Read Online Journey to the Center of the Earth (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Jules Verne - Free Book Online
Authors: Jules Verne
Ads: Link
hundred and thirty-two letters fluttered around me like those silver teardrops which float in the air around our heads when the blood has rushed toward it.
I was in the grip of a kind of hallucination; I was suffocating; I needed air. Mechanically, I fanned myself with the piece of paper, the back and front of which came successively before my eyes.
What was my surprise when, in one of those rapid turns, at the moment when the back was turned to me, I thought I caught sight of the Latin words “craterem” and “terrestre,” among others!
A sudden light burst in on me; these hints alone gave me the first glimpse of the truth; I had discovered the key to the cipher. To read the document, it would not even be necessary to read it with the paper turned upside down. Such as it was, just as it had been dictated to me, so it might be spelled out with ease. All the professor’s ingenious combinations were coming into their own. He was right as to the arrangement of the letters; he was right as to the language. He had been within a hair’s breadth of reading this Latin document from end to end; but that hair’s breadth, chance had given it to me!
You will understand if I was excited! My eyes glazed over. I could barely use them. I had spread the paper out on the table. It was enough to take one look at it to grasp the secret.
At last I calmed down. I forced myself to walk twice round the room quietly and settle my nerves, and then I sank again into the huge armchair.
“Let’s read it,” I exclaimed, after having filled my lungs with air.
I leaned over the table; I laid my finger successively on every letter; and without a pause, without one moment’s hesitation, I read off the whole sentence aloud.
But what amazement, what terror came over me! I sat overwhelmed as if struck by a sudden deadly blow. What! that which I read had actually, really been done! A mortal man had had the audacity to penetrate! ...
“Ah!” I exclaimed, jumping up. “But no! no! My uncle will never know it. He’d insist on doing it too. He’d want to know all about it. Nothing could stop him! Such a determined geologist! He’d go, he would, in spite of everything and everybody, and he’d take me with him, and we’d never get back. Never! never!”
My overexcitement was beyond all description.
“No! no! it can’t be,” I declared energetically; “and as it’s in my power to prevent the knowledge of it coming into the mind of my tyrant, I’ll do it. By dint of turning this document round and round, he too might discover the key. I’ll destroy it.”
There was a little fire left in the fireplace. I seized not only the paper but Saknussemm’s parchment; with a feverish hand I was about to fling it all on the coals and annihilate this dangerous secret when the study door opened. My uncle appeared.
V
I HAD ONLY JUST time to replace the unfortunate document on the table.
Professor Lidenbrock seemed to be greatly abstracted.
His main concern gave him no rest. Evidently he had gone deeply into the matter, analytically and with profound scrutiny. He had brought all the resources of his mind to bear on it during his walk, and he had come back to try out some new combination.
He sat in his armchair, and pen in hand he began with what looked very much like an algebraic calculation: I followed his trembling hand with my eyes; not one of his movements was lost on me. Might not some unhoped-for result come of it? I trembled, too, very unnecessarily, since the true key was in my hands, and no other would open the secret.
For three long hours my uncle worked on without a word, without lifting his head; erasing, starting over, then erasing again, and so on a hundred times.
I knew very well that if he succeeded in setting down these letters in every possible relative position, the sentence would come out. But I also knew that twenty letters alone could form two quintillion, four hundred and thirty-two quadrillion, nine hundred and two
I was in the grip of a kind of hallucination; I was suffocating; I needed air. Mechanically, I fanned myself with the piece of paper, the back and front of which came successively before my eyes.
What was my surprise when, in one of those rapid turns, at the moment when the back was turned to me, I thought I caught sight of the Latin words “craterem” and “terrestre,” among others!
A sudden light burst in on me; these hints alone gave me the first glimpse of the truth; I had discovered the key to the cipher. To read the document, it would not even be necessary to read it with the paper turned upside down. Such as it was, just as it had been dictated to me, so it might be spelled out with ease. All the professor’s ingenious combinations were coming into their own. He was right as to the arrangement of the letters; he was right as to the language. He had been within a hair’s breadth of reading this Latin document from end to end; but that hair’s breadth, chance had given it to me!
You will understand if I was excited! My eyes glazed over. I could barely use them. I had spread the paper out on the table. It was enough to take one look at it to grasp the secret.
At last I calmed down. I forced myself to walk twice round the room quietly and settle my nerves, and then I sank again into the huge armchair.
“Let’s read it,” I exclaimed, after having filled my lungs with air.
I leaned over the table; I laid my finger successively on every letter; and without a pause, without one moment’s hesitation, I read off the whole sentence aloud.
But what amazement, what terror came over me! I sat overwhelmed as if struck by a sudden deadly blow. What! that which I read had actually, really been done! A mortal man had had the audacity to penetrate! ...
“Ah!” I exclaimed, jumping up. “But no! no! My uncle will never know it. He’d insist on doing it too. He’d want to know all about it. Nothing could stop him! Such a determined geologist! He’d go, he would, in spite of everything and everybody, and he’d take me with him, and we’d never get back. Never! never!”
My overexcitement was beyond all description.
“No! no! it can’t be,” I declared energetically; “and as it’s in my power to prevent the knowledge of it coming into the mind of my tyrant, I’ll do it. By dint of turning this document round and round, he too might discover the key. I’ll destroy it.”
There was a little fire left in the fireplace. I seized not only the paper but Saknussemm’s parchment; with a feverish hand I was about to fling it all on the coals and annihilate this dangerous secret when the study door opened. My uncle appeared.
V
I HAD ONLY JUST time to replace the unfortunate document on the table.
Professor Lidenbrock seemed to be greatly abstracted.
His main concern gave him no rest. Evidently he had gone deeply into the matter, analytically and with profound scrutiny. He had brought all the resources of his mind to bear on it during his walk, and he had come back to try out some new combination.
He sat in his armchair, and pen in hand he began with what looked very much like an algebraic calculation: I followed his trembling hand with my eyes; not one of his movements was lost on me. Might not some unhoped-for result come of it? I trembled, too, very unnecessarily, since the true key was in my hands, and no other would open the secret.
For three long hours my uncle worked on without a word, without lifting his head; erasing, starting over, then erasing again, and so on a hundred times.
I knew very well that if he succeeded in setting down these letters in every possible relative position, the sentence would come out. But I also knew that twenty letters alone could form two quintillion, four hundred and thirty-two quadrillion, nine hundred and two
Similar Books
