XXVII
XXVII
I CANNOT DESCRIBE MY despair. No human words could express my feelings. I was buried alive, with the prospect of dying from the tortures of hunger and thirst.
Mechanically I swept the ground with my burning hands. How dry the rock seemed to me!
But how had I left the course of the stream? For it was definitely no longer there! Then I understood the reason for that strange silence when I listened for the last time for any call from my companions that might reach my ears. But at the moment when I took my first step on the wrong path, I had not noticed this absence of the stream. It is obvious that at that moment a fork in the tunnel had opened up before me, while the Hansbach, following the whim of another slope, had gone away with my companions toward unknown depths.
How to get back? There were no traces. My foot left no mark on this granite. I racked my brain for a solution of this unsolvable problem. My situation could be summed up in a single word: Lost!
Yes! Lost at a depth that seemed immeasurable to me! Those thirty leagues of terrestrial crust weighed on my shoulders with a dreadful weight. I felt crushed.
I tried to take my mind back to the things of the earth. I could hardly manage it. Hamburg, the house in the Königstrasse, my poor Graüben, all that world underneath which I had lost my way passed rapidly before my terrified memory. In a vivid hallucination, I relived all the incidents of the journey, the passage, Iceland, Mr. Fridriksson, the Snaefells. I told myself that if I still hung on to some glimmer of hope in my position, it would be a sign of madness, and that it would be better to give in to despair.
Indeed, what human power could take me back to the surface of the globe and break apart the enormous vaults of rock that buttressed each other above my head? Who could put me back on the right path and take me back to my companions?
“Oh, Uncle!” I cried in a tone of despair.
It was the only word of reproach that passed my lips, for I knew how much that unfortunate man must suffer in his turn in searching for me.
When I saw myself like this, beyond all human help, unable to do anything for my own well-being, I thought of heavenly help. Memories of my childhood, especially of my mother whom I had only known in my tender early years, came back to me. I resorted to prayer, in spite of the few rights I had of being heard by a God to whom I directed myself so late, and I fervently implored him.
This return to Providence calmed me a little, and I was able to concentrate all the power of my intelligence on my situation.
I had three days’ worth of food supplies with me and my flask was full. However, I could not remain alone much longer. Should I go up or down?
Up, of course; always up!
I had to get back to the point where I had left the stream, that deadly fork in the road. There, with the stream at my feet, I might be able to return to the summit of Snaefells.
Why had I not thought of that sooner! This was obviously a possibility for rescue. The most pressing task, therefore, was to find the course of the Hansbach again.
I rose, and leaning on my iron-tipped stick I walked back up the tunnel. The slope was rather steep. I walked on without hope and without indecision, like a man who has no choice as to what course he might take.
For half an hour I met with no obstacle. I tried to recognize my path by the shape of the tunnel, by the projections of certain rocks, by the arrangement of the crevices. But no particular detail struck me, and I soon realized that this tunnel could not take me back to the fork. It came to a dead end. I struck against an impenetrable wall, and fell down on the rock.
The fear, the despair that then seized me cannot be described. I lay overwhelmed. My last hope was shattered by this granite wall.
Lost in this labyrinth, whose meandering paths intersected in all directions, I could no longer attempt an impossible escape. I had to die the most dreadful of deaths! And, strange to say, the thought crossed my mind that if my fossilized body were to be found one day, its discovery thirty leagues deep in the bowels of the earth would raise serious scientific questions!
I wanted to speak aloud, but only hoarse sounds came from my parched lips. I panted.
In the midst of these fears, a new terror laid hold of me. My lamp had been damaged when it fell. I had no means of repairing it. Its light was fading and would soon disappear!
I watched the luminous current diminish in the wire coil of the appliance. A procession of moving shadows unfolded on the darkening walls. I no longer dared to shut my eyes, for fear of missing the smallest atom of this elusive light! Every moment it seemed to me that it was about to vanish and that blackness would engulf me.
Finally a last glimmer trembled in the lamp. I followed it, I drank it in with my gaze, I concentrated all the power of my eyes on it as the very last sensation of light they would ever perceive, and then I was plunged into immense darkness.
What horrible cry burst from me! On earth, even in the midst of the darkest nights, light never vanishes altogether. It is diffuse, it is subtle, but however little there may be, the eye’s retina manages to perceive it. Here, nothing. The total darkness blinded me in the word’s most literal significance.
Then I began to lose my head. I rose up with my arms stretched out before me, attempting to feel my way in the most painful manner. I began to run, rushing haphazardly through this inextricable maze, always going down, running through the earth’s crust like an inhabitant of subterranean faults, calling, crying, shouting, soon bruised by the projections of the rocks, falling and getting up again bloody, trying to drink the blood that covered my face, and always expecting that some wall would present the obstacle on which I would fracture my skull.
Where did this mad career take me? I will never know. After several hours, no doubt at the end of my strength, I fell down like a lifeless mass at the foot of the wall, and lost all awareness of my existence!