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The Blog of Axel Lidenbrock : August 29th 2008

From: Harry Hayfield <harryhayfield~at~googlemail.com>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:15:06 +0100
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

BlankI'm beginning to think that my uncle sees me as some kind of fall guy
(for want of a better word). You see no sooner had I finished my entry from
yesterday, when my uncle asked me to start the detonation that would blow
away the rocks from the cavern we had found. Nothing wrong with that you may
think. The explosives are in the base of the cavern, the fuse will run to
the shore, no danger at all. Not the way my uncle does it!

His idea was that I should light the fuse as close to the cavern as possible
and then (if you will pardon the English) "scraper". His theory being that
the greater the concentration of the explosion at the base of the cavern the
better. So I duly lit the fuse, duly scrapered and we moved the raft to a
safe distance. I believe I did not hear the dull roar of the explosion. But
the rocks suddenly assumed a new arrangement: they rent asunder like a
curtain. I saw a bottomless pit open on the shore. The sea, lashed into
sudden fury, rose up in an enormous billow, on the ridge of which the
unhappy raft was uplifted bodily in the air with all its crew and cargo. We
all three fell down flat. In less than a second we were in deep,
unfathomable darkness. Then I felt as if not only myself but the raft also
had no support beneath. I thought it was sinking; but it was not so. I
wanted to speak to my uncle, but the roaring of the waves prevented him from
hearing even the sound of my voice. On the other side of the blown-up rock
was an abyss. The explosion had caused a kind of earthquake in this fissured
and abysmal region; a great gulf had opened; and the sea, now changed into a
torrent, was hurrying us along into it. As I said, not the way my uncle does
it.

An hour passed away - two hours, perhaps - I cannot tell. We clutched each
other fast, to save ourselves from being thrown off the raft. We felt
violent shocks whenever we were borne heavily against the craggy
projections. Yet these shocks were not very frequent, from which I concluded
that the gully was widening. It was no doubt the same road that Saknussemm
had taken; but instead of walking peaceably down it, as he had done, we were
carrying a whole sea along with us. Yes, that's right, we were sailing up
the road with a sea in hot pursuit (and it's been that way ever since
yesterday morning!).

Mind you, it's not without it's problems mind. You see, we've lost our
supplies (and if that's wasn't bad enough I was very nearly drowned by a
waterspout about an hour ago). According to my uncle we are travelling at
about ten miles an hour, there's two small things though that are a little
concerning. The first thing is how tall is this thing that we are travelling
up in and secondly, is it me, or is this water starting to turn orange?

Received on Fri 29 Aug 2008 - 15:15:16 IDT

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