CHAPTER XLV.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

Such is the conclusion of a history which I cannot expect everybody

to believe, for some people will believe nothing against the

testimony of their own experience. However, I am indifferent to their

incredulity, and they may believe as much or as little as they please.

The Stromboliotes received us kindly as shipwrecked mariners. They

gave us food and clothing. After waiting forty-eight hours, on the

31st of August, a small craft took us to Messina, where a few days'

rest completely removed the effect of our fatigues.

On Friday, September the 4th, we embarked on the steamer Volturno,

employed by the French Messageries Imperiales, and in three days more

we were at Marseilles, having no care on our minds except that

abominable deceitful compass, which we had mislaid somewhere and

could not now examine; but its inexplicable behaviour exercised my

mind fearfully. On the 9th of September, in the evening, we arrived

at Hamburg.

I cannot describe to you the astonishment of Martha or the joy of

Gräuben.

"Now you are a hero, Axel," said to me my blushing _fiancée,_ my

betrothed, "you will not leave me again!"

I looked tenderly upon her, and she smiled through her tears.

How can I describe the extraordinary sensation produced by the return

of Professor Liedenbrock? Thanks to Martha's ineradicable tattling,

the news that the Professor had gone to discover a way to the centre

of the earth had spread over the whole civilised world. People

refused to believe it, and when they saw him they would not believe

him any the more. Still, the appearance of Hans, and sundry pieces of

intelligence derived from Iceland, tended to shake the confidence of

the unbelievers.

Then my uncle became a great man, and I was now the nephew of a great

man--which is not a privilege to be despised.

Hamburg gave a grand fete in our honour. A public audience was given

to the Professor at the Johannæum, at which he told all about our

expedition, with only one omission, the unexplained and inexplicable

behaviour of our compass. On the same day, with much state, he

deposited in the archives of the city the now famous document of

Saknussemm, and expressed his regret that circumstances over which he

had no control had prevented him from following to the very centre of

the earth the track of the learned Icelander. He was modest

notwithstanding his glory, and he was all the more famous for his

humility.

So much honour could not but excite envy. There were those who envied

him his fame; and as his theories, resting upon known facts, were in

opposition to the systems of science upon the question of the central

fire, he sustained with his pen and by his voice remarkable

discussions with the learned of every country.

For my part I cannot agree with his theory of gradual cooling: in

spite of what I have seen and felt, I believe, and always shall

believe, in the central heat. But I admit that certain circumstances

not yet sufficiently understood may tend to modify in places the

action of natural phenomena.

While these questions were being debated with great animation, my

uncle met with a real sorrow. Our faithful Hans, in spite of our

entreaties, had left Hamburg; the man to whom we owed all our success

and our lives too would not suffer us to reward him as we could have

wished. He was seized with the mal de pays, a complaint for which we

have not even a name in English.

"_Farval,_" said he one day; and with that simple word he left us and

sailed for Rejkiavik, which he reached in safety.

We were strongly attached to our brave eider-down hunter; though far

away in the remotest north, he will never be forgotten by those whose

lives he protected, and certainly I shall not fail to endeavour to

see him once more before I die.

To conclude, I have to add that this 'Journey into the Interior of

the Earth' created a wonderful sensation in the world. It was

translated into all civilised languages. The leading newspapers

extracted the most interesting passages, which were commented upon,

picked to pieces, discussed, attacked, and defended with equal

enthusiasm and determination, both by believers and sceptics. Rare

privilege! my uncle enjoyed during his lifetime the glory he had

deservedly won; and he may even boast the distinguished honour of an

offer from Mr. Barnum, to exhibit him on most advantageous terms in

all the principal cities in the United States!

But there was one 'dead fly' amidst all this glory and honour; one

fact, one incident, of the journey remained a mystery. Now to a man

eminent for his learning, an unexplained phenomenon is an unbearable

hardship. Well! it was yet reserved for my uncle to be completely

happy.

One day, while arranging a collection of minerals in his cabinet, I

noticed in a corner this unhappy compass, which we had long lost

sight of; I opened it, and began to watch it.

It had been in that corner for six months, little mindful of the

trouble it was giving.

Suddenly, to my intense astonishment, I noticed a strange fact, and I

uttered a cry of surprise.

"What is the matter?" my uncle asked.

"That compass!"

"Well?"

"See, its poles are reversed!"

"Reversed?"

"Yes, they point the wrong way."

My uncle looked, he compared, and the house shook with his triumphant

leap of exultation.

A light broke in upon his spirit and mine.

"See there," he cried, as soon as he was able to speak. "After our

arrival at Cape Saknussemm the north pole of the needle of this

confounded compass began to point south instead of north."

"Evidently!"

"Here, then, is the explanation of our mistake. But what phenomenon

could have caused this reversal of the poles?"

"The reason is evident, uncle."

"Tell me, then, Axel."

"During the electric storm on the Liedenbrock sea, that ball of fire,

which magnetised all the iron on board, reversed the poles of our

magnet!"

"Aha! aha!" shouted the Professor with a loud laugh. "So it was just

an electric joke!"

From that day forth the Professor was the most glorious of savants,

and I was the happiest of men; for my pretty Virlandaise, resigning

her place as ward, took her position in the old house on the

Königstrasse in the double capacity of niece to my uncle and wife to

a certain happy youth. What is the need of adding that the

illustrious Otto Liedenbrock, corresponding member of all the

scientific, geographical, and mineralogical societies of all the

civilised world, was now her uncle and mine?