A Journey into the Interior of the Earth Part 29

"Where is your lamp?"

"It is out."

"And the stream?"

"Disappeared."

"Axel, Axel, take courage!"

 

"Wait! I am exhausted! I can't answer. Speak to me!"

"Courage," resumed my uncle. "Don't speak. Listen to me. We have looked for you up the gallery and down the gallery. Could not find you. I wept for you, my poor boy. At last, supposing you were still on the Hansbach, we fired our guns. Our voices are audible to each other, but our hands cannot touch. But don't despair, Axel! It is a great thing that we can hear each other."

During this time I had been reflecting. A vague hope was returning to my heart. There was one thing I must know to begin with. I placed my lips close to the wall, saying:

"My uncle!"

"My boy!" came to me after a few seconds.

"We must know how far we are apart."

"That is easy."

"You have your chronometer?"

"Yes."

"Well, take it. p.r.o.nounce my name, noting exactly the second when you speak. I will repeat it as soon as it shall come to me, and you will observe the exact moment when you get my answer."

"Yes; and half the time between my call and your answer will exactly indicate that which my voice will take in coming to you."

"Just so, my uncle."

"Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Now, attention. I am going to call your name."

I put my ear to the wall, and as soon as the name 'Axel' came I immediately replied "Axel," then waited.

"Forty seconds," said my uncle. "Forty seconds between the two words; so the sound takes twenty seconds in coming. Now, at the rate of 1,120 feet in a second, this is 22,400 feet, or four miles and a quarter, nearly."

"Four miles and a quarter!" I murmured.

"It will soon be over, Axel."

"Must I go up or down?"

"Down--for this reason: We are in a vast chamber, with endless galleries. Yours must lead into it, for it seems as if all the clefts and fractures of the globe radiated round this vast cavern. So get up, and begin walking. Walk on, drag yourself along, if necessary slide down the steep places, and at the end you will find us ready to receive you. Now begin moving."