Chapter 34 Chapter 34 Aksai Island

Fortunately on Wednesday, August 19, the wind blew us away from the battle quickly.Hannes was still at the helm. After his uncle had watched the battle for entertainment, he looked at the sea impatiently. Again our voyage became as monotonous as it had been the previous few days, but I preferred to remain as it was, rather than to experience as much danger as yesterday. On Thursday, August 20, the wind was north-northeast and varied at times.The temperature is very high.Our speed is ten miles an hour.At noon, a sound was heard in the distance—a constant low growl, which I cannot explain. "Rocks or islands," said the professor, "the waves are hitting them."

Hannes climbed to the top of the mast, but the rock was out of sight.The ocean and the horizon become one.Three hours passed; the sound seemed to be the sound of a distant waterfall; I told my uncle so, but he shook his head.I still think I'm right, and it's strange whether we're running all the way to the great waterfall that will take us to the abyss.I bet my uncle who likes vertical planes will be pleased, but I— At any rate, it must have been by some good means that this very noisy sound was brought over, for the roar was now distinctly audible.Does it come from the sky or the sea?

I look up at the clouds, trying to penetrate their depth.The sky was very still, and the clouds hanging high above the dome seemed motionless. In this strong light, they had lost their shape.Evidently, the problem has to be explained elsewhere. Then I gazed at the clear, fog-free horizon.Its appearance has not changed.But if the sound came from a waterfall—if this great sea was pouring into a lower basin, if the rumble came from a falling waterfall, there would be a current pointing it, and its increasing speed would Warn us of the danger ahead of us.So I tossed an empty bottle, but there seemed to be no current—the sound was only carried by the wind.

About four o'clock Hanns got up and climbed up the mast again.He glanced around at the horizon, and finally his eyes rested on a certain point.He expressed no surprise, but his eyes were fixed on one spot. "He seems to have seen something," said the uncle. "Yes, I think I've seen something." Hans came down, then pointed to the south and said, "Over there!" "Over there?" repeated the uncle.He picked up the telescope and looked at it carefully for a minute that seemed to me like a century. "Yes, yes," he cried. "What do you see?"

"A gigantic spout rises from the wave." "Another sea beast?" "possible." "Then let's move the raft further west, for we've had enough of these ancient monsters!" "No, go straight ahead," replied the uncle. I turned to look at Hannes, but he was firmly at the helm. But if you could see, at a distance of at least thirty miles, and it seemed to be thirty miles, the line of water thrown up by that monster must have been of extraordinary size.Even the most prudent would run away, we drove forward only to see the spout getting bigger and bigger.What behemoth can suck in so much water and spit it out all at once?

At eight o'clock in the evening we were only five miles from the vent.This dark and huge thing stretched out like an island in the sea.Is it fantasy or fear - it's more than a mile high in my opinion!It was so motionless that it seemed to be asleep, and instead of protruding out of the sea, it threw up a line of water five hundred feet high.I was so frightened that I almost cut the rigging, for I would not drift all the way near this monster! Suddenly, Hanns stood up, pointed to the front and said in Danish: "island." "Island!" cried the uncle, laughing loudly.

"Is it the row of sea water sprayed out?" "Fountain," said Hans. "Ah, fountains, no doubt," replied the uncle, "like the fountains in Iceland." Initially I couldn't believe I'd made the mistake of mistaking an island for an animal in the water!But the facts have been proven, I have to admit that I was wrong.This is just a natural phenomenon, not some monster in the water. As we drew nearer the truth became clear, though the island resembled a gigantic whale whose head jutted sixty feet above the waves.The fountain (meaning "angry" in Icelandic) is of considerable size and rises at one end of the island.Loud explosions can be heard at certain times, and the gigantic vent encounters a more violent storm, shaking its plumes of water vapor and blowing out to the lower clouds.There is only this one vent, and there are neither fumaroles nor hot springs nearby, and all the power of the volcano is concentrated in the fountain.The light in the sky and the flashes in the water reflect each other, and each drop of water emits a different brilliance.

"We're coming from the side," said the uncle. We had to be careful, however, not to splash the water, or our raft would be drowned in no time.But Hannes expertly sent us to one end of the island. I jumped ashore, and my uncle quickly followed suit, but Hannes remained at his post, apparently unmoved by curiosity. We walked on granite mixed with siliceous tuff; the earth quivered under our feet as if it were the side of a cauldron full of hot steam—hot as a fire.We saw a small central basin from which the fountain rose, and I dipped the thermometer into the boiling water; one hundred and sixty-three degrees!

This shows that the water is sprayed from a very hot place.This is exactly the opposite of Professor Liedenbroek's theory.I immediately mentioned this to the professor. "Is that so? How do you know? What's the proof?" he said. "Nothing." Seeing that he was so stubborn, I didn't want to talk any more. It seems to me that although we have hitherto clearly been in conditions in which temperatures are favorable to us, there is no doubt that we will soon be in regions where heat exceeds ordinary limits. "We'll see," was what the uncle had to say; after naming the volcanic island after his nephew, he indicated to us to get on the raft again.Continuing to look at the fountain, I noticed that it was constantly changing in volume, suddenly growing and shrinking, which I attributed to changes in the pressure of the water vapor accumulating below.

At this point we re-raised our sails, and proceeded along the shore of the rocky shore which stood upright at the south end.During the time we were away from the raft, Hannes had put it in order.I noticed that we had sailed eight hundred and ten miles from the port of Grauban, and were eighteen hundred and sixty miles from Iceland, below England.