up. The moment approached when we would blast a passage through the granite crust with the powder.
I asked for the honor of lighting the fuse. That task accomplished, I was supposed to join my companions at the raft, which had not yet been unloaded; we would then move away in order to avoid the dangers of the explosion, whose effects might not remain confined to the interior of the rock.
The fuse would burn for ten minutes, according to our calculations, before setting fire to the powder hole. So I had enough time to get back to the raft.
I got ready to fulfill my task, not without some anxiety.
After a hasty meal, my uncle and the hunter embarked while I remained on shore. I was equipped with a lighted lantern that I would use to set fire to the fuse.
“Go, my boy,” my uncle told me, “and come back immediately to join us. »
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’ll not entertain myself along the way.”
I immediately walked toward the mouth of the tunnel. I opened my lantern, and I took hold of the end of the fuse.
The Professor had the chronometer in his hand.
“Are you ready?” he called to me.
“I’m ready.”
“Well then! Fire, my boy!”
I rapidly plunged the fuse into the lantern, which crackled on contact, and returned running to the shore.
“Come on board quickly,” said my uncle, “and let’s push off.”
Hans pushed us back into the ocean with a powerful thrust. The raft shot twenty fathoms out to sea.
It was a thrilling moment. The professor watched the hand of the chronometer.
“Five more minutes!” he said. “Four! Three!”
My pulse beat half-seconds.
“Two! One! ... Crumble, granite mountains!”
What happened then? I think I did not hear the noise of the explosion. But the shape of the rocks suddenly changed under my eyes; they opened up like a curtain. I saw a bottomless pit open up on the shore. The ocean, overcome by vertigo, turned into nothing but a huge wave on whose back the raft was lifted up vertically.
We all three fell down. In less than a second, the light turned into unfathomable darkness. Then I felt solid support give way, not under my feet, but under the raft. I thought it was sinking. But it was not so. I would have liked to speak to my uncle, but the roaring of the waves would have prevented him from hearing me.
In spite of darkness, noise, surprise, and anxiety, I understood what had happened.
Beyond the rock that had exploded, there was an abyss. The explosion had triggered a kind of earthquake in this ground riven by fissures, the abyss had opened up, and the ocean turned current was taking us down into it.
I gave myself up for lost.
An hour, two hours passed, what do I know! We gripped each other’s elbows, clutched each other’s hands so as not to be thrown off the raft. Extremely violent shocks occurred whenever it hit against the wall. Yet these shocks were rare, from which I concluded that the tunnel was widening considerably. It was no doubt the path that Saknussemm had taken; but instead of taking it by ourselves, we had through our carelessness brought a whole ocean along with us.
These ideas, it will be understood, came to my mind in a vague and obscure form. I had difficulty putting them together during this headlong race that resembled a fall. Judging by the air that was lashing my face, its speed was faster than an express train. Lighting a torch in these conditions was therefore impossible, and our last electric device had broken at the moment of the explosion.
I was therefore very surprised when I suddenly saw a light shining near me. It lit up Hans’ calm face. The skillful hunter had managed to light the lantern, and even though it flickered and seemed about to go out, it threw some light into the awful darkness.
The tunnel was large. I was right in that. The dim light did not allow us to see both its walls at once. The slope of the water that was carrying us along exceeded that of the most difficult rapids in America. Its surface seemed made up of a sheaf of arrows shot with extreme force. I cannot convey my impression with a better comparison. The raft, sometimes seized by an eddy, spun round as it moved along. When it approached the walls of the tunnel I shone the light of the lantern on them, and I could judge its speed by seeing rock projections turn into continuous shapes, so that we seemed caught in a net of moving lines. I estimated that our speed was close to thirty leagues an hour.
My uncle and I looked at each other with frantic eyes, clinging to the stump of the mast which had snapped at the moment of the catastrophe. We turned our backs to the air current so as not to be choked by the speed of a movement that no human power could check.
In the meantime, hours passed. Our situation did not change, but an incident complicated matters.
When I tried to put our cargo into somewhat better order, I found that the greater part of the items onboard had disappeared at the moment of the explosion, when the sea broke in on us so violently! I wanted to know exactly what to count on as far as resources, and with the lantern in my hand I began my investigation. Of our instruments nothing was left except the compass and the chronometer. Our stock of ropes and ladders was reduced to a bit of cord coiled around the stump of the mast. No pickaxe, no pick, no hammer and, irreversible misfortune, we had only one day’s food supplies left!
I searched every nook and cranny on the raft, the smallest spaces between the wood beams, the joints and the planks. Nothing! Our food supplies were reduced to one bit of dried meat and a few biscuits.
I stared stupidly! I did not want to understand! And yet, why worry about this danger? Even if we had had food supplies for months, for years, how could we get out of the depths where the irresistible torrent was taking us? Why fear the tortures of hunger when death threatened us in so many other forms? Would there be enough time to die of starvation?
Nevertheless, due to an inexplicable vagary of the imagination, I forgot the immediate peril next to the dangers of the future, which appeared to me in all their horror. At any rate, perhaps we would be able to escape from the fury of the torrent and return to the surface of the globe. How? I do not know. Where? No matter. One chance in a thousand is still a chance, while death from starvation left us no hope, however remote.
It occurred to me that I should tell my uncle everything, show him the straits to which we were reduced, and calculate exactly how much time we had left to live. But I had the courage to keep silent. I wanted to leave him all his calm.
At that moment the light from our lantern became dimmer and dimmer, and then went out completely. The wick had burnt itself out. The darkness became absolute again. We could no longer hope to chase away the impenetrable blackness. We still had one torch left, but we could not have kept it lighted. So, like a child, I closed my eyes firmly so as not to see all that darkness.
After a rather long interval of time, our speed increased. I noticed it by the sensation of the air on my face. The slope of the water torrent became extremely steep. I really believe we were no longer gliding along. We were falling. I had the inner impression of an almost vertical fall. My uncle’s and Hans’ hands, clutching my arms, held on to me forcefully.
Suddenly, after an interval of time I could not estimate, I felt something like a shock; the raft had not struck against any hard object, but had suddenly stopped in its fall. An enormous spout of water, an immense liquid column crashed down on us. I was choking. I was drowning ...
But this sudden flood did not last. In a few seconds I found myself in the open air again, which I inhaled with all the force of my lungs. My uncle and Hans squeezed my arm to the point of almost breaking it, and the raft was still carrying all three of us.