A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
be composed of liquid arrows, darted forward with extreme violence and
power. I can give no idea of the impression it made upon me.
The raft, at times, caught in certain whirlpools, and rushed forward,
yet turned on itself all the time. How it did not upset I shall never be
able to understand. When it approached the sides of the gallery, I took
care to throw upon them the light of the lantern, and I was able to
judge of the rapidity of motion by looking at the projecting masses of
rock, which as soon as seen were again invisible. So rapid was our
progress that points of rock at a considerable distance one from the
other appeared like portions of transverse lines, which enclosed us in a
kind of net, like that of a line of telegraphic wires.
I believe we were now going at a rate of not less than a hundred miles
an hour.
My uncle and I looked at one another with wild and haggard eyes; we
clung convulsively to the stump of the mast, which, at the moment when
the catastrophe took place, had snapped short off. We turned our backs
as much as possible to the wind, in order not to be stifled by a
rapidity of motion which nothing human could face and live.
And still the long monotonous hours went on. The situation did not
change in the least, though a discovery I suddenly made seemed to
complicate it very much.
When we had slightly recovered our equilibrium, I proceeded to examine
our cargo. I then made the unsatisfactory discovery that the greater
part of it had utterly disappeared.
I became alarmed, and determined to discover what were our resources. My
heart beat at the idea, but it was absolutely necessary to know on what
we had to depend. With this view, I took the lantern and looked around.
Of all our former collection of nautical and philosophical instruments,
there remained only the chronometer and the compass. The ladders and
ropes were reduced to a small piece of rope fastened to the stump of the
mast. Not a pickax, not a crowbar, not a hammer, and, far worse than
all, no food--not enough for one day!
This discovery was a prelude to a certain and horrible death.
Seated gloomily on the raft, clasping the stump of the mast
mechanically, I thought of all I had read as to sufferings from
starvation.
I remembered everything that history had taught me on the subject, and I
shuddered at the remembrance of the agonies to be endured.
Maddened at the prospects of enduring the miseries of starvation, I
persuaded myself that I must be mistaken. I examined the cracks in the
raft; I poked between the joints and beams; I examined every possible
hole and corner. The result was--simply nothing!
Our stock of provisions consisted of nothing but a piece of dry meat and
some soaked and half-moldy biscuits.
I gazed around me scared and frightened. I could not understand the
awful truth. And yet of what consequence was it in regard to any new
danger? Supposing that we had had provisions for months, and even for
years, how could we ever get out of the awful abyss into which we were
being hurled by the irresistible torrent we had let loose?
Why should we trouble ourselves about the sufferings and tortures to be
endured from hunger when death stared us in the face under so many other
swifter and perhaps even more horrid forms?
It was very doubtful, under the circumstances in which we were placed,
if we should have time to die of inanition.
But the human frame is singularly constituted.
I know not how it was; but, from some singular hallucination of the
mind, I forgot the real, serious, and immediate danger to which we were
exposed, to think of the menaces of the future, which appeared before us
in all their naked terror. Besides, after all, suggested Hope, perhaps
we might finally escape the fury of the raging torrent, and once more
revisit the glimpses of the moon, on the surface of our beautiful Mother
Earth.
How was it to be done? I had not the remotest idea. Where were we to
come out? No matter, so that we did.
One chance in a thousand is always a chance, while death from hunger
gave us not even the faintest glimpse of hope. It left to the
imagination nothing but blank horror, without the faintest chance of
escape!
I had the greatest mind to reveal all to my uncle, to explain to him the
extraordinary and wretched position to which we were reduced, in order
that, between the two, we might make a calculation as to the exact space
of time which remained for us to live.
It was, it appeared to me, the only thing to be done. But I had the
courage to hold my tongue, to gnaw at my entrails like the Spartan boy.
I wished to leave him all his coolness.
At this moment, the light of the lantern slowly fell, and at last went
out!
The wick had wholly burnt to an end. The obscurity became absolute. It
was no longer possible to see through the impenetrable darkness! There
was one torch left, but it was impossible to keep it alight. Then, like
a child, I shut my eyes, that I might not see the darkness.
After a great lapse of time, the rapidity of our journey increased. I
could feel it by the rush of air upon my face. The slope of the waters
was excessive. I began to feel that we were no longer going down a
slope; we were falling. I felt as one does in a dream, going down
bodily--falling; falling; falling!
I felt that the hands of my uncle and Hans were vigorously clasping my
arms.
Suddenly, after a lapse of time scarcely appreciable, I felt something
like a shock. The raft had not struck a hard body, but had suddenly been
checked in its course. A waterspout, a liquid column of water, fell upon
us. I felt suffocating. I was being drowned.
Still the sudden inundation did not last. In a few seconds I felt myself
once more able to breathe. My uncle and Hans pressed my arms, and the
raft carried us all three away.
CHAPTER 40
THE APE GIGANS
It is difficult for me to determine what was the real time, but I should
suppose, by after calculation, that it must have been ten at night.
I lay in a stupor, a half dream, during which I saw visions of
astounding character. Monsters of the deep were side by side with the
mighty elephantine shepherd. Gigantic fish and animals seemed to form
strange conjunctions.
The raft took a sudden turn, whirled round, entered another tunnel--this
time illumined in a most singular manner. The roof was formed of porous
stalactite, through which a moonlit vapor appeared to pass, casting its
brilliant light upon our gaunt and haggard figures. The light increased
as we advanced, while the roof ascended; until at last, we were once
more in a kind of water cavern, the lofty dome of which disappeared in a
luminous cloud!
A rugged cavern of small extent appeared to offer a halting place to our
weary bodies.
My uncle and the guide moved as men in a dream. I was afraid to waken
them, knowing the danger of such a sudden start. I seated myself beside
them to watch.
As I did so, I became aware of something moving in the distance, which
at once fascinated my eyes. It was floating, apparently, upon the
surface of the water, advancing by means of what at first appeared
paddles. I looked with glaring eyes. One glance told me that it was
something monstrous.
But what?
It was the great "shark-crocodile" of the early writers on geology.
About the size of an ordinary whale, with hideous jaws and two gigantic
eyes, it advanced. Its eyes fixed on me with terrible sternness. Some
indefinite warning told me that it had marked me for its own.
I attempted to rise--to escape, no matter where, but my knees shook
under me; my limbs trembled violently; I almost lost my senses. And
still the mighty monster advanced. My uncle and the guide made no effort
to save themselves.
With a strange noise, like none other I had ever heard, the beast came
on. His jaws were at least seven feet apart, and his distended mouth
looked large enough to have swallowed a boatful of men.
We were about ten feet distant when I discovered that much as his body
resembled that of a crocodile, his mouth was wholly that of a shark.
His twofold nature now became apparent. To snatch us up at a mouthful it
was necessary for him to turn on his back, which motion necessarily
caused his legs to kick up helplessly in the air.
I actually laughed even in the very jaws of death!
But next minute, with a wild cry, I darted away into the interior of the
cave, leaving my unhappy comrades to their fate! This cavern was deep
and dreary. After about a hundred yards, I paused and looked around.
The whole floor, composed of sand and malachite, was strewn with bones,
freshly gnawed bones of reptiles and fish, with a mixture of mammalia.
My very soul grew sick as my body shuddered with horror. I had truly,
according to the old proverb, fallen out of the frying pan into the
fire. Some beast larger and more ferocious even than the shark-crocodile
inhabited this den.
What could I do? The mouth of the cave was guarded by one ferocious
monster, the interior was inhabited by something too hideous to
contemplate. Flight was impossible!
Only one resource remained, and that was to find some small hiding place
to which the fearful denizens of the cavern could not penetrate. I gazed
wildly around, and at last discovered a fissure in the rock, to which I
rushed in the hope of recovering my scattered senses.
Crouching down, I waited shivering as in an ague fit. No man is brave in
presence of an earthquake, or a bursting boiler, or an exploding
torpedo. I could not be expected to feel much courage in presence of the
fearful fate that appeared to await me.
An hour passed. I heard all the time a strange rumbling outside the
cave.
What was the fate of my unhappy companions? It was impossible for me to
pause to inquire. My own wretched existence was all I could think of.
Suddenly a groaning, as of fifty bears in a fight, fell upon my
ears--hisses, spitting, moaning, hideous to hear--and then I saw--
Never, were ages to pass over my head, shall I forget the horrible
apparition.
It was the Ape Gigans!
Fourteen feet high, covered with coarse hair, of a blackish brown, the
hair on the arms, from the shoulder to the elbow joints, pointing
downwards, while that from the wrist to the elbow pointed upwards, it
advanced. Its arms were as long as its body, while its legs were
prodigious. It had thick, long, and sharply pointed teeth--like a
mammoth saw.
It struck its breast as it came on smelling and sniffing, reminding me
of the stories we read in our early childhood of giants who ate the
Flesh of men and little boys!
Suddenly it stopped. My heart beat wildly, for I was conscious that,
somehow or other, the fearful monster had smelled me out and was peering
about with his hideous eyes to try and discover my whereabouts.
My reading, which as a rule is a blessing, but which on this occasion,
seemed momentarily to prove a curse, told me the real truth. It was the
Ape Gigans, the antediluvian gorilla.
Yes! This awful monster, confined by good fortune to the interior of the
earth, was the progenitor of the hideous monster of Africa.
He glared wildly about, seeking something--doubtless myself. I gave
myself up for lost. No hope of safety or escape seemed to remain.
At this moment, just as my eyes appeared to close in death, there came a
strange noise from the entrance of the cave; and turning, the gorilla
evidently recognized some enemy more worthy his prodigious size and
strength. It was the huge shark-crocodile, which perhaps having disposed
of my friends, was coming in search of further prey.
The gorilla placed himself on the defensive, and clutching a bone some
seven or eight feet in length, a perfect club, aimed a deadly blow at