Chapter 34 - Page 2

another sea beast?"

"Perhaps it is."

"Then let us steer farther westward, for we know something of thedanger of coming across monsters of that sort."

"Let us go straight on," replied my uncle.

I appealed to Hans. He maintained his course inflexibly.

Yet, if at our present distance from the animal, a distance of twelveleagues at the least, the column of water driven through its blowersmay be distinctly seen, it must needs be of vast size. The commonestprudence would counsel immediate flight; but we did not come so farto be prudent.

Imprudently, therefore, we pursue our way. The nearer we approach,the higher mounts the jet of water. What monster can possibly fillitself with such a quantity of water, and spurt it up so continuously?

At eight in the evening we are not two leagues distant from it. Itsbody -dusky, enormous, hillocky - lies spread upon the sea like anislet. Is it illusion or fear? Its length seems to me a couple ofthousand yards. What can be this cetacean, which neither Cuvier norBlumenbach knew anything about? It lies motionless, as if asleep; thesea seems unable to move it in the least; it is the waves thatundulate upon its sides. The column of water thrown up to a height offive hundred feet falls in rain with a deafening uproar. And here arewe scudding like lunatics before the wind, to get near to a monsterthat a hundred whales a day would not satisfy!

Terror seizes upon me. I refuse to go further. I will cut thehalliards if necessary! I am in open mutiny against the Professor,who vouchsafes no answer.

Suddenly Hans rises, and pointing with his finger at the menacingobject, he says:

"_Holm._"

"An island!" cries my uncle.

"That's not an island!" I cried sceptically.

"It's nothing else," shouted the Professor, with a loud laugh.

"But that column of water?"

"_Geyser,_" said Hans.

"No doubt it is a geyser, like those in Iceland."

At first I protest against being so widely mistaken as to have takenan island for a marine monster. But the evidence is against me, and Ihave to confess my error. It is nothing worse than a naturalphenomenon.

As we approach nearer the dimensions of the liquid column becomemagnificent. The islet resembles, with a most deceiving likeness, anenormous cetacean, whose head dominates the waves at a height oftwenty yards. The geyser, a word meaning 'fury,' rises majesticallyfrom its extremity. Deep and heavy explosions are heard from time totime, when the enormous jet, possessed with more furious violence,shakes its plumy crest, and springs with a bound till it reaches thelowest stratum of the clouds. It stands alone. No steam vents, no hotsprings surround it, and all the volcanic power of the region isconcentrated here. Sparks of electric fire mingle with the dazzlingsheaf of lighted fluid, every drop of which refracts the