About six o'clock this brilliant fete of illuminations underwent a sensible abatement of splendour, then almost ceased. The walls assumed a crystallised though sombre appearance; mica was more closely mingled with the feldspar and quartz to form the proper rocky foundations of the earth, which bears without distortion or crushing the weight of the four terrestrial systems.
We were immured within prison walls of granite.
It was eight in the evening.
No signs of water had yet appeared.
I was suffering horribly.
My uncle strode on.
He refused to stop.
He was listening anxiously for the murmur of distant springs.
But, no, there was dead silence.
And now my limbs were failing beneath me.
I resisted pain and torture, that I might not stop my uncle, which would have driven him to despair, for the day was drawing near to its end, and it was his last.
At last I failed utterly; I uttered a cry and fell.
"Come to me, I am dying."
My uncle retraced his steps.
He gazed upon me with his arms crossed; then these muttered words passed his lips:
"It's all over!"
The last thing I saw was a fearful gesture of rage, and my eyes closed.
When I reopened them I saw my two companions motionless and rolled up in their coverings.
Were they asleep?
As for me, I could not get one moment's sleep.
I was suffering too keenly, and what embittered my thoughts was that there was no remedy.
My uncle's last words echoed painfully in my ears: "it's all over!" For in such a fearful state of debility it was madness to think of ever reaching the upper world again.
We had above us a league and a half of terrestrial crust.
The weight of it seemed to be crushing down upon my shoulders.
I felt weighed down, and I exhausted myself with imaginary violent exertions to turn round upon my granite couch.
A few hours passed away.
A deep silence reigned around us, the silence of the grave.
No sound could reach us through walls, the thinnest of which were five miles thick.
Yet in the midst of my stupefaction I seemed to be aware of a noise.
It was dark down the tunnel, but I seemed to see the Icelander vanishing from our sight with the lamp in his hand.
Why was he leaving us?
Was Hans going to forsake us?
My uncle was fast asleep.
I wanted to shout, but my voice died upon my parched and swollen lips.
The darkness became deeper, and the last sound died away in the far distance.
"Hans has abandoned us," I cried.
"Hans!
Hans!"
But these words were only spoken within me.
They went no farther.
Yet after the first moment of terror I felt ashamed of suspecting a man of such extraordinary faithfulness.
Instead of ascending he was descending the gallery.
An evil design would have taken him up not down.
This reflection restored me to calmness, and I turned to other thoughts.
None but some weighty motive could have induced so quiet a man to forfeit his sleep.
Was he on a journey of discovery?
Had he during the silence of the night caught a sound, a murmuring of something in the distance, which had failed to affect my hearing?
CHAPTER XXIII. WATER DISCOVERED
For a whole hour I was trying to work out in my delirious brain the reasons which might have influenced this seemingly tranquil huntsman.
The absurdest notions ran in utter confusion through my mind.