The slope of waters,which was carrying us away,was far greater than that of the most rapid river of America.The whole surface of the stream seemed to 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 Ishall 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.