CHAPTER XXXIX.

FOREST SCENERY ILLUMINATED BY ELECTRICITY

For another half hour we trod upon a pavement of bones. We pushed on,

impelled by our burning curiosity. What other marvels did this cavern

contain? What new treasures lay here for science to unfold? I was

prepared for any surprise, my imagination was ready for any

astonishment however astounding.

We had long lost sight of the sea shore behind the hills of bones.

The rash Professor, careless of losing his way, hurried me forward.

We advanced in silence, bathed in luminous electric fluid. By some

phenomenon which I am unable to explain, it lighted up all sides of

every object equally. Such was its diffusiveness, there being no

central point from which the light emanated, that shadows no longer

existed. You might have thought yourself under the rays of a vertical

sun in a tropical region at noonday and the height of summer. No

vapour was visible. The rocks, the distant mountains, a few isolated

clumps of forest trees in the distance, presented a weird and

wonderful aspect under these totally new conditions of a universal

diffusion of light. We were like Hoffmann's shadowless man.

After walking a mile we reached the outskirts of a vast forest, but

not one of those forests of fungi which bordered Port Gräuben.

Here was the vegetation of the tertiary period in its fullest blaze

of magnificence. Tall palms, belonging to species no longer living,

splendid palmacites, firs, yews, cypress trees, thujas,

representatives of the conifers, were linked together by a tangled

network of long climbing plants. A soft carpet of moss and hepaticas

luxuriously clothed the soil. A few sparkling streams ran almost in

silence under what would have been the shade of the trees, but that

there was no shadow. On their banks grew tree-ferns similar to those

we grow in hothouses. But a remarkable feature was the total absence

of colour in all those trees, shrubs, and plants, growing without the

life-giving heat and light of the sun. Everything seemed mixed-up and

confounded in one uniform silver grey or light brown tint like that

of fading and faded leaves. Not a green leaf anywhere, and the

flowers--which were abundant enough in the tertiary period, which

first gave birth to flowers--looked like brown-paper flowers,

without colour or scent.

My uncle Liedenbrock ventured to penetrate under this colossal grove.

I followed him, not without fear. Since nature had here provided

vegetable nourishment, why should not the terrible mammals be there

too? I perceived in the broad clearings left by fallen trees, decayed

with age, leguminose plants, acerineæ, rubiceæ and many other eatable

shrubs, dear to ruminant animals at every period. Then I observed,

mingled together in confusion, trees of countries far apart on the

surface of the globe. The oak and the palm were growing side by side,

the Australian eucalyptus leaned against the Norwegian pine, the

birch-tree of the north mingled its foliage with New Zealand kauris.

It was enough to distract the most ingenious classifier of

terrestrial botany.

Suddenly I halted. I drew back my uncle.

The diffused light revealed the smallest object in the dense and

distant thickets. I had thought I saw--no! I did see, with my own

eyes, vast colossal forms moving amongst the trees. They were

gigantic animals; it was a herd of mastodons--not fossil remains,

but living and resembling those the bones of which were found in the

marshes of Ohio in 1801. I saw those huge elephants whose long,

flexible trunks were grouting and turning up the soil under the trees

like a legion of serpents. I could hear the crashing noise of their

long ivory tusks boring into the old decaying trunks. The boughs

cracked, and the leaves torn away by cartloads went down the

cavernous throats of the vast brutes.

So, then, the dream in which I had had a vision of the prehistoric

world, of the tertiary and post-tertiary periods, was now realised.

And there we were alone, in the bowels of the earth, at the mercy of

its wild inhabitants!

My uncle was gazing with intense and eager interest.

"Come on!" said he, seizing my arm. "Forward! forward!"

"No, I will not!" I cried. "We have no firearms. What could we do in the

midst of a herd of these four-footed giants? Come away, uncle--come! No

human being may with safety dare the anger of these monstrous beasts."

"No human creature?" replied my uncle in a lower voice. "You are

wrong, Axel. Look, look down there! I fancy I see a living creature

similar to ourselves: it is a man!"

I looked, shaking my head incredulously. But though at first I was

unbelieving I had to yield to the evidence of my senses.

In fact, at a distance of a quarter of a mile, leaning against the

trunk of a gigantic kauri, stood a human being, the Proteus of those

subterranean regions, a new son of Neptune, watching this countless

herd of mastodons.

Immanis pecoris custos, immanior ipse. [1]

[1] "The shepherd of gigantic herds, and huger still himself."

Yes, truly, huger still himself. It was no longer a fossil being like

him whose dried remains we had easily lifted up in the field of

bones; it was a giant, able to control those monsters. In stature he

was at least twelve feet high. His head, huge and unshapely as a

buffalo's, was half hidden in the thick and tangled growth of his

unkempt hair. It most resembled the mane of the primitive elephant.

In his hand he wielded with ease an enormous bough, a staff worthy of

this shepherd of the geologic period.

We stood petrified and speechless with amazement. But he might see

us! We must fly!

"Come, do come!" I said to my uncle, who for once allowed himself to

be persuaded.

In another quarter of an hour our nimble heels had carried us beyond

the reach of this horrible monster.

And yet, now that I can reflect quietly, now that my spirit has grown

calm again, now that months have slipped by since this strange and

supernatural meeting, what am I to think? what am I to believe? I

must conclude that it was impossible that our senses had been

deceived, that our eyes did not see what we supposed they saw. No

human being lives in this subterranean world; no generation of men

dwells in those inferior caverns of the globe, unknown to and

unconnected with the inhabitants of its surface. It is absurd to

believe it!

I had rather admit that it may have been some animal whose structure

resembled the human, some ape or baboon of the early geological ages,

some protopitheca, or some mesopitheca, some early or middle ape like

that discovered by Mr. Lartet in the bone cave of Sansau. But this

creature surpassed in stature all the measurements known in modern

palæontology. But that a man, a living man, and therefore whole

generations doubtless besides, should be buried there in the bowels

of the earth, is impossible.

However, we had left behind us the luminous forest, dumb with

astonishment, overwhelmed and struck down with a terror which

amounted to stupefaction. We kept running on for fear the horrible

monster might be on our track. It was a flight, a fall, like that

fearful pulling and dragging which is peculiar to nightmare.

Instinctively we got back to the Liedenbrock sea, and I cannot say

into what vagaries my mind would not have carried me but for a

circumstance which brought me back to practical matters.

Although I was certain that we were now treading upon a soil not

hitherto touched by our feet, I often perceived groups of rocks which

reminded me of those about Port Gräuben. Besides, this seemed to

confirm the indications of the needle, and to show that we had

against our will returned to the north of the Liedenbrock sea.

Occasionally we felt quite convinced. Brooks and waterfalls were

tumbling everywhere from the projections in the rocks. I thought I

recognised the bed of surturbrand, our faithful Hansbach, and the

grotto in which I had recovered life and consciousness. Then a few

paces farther on, the arrangement of the cliffs, the appearance of an

unrecognised stream, or the strange outline of a rock, came to throw

me again into doubt.

I communicated my doubts to my uncle. Like myself, he hesitated; he

could recognise nothing again amidst this monotonous scene.

"Evidently," said I, "we have not landed again at our original

starting point, but the storm has carried us a little higher, and if

we follow the shore we shall find Port Gräuben."

"If that is the case it will be useless to continue our exploration,

and we had better return to our raft. But, Axel, are you not

mistaken?"

"It is difficult to speak decidedly, uncle, for all these rocks are

so very much alike. Yet I think I recognise the promontory at the

foot of which Hans constructed our launch. We must be very near the

little port, if indeed this is not it," I added, examining a creek

which I thought I recognised.

"No, Axel, we should at least find our own traces and I see nothing--"

"But I do see," I cried, darting upon an object lying on the sand.

And I showed my uncle a rusty dagger which I had just picked up.

"Come," said he, "had you this weapon with you?"

"I! No, certainly! But you, perhaps--"

"Not that I am aware," said the Professor. "I have never had this

object in my possession."

"Well, this is strange!"

"No, Axel, it is very simple. The Icelanders often wear arms of this

kind. This must have belonged to Hans, and he has lost it."

I shook my head. Hans had never had an object like this in his

possession.

"Did it not belong to some pre-adamite warrior?" I cried, "to some

living man, contemporary with the huge cattle-driver? But no. This is

not a relic of the stone age. It is not even of the iron age. This

blade is steel--"

My uncle stopped me abruptly on my way to a dissertation which would

have taken me a long way, and said coolly:

"Be calm, Axel, and reasonable. This dagger belongs to the sixteenth

century; it is a poniard, such as gentlemen carried in their belts to

give the coup _de grace._ Its origin is Spanish. It was never either

yours, or mine, or the hunter's, nor did it belong to any of those

human beings who may or may not inhabit this inner world. See, it was

never jagged like this by cutting men's throats; its blade is coated

with a rust neither a day, nor a year, nor a hundred years old."

The Professor was getting excited according to his wont, and was

allowing his imagination to run away with him.

"Axel, we are on the way towards the grand discovery. This blade has

been left on the strand for from one to three hundred years, and has

blunted its edge upon the rocks that fringe this subterranean sea!"

"But it has not come alone. It has not twisted itself out of shape;

some one has been here before us!

"Yes--a man has."

"And who was that man?"

"A man who has engraved his name somewhere with that dagger. That man

wanted once more to mark the way to the centre of the earth. Let us

look about: look about!"

And, wonderfully interested, we peered all along the high wall,

peeping into every fissure which might open out into a gallery.

And so we arrived at a place where the shore was much narrowed. Here

the sea came to lap the foot of the steep cliff, leaving a passage no

wider than a couple of yards. Between two boldly projecting rocks

appeared the mouth of a dark tunnel.

There, upon a granite slab, appeared two mysterious graven letters,

half eaten away by time. They were the initials of the bold and

daring traveller:

[Runic initials appear here]

"A. S.," shouted my uncle. "Arne Saknussemm! Arne Saknussemm

everywhere!"