nd.

I began to believe that, instead of being awake, I must be dreaming.
Surely my brain had not been affected by my fall, and all that occurred
during the last twenty-four hours was not the frenzied visions of
madness? And yet after some reflection, a trial of my faculties, I came
to the conclusion that I could not be mistaken. Eyes and ears could not
surely both deceive me.

"It is a ray of the blessed daylight," I said to myself, "which has
penetrated through some mighty fissure in the rocks. But what is the
meaning of this murmur of waves, this unmistakable moaning of the
salt-sea billows? I can hear, too, plainly enough, the whistling of the
wind. But can I be altogether mistaken? If my uncle, during my illness,
has but carried me back to the surface of the earth! Has he, on my
account, given up his wondrous expedition, or in some strange manner has
it come to an end?"

I was puzzling my brain over these and other questions, when the
Professor joined me.

"Good day, Harry," he cried in a joyous tone. "I fancy you are quite
well."

"I am very much better," I replied, actually sitting up in my bed.

"I knew that would be the end of it, as you slept both soundly and
tranquilly. Hans and I have each taken turn to watch, and every hour we
have seen visible signs of amelioration."

"You must be right, Uncle," was my reply, "for I feel as if I could do
justice to any meal you could put before me."

"You shall eat, my boy, you shall eat. The fever has left you. Our
excellent friend Hans has rubbed your wounds and bruises with I know not
what ointment, of which the Icelanders alone possess the secret. And
they have healed your bruises in the most marvelous manner. Ah, he's a
wise fellow is Master Hans."

While he was speaking, my uncle was placing before me several articles
of food, which, despite his earnest injunctions, I readily devoured. As
soon as the first rage of hunger was appeased, I overwhelmed him with
questions, to which he now no longer hesitated to give answers.

I then learned, for the first time, that my providential fall had
brought me to the bottom of an almost perpendicular gallery. As I came
down, amidst a perfect shower of stones, the least of which falling on
me would have crushed me to death, they came to the conclusion that I
had carried with me an entire dislocated rock. Riding as it were on this
terrible chariot, I was cast headlong into my uncle's arms. And into
them I fell, insensib