This reasoning calmed me a little and I began to hope!
The good, and peaceful, and imperturbable Hans would certainly not have arisen from his sleep without some serious and grave motive. Was he bent on a voyage of discovery? During the deep, still silence of the night had he at last heard that sweet murmur about which we were all so anxious?
XX
Water, Where is It? A Bitter Disappointment
During a long, long, weary hour, there crossed my wildly delirious brain all sorts of reasons as to what could have aroused our quiet and faithful guide. The most absurd and ridiculous ideas passed through my head, each more impossible than the other. I believe I was either half or wholly mad.
Suddenly, however, there arose, as it were from the depths of the earth, a voice of comfort. It was the sound of footsteps! Hans was returning.
Presently the uncertain light began to shine upon the walls of the passage, and then it came in view far down the sloping tunnel. At length Hans himself appeared.
He approached my uncle, placed his hand upon his shoulder, and gently awakened him. My uncle, as soon as he saw who it was, instantly arose.
“Well!” exclaimed the Professor.
“Vatten,” said the hunter.
I did not know a single word of the Danish language, and yet by a sort of mysterious instinct I understood what the guide had said.
“Water, water!” I cried, in a wild and frantic tone, clapping my hands, and gesticulating like a madman.
“Water!” murmured my uncle, in a voice of deep emotion and gratitude. “Hvar!” (“Where?”)
“Nedat.” (“Below.”)
“Where? below!” I understood every word. I had caught the hunter by the hands, and I shook them heartily, while he looked on with perfect calmness.
The preparations for our departure did not take long, and we were soon making a rapid descent into the tunnel.
An hour later we had advanced a thousand yards, and descended two thousand feet.
At this moment I heard an accustomed and well-known sound running along the floors of the granite rock—a kind of dull and sullen roar, like that of a distant waterfall.
During the first half-hour of our advance, not finding the discovered spring, my feelings of intense suffering appeared to return. Once more I began to lose all hope. My uncle, however, observing how downhearted I was again becoming, took up the conversation.
“Hans was right,” he exclaimed enthusiastically; “that is the dull roaring of a torrent.”
“A torrent,” I cried, delighted at even hearing the welcome words.
“There’s not the slightest doubt about it,” he replied, “a subterranean river is flowing beside us.”
I made no reply, but hastened on, once more animated by hope. I began not even to feel the deep fatigue which hitherto had overpowered me. We could hear it increasing in volume every moment. The torrent, which for a long time could be heard flowing over our heads, now ran distinctly along the left wall, roaring, rushing, spluttering, and still falling.
Several times I passed my hand across the rock hoping to find some trace of humidity—of the slightest percolation. Alas! in vain.
Again a half-hour passed in the same weary toil. Again we advanced.
It now became evident that the hunter, during his absence, had not been able to carry his researches any farther. Guided by an instinct peculiar to the dwellers in mountain regions and water finders, he “smelt” the living spring through the rock. Still he had not seen the precious liquid. He had neither quenched his own thirst, nor brought us one drop in his gourd.
Moreover, we soon made the disastrous discovery that, if our progress continued, we should soon be moving away from the torrent, the sound of which gradually diminished. We turned back. Hans halted at the precise spot where the sound of the torrent appeared nearest.
I could bear the suspense and suffering no longer, and seated myself against the wall, behind which I could hear the water seething and effervescing not two feet away. But a solid wall of granite still separated us from it!
Hans looked keenly at me, and, strange enough, for once I thought I saw a smile on his imperturbable face.