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Journey to the Center of the Earth
Chapter 24. LOST!
No words in any human language can show my complete despair.
I was literally buried alive and had no other hope than to die slowly from hunger and thirst.
Mechanically I crawled about, feeling the dry and arid rock.
Never before had I felt anything so dry.
But I asked myself in a panic, how had I lost the course of the flowing stream?
There could be no doubt it had stopped flowing in the gallery I was now in.
Now I began to see why the strange silence had been there when I last listened for any call from my companions.
It happened that when I first made a careless step in the wrong direction, I didn't notice the absence of the all-important stream.
It was clear when we stopped another tunnel had taken the waters of the torrent and I had unknowingly entered a different gallery.
To what unknown depths had my companions gone? Where was I?
How to get back? There was absolutely no clue or landmark.
My feet left no marks on the granite and shingle.
My mind throbbed with pain as I tried to find a solution to this terrible problem.
My situation, after all thought and reflection, had to be summed up in three awful words, Lost! Lost!! LOST!!!
Lost at a depth that, to my limited understanding, seemed to be immeasurable.
These thirty leagues of the earth's crust weighed on my shoulders like the globe on Atlas's shoulders.
I felt crushed by the awful weight.
It was indeed a position to drive a sane man to madness.
I tried to bring my thoughts back to the things of the world I had so long forgotten.
It was with great difficulty that I could do that.
Hamburg, the house on the Konigstrasse, my dear cousin Gretchen all that world which had before vanished like a shadow floated before my now vivid imagination.
There they were before me, but how unreal.
Under the force of a terrible hallucination I saw all the events of our journey pass before me like the scenes of a panorama.
The ship and its people, Iceland, M.
Fridriksson, and the great summit of Mount Sneffels.
I told myself that, if in my position I kept even a faint and shadowy hope, it would be a sure sign of coming delirium.
It would be better to give way completely to despair.
In fact, if I tried to reason calmly and philosophically, what human power existed that could take me back to the surface of the earth?
What force would be ready to split apart and tear in two those huge, mighty vaults that stood above my head?
Who could make me find my road and regain my companions?
Insane folly and madness to hold even a shadow of hope.
"Oh, Uncle!" was my despairing cry.
This was the only word of reproach that came to my lips.
I fully understood how deeply and sadly the worthy Professor would regret my loss, and how in his turn he'd patiently look for me.
At last I began to accept that no more help could be expected from man.
Knowing I was completely unable to do anything for my own rescue, I kneeled with earnest feeling and asked help from Heaven.
The memory of my innocent childhood, the memory of my mother known only in my infancy, came welling from my heart.
I turned to prayer, bowing my head and pleading for mercy and guidance.
Though I had little right to be remembered by Him I had forgotten in happier times and belatedly invoked, I prayed earnestly.
This return to my youthful faith brought greater calm.
And I was able to focus all my strength and intelligence on the terrible realities of my unprecedented situation.
I had with me what I had first quite forgotten three days' food.
Also, my water bottle was quite full.
Still, the one thing I couldn't do was to remain alone.
I had to try to find my companions at any cost.
But which way should I go? Should I go up, or descend again?
Surely it was right to go back upward.
By doing that with care and coolness, I should reach the point where I had turned away from the rippling stream.
I must find the fatal fork where the stream had split and my path divided.
Once at that spot, with the river at my feet, I could at least regain the awful crater of Mount Sneffels.
Why had I not thought of this before?
This, at last, was a reasonable hope of safety.
The most important thing then was to discover the bed of the Hansbach.
After a light meal and a drink of water, I rose like a man refreshed.
Leaning heavily on my pole, I began to climb the gallery.
The slope was very steep and rather hard.
But I went forward carefully, like a man who has found his way out of a forest and knows only one road.
For one whole hour nothing stopped my progress.
As I went on, I tried to remember the tunnel's shape and rock projections to convince myself I had passed these turns before.
But no single sign came to mind.
And I was soon forced to admit that this gallery would never take me back to the point where I had left my companions.
It was absolutely without exit a mere blind alley in the earth.
The moment at last came when, facing the solid rock, I knew my fate and fell inanimate on the arid floor.
To describe the horrible state of despair and fear I then fell into would now be useless and impossible.
My last hope, the courage that had kept me up, drooped before the sight of this pitiless granite rock.
Lost in a vast labyrinth whose twists spread in every direction, without guide, clue or compass, I knew it was useless to try to escape.
All that remained was to lie down and die.
To lie down and die the most cruel and horrible of deaths.
In my state of mind the idea came that one day my fossil bones might be found far below the earth.
Their discovery could then cause solemn and interesting scientific arguments.
I tried to cry aloud, but hoarse, hollow and inarticulate sounds alone came through my dry lips, I literally panted for breath.
In the midst of these horrible sources of anguish and despair, a new horror took hold of my soul.
My lamp, by falling, had been put out of order.
I had no way to fix it.
Its light was already growing paler and soon would die.
With a strange feeling of resignation and despair, I watched the luminous current in the coil become less and less.
A procession of shadows flashed along the granite wall.
I hardly dared to close my eyelids, fearing to lose the last spark of this fleeting light.
Every moment it seemed to me that it would vanish and leave me forever in utter darkness.
At last one final trembling flame remained in the lamp.
I followed it with all my power of sight, I gasped for breath.
I fixed on it all the power of my soul, like on the last light I would ever see.
Then I was to be lost forever in deep and endless darkness.
A wild and plaintive cry left my lips.
On earth, even in the most profound and almost total darkness, light never allows a complete end to its power.
Light is so spread, so subtle, that it goes everywhere, and whatever little may remain the eye will find it.
In this place nothing the absolute dark made me blind in every sense.
My head was now quite lost, I raised my arms, feeling for the cold stone wall.
It was painful in the extreme, Madness must have taken me, I knew not what I did.
I began to run, rushing through this tangled labyrinth, always descending, running under the earth's crust like a creature of the underground furnaces.
I screamed, roared, and howled until bruised by the sharp rocks, falling and picking myself up, all covered with blood.
I tried madly to drink the blood that ran from my torn face, maddened because it only trickled over my cheeks.
I always watched for that horrid wall that stood before me, the terrible obstacle against which I couldn't dash my head.
Where was I going? It was impossible to say, I was completely ignorant.
Several hours passed like this, my strength slowly draining as I stumbled blindly onward.
After a long time, having used up my strength, I fell a heavy, inert mass beside the tunnel and lost consciousness.