What an extraordinary dream! Where would it finally take me? My feverish hand began to write down the marvelous details--details more like the imaginings of a lunatic than anything sober and real. I had during this period of hallucination forgotten everything--the Professor, the guide, and the raft on which we were floating. My mind was in a state of semioblivion.
"What is the matter, Harry?" said my uncle suddenly.
My eyes, which were wide opened like those of a somnambulist, were fixed upon him, but I did not see him, nor could I clearly make out anything around me.
"Take care, my boy," again cried my uncle, "you will fall into the sea."
As he uttered these words, I felt myself seized on the other side by the firm hand of our devoted guide. Had it not been for the presence of mind of Hans, I must infallibly have fallen into the waves and been drowned.
"Have you gone mad?" cried my uncle, shaking me on the other side.
"What--what is the matter?" I said at last, coming to myself.
"Are you ill, Henry?" continued the Professor in an anxious tone.
"No--no; but I have had an extraordinary dream. It, however, has pa.s.sed away. All now seems well," I added, looking around me with strangely puzzled eyes.
"All right," said my uncle; "a beautiful breeze, a splendid sea. We are going along at a rapid rate, and if I am not out in my calculations we shall soon see land. I shall not be sorry to exchange the narrow limits of our raft for the mysterious strand of the subterranean ocean."
As my uncle uttered these words, I rose and carefully scanned the horizon. But the line of water was still confounded with the lowering clouds that hung aloft, and in the distance appeared to touch the edge of the water.
CHAPTER 30
TERRIFIC SAURIAN COMBAT
Sat.u.r.day, August 15th. The sea still retains its uniform monotony. The same leaden hue, the same eternal glare from above. No indication of land being in sight. The horizon appears to retreat before us, more and more as we advance.
My head, still dull and heavy from the effects of my extraordinary dream, which I cannot as yet banish from my mind.
The Professor, who has not dreamed, is, however, in one of his morose and unaccountable humors. Spends his time in scanning the horizon, at every point of the compa.s.s. His telescope is raised every moment to his eyes, and when he finds nothing to give any clue to our whereabouts, he a.s.sumes a Napoleonic att.i.tude and walks anxiously.
I remarked that my uncle, the Professor, had a strong tendency to resume his old impatient character, and I could not but make a note of this disagreeable circ.u.mstance in my journal. I saw clearly that it had required all the influence of my danger and suffering, to extract from him one scintillation of humane feeling. Now that I was quite recovered, his original nature had conquered and obtained the upper hand.
And, after all, what had he to be angry and annoyed about, now more than at any other time? Was not the journey being accomplished under the most favorable circ.u.mstances? Was not the raft progressing with the most marvelous rapidity?
What, then, could be the matter? After one or two preliminary hems, I determined to inquire.
"You seem uneasy, Uncle," said I, when for about the hundredth time he put down his telescope and walked up and down, muttering to himself.
"No, I am not uneasy," he replied in a dry harsh tone, "by no means."
"Perhaps I should have said impatient," I replied, softening the force of my remark.
"Enough to make me so, I think."
"And yet we are advancing at a rate seldom attained by a raft," I remarked.
"What matters that?" cried my uncle. "I am not vexed at the rate we go at, but I am annoyed to find the sea so much vaster than I expected."
I then recollected that the Professor, before our departure, had estimated the length of this subterranean ocean as at most about thirty leagues. Now we had traveled at least over thrice that distance without discovering any trace of the distant sh.o.r.e. I began to understand my uncle"s anger.
"We are not going down," suddenly exclaimed the Professor. "We are not progressing with our great discoveries. All this is utter loss of time.
After all, I did not come from home to undertake a party of pleasure.
This voyage on a raft over a pond annoys and wearies me."
He called this adventurous journey a party of pleasure, and this great inland sea a pond!
"But," argued I, "if we have followed the route indicated by the great Saknussemm, we cannot be going far wrong."
""That is the question," as the great, the immortal Shakespeare, has it.
Are we following the route indicated by that wondrous sage? Did Saknussemm ever fall in with this great sheet of water? If he did, did he cross it? I begin to fear that the rivulet we adopted for a guide has led us wrong."
"In any case, we can never regret having come thus far. It is worth the whole journey to have enjoyed this magnificent spectacle--it is something to have seen."
"I care nothing about seeing, nor about magnificent spectacles. I came down into the interior of the earth with an object, and that object I mean to attain. Don"t talk to me about admiring scenery, or any other sentimental trash."
After this I thought it well to hold my tongue, and allow the Professor to bite his lips until the blood came, without further remark.
At six o"clock in the evening, our matter-of-fact guide, Hans, asked for his week"s salary, and receiving his three rix-dollars, put them carefully in his pocket. He was perfectly contented and satisfied.
Sunday, August 16th. Nothing new to record. The same weather as before.
The wind has a slight tendency to freshen up, with signs of an approaching gale. When I awoke, my first observation was in regard to the intensity of the light. I keep on fearing, day after day, that the extraordinary electric phenomenon should become first obscured, and then go wholly out, leaving us in total darkness. Nothing, however, of the kind occurs. The shadow of the raft, its mast and sails, is clearly distinguished on the surface of the water.
This wondrous sea is, after all, infinite in its extent. It must be quite as wide as the Mediterranean--or perhaps even as the great Atlantic Ocean. Why, after all, should it not be so?
My uncle has on more than one occasion, tried deep-sea soundings. He tied the cross of one of our heaviest crowbars to the extremity of a cord, which he allowed to run out to the extent of two hundred fathoms.
We had the greatest difficulty in hoisting in our novel kind of lead.
When the crowbar was finally dragged on board, Hans called my attention to some singular marks upon its surface. The piece of iron looked as if it had been crushed between two very hard substances.
I looked at our worthy guide with an inquiring glance.
"Tander," said he.
Of course I was at a loss to understand. I turned round towards my uncle, absorbed in gloomy reflections. I had little wish to disturb him from his reverie. I accordingly turned once more towards our worthy Icelander.
Hans very quietly and significantly opened his mouth once or twice, as if in the act of biting, and in this way made me understand his meaning.
"Teeth!" cried I, with stupefaction, as I examined the bar of iron with more attention.
Yes. There can be no doubt about the matter. The indentations on the bar of iron are the marks of teeth! What jaws must the owner of such molars be possessed of! Have we then, come upon a monster of unknown species, which still exists within the vast waste of waters--a monster more voracious than a shark, more terrible and bulky than the whale? I am unable to withdraw my eyes from the bar of iron, actually half crushed!
Is, then, my dream about to come true--a dread and terrible reality?