Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 2.djvu/176

 their crests surmounted by combs of flame. My eyes are dazzled, blinded by the intensity of light, my ears are deafened by the awful roar of the elements. I am compelled to hold on to the mast, which bends like a reed beneath the violence of the storm, to which none ever before seen by mariners bore any resemblance.

Here my traveling notes become very incomplete, loose and vague. I have only been able to make out one or two fugitive observations, dotted down in a mere mechanical way. But even their brevity, even their obscurity, show the emotions which overcame me.

Sunday, August 23d. Where have we got to? In what region are we wandering? We are still carried forward with inconceivable rapidity. The night has been fearful, something not to be described. The storm shows no signs of cessation. We exist in the midst of an uproar which has no name. The detonations as of artillery are incessant. Our ears literally bleed. We are unable to exchange a word, or hear each other speak. The lightning never ceases to flash for a single instant. I can see the zigzags after a rapid dart, strike the arched roof of this mightiest of mighty vaults. If it were to give way and fall upon us! Other lightnings plunge their forked streaks in every direction, and take the form of globes of fire, which explode like bomb-shells over a beleaguered city. The general crash and roar do not apparently increase; it has already gone far beyond what human ear can appreciate. If all the powder-magazines in the world were to explode together, it would be impossible for us to hear worse noise.

There is a constant emission of light from the storm-clouds; the electric matter is incessantly released; innumerable columns of water rush up like waterspouts, and fall back upon the surface of the ocean in foam. Whither are we going? My uncle still lies at full length upon the raft, without speaking—without taking any note of time.

Monday, August 24. This terrible storm will never end. Why should not this state of the atmosphere, so dense and murky, once modified, again remain definitive?

We are utterly broken and harassed by fatigue. Hans remains just as usual. The raft runs to the south-east in-