Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 04.djvu/83

Rh ometer waa wanting, and no summary estimation could take the place of it. The Temperature Rises — They Are Floating on Lava AS we progressed, the temperature increased in the most extraordinary degree, and I be- gan to feel as if I were bathed in a hot and burning atmosphere. Never before had I felt any- thing like it. I could only compare it to the hot vapor from an iron foundry, when the liquid iron is in a state of ebullition and runs over. By degrees, and one after the other, Hans, my uncle, and myself had taken off our coats and waistcoats. They were unbearable. Even the slightest garment was the cause of extreme suffering. "Are we ascending to a living fire?" I cried; when, to my horror and astonishment, the heat be- came greater than before. "No, no," said by uncle, "it is simply impossible, quite impossible." "And yet," said I, touching the side of the shaft with my naked hand, "this wall is literally burn- ing." At this moment, feeling as I did that the sides of this extraordinary wall were red hot, I plunged my hands into the water to cool them. I drew them back with a cry of despair. "The water is boiling!" I cried. My uncle, the Professor, made no reply other than a gesture of rage and despair. Something very like the truth had probably struck his imagination. An invincible dread took possession of my brain and soul. I could only look forward to an immedi- ate catastrophe, such a catastrophe as not even the most vivid imagination could have thought of. An idea, at first vague and uncertain, was gradually being changed into certainty. It was so terrible an idea that I scarcely dared to whisper it to myself. Yet all the while certain, and as it were, involun- tary observations determined my convictions. By the doubtful glare of the torch, I could make out some singular changes in the granitic strata; a strange and terrible phenomenon was about to be produced, in which electricity played a part. Then this boiling water, this terrible and excessive heat? I determined as a last resource to examine the com- pass. The compass had gone mad ! Yes, wholly stark, staring mad. The needle jumped from pole to pole with sudden and surprising jerks, ran round, or as it is said, boxed the compass, and then ran suddenly back again as if it he had the vertigo. Terrible detonations, like heaven's artillery, be- gan to multiply themselves with fearful intensity. I could only compare them with the noise made by hundreds of heavily-laden chariots being madly driven over a stone pavement. It was a continuous roll of heavy thunder. They a o the Volcanic Shaft of a Crater in Full Action ND then the mad compass, shaken by the wild electric phenomena, confirmed me in my rap- . idly formed opinion. The mineral crust was about to burst, the heavy granite masses' were about to rejoin, the fissure was about to close, thavoid was about to be filled up, and we poor atoms to be crushed in its awful embrace ! "Uncle,-- uncle!" I pried, "we are wholly, irretrievably lost!" "What, then my young friend, is your new cause of terror and alarm?" he said, in his calmest man- ner. "What fear you now?" "What do I fear now!" I cried, in fierce and angry tones. "Do you not see that the walls of the shaft are "in motion? do you not see that the solid granite masses are cracking? do you not feel the terrible, torrid heat? do you not observe the awful boiling water on which we float? do you not remark this mad needle? every sign and portent of an aw- ful earthquake?" i My uncle coolly shook his head. "An earth- quake?" he questioned in the most calm and pro- voking tone. "Yes." "My nephew, I tell you that you are utterly mis- taken," he continued. "Do you not, can you not, recognize all the well- known symptoms " "Of an earthquake?" by no means. I am expect- ing something far more important." "My brain is strained beyond endurance — what, what do you mean?" I cried. "An eruption, Harry." "An eruption," I gasped. "We are, then, in the volcanic shaft of a crater in full action and vigor." "I have every reason to' think so," said the Pro- fessor in a smiling tone, "and I beg -to tell you that it is the most fortunate thing that could hap- pen to us." The most fortunate thing ! Had my uncle really and truly gone mad? What did he mean by these awful words — what did he mean by this terrible calm, this solemn smile? "What!" cried I, in the height of my exasperation, "we are on the way to an eruption, are we? Fatality has cast us into a well of burning and boiling lava, of rocks on fire, of boiling water, in a word, filled with every kind of eruptive matter? We are about to be expelled, thrown up, vomited, spit out of the interior of the earth, in common with huge blocks of granite, with showers of cinders and scorise, in a wild whirlwind of flame, and you say^-the most fortunate thing .which could happen to us." "Yes," replied the Professor, looking at me calm- ly from under his spectacles, "it is the only chance which remains to us of ever escaping from the in- terior of the earth to the light of day." It is quite impossible that I can put on paper the thousand strange, wild thoughts which followed this extraordinary announcement. But my uncie was right, quite right, and never had he appeared to me so audacious and so convinced as when he looked me calmly in the - face and spoke of the chances of an eruption— of our being cast upon mother earth once more through the gaping crater of a volcano! It is Not a Shaft of Sneffels pHIUE we were speaking we were still as- cending; we passed the whole night going or to speak more scientifically, in an ascensional motion. The fearful noise redoubled; I was ready to suffocate. I seriously believed that my last hour was approaching, and yet, so strange is imagination, all I thought of was some childish hy- pothesis or other. In such circumstances you do not choose your own thoughts. They overcome you.