Part 5 (1/2)
”What is that you are saying?” he shouted with indescribable emotion.
”There, read that!” I said, presenting a sheet of paper on which I had written.
”But there is nothing in this,” he answered, crumpling up the paper.
”No, nothing until you proceed to read from the end to the beginning.”
I had not finished my sentence when the Professor broke out into a cry, nay, a roar. A new revelation burst in upon him. He was transformed!
”Aha, clever Saknussemm!” he cried. ”You had first written out your sentence the wrong way.”
And darting upon the paper, with eyes bedimmed, and voice choked with emotion, he read the whole doc.u.ment from the last letter to the first.
It was conceived in the following terms:
In Sneffels Joculis craterem quem delibat Umbra Scartaris Julii intra calendas descende, Audax viator, et terrestre centrum attinges.
Quod feci, Arne Saknussemm.[1]
Which bad Latin may be translated thus:
”Descend, bold traveller, into the crater of the jokul of Sneffels, which the shadow of Scartaris touches before the kalends of July, and you will attain the centre of the earth; which I have done, Arne Saknussemm.”
In reading this, my uncle gave a spring as if he had touched a Leyden jar. His audacity, his joy, and his convictions were magnificent to behold. He came and he went; he seized his head between both his hands; he pushed the chairs out of their places, he piled up his books; incredible as it may seem, he rattled his precious nodules of flints together; he sent a kick here, a thump there. At last his nerves calmed down, and like a man exhausted by too lavish an expenditure of vital power, he sank back exhausted into his armchair.
”What o'clock is it?” he asked after a few moments of silence.
”Three o'clock,” I replied.
”Is it really? The dinner-hour is past, and I did not know it. I am half dead with hunger. Come on, and after dinner--”
[1] In the cipher, _audax_ is written _avdas,_ and _quod_ and _quem,_ _hod_ and _ken_. (Tr.)
”Well?”
”After dinner, pack up my trunk.”
”What?” I cried.
”And yours!” replied the indefatigable Professor, entering the dining-room.
CHAPTER VI.
EXCITING DISCUSSIONS ABOUT AN UNPARALLELED ENTERPRISE
At these words a cold s.h.i.+ver ran through me. Yet I controlled myself; I even resolved to put a good face upon it. Scientific arguments alone could have any weight with Professor Liedenbrock. Now there were good ones against the practicability of such a journey.
Penetrate to the centre of the earth! What nonsense! But I kept my dialectic battery in reserve for a suitable opportunity, and I interested myself in the prospect of my dinner, which was not yet forthcoming.
It is no use to tell of the rage and imprecations of my uncle before the empty table. Explanations were given, Martha was set at liberty, ran off to the market, and did her part so well that in an hour afterwards my hunger was appeased, and I was able to return to the contemplation of the gravity of the situation.