XXXIV

XXXIV

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19.—FORTUNATELY the wind blows powerfully, and has allowed us to flee quickly from the scene of the battle. Hans keeps his post at the helm. My uncle, drawn out of his absorbing reflections by the incidents of the combat, falls back into his impatient contemplations of the ocean.

The voyage resumes its monotonous uniformity, which I would not like to break with a repetition of yesterday’s dangers.

Thursday, August 20.—Unsteady wind N.N.E. Temperature high. We sail at a rate of three and a half leagues per hour.

At about noon, a very distant noise can be heard. I note the fact here without being able to provide an explanation. It is a continuous roar.

“In the distance,” says the professor, “there is a rock or islet against which the sea breaks.”

Hans climbs up on the mast, but sees no breakers. The ocean is smooth all the way to the horizon.

Three hours pass. The roar seems to come from a distant waterfall.

I point this out to my uncle, who shakes his head. But I am convinced that I am right. Are we then speeding toward some waterfall that will precipitate us into an abyss? This method of descent might possibly please the professor, because it is almost vertical, but as for me...

In any case, there must be some noisy phenomenon several leagues windward, for now the roar resounds with great intensity. Does it come from the sky or the ocean?

I look up at the steam suspended in the atmosphere and try to probe its depth. The sky is calm. The clouds, having floated to the top of the vault, seem motionless and fade in the intense glare of the light. The cause of this phenomenon must therefore lie elsewhere.

Then I examine the clear horizon with no trace of mist. Its appearance has not changed. But if this noise comes from a waterfall, if this entire ocean crashes into a lower basin, if this roar is produced by a mass of falling water, the current should accelerate, and its increasing speed will give me the measure of the peril that threatens us. I check the current. There is none. An empty bottle that I throw into the ocean stays in the direction of the wind.

At about four Hans rises, grips the mast, climbs to its top. From there his gaze sweeps the partial circle of the ocean in front of the raft and stops at one point. His face expresses no surprise, but his eye remains at that point.

“He’s seen something,” says my uncle.

“I believe so.”

Hans comes back down, then points with his arm to the south and says:

“Dere nere!”

“Down there?” replies my uncle.

Then, seizing his telescope, he gazes attentively for a minute, which seems to me a century.

“Yes, yes!” he exclaims.

“What do you see?”

“I see an immense fountain rising from the water.”

“Another sea animal?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then let’s steer farther westward, because we know about the danger of running into prehistoric monsters!”

“Let’s go straight,” replies my uncle.

I turn to Hans. He maintains the helm with inflexible rigor.

Yet if at our current distance from the animal, which is at least twelve leagues, we can see the fountain of water from its blow-hole, it must be of a supernatural size. Taking flight would be nothing more than following the rules of the most elementary caution. But we did not come here to be cautious.

So we press on. The closer we draw, the taller the water fountain becomes. What monster can possibly fill itself with such a quantity of water, and spurt it up so continuously?

At eight in the evening, we are less than two leagues away. Its blackish, enormous, mountainous body rests on the sea like an island. Is it imagination, is it fear? Its length seems to exceed a thousand fathoms! What can be this cetacean that neither Cuvier nor Blumenbachbm anticipated? It lies motionless, as if asleep; the sea seems unable to lift it, and the waves play on its sides. The fountain of water propelled to a height of five hundred feet falls back down in a rain with deafening noise. And here we speed like madmen toward this powerful mass that a hundred whales would not nourish even for a day!

Terror grips hold of me. I don’t want to go any further! I will cut the halyard if necessary! I am in open mutiny against the professor, who does not reply.

Suddenly Hans rises and points with his finger at the threatening object:

“Holme!” he says.

“An island!” cries my uncle.

“An island!” I say in turn, shrugging my shoulders.

“Obviously,” replies the professor, breaking out into a loud laugh.

“But that fountain of water?”

“Geyser,” utters Hans.

“Ah! Undoubtedly, a geyser!” my uncle replies, “a geyser like those in Iceland.”bn

At first I refuse to admit that I have been so crudely mistaken. Taking an island for a sea monster! But the evidence is against me, and I finally have to acknowledge my error. It is nothing more than a natural phenomenon.

As we draw nearer, the dimensions of the water column become magnificent. The islet deceptively resembles an enormous cetacean whose head rests above the waves at a height of six fathoms. The geyser, a word that the Icelanders pronounce ‘geysir’ and which means ‘fury,’ rises majestically to its full height. Dull explosions take place from time to time, and the enormous jet, gripped by a more furious rage, shakes its plume of steam and leaps up to the first layer of clouds. It stands alone. Neither steam vents nor hot springs surround it, and all the volcanic power gathers in it. Rays of electric light mingle with the dazzling fountain, every drop of which refracts all the prismatic colors.

“Let’s land,” says the professor.

But we must carefully avoid this waterspout, which would sink our raft in a moment. Hans, steering skillfully, takes us to the other end of the islet.

I jump onto the rock; my uncle follows me nimbly, while the hunter remains at his post, like a man beyond amazement.

We walk on granite mixed with siliceous tuff. The ground trembles under our feet, like the sides of an overheated boiler filled with steam struggling to get loose; it is scalding hot. We come in sight of a small lake at the center, from which the geyser springs. I dip an overflow thermometer into the boiling water, and it indicates a temperature of 163°C.

So this water comes out of a burning furnace. This markedly contradicts Professor Lidenbrock’s theories. I cannot help but point it out.

“Well,” he replies, “what does this prove against my doctrine?”

“Nothing,” I say dryly, realizing that I am up against inflexible obstinacy.

Nevertheless I am forced to admit that we have so far enjoyed extraordinarily favorable circumstances, and that for some reason that eludes me, our journey takes place under special temperature conditions. But it seems obvious to me that one day we will reach the areas where the core heat reaches its highest limits and exceeds all the gradations of our thermometers.

We shall see. That is what the professor says who, after naming this volcanic islet after his nephew, gives the signal to embark.

I continue to contemplate the geyser for a few minutes. I notice that its jet is variable in strength: sometimes its intensity decreases, then it returns with renewed vigor, which I attribute to the variable pressure of the steam that has gathered in its reservoir.

At last we leave by steering around the very pointed rocks in the south. Hans has taken advantage of the stop-over to fix up the raft.

But before going any further, I make a few observations to calculate the distance we have covered, and note them in my journal. We have crossed two hundred and seventy leagues of ocean since leaving Port Graüben, and we are six hundred and twenty leagues away from Iceland, underneath England.