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Journey to the Center of the Earth
Chapter 20. WATER, WHERE IS IT? A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT
During a long, weary hour, all sorts of reasons ran through my delirious brain about what could have disturbed our quiet, faithful guide.
The most absurd and ridiculous ideas passed through my head.
Each seemed more impossible than the last.
I believe I was either half or wholly mad.
Suddenly, however, a voice like comfort rose, as if from the depths of the earth.
It was the sound of footsteps, Hans was returning.
Soon the uncertain light began to shine on the walls of the passage, and then it appeared far down the sloping tunnel.
At length Hans himself came into view.
He went up to my uncle, put his hand on his shoulder, and gently woke him.
My uncle, as soon as he saw who it was, rose at once.
"Well!" exclaimed the Professor.
"Vatten," said the hunter.
I didn't know a single word of Danish, and yet by a kind of mysterious instinct I understood what the guide had said.
"Water, water!" I cried in a wild, frantic tone, clapping my hands and making gestures like a madman.
"Water!" murmured my uncle in a voice of deep feeling and thanks.
"Hvar?" "Where?"
"Nedat." "Below."
"Where? below!" I understood every word.
I had taken the hunter by the hands, and I shook them heartily while he watched with his usual calmness.
The preparations for our departure didn't take long, and we soon began a rapid descent into the tunnel.
An hour later we had moved a thousand yards and descended two thousand feet.
At that moment I heard a familiar sound running along the floors of the granite rock.
It was a kind of dull and heavy roar, like that of a distant waterfall.
During the first half hour of our advance, not finding the spring Hans had said, my intense suffering seemed to come back.
Once more I began to lose all hope.
My uncle, seeing how down I was getting, started a conversation.
"Hans was right," he said with excitement.
"That's the dull roaring of a torrent."
"A torrent," I cried, delighted to hear the welcome word.
"There's no doubt about it," he replied, "a subterranean river is flowing beside us."
I made no answer but hurried on, once more filled with hope.
I hardly felt the deep tiredness that had overpowered me before.
The very sound of this glorious water already refreshed me.
We could hear it getting louder every moment.
The torrent, which for a long time seemed to flow above us, now ran clearly along the left wall, roaring, rushing, splashing, and still falling.
Several times I passed my hand over the rock hoping to find some sign of wetness or the slightest seepage, Alas, in vain.
Another half hour passed in the same weary work, Again we walked forward.
It now became clear that the hunter hadn't been able to search much farther while he was away.
Guided by an instinct common to mountain people and water finders, he had "smelled" the living spring through the rock.
Still he hadn't seen the precious liquid.
He hadn't quenched his own thirst, nor brought us a single drop in his gourd.
Moreover, we soon found the disastrous fact that if we kept going we'd soon move away from the torrent, whose sound slowly grew smaller.
We went back, Hans stopped at the exact spot where the sound seemed nearest.
I couldn't bear the suspense and pain, so I sat against the wall behind which I could hear water boiling two feet away.
But a solid wall of granite still stood between us and it.
Hans looked hard at me, and, strange enough, for once I thought I saw a smile on his impassive face.
He rose from a stone where he had been sitting and took the lamp.
I couldn't help getting up and following.
He moved slowly along the firm granite wall.
I watched him with mixed curiosity and eagerness.
Soon he stopped and put his ear to the dry stone, moving slowly and listening with the greatest care.
I understood at once that he was looking for the exact place where the torrent's roar was clearest.
He soon found this point in the side wall on the left, about three feet above the tunnel floor.
I felt intense excitement, I hardly dared believe what the eider-duck hunter was about to do.
It was, however, impossible in another moment not to understand and applaud.
I even wanted to cover him with embraces when I saw him raise the heavy crowbar and begin to strike the rock.
"Saved!" I cried.
"Yes," said my uncle, even more excited and pleased than I was.
"Hans is quite right. Oh, the worthy, excellent man! We'd never have thought of such an idea."
And no one else, I think, would have done so.
Such a process, simple as it seemed, would certainly not have entered our heads.
Nothing could be more dangerous than to begin to work with pickaxes in that particular part of the globe.
Suppose while he worked a break-up happened, and suppose the torrent, having gained an inch, took an ell, and came pouring through the broken rock!
Not one of these dangers was imaginary.
They were all too real, but at that moment no fear of the roof falling, or even of flooding, could stop us.
Our thirst was so great that to quench it we'd have dug below the bed of old Ocean itself.
Hans went quietly to work, a task neither my uncle nor I'd have tried at any price.
Our impatience was so strong that if we had begun with pickaxes and crowbar, the rock would soon have cracked into a hundred pieces.
The guide, calm and steady, wore away the hard rock with small blows of his tool, making no hole larger than six inches.
As I stood, I heard the torrent's roar grow louder, and sometimes I felt the water's pleasant touch on my dry lips.
At the end of what seemed an age, Hans had made a hole that let his crowbar go two feet into the solid rock.
He had been at work exactly an hour.
It seemed like twelve, I was getting wild with impatience.
My uncle began to think of using stronger measures.
I had the greatest difficulty in stopping him.
He had indeed just taken up his crowbar when a loud and welcome hiss was heard.
Then a stream, or rather a jet, of water burst through the wall and came out with such force that it hit the opposite side.
Hans, the guide, who was almost knocked over by the shock, could hardly keep from crying out in pain and grief.
I knew what he meant when, plunging my hands into the sparkling jet, I myself gave a wild and frantic cry.
The water was scalding hot, burning my lips and stinging my throat.
"Boiling," I cried in bitter disappointment.
"Well, never mind," said my uncle, "it'll soon get cool."
Vapour clouds began to fill the tunnel while a small stream ran away into the earth.
In a short time we had some cool enough to drink, we swallowed it in huge mouthfuls.
Oh what great delight, what rich and incomparable luxury!
What was this water, where did it come from? To us, what did that matter?
It was water, and though warm, it brought life back to a heart that otherwise would have faded.
I drank eagerly, almost without tasting it.
When I had nearly quenched my fierce thirst, I made a discovery.
"Why, it's chalybeate water!"
"A most excellent stomachic," replied my uncle, "and highly mineralized. Here's a journey worth twenty to Spa."
"It's very good," I answered.
"I should think so."
"Water found six miles underground."
"There's a peculiar inky taste to it, which is by no means unpleasant."
"Hans may congratulate himself on making a rare find."
"What do you say, nephew, by the usual custom of travellers, to name the stream after him?"
"Good," I said.
And the name "Hansbach" "Hans Brook" was agreed at once.
Hans wasn't a bit more proud after hearing our decision than he was before.
After taking a very small share of the welcome drink, he had sat down in a corner with his usual unchanging seriousness.
"Now," I said, "it isn't worth letting this water run to waste."
"What use is that," replied my uncle, "the source from which this river rises is endless."
"Never mind," I continued, "let us fill our goatskin and gourds, and then try to stop the opening."
My advice, after some hesitation, was followed or at least tried.
Hans picked up all the broken pieces of granite he had knocked out.
Using some tow he had with him, he tried to close the crack he had made in the wall.
All he did was scald his hands.
The pressure was too great and all our attempts failed.
It's clear," I said, "that the upper surface of these springs is at a great height above us, as we infer from the force of the jet.
"That's by no means doubtful," replied my uncle.
"If this column of water is about thirty two thousand feet high, the atmospheric pressure must be enormous. But a new idea has just come to me."
"And what's that?"
"Why trouble so much to close this opening?"
"Because. " I hesitated and stammered, having no real reason.
"When our water bottles are empty, we aren't at all sure we'll be able to fill them," observed my uncle.
"I think that's very likely."
"Well then, let this water run. It'll, of course, naturally follow our track and will serve to guide and refresh us."
"I think the idea is a good one,"
I cried, "and with this little river as a companion, there's no further reason why we shouldn't succeed in our marvelous project."
"Ah, my boy," said the Professor, laughing, "after all, you're coming round."
"More than that, I'm now confident of ultimate success."
"One moment, nephew. Let us begin by taking some hours of rest."
I had completely forgotten that it was night.
The chronometer, however, told me the fact.
Soon we were restored and refreshed enough and had all fallen into a deep sleep.