Chapter 27

CHAPTER XXVII.

LOST IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH

To describe my despair would be impossible. No words could tell it. Iwas buried alive, with the prospect before me of dying of hunger andthirst.

Mechanically I swept the ground with my hands. How dry and hard therock seemed to me!

But how had I left the course of the stream? For it was a terriblefact that it no longer ran at my side. Then I understood the reasonof that fearful, silence, when for the last time I listened to hearif any sound from my companions could reach my ears. At the momentwhen I left the right road I had not noticed the absence of thestream. It is evident that at that moment a deviation had presenteditself before me, whilst the Hansbach, following the caprice ofanother incline, had gone with my companions away into unknown depths.

How was I to return? There was not a trace of their footsteps or ofmy own, for the foot left no mark upon the granite floor. I racked mybrain for a solution of this impracticable problem. One worddescribed my position. Lost!

Lost at an immeasurable depth! Thirty leagues of rock seemed to weighupon my shoulders with a dreadful pressure. I felt crushed.

I tried to carry back my ideas to things on the surface of the earth.I could scarcely succeed. Hamburg, the house in the Königstrasse, mypoor Gräuben, all that busy world underneath which I was wanderingabout, was passing in rapid confusion before my terrified memory. Icould revive with vivid reality all the incidents of our voyage,Iceland, M. Fridrikssen, Snæfell. I said to myself that if, in such aposition as I was now in, I was fool enough to cling to one glimpseof hope, it would be madness, and that the best thing I could do wasto despair.

What human power could restore me to the light of the sun by rendingasunder the huge arches of rock which united over my head,buttressing each other with impregnable strength? Who could place myfeet on the right path, and bring me back to my company?

"Oh, my uncle!" burst from my lips in the tone of despair.

It was my only word of reproach, for I knew how much he must besuffering in seeking me, wherever he might be.

When I saw myself thus far removed from all earthly help I hadrecourse to heavenly succour. The remembrance of my childhood, therecollection of my mother, whom I had only known in my tender earlyyears, came back to me, and I knelt in prayer imploring for theDivine help of which I was so little worthy.

This return of trust in God's providence allayed the turbulence of myfears, and I was enabled to concentrate upon my situation all theforce of my intelligence.

I had three days' provisions with me and my flask was full. But Icould not remain alone for long. Should I go up or down?

Up, of course; up continually.

I must thus arrive at the point where I had left the stream, thatfatal