I, moreover, heard a vague and indefinite murmur, like the ebb and flow of the waves upon a strand, and sometimes I verily believed I could hear the sighing of the wind.
I began to believe that, instead of being awake, I must be dreaming. Surely, had not my brain been affected by my fall, and was not all that occurred during the last twenty-four hours the frenzied visions of madness? And yet after some reflection, a trial of my faculties, I came to the conclusion that I could not be mistaken. Eyes and ears could not surely both deceive me.
“It is a ray of blessed daylight,” I said to myself, “which has penetrated through some mighty fissure in the rocks. But what is the meaning of this murmur of waves, this unmistakable moaning of the salt-sea billows? I can hear, too, plainly enough, the whistling of the wind. But can I be altogether mistaken? If my uncle, during my illness, has but carried me back to the surface of the earth! Has he, on my account, given up his wondrous expedition, or in some strange manner has it come to an end?”
I was puzzling my brain over these and other questions, when the Professor joined me.
“Good day, Harry,” he cried in a joyous tone. “I fancy you are quite well.”
“I am very much better,” I replied, actually sitting up in my bed.
“I knew that would be the end of it, as you slept both soundly and tranquilly. Hans and I have each taken turn to watch, and every hour we have seen visible signs of amelioration.”
“You must be right, Uncle,” was my reply, “for I feel as if I could do justice to any meal you could put before me. I am really hungry.”
“You shall eat, my boy, you shall eat. The fever has left you. Our excellent friend Hans has rubbed your wounds and bruises with I know not what ointment, of which the Icelanders alone possess the secret. And they have healed your bruises in the most marvelous manner. Ah, he’s a wise fellow, is Master Hans.”
While he was speaking, my uncle was placing before me several articles of food, which, despite his earnest injunctions, I readily devoured. As soon as the first rage of hunger was appeased, I overwhelmed him with questions, to which he now no longer hesitated to give answers.
I then learned, for the first time, that my providential fall had brought me to the bottom of an almost perpendicular gallery. As I came down, amidst a perfect shower of stones, the least of which falling on me would have crushed me to death, they came to the conclusion that I had carried with me an entire dislocated rock. Riding as it were on this terrible chariot, I was cast headlong into my uncle’s arms. And into them I fell, insensible and covered with blood.
“It is indeed a miracle,” was the Professor’s final remark, “that you were not killed a thousand times over. But let us take care never to separate; for surely we should risk never meeting again.”
“Let us take care never again to separate.”
These words fell with a sort of chill upon my heart. The journey, then, was not over. I looked at my uncle with surprise and astonishment. My uncle, after an instant’s examination of my countenance, said: “What is the matter, Harry?”
“I want to ask you a very serious question. You say that I am all right in health?”
“Certainly you are.”
“And all my limbs are sound and capable of new exertion?” I asked.
“Most undoubtedly.”
“But what about my head?” was my next anxious question.
“Well, your head, except that you have one or two contusions, is exactly where it ought to be—on your shoulders,” said my uncle, laughing.
“Well, my own opinion is that my head is not exactly right. In fact, I believe myself slightly delirious.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I will explain why I fancy I have lost my senses,” I cried. “Have we not returned to the surface of Mother Earth?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then truly I must be mad, for do I not see the light of day? do I not hear the whistling of the wind? and can I not distinguish the wash of a great sea?”