“It is Sunday, the 8th of August, and it is ten at night. You must ask me no more questions until the 10th.”
In truth I was very weak, and my eyes involuntarily closed. I wanted a good night’s rest; and I therefore went off to sleep, with the knowledge that I had been four long days alone in the heart of the earth.
Next morning, on awakening, I looked round me. My couch, made up of all our travelling gear, was in a charming grotto, adorned with splendid stalactites, and the soil of which was a fine sand. It was half light. There was no torch, no lamp, yet certain mysterious glimpses of light came from without through a narrow opening in the grotto. I heard too a vague and indistinct noise, something like the murmuring of waves breaking upon a shingly shore, and at times I seemed to hear the whistling of wind.
I wondered whether I was awake, whether I was dreaming, whether my brain, crazed by my fall, was not affected by imaginary noises. Yet neither eyes, nor ears could be so utterly deceived.
It is a ray of daylight, I thought, sliding in through this cleft in the rock! That is indeed the murmuring of waves! That is the rustling noise of wind. Am I quite mistaken, or have we returned to the surface of the earth? Has my uncle given up the expedition, or is it happily terminated?
I was asking myself these unanswerable questions when the Professor entered.
“Good morning, Axel,” he cried cheerily. “I feel sure you are better.”
“Yes, I am indeed,” said I, sitting up on my couch.
“You can hardly fail to be better, for you have slept quietly. Hans and I watched you by turns, and we have noticed you were evidently recovering.”