Chapter 24

CHAPTER XXIV.

WELL SAID, OLD MOLE! CANST THOU WORK I' THE GROUND SO FAST?

By the next day we had forgotten all our sufferings. At first, I waswondering that I was no longer thirsty, and I was for asking for thereason. The answer came in the murmuring of the stream at my feet.

We breakfasted, and drank of this excellent chalybeate water. I feltwonderfully stronger, and quite decided upon pushing on. Why shouldnot so firmly convinced a man as my uncle, furnished with soindustrious a guide as Hans, and accompanied by so determined anephew as myself, go on to final success? Such were the magnificentplans which struggled for mastery within me. If it had been proposedto me to return to the summit of Snæfell, I should have indignantlydeclined.

Most fortunately, all we had to do was to descend.

"Let us start!" I cried, awakening by my shouts the echoes of thevaulted hollows of the earth.

On Thursday, at 8 a.m., we started afresh. The granite tunnel windingfrom side to side, earned us past unexpected turns, and

seemed almost to form a labyrinth; but, on the whole, its directionseemed to be south-easterly. My uncle never ceased to consult hiscompass, to keep account of the ground gone over.

The gallery dipped down a very little way from the horizontal,scarcely more than two inches in a fathom, and the stream ran gentlymurmuring at our feet. I compared it to a friendly genius guiding usunderground, and caressed with my hand the soft naiad, whosecomforting voice accompanied our steps. With my reviving spiritsthese mythological notions seemed to come unbidden.

As for my uncle, he was beginning to storm against the horizontalroad. He loved nothing better than a vertical path; but this wayseemed indefinitely prolonged, and instead of sliding along thehypothenuse as we were now doing, he would willingly have droppeddown the terrestrial radius. But there was no help for it, and aslong as we were approaching the centre at all we felt that we mustnot complain.

From time to time, a steeper path appeared; our naiad then began totumble before us with a hoarser murmur, and we went down with her toa greater depth.

On the whole, that day and the next we made considerable wayhorizontally, very little vertically.

On Friday evening, the 10th of July, according to our calculations,we were thirty leagues south-east of Rejkiavik, and at a depth of twoleagues and a half.

At our feet there now opened a frightful abyss. My uncle, however,was not to be daunted, and he clapped his hands at the steepness ofthe descent.

"This will take us a long way," he cried, "and without muchdifficulty; for the projections in the rock form quite a staircase."

The ropes were so fastened by Hans as to guard against accident, andthe descent commenced. I can hardly call it perilous, for I wasbeginning to be familiar with this kind