style="font-size:15px;"> The Professor stared at me over his spectacles. I nodded my head up and down.
“Yes, that key, chance—”
“What is that you are saying?” he shouted with indescribable emotion.
“There, read that!” I said, presenting a sheet of paper on which I wrote the sentences.
“But there is nothing in this,” he answered.
“No, nothing until you proceed to read from the end to the beginning.”
A new revelation burst in upon the Professor. He was transformed!
“Aha, clever Saknussemm!” he cried. And he read the whole document from the last letter to the first:
In Sneffels Joculis craterem quem delibat
Umbra Scartaris Julii
intra calendas descende,
Audax viator,
et terrestre centrum attinges.
Quod feci, Arne Saknussemm.
Which may be translated thus:
“Descend, bold traveller, into the crater of the Jokul of Sneffels[23], which the shadow of Scartaris [24]touches before the kalends [25]of July, and you will attain the centre of the Earth; which I have done, Arne Saknussemm.”
My uncle sprang very high. He seized his head between both his hands; he pushed the chairs out of their places, he piled up his books. At last his nerves calmed down, and he sank back into his armchair.
“What’s the time?” he asked after a few moments of silence.
“Three o’clock,” I replied.
“Is it really? It’s the dinner-hour! I am half dead with hunger[26]. Come on, and after dinner—”
“Well?”
“After dinner, pack up my trunk.”
“What?” I cried.
“And yours!” replied the indefatigable Professor, entering the dining-room.
6
At these words a cold shiver ran through me. Yet I controlled myself. During all dinner time my uncle was almost merry. After the dessert, he invited me into his study.
I obeyed; he sat at one end of his table, I at the other.
“Axel,” said he very mildly; “you are a very ingenious young man, you have done me a splendid service, when I was going to abandon the contest. Never, my lad, shall I forget it. But I want to preserve the secrecy: you understand? There are people in the scientific world who envy my success.”
“Do you really think there are many people bold enough?” said I.
“Certainly! A whole army of geologists is ready to follow Arne Saknussemm.”
“But, uncle,” I replied; “we have no proof of the authenticity of this document.”
“What! Not of the book, inside which we have discovered it?”
“I admit that Saknussemm wrote these lines. But has he really accomplished such a journey?”
A smile flitted across the lip of my uncle, and he answered:
“That is what we shall see.”
“Ah!” said I. “But let me present all the possible objections against this document.”
“Speak, my boy, don’t be afraid. You are no longer my nephew only, but my colleague.”
“Well, I want to ask what are this ‘Jokul’, this ‘Sneffels’, and this ‘Scartaris’?”
“Nothing easier. I received not long ago a map from my friend. Take that atlas in the second shelf in the large bookcase.”
I rose from my seat and found the required atlas. My uncle opened it and said:
“Here is one of the best maps of Iceland, and I believe this will solve the worst of our difficulties.”
I bent over the map.
“You see this volcanic island?” said the Professor; “All the volcanoes are called jokuls, a word which means glacier in Icelandic.”
“Very good,” said I; “but what of ‘Sneffels’?”
My uncle replied:
“Follow my finger along the west coast of Iceland. Do you see Reykjavik[27], the capital? You do. Well; ascend the innumerable fiords, and stop at the sixty-fifth degree of latitude. What do you see there?”
“I see a peninsula, and a mountain rising out of the sea.”
“Right. That is Sneffels. It is a mountain five thousand feet high, one of the most remarkable in the world, if its crater leads down to the centre of the Earth.”
“But that is impossible,” I disgusted at such a ridiculous supposition.
“Impossible?” said the Professor severely; “and why?”
“Because this crater is evidently filled with lava and burning rocks, and therefore—”
“But suppose it is an extinct volcano[28]?”
“Extinct?”
“Yes; the number of active volcanoes on the surface of the globe is about three hundred. But there is a much larger number of extinct ones. Now, Sneffels is one of these.”
“What is the meaning of this word ‘Scartaris’?”
My uncle took a few minutes to consider.
“What is darkness to you is light to me. One of the peaks is called Scartaris, it flung its shadow down the mouth of that crater. Isn’t it the most exact guide? When we arrive at the summit of Sneffels we shall find the proper road.”
“Well, then,” I said, “I can admit that Saknussemm’s sentence is clear. That learned philosopher got to the bottom of Sneffels, and saw the shadow of Scartaris on the edge of the crater before the kalends of July. But as for performing the journey, and returning, if he ever went, I say no—he never, never did that.”
“And why?” said my uncle ironically.
“All the theories
Sneffels – Снеффелс
Scartaris – Скартарис
kalends – календы; в древнеримском календаре название первого дня каждого месяца.
I am half dead with hunger. – Я умираю от голода.
Reykjavik – Рейкьявик
extinct volcano – потухший вулкан
