e higher!"

I followed, and in a few minutes I had climbed to the top, which for a
circle of ten yards commanded the whole mass of rock.

I looked down the side we had just climbed. The mountain did not rise
more than seven or eight hundred feet above the level of the plain; but
on the opposite side it commanded from twice that height the depths of
this part of the Atlantic. My eyes ranged far over a large space lit
by a violent fulguration. In fact, the mountain was a volcano.

At fifty feet above the peak, in the midst of a rain of stones and
scoriae, a large crater was vomiting forth torrents of lava which fell
in a cascade of fire into the bosom of the liquid mass. Thus situated,
this volcano lit the lower plain like an immense torch, even to the
extreme limits of the horizon. I said that the submarine crater threw
up lava, but no flames. Flames require the oxygen of the air to feed
upon and cannot be developed under water; but streams of lava, having
in themselves the principles of their incandescence, can attain a white
heat, fight vigorously against the liquid element, and turn it to
vapour by contact.

Rapid currents bearing all these gases in diffusion and torrents of
lava slid to the bottom of the mountain like an eruption of Vesuvius on
another Terra del Greco.

There indeed under my eyes, ruined, destroyed, lay a town--its roofs
open to the sky, its temples fallen, its arches dislocated, its columns
lying on the ground, from which one would still recognise the massive
character of Tuscan architecture. Further on, some remains of a
gigantic aqueduct; here the high base of an Acropolis, with the
floating outline of a Parthenon; there traces of a quay, as if an
ancient port had formerly abutted on the borders of the ocean, and
disappeared with its merchant vessels and its war-galleys. Farther on
again, long lines of sunken walls and broad, deserted streets--a
perfect Pompeii escaped beneath the waters. Such was the sight that
Captain Nemo brought before my eyes!

Where was I? Where was I? I must know at any cost. I tried to speak,
but Captain Nemo stopped me by a gesture, and, picking up a piece of
chalk-stone, advanced to a rock of black basalt, and traced the one
word:

ATLANTIS

What a light shot through my mind! Atlantis! the Atlantis of Plato,
that continent denied by Origen and Humbolt, who placed its
disappearance amongst the legendary tales. I had it there now before
my eyes,