Latest / Classic Science Fiction Books / 30 - Terrific Saurian Combat - Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne
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- Chapter thirty, Terrific Saurian Combat, Saturday, August fifteenth. The sea still retains its uniform monotony, the same lead and new, the same eternal glare from about, no indication of land being in sight. The horizon appears to retreat before us, more and more as we advance. My head still dull and heavy from the effects of my extraordinary dream, which I cannot as yet banish from my mind. The Professor, who has not dreamt, is, however, in one of his morose and unaccountable humors, spends his time in scanning the horizon at every point of the compass. His telescope is raised every moment to his eyes, and when he finds nothing to give any clue to our whereabouts, he assumes an napoleonic attitude and walks anxiously. Her remark that my uncle the Professor had a strong tendency to resume his old, impatient character, And I could not but make a note of this disagreeable circumstance in my journal. I saw clearly that it had required all the influence of my danger and suffering to extract from him one scintillation of human feeling. Now that I was quite recovered his original nature had conquered and obtained the upper hand. And after all, what had he to be angry and annoyed about now more than at any other time? Was not the journey being accomplished under the most favorable circumstances. Was not the raft progressing with a most marvelous rapidity? What then could be the matter? After one or two preliminary hymns, I determined to inquire you seem uneasy, uncle, said I, when for about the hundredth time he put down his telescope and walked up and down, muttering to himself. No, I'm not uneasy, he replied, in a dry, harsh tone. By no means, perhaps I should have said impatient, I replied, softening the force of my remark enough to make me so, I think. And yet we are advancing at the rate seldom attained by raft, I remarked, What mutges that, cried my uncle. I am not vexed at the rate we go at, but I am annoyed to find the sea so much vaster than I expected. I then recollected that the professor, before our departure, had estimated the length of this subterranean ocean as at most about thirty leagues. Now we had traveled at least over thrice that distance without discovering any trace of the distant shore. I began to understand my uncle's anger. We are not going down, suddenly exclaimed the professor. We are not progressing with our great discoveries. All this is utter loss of time. After all, I did not come from home to undertake a party of pleasure. This voyage on a raft over a pond a noise, and wares me. He called this adventurous journey a party of pleasure, and this great inlancy a pond. But argued I, if we have followed the route indicated by the great Sacknosum, we cannot be in going far wrong. That is the question, as the great immortal Shakespeare has it. Are we following the route indicated by that wondrous sage? Did Sacnossem ever fall in with this great sheet of water? If he did, did he cross it? I begin to fear that the rivulet we adopted for a guide has led us wrong. In any case, we can never regret having come thus far. It is why the whole journey to have enjoyed this magnificent spectacle. It is something to have seen. I care nothing about seeing nor about magnificent spectacles. I came down into the interior of the earth with an object, and that object I mean to attain. Don't talk to me about admiring scenery or any other sentimental thrush. After this, I thought it well to hold my tongue and allow the professor to bite his lips until the blood came, without further remark. At six o'clock in the evening, our matter of fact guide Hans asked for its weak's salary, and, receiving his three ricks dollars, put them carefully in his pocket. He was perfectly contented and satisfied. Sunday, August sixteenth, nothing new to record. The same weather as before. The wind has a slight tendency to freshen up with signs of an approaching gale. When I I awoke, my first observation was in regard to the intensity of the light. I keep on fearing day after day that the extraordinary electric phenomenon should become first obscured and then go fully out, leaving us in total darkness. Nothing, however, of the kind, occurs. The shadow of the raft, its mast and sails, is clearly distinguished on the surface of the water. This wondrous sea is, after all infinite. In its extent, it must be quite as wide as the Mediterranean, or perhaps even as the great Atlantic Ocean. Why, after all should it not be so. My uncle has, on more than one occasion tried deep sea soundings. He tied the cross of one of our heaviest crowbars to the extremity of a cord, which he allowed to run out to the extent of two hundred fathoms. We had the greatest difficulty in hoisting in our novel kind of lead. When the crovar was finally dragged on board, Hans called my attention to some singular marks upon its surface. The piece of iron looked as if it had been crushed between two very hard substances. I looked at our worthy guide with an inquiring glance. Tender said he, of course, I was at a loss to understand. I turned round towards my uncle, absorbed in gloomy reflections. I had little wish to disturb him from his reverie. I accordingly turned once more towards our worthy icelander. Hans very quietly and significantly opened his mouth once or twice, as if in the act of biting, and in this way made me understand his meaning. Teeth, cried I with dupefaction, as I examined the bar of iron with more attention. Yes, there can be no doubt about the matter. The indentations on the bar of iron are the marks of teeth. What yours must the owner of such molars be possessed of? Have we then come upon a monster of unknown species which still exists within the vast waste of waters, A monster more worracious than a shark, more terrible and bulky than the whale? I am unable to withdraw my eyes from the bar of iron, actually half crushed. Is then my dream about to come true? Adreed and terrible reality? All day my thoughts were bent upon these speculations, and my imagination scarcely regained a degree of calmness and power of reflection, until after a sleep of many hours. This day, as on other Sundays, we observed as a day of rest and pious meditation, Monday, August seventeen. I have been trying to realize from memory the particular instincts of those antediluvian animals of the secondary period which succeeding to the mullusca, to the crustacea and to the fish, preceded the appearance of the race of mammifares. The generation of reptiles then reigned supreme upon the earth. These hideous monsters ruled everything in the seas of the secondary period, which formed the strata of which the Jura Mountains are composed. Nature had endowed them with perfect organization. What a gigantic structure was theirs. What vast and prodigious strength they possessed. The existing saurians, which include all such reptiles as lizards, crocodiles, and alligators, even the largest and most formidable of their class, are but feeble imitations of their mighty sires, the animalimals of ages long ago. If there were giants in the days of old, there were also gigantic animals. I shudder as I evolved from my mind the idea and recollection of these awful monsters. No I of man had seen them in the flesh. They took their walks abroad upon the face of the earth thousands of ages before man came into existence, and their fossil bones discovered in the limestone have allowed us to reconstruct them anatomically, and thus to get some faint idea of their colossal formation. I recollect one seeing in the Great Museum of Hamburg the skeleton of one of these wonderful saurians. It measured no less than thirty feet from the nose to the tail. Am I, then, an inhabitant of the earth of the present day, destined to find myself face to face with the represented tive of this antediluvian family. I can scarcely believe it possible. I can hardly believe it true. And yet these marks of powerful teeth upon the bar of iron, can there be a doubt from their shape that the bite is the bite of a crocodile. My eyes stare wildly and with terror upon the subterranean sea. Every moment I expect one of these monsters to rise from its vast, cavernous depth. I fancy that the worthy professor, in some measure shares my notions, if not my fears. For after an attentive examination of the crowbar, he cast his eyes rapidly over the mighty and mysterious ocean. What could possess him to leave the land? I thought, as if the depth of this water was over any importance to us, No doubt he has disturbed some terrible monster in his watery home, and perhaps we may pay dearly for our temerity. Anxious to be prepared for the worst, I examined our weapons and saw that they were in a fit state for use. My uncle looked on at me and nodded his head approvingly. He too, has noticed what we have to fear already. The uplifting of the waters on the surface indicates that something is in motion below. The danger approaches, it comes nearer and nearer. It bhooves us to be on the watch. Tuesday, August eighteenth, evening came at last the hour when the desire for sleep caused our eyelids to be heavy. Night. There is not, properly speaking, in this place any more than there is in summer in the Arctic regions. Hans, however, is immovable at the rudder. When isnt she is a moment of rest, I really cannot say I take advantage of his vigilance to take some little repose. But two hours after I was awakened from a heavy sleep by an awful shock. The raft appeared to have struck upon a sunken rock. It was lifted right out of the water by some wondrous and mysterious power, and then started off twenty fathoms distant. Eh, what is it, cried my uncle, starting up. Are we shipwrecked or what? Hans raised his hand and pointed to where about two hundred yards of a large black mass was moving up and down. I looked with ave. My worst fears were realized. It is a colossal monster, I cried, clasping my hands. Yes, cried the agitated professor. And there yonder is a huge sea lizard of terrible size and shape. And farther on behold a prodigious crocodile. Look at his hideous jaws and that row of monstrous teeth. Ha, he has gone. A wail, A wail, shouted the professor. I can see her enormous fince. See see how she blows air and water. Two liquid columns rose to a vast height above the level of the sea, into which they fell with a terrific crash, waking up the echoes of that awful place. We stood still, surprised, stupefied, terror, stricken at the sight of this group of fearful marine monsters, more hideous in the reality than in my dream. They were of supernatural dimensions. The very smallest of the whole party could with ease, have crushed our raft and ourselves with a single bite. Hans, seizing the rudder which had flown out of his hand, puts it hard weather in order to escape from such dangerous vicinity. But no sooner does he do so than he finds his flying from Scilla to Charygdis to leeward is a turtle about forty feet wide, and a serpent quite as long, with an enormous and hideous head peering from out of the waters. Look which way we will? It is impossible for us to fly. The fearful reptiles advanced upon us. They turned and twisted about the raft with awful rapidity. They formed around our devoted vessel a series of concentric circles. I took up my rifle in desperation. But what effect can a rifle ball produce upon the armor scales with which these bodies of these horrid monsters are covered. We remain still and dumb from utter horror. They advance upon us nearer and nearer. Our fate appears certain, fearful and terrible. On one side, the mighty crocodile on the other, the great sea serpent. The rest of the fearful crowd of marine prodigies have plunged beneath the briny waves and disappeared. I am about to fire at any risk and try the effect of a shot. Hence the guide, however, interfered by a sign to check me. The two hidgeous and ravenuous monsters passed within fifty fathoms of the raft and then made a rush at one another, their fury enrage preventing them from seeing us. The combat commenced. We distinctly made out every action of the two hideous monsters. But to my excited imagination, the other animals appeared about to take part in the fierce and deadly struggle. The monster, the wail, the lizard, and the turtle. I distinctly saw them every moment. I pointed them out to the icelander, but he only shook his head two he said, what two? Only does he say? Surely he is mistaken, I cried, in a tone of wonder. He is quite right, replied my uncle, coolly and philosophically, examining the terrible duel with his telescope and speaking as if he were in a lecture room. How can that be? Yes, it is so. The first of these hideous monsters has the snout of a porpois, the head of a lizard, the teeth of a crocodile. And it is this that has deceived us. It is the most fearful of all antediluvian reptiles, the world renowned Ichiusaurus, or great fish lizard, and the other, the other is a monstrous serpent concealed under the hard vaulted shell of the turtle, the terrible enemy of its fearful rival, the Plesiosaurus or sea crocodile. Hans was quite right. The two monsters only disturbed the surface of the sea. At last, her mortal eyes gazed upon two reptiles of the great primitive ocean. I see the flaming red eyes of the Ichthiosaurus, each as big or bigger than a man's head. Nature, in its infinite wisdom, had gifted this wondrous marine animal with an optical apparatus of extreme power, capable of resisting the pressure of the heavy layers of water which rolled over him in the depths of the ocean where he usually fed. It has by some authors truly been called the wail of the saurian race, for it is as big and quick in its motions as our king of the seas. This one measures not less than a hundred feet in length, and I can form some idea of his girth when I see him lift his prodigious tail out of the waters. His jaw is of awful size and strength, and according to the best informed naturalists, it does not contain less than one hundred and eighty two teeth. The other was the mighty plesiosaurus, a serpent with a cylindrical trunk, with a short, stumpy tail, with fins like a bank of oars in a Roman galley, its whole body covered by a carapace or shell, and its neck as flexible as that of a swan. Rose more than thirty feet above the waves. A tower of animated flesh. These animals attacked one another with inconceivable fury. Such a combat was never seen before by mortal eyes, and to us who did see it, it appeared more like the phantasmogoric creation of a dream than anything else. The raised mountains of water, which dashed in spray over the raft, already tossed to and fro by the waves twenty times we seemed on the point of being upset, and hurled headlong into the waves. Hideous hisses appeared to shake the gloomy granite roof of that mighty cavern, hisses which carried terror to our hearts. The awful combatants held each other in a tight embrace. I could not make out one from the other. Still, the combat could not last forever, and woe unto us, whichsoever became the victor. One hour, two hours, three hours passed away without any decisive result. The struggle continued with the same deadly tenacity, but without apparent result. The deadly opponents now approached, now drew away from the raft once or twice. We fancied they were about to leave us altogether. But instead of that, they came nearer and nearer. We crouched on the raft, ready to fire at them at a moment's notice. Poor as the prospect of hurting or terrifying them was still, we were determined not to perish without a struggle. Suddenly, the Ichiusaurus and the Plesiosaurus disappeared beneath the waves, leaving behind them a maelstrom in the midst of the sea. We were nearly drawn down by the in draft of the water. Several minutes elapsed before anything was again seen. Was this wonderful combat to end in the depth of the ocean. Was the last act of this terrible drama to take place? Without spectators, it was impossible for us to say, Suddenly, at no great distance from us, an enormous mass rises out of the waters. The head of the great Preciosaurus, the terrible monster, is now wounded unto death. I can see nothing now of his enormous body. All that could be distinguished was his serpent like neck, which he twisted and curled in all the agonies of death. Now he struck the waters with it as if it had been a gigantic whip, and then again wriggled like a worn cut in two. The water was spurted up to a great distance in all directions. A great portion of it swept over our wraft and nearly blinded us. But soon the end of the beast approached nearer and nearer, his movements slackened visibly, his contortions almost ceased, and at last the body of the mighty snake lay an inert, dead mass on the surface of the now calm and placid water. As for the Ecosaurus. Had he gone down to his mighty cabin under the sea to rest or, Will he reappear to destroy us. This question remained unanswered, and we had breathing time. End of Chapter thirty