Voyage to the Center of the Earth

by Jacques Collin de Plancy

  “I have a presentiment,” he said, “that I’ll have a lucky find today.” As he spoke he was making his way along the shore, seeking in vain with his eyes for another fish cast up on the sand, like the first.

  We waited for some time without him returning. I went out of the cabin to see whether he might be coming back, and saw him looking out to sea, which he was studying uniquely and from which he seemed to be requesting something to eat. At the same time, I made out, thirty paces away from him, a large white bear, standing on its hind paws, leaning against a rock, lying in wait for the unfortunate Manseau without being seen by him.

  I held back the cry that was ready to escape my mouth; I leapt back into the cabin, seized a carbine and shouted to my companions to seize their weapons and follow me...

  At that moment, a heart-rending voice made itself heard, shouting for help.

  Our blood ran cold at the thought that Martinet was between the bear’s claws. We raced out, half trembling in every limb and half running with all our might...

  Oh, how relieved we were to see our poor comrade again, still on his feet, but fleeing before the horrible animal, which was pursuing him, growling...

  Clairancy, some way in front of the rest of us, fired his musket. The bear suddenly stopped. Then seeing that we were numerous, it made dispositions to flee.

  “Don’t let it escape!” shouted Edward, firing three bullets into its flank and running toward it, ax in hand...

  Everyone did likewise. The wounded and furious bear defended itself for a long time, but we were fortunate enough to dispatch it, and Martinet, recovered somewhat from his terror, had the courage to deliver a blow to the head of his fallen enemy with an ax. That act of bravery as generally applauded.

  “However,” the Manseau replied, “I declare to you that I won’t go out alone again. Let’s take the beast away, since it’s dead—but it won’t cease to scare me until we’ve butchered it.”

  That bear was thinner than the preceding one, but its flesh was nevertheless found quite good; in any case, the skins of those enormous beasts served us as beds, and everyone knows that they are a great resource against the cold.

  V. An unexpected encounter. Tristan’s story.

  That prize put us in a good mood. Edward, who had a passable understanding of butchering meat, carved a large piece of bear into slices and told us that he would cook them as steaks when we had finished skinning the animal and had exposed its skin in the sunlight to dry it. The odor of the grilling meat made our mouths water too much for us to work slowly; the bear was soon in pieces and its skin extended on the roof of the cabin. After that, everyone took their places around the fireplace, ready to do honor to the bear steaks.

  We were eating very cheerfully when we heard footsteps outside the cabin. Everyone pricked up their ears. The sound stopped at the door. Martinet exclaimed that it could only be one or several white bears, come to avenge the death of their comrade, or at least to steal the skin, which we had left outside.

  That conjecture appeared to us to be so plausible that we all got up with a spontaneous movement and leapt upon our weapons, in order to march against the enemy. But just as we were about to emerge in good order, the same sound was heard again. Several voices mingled with the sound of footsteps, articulating sounds that the thickness of the walls prevented us from making out.

  “I’m sure that it’s a band of bears,” the timid Manseau repeated, in a tremulous voice. “You can hear them—and you want to show yourselves!”

  “Personally, I presume they’re human,” replied Clairancy, taking hold of the door-bolt, “and it’s necessary to see them.”

  “Stop!” relied Martinet, urgently. “The men of this desert, if there are men here, can only be cannibals, and we’ll be as badly treated by them as by the white bears.”

  As he said these words, someone knocked three or four times on the door.

  “Let’s barricade it!” cried the Manseau, quivering.

  “Shut up, coward,” replied Clairancy, losing patience. “The inhabitants of Spitzbergen can only be unfortunates, who will give us help if they can, and request it from us if they need it.” At the same time, he opened the door. We all kept hold of our weapons, though...

  Ten men were before us, in the most deplorable state. Merciful God! How astonished we were when we recognized, in those living specters, a number of our companions, of whom we had lost sight with the large dinghy. And how agreeable was the surprise of those poor folk on finding in the cabin seven of their companions in misfortune. We stood there motionless for some time, looking at one another in amazement; everyone thought his eyes were deceiving him, or that he was abused by the trickery of a dream.

  Finally, we spoke, and recognized one another; we embraced with the most affectionate tenderness. Tears flowed from all eyes; no one any longer doubted whether he was asleep or awake, and yet we touched one another in order to make sure that we did not have vain shades before our eyes.

  Edward was the first to master his imagination, and to realize that the large dinghy must have been saved as fortunately as ours. That is why he interrupted our extravagances.

  “Our stupid sentimentalities are all very well,” he told us, “but that’s enough of them. Our comrades are hungry; let them finish the steaks. I’ll cut a few more slices, and we’ll chat at our ease with food in our hands.”

  We had not yet thought of inviting the newcomers into the cabin, so much had their sudden appearance troubled our heads. Edward’s words recalled us to our duty, so we did the honors of the house, and our poor friends finished our dinner with a devouring hunger.

  While they commenced eating, Edward took a large knife and went to the other room of our habitation, which served us, as I have said, as an arsenal and food store—but it was closed from the inside. Then we perceived that the Manseau had disappeared, and had taken refuge in that room in order to escape the bears or cannibals to whom we were opening the door. Edward shouted to him, ordered him to open up and told him to come and see his companions from the larger dinghy.

  He refused to appear for some time, saving that those people were dead, and that he did not recognize the voice that as speaking, but he finally opened up and showed himself. He was so pale and distraught that no one had the strength to make reproaches. His imaginary fears tormented him sufficiently; everyone was content to pity him and seek to reassure him.

  After he had studied our guests carefully, he gradually recovered, and ended up rejoicing in seeing the society augmented, because it would necessarily result in greater security for the whole troop. I asked him then what he had thought he was doing separating himself from us, and whether he expected to live alone when he had lost all of us.

  “What do you expect?” he said, naively. “Fear had already half-killed me when you opened the door. The slightest rifle shot you might have fired, or the slightest cry on your part, would probably have finished me off…but I’m like that, unfortunately.”

  At that moment, Edward went to the fireplace, and extended some large slices of bear-meat over the ardent blaze. “You haven’t eaten much,” he said to the newcomers. “This will finish restoring you. In the meantime, tell us by what fortunate hazard we meet again in this bleak desert. Afterwards, I’ll tell you about our adventures.”

  The youngest of our guests, having finished his steak, started speaking, He was a Burgundian about twenty-five years old, named Tristan, who followed the métier of fisherman. He was the only Frenchman the larger dinghy had saved, but he spoke English as fluently as his native tongue.

  “You’ll recall,” he told us, “that after the fatal catastrophe of the launch, the spectacle of our unfortunate companions carried off by the bears forced us to go out to sea. The large dinghy carrying us soon escaped your sight; you doubtless thought we were far away, but we were scarcely half a league distant, engaged in the ice-floes, when we perceived you, safely heading for Spitzbergen. You were too far away to hear our shouts and a few musket shot
s, since we lost sight of you after shouting in vain for several minutes.

  “Then, finding ourselves alone in the midst of the Glacial Sea, we no longer thought about anything but freeing ourselves from the icebergs and following the route we had seen you take, and catching up with you, if good fortune permitted it.

  “While we were all working with great zeal to break up a bank of ice that was blocking our way, a gust of wind, doubtless sent by Heaven to help us pushed forward one of the floating rocks against which we were almost leaning. Everyone aboard was scared that we might suffer the same fate as the launch, but we were immediately reassured; the sea opened up before us, seemingly letting us through.

  “The oars were already in play to assist the favorable wind, when the water that was audible behind the dinghy attracted our attention and our gaze. A monster of enormous size, which we took for a sea-horse,8 was pursuing three of our poor companions from the launch. The unfortunates were closing to a long beam, and as they had no weapons, they could only defend themselves against the beast by continually presenting to it one of the extremities of the piece of wood on which they were sitting. All the trouble they took, however, did not dissuade the monster, and would only have delayed the moment of their death for a few minutes if the accident I told you about hadn’t stopped us a short distance away—luckily for them.

  “The moment they saw us, they raised their arms toward us, uttering cries of distress, and appealing to us for help in almost-expiring voices. The cruel animal was so close behind them that we dared not think that we might reach them soon enough to save them. Even so, we plied the oars, and the dinghy was only a hundred brasses away from the beam when one of the shipwreck victims it was carrying, doubtless exhausted by so much fatigue, fell into the sea.

  “The monster lunged forward...”

  At that point, a frightful clamor uttered by a sailor interrupted Tristan’s story, and cast agitation into the hearts of all his listeners. Heavy footfalls could be heard on the roof of the cabin; the light that entered through the chimney was suddenly interrupted.

  Clairancy leapt toward the flue in order to see what might be causing the sound and he sudden obscurity. He recoiled trembling, and the sight of the head of a monster that was visible above the chimney-stack, which he could not define. At the same time, he shouted to us to take up our weapons again.

  VI. Continuation of Tristan’s story.

  Reunion of the two troops.

  The roof of our cabin formed a rather steep slope, which descended all the way to the ground on the side opposite the door. The animal that was disturbing us had not had any difficulty climbing up to the chimney-stack, and the extremity was not solid enough to reassure up; it might have shaken it by its movements and thrown us into great embarrassment—but it held still above the opening, doubtless attached by the smoke of the grill or seeking a means to get to us.

  We all took up our carbines and axes, without knowing exactly what enemy we were marching against. We ought to have guessed right away, though, for there are only white bears and foxes that frequent Spitzbergen. We were not yet in the season for the small animals, and the muzzle that Clairancy had seen was larger than the entire body of an Arctic fox.

  As soon as we were outside, and our gazes went to the roof of the cabin, we recognized another white bear, but it had scarcely perceived us in such large number than it descended as rapidly as possible and fled with such great strides that it was necessary to renounce any hope of catching it.

  We therefore went back into the cabin, after having looked in all directions to see whether anything else was manifest. The steaks were well cooked; everyone got ready to take his share, and Tristan, while dispatching his own, set out to finish his story for us.

  “I was telling you,” he went on, “that the big dinghy was a hundred brasses or hereabouts from the beam carrying our three comrades when one of them fell into the sea, exhausted by efforts and difficulties beyond his strength. The monster immediately pounced on him; it was impossible for us to pursue it. Our poor comrade didn’t reappear, and it was necessary for us to be content with having saved, in the other two companions on the beam, the captain and the crew-master...”

  “What! The captain is saved!” the company of the little dinghy immediately exclaimed. “Thank Heaven!”

  “Yes,” said Tristan, “he’s escaped death, and if he is indebted to us for that, we are also indebted to him for the conservation of our frail existence since we have been on Spitzbergen.”

  “But where have you left him?”

  “You’ll soon know—first listen to the rest of our adventures, which I can finish in a few words. From the moment the captain and the crew-master set foot in our dinghy, it was laden with twenty-one people, but we soon had no more food, and we were on the brink of running out of water. Our two former masters, whom we had just saved, and whom misfortune had rendered our equals, first took a few glasses of wine, which soon refreshed them thanks to their robust temperament, and after an hour’s rest, the captain took charge of directing our route.

  “The boat wandered for six days in the midst of ice and multiple perils. Then, finally, we perceived Spitzbergen—but solid ice prevented us from getting close to it. It was only by means of long and difficult detours that we were able to discover an opening that brought us to the shore. I won’t describe the joy that transported us when we touched land; you must have felt one as keen as ours, although this frightful country is more like a tomb than a refuge.

  “As we had no more fresh water, several of us had been imprudent enough to drink sea water; four of them died on the day we disembarked, and our first concern was to bury them. That sad ceremony plunged us into bitter mourning. A few of our companions said, weeping, that we ought to be jealous of those we were putting in the earth, that they were more fortunate than us, and that death that had extracted them from pain would doubtless only strike us after we had experienced even greater evils.

  “The captain succeeded in reassuring the entire afflicted troop; he reminded us that several shipwreck-victims had succeeded in spending entire years in the deserts of the north, and that with good will and courage, we could hope to see Europe again. He soon took us away from the place where we had buried the dead and led us in search of a spring of fresh water. We were fortunate enough to find one not far away, and after slaking our thirst, drinking long draughts of that salutary liquid, for which we would have disdained all sorbets and the best wines in the word, it was decided that we would build a cabin next to the spring.

  “We therefore returned immediately to the dinghy, in order to drag it on to dry land. As we were getting ready to do that, the crew-master perceived a sea-cow accompanied by her calf out at sea, within musket range. He proposed that we go fishing, which as generally agreed.

  The dinghy advanced slowly toward the animal, which did not seem very wild, and did not have time to evade us. Two fishermen threw a harpoon with so much skill that the sea-cow was caught, killed and placed in the little vessel. Then we thought of taking possession of the young calf. It allowed itself to be captured, so to speak, for as soon as it saw its mother lifted up and placed in the boat it no longer drew away, and seemed only to be seeking to get closer to the cow. Thus, that fishing trip furnished us with abundant food for several days.

  “When we returned to the shore, the dinghy was beached, and although we were numerous, our exhaustion was such that the task gave us a great deal of difficulty. Our troop then did what yours has done; the boat was dragged to the spring of fresh water, broken up, and a cabin was constructed with it—but we didn’t find the work already done, as you have; that why it was long and arduous, and all that resulted from it as a retched hut devoid of solidity, into which we could scarcely cram ourselves. Alas—if we had only known you were so close to us! But the hunger that forced us to go bear-hunting in order to subsist, and the most fortunate stroke of luck, has reunited us...

  “When I’ve told you that the captain and our si
x other companions are ill, in our miserable shelter, and that we’re scarcely an hour’s walk away from it, you’ll know our whole story...”

  “Only an hour away!” exclaimed Edward. “Let’s hurry up and finish our dinner, and go to console our poor invalids. They’ll be better off here, for sure, than in their bleak hovel. We have a few bottles of wine that will at least restore their strength.”

  That proposal was too much in conformity with the opinion of the entire troop not to be immediately adopted. The bear steaks were dispatched very rapidly, after which we set out en route to the hut where the invalids were lying. We had closed the door solidly, and on Clearance’s advice we took our three bearskins with us in order to wrap our suffering companions in them.

  The mutual transports of joy and affection that had accompanied our recognition of the first ten of our comrades were renewed when we were able to embrace the invalids, especially the captain, who loved us all; tears of joy flowed abundantly from their eyes when we announced a comfortable shelter for them, with a good fire, a little wine and eau-de-vie and a few biscuits. That unexpected amelioration of their destiny seemed to restore their health; they all got up and asked to see the fortunate cabin immediately.

  You will recall that the larger dinghy had saved three baskets full of poultry when the ship sank. One still remained, which had been saved for the invalids, which had scarcely been dipped into. Edward, who was a good cook, took that basket on his back and went on ahead, with five fishermen laden with various utensils and munitions. The invalids declared that they had no need of our bearskins, that joy had warmed them up and that they wanted to walk unhampered. Everyone, therefore, took from the hut everything that he could carry; it was sealed as securely as possible, and then, now numbering twenty-four—including the six who had gone on ahead—we resumed the route to the hospitable cabin.