Chapter 23

CHAPTER XXIII.

WATER DISCOVERED

For a whole hour I was trying to work out in my delirious brain thereasons which might have influenced this seemingly tranquil huntsman.The absurdest notions ran in utter confusion through my mind. Ithought madness was coming on!

But at last a noise of footsteps was heard in the dark abyss. Hanswas approaching. A flickering light was beginning to glimmer on thewall of our darksome prison; then it came out full at the mouth ofthe gallery. Hans appeared.

He drew close to my uncle, laid his hand upon his shoulder, andgently woke him. My uncle rose up.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"_Watten!_" replied the huntsman.

No doubt under the inspiration of intense pain everybody becomesendowed with the gift of divers tongues. I did not know a word ofDanish, yet instinctively I understood the word he had uttered.

"Water! water!" I cried, clapping my hands and gesticulating like amadman.

"Water!" repeated my uncle. "Hvar?" he asked, in Icelandic.

"_Nedat,_" replied Hans.

"Where? Down below!" I understood it all. I seized the hunter'shands, and pressed them while he looked on me without moving a muscleof his countenance.

The preparations for our departure were not long in making, and wewere soon on our way down a passage inclining two feet in seven. Inan hour we had gone a mile and a quarter, and descended two thousandfeet.

Then I began to hear distinctly quite a new sound of somethingrunning within the thickness of the granite wall, a kind of dull,dead rumbling, like distant thunder. During the first part of ourwalk, not meeting with the promised spring, I felt my agonyreturning; but then my uncle acquainted me with the cause of thestrange noise.

"Hans was not mistaken," he said. "What you hear is the rushing of atorrent."

"A torrent?" I exclaimed.

"There can be no doubt; a subterranean river is flowing around us."

We hurried forward in the greatest excitement. I was no longersensible of my fatigue. This murmuring of waters close at hand wasalready refreshing me. It was audibly increasing. The torrent, afterhaving for some time flowed over our heads, was now running withinthe left wall, roaring and rushing. Frequently I touched the wall,hoping to feel some indications of moisture: But there was no hopehere.

Yet another half hour, another half league was passed.

Then it became clear that the hunter had gone no farther. Guided byan instinct peculiar to mountaineers he had as it were felt thistorrent through the rock; but he had certainly seen none of theprecious liquid; he had drunk nothing himself.

Soon it became evident that if we continued our walk we should widenthe distance between ourselves and the stream, the noise of which wasbecoming fainter.

We returned. Hans stopped where the torrent seemed