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Journey to the Center of the Earth
Chapter 31. THE SEA MONSTER
Wednesday, August 19th. The day opened with a violent wind that aided our escape.
Fortunately the wind, which for the present blows with some violence, has allowed us to escape from the scene of the unparalleled and extraordinary struggle.
Hans with his usual imperturbable calm remained at the helm.
My uncle, briefly roused from his absorbing reveries by the novel incidents of the sea fight, fell again into a brown study.
His eyes were fixed impatiently on the widespread ocean.
Our voyage now became monotonous and uniform.
Dull as it has become, I have no desire to have it broken by any repetition of the perils and adventures of yesterday.
Thursday, August 20th, the wind is now N.
N, E. and blows very irregularly, it has changed to fitful gusts, the temperature is exceedingly high.
We're now progressing at the average rate of about ten miles and a half per hour.
About twelve o'clock a distant sound as of thunder fell upon our ears.
I make a note of the fact without even venturing a suggestion as to its cause.
It was one continued roar as of a sea falling over mighty rocks.
"Far off in the distance," said the Professor dogmatically.
"There's some rock or some island against which the sea lashed to fury by the wind, is breaking violently."
Hans, without saying a word, clambered to the top of the mast, but could make out nothing.
The ocean was level in every direction as far as the eye could reach.
Three hours passed away without any sign to indicate what might be before us.
The sound began to assume that of a mighty cataract.
I expressed my opinion on this point strongly to my uncle.
He merely shook his head, I, however, am strongly impressed by a conviction that I'm not wrong.
Are we advancing towards some mighty waterfall which shall cast us into the abyss?
This mode of descending into the abyss may appeal to the Professor, as it resembles the vertical descent he's eager to make.
I entertain a very different opinion, and I cannot agree with that view.
Whatever the truth, it is certain that not many leagues away there must be an extraordinary phenomenon, for the roar grows mighty.
Is it in the water, or in the air?
I cast hasty glances aloft at the suspended vapors, and I seek to penetrate their mighty depths, but the vault above is tranquil.
The clouds, which are now elevated to the very summit, appear utterly still and motionless, and completely lost in the irradiation of electric light.
It's necessary, therefore, to seek for the cause of this phenomenon elsewhere.
I examine the horizon, now perfectly calm, pure, and free from all haze, its aspect still remains unchanged.
But if this awful noise proceeds from a cataract, if, so to speak in plain English, this vast interior ocean is precipitated into a lower basin.
If these tremendous roars are produced by the noise of falling waters, the current would increase in activity.
Its increasing swiftness would give me some idea of the extent of the peril with which we're menaced.
I consult the current, it simply doesn't exist, there's no such thing.
An empty bottle cast into the water lies to leeward without motion.
About four o'clock Hans rises, clambers up the mast, and reaches the truck itself.
From this elevated position his looks are cast around.
They take in a vast circumference of the ocean.
At last, his eyes remain fixed, his face expresses no astonishment, but his eyes slightly dilate.
"He has seen something at last," cried my uncle.
"I think so," I replied.
Hans came down, stood beside us, and pointed with his right hand to the south.
"Der nere," he said.
"There," replied my uncle.
And seizing his telescope, he looked at it with great attention for about a minute, which to me appeared an age.
I knew not what to think or expect.
"Yes, yes," he cried in a tone of considerable surprise, "there it's."
"What?" I asked.
"A tremendous spurt of water rising out of the waves."
"Some other marine monster," I cried, already alarmed.
"Perhaps."
"Then let us steer more to the westward, for we know what we have to expect from antediluvian animals," was my eager reply.
"Go ahead," said my uncle.
I turned towards Hans, Hans was at the tiller steering with his usual imperturbable calm.
Nevertheless, we were distant from this creature by no less than a dozen leagues.
Even so, we could still see the column of water spurting from the blow-hole of the great animal.
From that, his dimensions must be something preternatural.
To fly is, therefore, the course to be suggested by ordinary prudence.
But we haven't come into that part of the world to be prudent, Such is my uncle's determination.
We, accordingly, continued to advance, the nearer we come, the loftier is the spouting water.
What monster can fill himself with such huge volumes of water, and then unceasingly spout them out in such lofty jets?
At eight o'clock in the evening, reckoning as above ground, where there's day and night, we aren't more than two leagues from the mighty beast.
Its long, black, enormous, mountainous body, lies on the top of the water like an island.
But then sailors have been said to have gone ashore on sleeping whales, mistaking them for land.
Is it illusion, or is it fear?
Its length can't be less than a thousand fathoms.
What, then, is this cetaceous monster of which no Cuvier ever thought?
It's quite motionless and presents the appearance of sleep.
The sea seems unable to lift him upwards, it's rather the waves which break on his huge and gigantic frame.
The waterspout, rising to a height of five hundred feet, breaks in spray with a dull, sullen roar.
We advance, like senseless lunatics, towards this mighty mass.
I honestly confess that I was abjectly afraid.
I declared that I'd go no farther.
I threatened in my terror to cut the sheet of the sail.
I attacked the Professor with considerable acrimony, calling him foolhardy, mad, I know not what, he made no answer.
Suddenly the imperturbable Hans once more pointed his finger to the menacing object,
"Holme!"
"An island!" cried my uncle.
"An island?" I replied, shrugging my shoulders at this poor attempt at deception.
"Of course it's," cried my uncle, bursting into a loud and joyous laugh.
"But the waterspout?"
"Geyser," said Hans.
"Yes, of course, a geyser," replied my uncle, still laughing, "a geyser like those common in Iceland. Jets like this are the great wonders of the country."
At first I wouldn't allow that I had been so grossly deceived.
What could be more ridiculous than to have taken an island for a marine monster?
But kick as one may, one must yield to evidence, and I was finally convinced of my error.
It was nothing, after all, but a natural phenomenon.
As we approached nearer and nearer, the dimensions of the liquid sheaf of waters became truly grand and stupendous.
The island had, at a distance, presented the appearance of an enormous whale, whose head rose high above the waters.
The geyser, a word the Icelanders pronounce geysir, and which signifies fury, rose majestically from its summit.
Dull detonations are heard every now and then.
The enormous jet, seized with sudden fury, shakes its plume of vapor and bounds into the first layer of the clouds.
It stands alone, the solitary geyser towering above the empty, rugged island summit.
Neither spurts of vapor nor hot springs surround it, and the whole volcanic power of that region is concentrated in one sublime column.
The rays of electric light mix with this dazzling sheaf, every drop as it falls assuming the prismatic colors of the rainbow.
"Let us go on shore," said the Professor, after some minutes of silence.
It's necessary, however, to take great precaution, in order to avoid the weight of falling waters, which would cause the raft to founder in an instant.
Hans, however, steers admirably, and brings us to the other extremity of the island.
I was the first to leap on the rock.
My uncle followed, while the eider-duck hunter remained still, like a man above any childish sources of astonishment.
We walked on granite and siliceous sandstone, the ground shivered under our feet like overheated boilers.
It's burning, we soon came in sight of the little central basin from which rose the geyser.
I plunged a thermometer into the water which ran bubbling from the centre.
And it marked a heat of a hundred and sixty-three degrees!
This water, therefore, came from some place where the heat was intense.
This was singularly in contradiction with the theories of Professor Hardwigg.
I couldn't help telling him my opinion on the subject.
"Well," said he sharply, "and what does this prove against my doctrine?"
"Nothing," replied I dryly, seeing that I was running my head against a foregone conclusion.
Nevertheless, I must confess that so far we have been remarkably fortunate and the voyage has occurred in unusually favorable temperature conditions.
It seems certain we shall sooner or later reach a region where the central heat attains its utmost limits.
There the heat will go far beyond all the possible gradations of thermometers.
Visions of the Hades of the ancients, believed to be in the centre of the earth, floated through my imagination.
We shall, however, see what we shall see, that's the Professor's favorite phrase now.
Having christened the volcanic island by the name of his nephew, the leader of the expedition turned away and gave the signal for embarkation.
I stood still, however, for some minutes, gazing upon the magnificent geyser.
I soon was able to perceive that the upward tendency of the water was irregular.
It diminished in intensity, then suddenly regained vigor, which I attributed to variations in the pressure of the accumulated vapors in its reservoir.
At last we took our departure, going carefully round the projecting, and rather dangerous, rocks of the southern side.
Hans had taken advantage of this brief halt to repair the raft.
Before we took our final departure from the island, however, I made some observations to calculate the distance we had gone over.
And I put them down in my journal.
Since we left Port Gretchen, we had traveled two hundred and seventy leagues, more than eight hundred miles, on this great inland sea.
We were, therefore, six hundred and twenty leagues from Iceland, and exactly under England.