Zigzag streams of bluish white fire dash down upon the sea and rebound, and then take an upward flight till they strike the granite vault that overarches our heads. Suppose that solid roof should crumble down upon our heads! Other flashes with incessant play cross their vivid fires, while others again roll themselves into balls of living fire which explode like bombshells, but the music of which scarcely-adds to the din of the battle strife that almost deprives us of our senses of hearing and sight; the limit of intense loudness has been passed within which the human ear can distinguish one sound from another. If all the powder magazines in the world were to explode at once, we should hear no more than we do now.
From the under surface of the clouds there are continual emissions of lurid light; electric matter is in continual evolution from their component molecules; the gaseous elements of the air need to be slaked with moisture; for innumerable columns of water rush upwards into the air and fall back again in white foam.
Whither are we flying? My uncle lies full length across the raft.
The heat increases. I refer to the thermometer; it indicates … (the figure is obliterated).
Monday, August 24. - Will there be an end to it? Is the atmospheric condition, having once reached this density, to become final?
We are prostrated and worn out with fatigue. But Hans is as usual. The raft bears on still to the southeast. We have made two hundred leagues since we left Axel Island.
At noon the violence of the storm redoubles. We are obliged to secure as fast as possible every article that belongs to our cargo. Each of us is lashed to some part of the raft. The waves rise above our heads.
For three days we have never been able to make each other hear a word. Our mouths open, our lips move, but not a word can be heard. We cannot even make ourselves heard by approaching our mouth close to the ear.
My uncle has drawn nearer to me. He has uttered a few words. They seem to be ‘We are lost’; but I am not sure.
At last I write down the words: “Let us lower the sail.”
He nods his consent.
Scarcely has he lifted his head again before a ball of fire has bounded over the waves and lighted on board our raft. Mast and sail flew up in an instant together, and I saw them carried up to prodigious height, resembling in appearance a pterodactyle, one of those strong birds of the infant world.
We lay there, our blood running cold with unspeakable terror. The fireball, half of it white, half azure blue, and the size of a ten-inch shell, moved slowly about the raft, but revolving on its own axis with astonishing velocity, as if whipped round by the force of the whirlwind. Here it comes, there it glides, now it is up the ragged stump of the mast, thence it lightly leaps on the provision bag, descends with a light bound, and just skims the powder magazine. Horrible! we shall be blown up; but no, the dazzling disk of mysterious light nimbly leaps aside; it approaches Hans, who fixes his blue eye upon it steadily; it threatens the head of my uncle, who falls upon his knees with his head down to avoid it. And now my turn comes; pale and trembling under the blinding splendour and the melting heat, it drops at my feet, spinning silently round upon the deck; I try to move my foot away, but cannot.
A suffocating smell of nitrogen fills the air, it enters the throat, it fills the lungs. We suffer stifling pains.
Why am I unable to move my foot? Is it riveted to the planks? Alas! the fall upon our fated raft of this electric globe has magnetised every iron article on board. The instruments, the tools, our guns, are clashing and clanking violently in their collisions with each other; the nails of my boots cling tenaciously to a plate of iron let into the timbers, and I cannot draw my foot away from the spot. At last by a violent effort I release myself at the instant when the ball in its gyrations was about to seize upon it, and carry me off my feet ….
Ah! what a flood of intense and dazzling light! the globe has burst, and we are deluged with tongues of fire!
Then all the light disappears. I could just see my uncle at full length on the raft, and Hans still at his helm and spitting fire under the action of the electricity which has saturated him.
But where are we going to? Where?
Tuesday, August 25. - I recover from a long swoon. The storm continues to roar and rage; the lightnings dash hither and thither, like broods of fiery serpents filling all the air. Are we still under the sea? Yes, we are borne at incalculable speed. We have been carried under England, under the channel, under France, perhaps under the whole of Europe.
A fresh noise is heard! Surely it is the sea breaking upon the rocks! But then … .
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CALM PHILOSOPHIC DISCUSSIONS
Here I end what I may call my log, happily saved from the wreck, and I resume my narrative as before.
What happened when the raft was dashed upon the rocks is more than I can tell. I felt myself hurled into the waves; and if I escaped from death, and if my body was not torn over the sharp edges of the rocks, it was because the powerful arm of Hans came to my rescue.
The brave Icelander carried me out of the reach of the waves, over a burning sand where I found myself by the side of my uncle.
Then he returned to the rocks, against which the furious waves were beating, to save what he could. I was unable to speak. I was shattered with fatigue and excitement; I wanted a whole hour to recover even a little.
But a deluge of rain was still falling, though with that violence which generally denotes the near cessation of a storm. A few overhanging rocks afforded us some shelter from the storm. Hans prepared some food, which I could not touch; and each of us, exhausted with three sleepless nights, fell into a broken and painful sleep.
The next day the weather was splendid. The sky and the sea had sunk into sudden repose. Every trace of the awful storm had disappeared. The exhilarating voice of the Professor fell upon my ears as I awoke; he was ominously cheerful.
“Well, my boy,” he cried, “have you slept well?”
Would not any one have thought that we were still in our cheerful little house on the Königstrasse and that I was only just coming down to breakfast, and that I was to be married to Gräuben that day?
Alas! if the tempest had but sent the raft a little more east, we should have passed under Germany, under my beloved town of Hamburg, under the very street where dwelt all that I loved most in the world. Then only forty leagues would have separated us! But they were forty leagues perpendicular of solid granite wall, and in reality we were a thousand leagues asunder!
All these painful reflections rapidly crossed my mind before I could answer my uncle’s question.
“Well, now,” he repeated, “won’t you tell me how you have slept?”
“Oh, very well,” I said. “I am only a little knocked up, but I shall soon be better.”
“Oh,” says my uncle, “that’s nothing to signify. You are only a little bit tired.”
“But you, uncle, you seem in very good spirits this morning.”
“Delighted, my boy, delighted. We have got there.”
“To our journey’s end?”
“No; but we have got to the end of that endless sea. Now we shall go by land, and really begin to go down! down! down!”
“But, my dear uncle, do let me ask you one question.”
“Of course, Axel.”
“How about returning?”
“Returning? Why, you are talking about the return before the arrival.”