At eight o'clock in the evening,reckoning as above ground,where there is day and night,we are not 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 cannot be less than a thousand fathoms.What,then,is this cetaceous monster of which no Cuvier ever thought?
It is quite motionless and presents the appearance of sleep.The sea seems unable to lift him upwards;it is 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 Iwould 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 is,"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 would not 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,and the enormous jet,taken as it were with sudden fury,shakes its plume of vapor,and bounds into the first layer of the clouds.It is alone.
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 is 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 were now walking on granite mixed with siliceous sandstone;the soil shivered under our feet like the sides of boilers in which over-heated steam is forcibly confined.It is 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 center,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 could not 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 am compelled to confess that until now we have been most remarkably fortunate,and that this voyage is being accomplished in most favorable conditions of temperature;but it appears evident,in fact,certain,that we shall sooner or later arrive at one of those regions where the central heat will reach its utmost limits,and will go far beyond all the possible gradations of thermometers.
Visions of the Hades of the ancients,believed to be in the center of the earth,floated through my imagination.
We shall,however,see what we shall see.That is 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;now it diminished in intensity,and then,suddenly,it regained new vigor,which I attributed to the variation of 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,Imade 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.