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25 - The Whispering Gallery - Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Chapter twenty five, The Whispering Gallery. When at last I came back to
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  a sense of life and being. My face was wet, but wet as
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  I soon knew with tears, how long this state of insensibility lasted. It
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  is quite impossible for me now to say I had no means left to me
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  of taking any account of time. Never since the creation of the world had
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  such a solitude as mine existed. I was completely abandoned. After my fall,
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  I lost much blood. I felt myself flooded with the life giving fluid.
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  My first sensation was perhaps a natural one, Why was I not dead?
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  Because because I was alive, there was something left to do. I
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  tried to make up my mind to think no longer. As far as I
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  was able, I drove away all ideas, and utterly, overcome by pain
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  and grief, I crouched against the granite wall. I just commenced to feel
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  the fainting coming on again, and the sensation that this was the last struggle
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  before complete annihilation. When on a sudden a violent uproar reached my ears.
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  It had some resemblance to the prolonged rumbling voice of thunder, and I clearly
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  distinguished sonorous voices lost one after the other in the distant depths of the gulf.
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  Whence came this noise, Naturally, it was to be supposed from new
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  phenomena which were taking place in the bosom of the solid mass of Mother Earth,
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  the explosion of some gas's vapor, or the fall of some solid of
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  the granite or of the rock. Again, I listened with deep attention.
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  I was extremely anxious to hear if this strange and inexplicable sound was likely to
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  be renewed. A whole quarter of an hour elapsed in painful expectation. Deep
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  and solemn silence reigned in the tunnel, so still that I could hear the
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  beatings of my own heart. I waited, waited with a strange kind of
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  hopefulness. Suddenly my ear, which leaned accidentally against the wall, appeared to
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  catch, as it were, the faintest echo of a sound. I thought
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  that I heard, vague, incoherent and distant voices. I quivered all over
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  with excitement and hope. It must be hallucination, I cried, it cannot
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  be, it is not true. But no, By listening more attentively,
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  I really did convince myself that what I heard was truly the sound of human
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  voices. To make any meaning out of the sound, however, was beyond
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  my power. I was too weak even to hear distinctly. Still, it
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  was a positive fact that someone was speaking of that I was quite certain.
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  There was a moment of fear, A dread fell upon my soul, that
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  it might be my own words brought back to me by a distant echo.
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  Perhaps without knowing it, I might have been crying aloud. I resolutely closed
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  my lips and once more placed my ear to the huge granite wall. Yes,
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  for certain, it was, in truth the sound of human voices.
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  I now, by the exercise of great determination, dragged myself along the sides
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  of the cavern until I reached a point where I could hear more distinctly.
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  But though I could detect the sound, I could only make out uncertain,
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  strange and incomprehensible words. They reached my ear as if they had been spoken
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  in a low tone, murmured, as if it were afar off. At
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  last I made out the word for laurad, repeated several times in a tone
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  betokening great mental anguish and sorrow. What could this word mean? And who
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  was speaking it? It must be either my uncle or the guide Hans.
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  If therefore I could hear them, they must surely be able to hear be
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  Help, I cried at the top of my voice. Help, I am
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  dying. I then listened, with scarcely a breath. I panted with the
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  slightest sound in the darkness, a cry, a sigh, a question,
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  But silence reigned supreme, no answer Kane. In this way, some minutes
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  passed A whole flood of ideas flashed through my mind. I began to fear
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  that my voice, weakened by sickness and suffering, could not reach my companions,
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  who were in search for me. It must be, they said,
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  I cried. Who else could, by any possibility, be buried one hundred
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  miles below the level of the earth. The mere supposition was preposterous. I
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  began, therefore to listen again with the most breathless attention. As I moved
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  my ears along the side of the place I was in, I found a
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  mathematical point, as it were, where the voices appeared to attain their maximum
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  of intel. The word for Lorad again distinctly reached my ear. Then came
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  again that rolling noise like thunder, which had awakened me out of my torpur.
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  I begin to understand, I said to myself, after some little time
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  devoted to reflection. It is not through the solid mass that the sound reaches
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  my ears. The walls of my cavernous retreat are of solid granite, and
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  the most fearful explosion would not make uproar enough to penetrate them. The sound
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  must come along the gallery itself. The place I was in must possess some
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  peculiar acoustic properties of its own. Again I listened, and this time,
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  yes, this time I heard my name distinctly pronounced cast as it were into
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  space. It was my uncle, the professor, who was speaking. He
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  was in conversation with the guide, and the word which had so often reached
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  my ear, for lurad was a Danish word. Then I understood it all.
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  In order to make myself heard, I too must speak as it were,
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  along the side of the gallery, which would carry the sound of my
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  voice, just as the wire carries the electric fluid from point to point.
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  But there was no time to lose. If my companions were only to remove
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  a few feet from where they stood, the acoustic effect would be over.
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  My whispering gallery would be destroyed. I again, therefore crawled towards the wall
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  and said as clearly and distinctly as I could, Uncle Hardwig. I then
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  awaited a reply. Sound does not possess the property of traveling with such extreme
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  rapidity. Besides, the density of the air at that depth from light and
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  motion was very far from adding to the rapidity of circulation. Several seconds elapsed,
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  which, to my excited imagination, appeared ages, and these words reached
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  my eager ears and moved my wildly beating heart. Harry, my boy,
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  is that you a short delay between question and answer? Yes? Yes,
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  where are you lost? And your lamp out? But the guiding stream is
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  lost? Keep your courage, Harry, We will do our best. One
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  moment, my uncle, I cried, I have no longer strength to answer
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  your questions. But for Heaven's sake, do you continue to speak to me?
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  Absolute silence, I felt, would be annihilation. Keep up your courage,
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  said my uncle. As you are so weak, do not speak.
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  We have been searching for you in all directions. But by going upwards and
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  downwards in the gallery, my dear boy, I had begun to give over
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  all hope, and you can never know what bitter tears of sorrow and regret
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  I have shed at last, supposing you to be still on the road beside
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  Hansbach. We again descended firing off guns as signals. Now, however,
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  we have found you, and that our voices reach each other, it may
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  be a long time before we actually meet. We are conversing by means of
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  some extraordinary acoustic arrangement of the labyrinth. But do not despair, my dear
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  boy. It is something gained even to hear each other. While he was
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  speaking, my brain was at work reflecting a certain undefined oh vague and shapeless
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  as yet made my heart beat wildly. In the first place, it was
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  absolutely necessary for me to know one thing. I once more therefore leaned my
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  head against the wall, which I almost touched with my lips, and again
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  spoke, Uncle, my boy, was his answer, after a few moments.
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  Is it the utmost consequence that we should know how far we are asunder?
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  That is not difficult. You have your chronumeter at hand, I asked,
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  certainly, Well, take it into your hand, pronounced my name,
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  noting exactly the second at which you speak. I will reply as soon as
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  I hear you your words, and you will then note exactly the moment at
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  which my reply reaches you, very good, and the mean time between my
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  question and your answer will be the time occupied by my voice in reaching you.
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  That is exactly what I mean, Uncle, was my eager reply.
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  Are you ready? Yes, well, make ready. I am about to
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  pronounce your name, said the professor. I applied my ear close to the
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  sides of the cavernous gallery, and as soon as the word Harry reached my
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  ear, I turned round, and, placing my lips to the wall,
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  repeated the sound forty seconds, said my uncle. There has elapsed forty seconds
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  between the two words. The sound therefore takes twenty seconds to ascend. Now,
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  allowing a one thousand and twenty feet for every second, we have twenty
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  thousand, four hundred feet, a league and a half and one eighth.
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  These words fell on my soul like a kind of death knell. A league
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  and a half, I'm muttered in a low and despairing voice. It shall
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  be got over, my boy, cried my uncle in a cheery tone.
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  Depend on us. But do you know whether to ascend or descend? I
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  asked faintly enough. We have to dis end, and I will tell you
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  why you have reached a vast open space, a kind of bare crossroad,
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  from which galleries diverge in every direction. That in which you are now lying
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  must necessarily bring you to this point. Four. It appears that all these
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  mighty vissures, these fractures of the globe's interior, radiate from the vast cavern
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  which we at this moment occupy. Rouse yourself, then have courage and continue
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  your out well if you can, if not, drag yourself along slide.
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  If nothing else is possible, the slow must be rather rapid, and you
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  will find strong arms to receive you at the end of your journey. Make
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  a start like a good fellow. These words served to rouse some kind of
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  courage in my sinking frame. Farewell for the present, good uncle, I
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  am about to take my departure. As soon as I start, our voices
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  will cease to commingle. Farewell then until we meet again, I do harry
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  until we say welcome. Sure were the last words which reached my anxious ears
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  before I commenced my weary and almost hopeless journey. This wonderful and surprising conversation
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  which took place through the vast mass of the Earth's labyrinth these words exchanged,
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  the speakers being about five miles apart. Ended with hopeful and pleasant expressions,
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  I breathed one more prayer to Heaven. I sent up words of thanksgiving,
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  believing in my inmost heart that he had led me to the only place where
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  the voices of my friends could reach my ears. This apparently astounding acoustic mystery
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  is easily explainable by simple natural laws. It aroused from the conductibility of the
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  rock. There are many instances of this singular propagation of sound which are not
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  perceptible in its less mediate positions. In the interior gallery of Saint Paul's and
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  amid the curious caverns in Sicily, these phenomena are observable. The most marvelous
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  of them all is known as the ear of Dionysius. These memories of the
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  past, of my early reading and studies came fresh to my thoughts. Moreover,
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  I began to reason that if my uncle and I could communicate at such
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  great a distance, no serious obstacle could exist between us. All I had
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  to do was to follow the direction whence the sound had reached me, and
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  logically putting it, I must reach him. If my strength did not fail.
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  I accordingly rose to my feet. I soon found, however, that
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  I could not walk, that I must drag myself along the slope. As
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  I expected, was very rapid, but I allowed myself to slip down.
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  Soon the rapidity of the decis and began to assume frightful proportions, and menaced
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  a fearful fall. I clutched at the sides, I grasped at projections of
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  rocks. I threw myself backwards, all in vain. My weakness was so
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  great I could do nothing to save myself. Suddenly Earth failed me. I
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  was first launched into a dark and gloomy void. I then struck against the
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  projecting asperities of a vertical gallery, a perfect well. My head bounded against
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  a pointed rock, and I lost all knowledge of existence. As far as
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  I was concerned, death had claimed me for his own. End of Chapter twenty five