XXIX

XXIX

WHEN I REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS, I found myself in half-darkness, lying on thick blankets. My uncle was watching over me, to discover the least sign of life on my face. At my first sigh he took my hand; when I opened my eyes he uttered a cry of joy.

“He’s alive! He’s alive!” he exclaimed.

“Yes,” I answered feebly.

“My child,” said my uncle, hugging me to his breast, “you’re saved.”

I was deeply touched by his tone as he uttered these words, and even more by the care that accompanied them. But it took trials such as this to trigger this kind of outpouring from the professor.

At this moment Hans came. He saw my hand in my uncle’s, and I dare say that his eyes expressed a deep satisfaction.

“God dag,” he said.

“Hello, Hans, hello,” I murmured. “And now, Uncle, tell me where we are at present?”

“Tomorrow, Axel, tomorrow. Now you’re still too weak. I’ve bandaged your head with compresses which must not be disturbed. Sleep now, and tomorrow I’ll tell you all.”

“But at least,” I insisted, “tell me what time it is, and what day?”

“Eleven o’clock at night, it’s Sunday today, August 9, and I won’t allow you to ask any more questions until the 10th.”

In truth I was very weak, and my eyes closed involuntarily. I needed a good night’s rest; and I therefore let myself doze off with the thought that my isolation had lasted four long days.

Next morning, on awakening, I looked around me. My bed, made up of all our traveling blankets, had been made in a charming grotto, adorned with splendid stalagmites, and whose ground was covered with fine sand. It was half-dark. There was no torch, no lamp, yet an explicable lightness from outside seeped in through a narrow opening in the grotto. I also heard a vague and indistinct noise, something like the murmuring of waves breaking on a pebbled shore, and at times the whistling of wind.

I wondered whether I was really awake, whether I was still dreaming, whether my brain, injured by the fall, was not perceiving purely imaginary noises. Yet neither eyes nor ears could be so utterly deceived.

“It’s a ray of daylight,” I thought, “seeping in through this cleft in the rock! That really is the murmuring of waves! That’s the whistling of wind! Am I quite mistaken, or have we returned to the surface of the earth? Has my uncle given up the expedition, or might it have happily concluded?”

I was asking myself these unanswerable questions when the professor entered.

“Good morning, Axel!” he said joyfully. “I bet that you’re doing well.”

“Yes, indeed,” I said, sitting up on the blankets.

“You should be, because you’ve slept quietly. Hans and I watched you by turns, and we noticed that your recovery was making good progress.”

“Indeed, I do feel a great deal better, and I’ll give you proof of that presently if you’ll let me have my breakfast.”

“You’ll eat, my lad. The fever has left you. Hans rubbed your wounds with some ointment or other of which the Icelanders keep the secret, and they’ve healed marvelously. Our hunter is a splendid fellow!”

While he talked, my uncle prepared a few provisions, which I devoured eagerly, in spite of his instructions. All the while I overwhelmed him with questions which he answered promptly.

I then learned that my providential fall had brought me exactly to the extremity of an almost vertical shaft; and as I had landed in the midst of an accompanying torrent of stones, the least of which would have been enough to crush me, the conclusion was that a part of the rock mass had come down with me. This frightening vehicle had transported me in this way to the arms of my uncle, where I fell bleeding, unconscious.

“Really,” he said to me, “it’s amazing that you’ve not been killed a hundred times over. But, by God, let’s not separate again, or we risk never seeing each other again.”

“Not separate!” The journey was not over, then? I opened my eyes wide in astonishment, which immediately triggered the question:

“What’s the matter, Axel?”

“I have a question to ask you. You say that I’m safe and sound?”

“Undoubtedly”

“And all my limbs unbroken?”

“Certainly.”

“And my head?”

“Your head, except for a few bruises, is perfectly fine and on your shoulders, where it ought to be.”

“Well then, I’m afraid my brain is troubled.”

“Troubled!”

“Yes. We haven’t returned to the surface of the globe?”

“No, certainly not!”

“Then I must be crazy, because I see daylight, I hear the wind blowing, and the sea breaking on the shore!”

“Ah! is that all?”

“Will you explain ...?”

“I won’t explain anything because it’s inexplicable; but you’ll soon see and understand that the science of geology has not spoken its last word yet.”

“Then let’s go,” I exclaimed, rising up quickly.

“No, Axel, no! The open air might be bad for you.”

“Open air?”

“Yes, the wind is rather strong. I don’t want you to expose yourself like that.”

“But I assure you that I’m perfectly well.”

“A little patience, my boy. A relapse would get us into trouble, and we have no time to lose, because the passage may be long.”

“The passage?”

“Yes, rest today, and tomorrow we’ll set sail.”

“Set sail!”

This last word made me jump up.

What! Set sail! Did we then have a river, a lake, a sea at our disposal ? Was there a ship anchored in some underground harbor?

My curiosity was aroused to the maximum. My uncle tried in vain to restrain me. When he saw that my impatience would do me more harm than satisfying my desire, he gave in.

I dressed in haste. As a precaution, I wrapped myself in one of the blankets, and stepped out of the grotto.