Chapter 34

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE GREAT GEYSER

_Wednesday, August 19_. - Fortunately the wind blows violently, andhas enabled us to flee from the scene of the late terrible struggle.Hans keeps at his post at the helm. My uncle, whom the absorbingincidents of the combat had drawn away from his contemplations, beganagain to look impatiently around him.

The voyage resumes its uniform tenor, which I don't care to breakwith a repetition of such events as yesterday's.

Thursday, Aug. 20. - Wind N.N.E., unsteady and fitful. Temperaturehigh. Rate three and a half leagues an hour.

About noon a distant noise is heard. I note the fact without beingable to explain it. It is a continuous roar.

"In the distance," says the Professor, "there is a rock or islet,against which the sea is breaking."

Hans climbs up the mast, but sees no breakers. The ocean' is smoothand unbroken to its farthest limit.

Three hours pass away. The roarings seem to proceed from a verydistant waterfall.

I remark upon this to my uncle, who replies doubtfully: "Yes, I amconvinced that I am right." Are we, then, speeding forward to somecataract which will cast us down an abyss? This method of getting onmay please the Professor, because it is vertical; but for my part Iprefer the more ordinary modes of horizontal progression.

At any rate, some leagues to the windward there must be some noisyphenomenon, for now the roarings are heard with increasing loudness.Do they proceed from the sky or the ocean?

I look up to the atmospheric vapours, and try to fathom their depths.The sky is calm and motionless. The clouds have reached the utmostlimit of the lofty vault, and there lie still bathed in the brightglare of the electric light. It is not there that we must seek forthe cause of this phenomenon. Then I examine the horizon, which isunbroken and clear of all mist. There is no change in its aspect. Butif this noise arises from a fall, a cataract, if all this ocean flowsaway headlong into a lower basin yet, if that deafening roar isproduced by a mass of falling water, the current must needsaccelerate, and its increasing speed will give me the measure of theperil that threatens us. I consult the current: there is none. Ithrow an empty bottle into the sea: it lies still.

About four Hans rises, lays hold of the mast, climbs to its top.Thence his eye sweeps a large area of sea, and it is fixed upon apoint. His countenance exhibits no surprise, but his eye is immovablysteady.

"He sees something," says my uncle.

"I believe he does."

Hans comes down, then stretches his arm to the south, saying:

"_Dere nere!_"

"Down there?" repeated my uncle.

Then, seizing his glass, he gazes attentively for a minute, whichseems to me an age.

"Yes, yes!" he cried. "I see a vast inverted cone rising from thesurface."

"Is it