CHAPTER XXXVIII
NO OUTLET—BLASTING THE ROCK
Ever since the commencement of our marvelous journey, I had experienced many surprises, had suffered from many illusions. I thought that I was case-hardened against all surprises and could neither see nor hear anything to amaze me again. When, however, I saw these two letters, which had been engraven three hundred years before, I stood fixed in an attitude of mute surprise.
Not only was there the signature of the learned and enterprising alchemist written in the rock, but I held in my hand the identical instrument with which he had laboriously engraved it. It was impossible, without showing an amount of incredulity scarcely becoming a sane man, to deny the existence of the traveler, and the reality of that voyage which I believed all along to have been a myth—the mystification of some fertile brain.
While these reflections were passing through my mind, my uncle, the Professor, gave way to an access of feverish and poetical excitement. "Wonderful and glorious Genius, great Saknussemm," he cried, "you have left no resource omitted to show to other mortals the way into the interior of our mighty globe, and your fellow-creatures can find the trail left by your illustrious footsteps, three hundred years ago. You have been careful to secure for others the contemplation of these wonders and marvels of creation. Your name engraved at every important stage of your glorious journey, leads the hopeful traveler direct to the mighty discovery to which you devoted such energy and courage. The audacious traveler, who shall follow your footsteps to the last, will doubtless find your initials engraved with your own hand upon the center of the earth. I will be that audacious traveler—I, too, will sign my name upon the very same spot, upon the central granite stone of this wondrous work of the Creator. But in justice to your devotion, and to your being the first to indicate the road, let this Cape, seen by you upon the shores of this sea discovered by you, be called of all time, Cape Saknussemm."
This is what I heard, and I began to be roused to the pitch of enthusiasm indicated by those words. A fierce excitement roused me. I forgot everything. The dangers of the voyage, and the perils of the return journey, were
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