“To be sure we are.”

“And perhaps at this very moment there is a storm above, and ships over our heads are being rudely tossed by the tempest.”

“Quite probable.”

“And whales are lashing the roof of our prison with their tails?”

“It may be, Axel, but they won’t shake us here. But let us go back to our calculation. Here we are eighty-five leagues southeast of Snæfells, and I reckon that we are at a depth of sixteen leagues.”

“Sixteen leagues?” I cried.

“No doubt.”

“Why, this is the very limit assigned by science to the thickness of the crust of the earth.”

“I don’t deny it.”