As I had taken care to keep an exact account of our manoeuvres with the rope, which I knew that we had repeated fourteen times, each descent occupying half an hour, the conclusion was easy that we had been seven hours, plus fourteen quarters of rest, making ten hours and a half. We had started at one, it must therefore now be eleven o’clock; and the depth to which we had descended was fourteen times 200 feet, or 2,800 feet.
At this moment I heard the voice of Hans.
“Halt!” he cried.
I stopped short just as I was going to place my feet upon my uncle’s head.
“We are there,” he cried.
“Where?” said I, stepping near to him.
“At the bottom of the perpendicular chimney,” he answered.
“Is there no way farther?”
“Yes; there is a sort of passage which inclines to the right. We will see about that tomorrow. Let us have our supper, and go to sleep.”
The darkness was not yet complete. The provision case was opened; we refreshed ourselves, and went to sleep as well as we could upon a bed of stones and lava fragments.
When lying on my back, I opened my eyes and saw a bright sparkling point of light at the extremity of the gigantic tube 3,000 feet long, now a vast telescope.
It was a star which, seen from this depth, had lost all scintillation, and which by my computation should be 46; Ursa Minor. Then I fell fast