XXII

XXII

THE DESCENT STARTED OVER again, this time by way of the other tunnel. Hans walked first, as was his custom. We had not walked a hundred paces when the professor, moving his lantern along the walls, exclaimed:

“Here are primitive rocks. Now we’re on the right way. Let’s go! Let’s go!”

When the earth was slowly cooling in its early stages, its contraction produced displacements, ruptures, retrenchments, and cracks in its crust. Our current tunnel was such a fissure, through which eruptive granite flowed at one time. Its thousand turns formed an inextricable labyrinth in the primeval soil.

As we descended, the succession of layers that made up the primitive foundation manifested itself more distinctly. Geological science considers this primitive matter the base of the mineral crust, and has discovered that it is made up of three different strata, schists, gneisses, and mica schists resting on that unshakable rock called granite.

Never had mineralogists found themselves in such wonderful circumstances to study nature in situ. What the drill, an unintelligent and brutal machine, could not relay to the surface about the inner texture of the globe, we were able to examine with our own eyes and touch with our own hands.

Through the beds of schist, colored in beautiful shades of green, meandered metallic threads of copper and manganese with traces of platinum and gold. I thought about these riches buried in the bowels of the globe that greedy humanity will never enjoy! These treasures have been buried at such depths by the upheavals of primeval days that neither ice-pick nor pickaxe will ever be able to tear them from their grave.

The schists were succeeded by stratified gneisses, remarkable for the parallelism and regularity of its laminae, then mica schists arranged in large sheets that were outlined to the eye by the sparkling of white mica.

The light from our devices, reflected from the small facets in the mass of rock, shot sparkling rays at every angle, and I imagined I was traveling through a hollow diamond, on whose inside the light beams shattered in a thousand coruscations.

At about six o’clock this feast of light diminished appreciably, then almost ceased; the walls took on a crystalline but dark appearance; mica mingled more intimately with feldspar and quartz to form the essential rock, the hardest stone of all, the one that supports the four layered terrains of the globe. We were immured in an immense prison of granite.

It was eight in the evening. There was still no water. I was suffering horribly. My uncle walked at the front. He refused to stop. He listened anxiously for the murmur of some spring. But nothing!

But my legs refused to carry me any further. I resisted my torture so as not to force my uncle to stop. It would have been a stroke of desperate misfortune for him, because the day was coming to an end, the last one that belonged to him.

Finally my strength left me. I uttered a cry and fell.

“Come to me! I’m dying!”

My uncle retraced his steps. He looked at me with his arms crossed; then these muttered words passed his lips:

“It’s all over!”

The last thing I saw was a frightening gesture of rage, and I closed my eyes.

When I reopened them I saw my two companions motionless and rolled up in their blankets. Were they asleep? As for me, I could not get one moment’s sleep. I was suffering too much, especially from the thought that there was no remedy. My uncle’s last words echoed in my ear: “It’s all over!” For in such a state of weakness it was impossible to think of going back to the surface of the globe.

We had a league and a half of terrestrial crust on top of us! It seemed to me that the weight of this mass bore down on my shoulders with all its power. I felt crushed, and exhausted myself with violent exertions to turn round on my granite couch.

A few hours passed. Deep silence reigned around us, the silence of the grave. Nothing reached us through these walls, the thinnest of which was five miles thick.

Yet in the midst of my slumber I believed I heard a sound. It was dark in the tunnel. I looked more carefully, and I seemed to see the Icelander vanishing with the lamp in his hand.

Why this departure? Was Hans going to abandon us? My uncle was fast asleep. I wanted to shout. My voice could not find a passage through my parched lips. The darkness became deeper, and the last sounds died away.

“Hans is abandoning us,” I shouted. “Hans! Hans!”

But these words were only uttered within me. They did not go any further. Yet after the first moment of terror I felt ashamed of my suspicions against a man whose conduct had had nothing suspect so far. His departure could not be an escape. Instead of ascending the tunnel, he was descending. Evil intentions would have taken him up, not down. This reasoning calmed me down a little, and I returned to another set of thoughts. Only a serious motive could have torn so peaceful a man from his sleep. Was he going on discovery? Had he heard a murmur in the silent night that had not reached me?