e.

And then, no more than a quarter of a mile away, we beheld a huge
mound, reared above the plain to a height of three hundred feet,
with a circumference of from two to three hundred feet. In its
strange form this great mound resembled an enormous sphinx; the body
uptight, the paws stretched out, crouching in the attitude of the
winged monster which Grecian Mythology has placed upon the way to
Thebes.

Was this a living animal, a gigantic monster, a mastodon a thousand
times the size of those enormous elephants of the polar seas whose
remains are still found in the ice? In our frame of mind we might
have believed that it was such a creature, and believed also that
the mastodon was about to hurl itself on our little craft and crush
it to atoms.

After a few moments of unreasoning and unreasonable fright, we
recognized that the strange object was only a great mound,
singularly shaped, and that the mist had just rolled off its head,
leaving it to stand out and confront us.

Ah! that sphinx! I remembered, at sight of it, that on the night
when the iceberg was overturned and the _Halbrane_ was carried away, I
had dreamed of a fabulous animal of this kind, seated at the pole of
the world, and from whom Edgar Poe could only wrest its secrets.

But our attention was to be attracted, our surprise, even our alarm,
was evoked soon by phenomena still more strange than the mysterious
earth form upon which the mist-curtain had been raised so suddenly.

I have said that the speed of the _Paracuta_ was gradually increasing;
now it was excessive, that of the current remaining inferior to it.
Now, of a sudden, the grapnel that had belonged to the _Halbrane_, and
was in the bow of the boat, flew out of its socket as though drawn
by an irresistible power, and the rope that held it was strained to
breaking point. It seemed to tow us, as it grazed the surface of the
water towards the shore.

"What's the matter?" cried William Guy. "Cut away,
boatswain, cut away!" shouted West, "or we shall be dragged
against the rocks."

Hurliguerly hurried to the bow of the _Paracuta_ to cut away the rope.
Of a sudden the knife he held was snatched out of his hand, the rope
broke, and the grapnel, like a projectile, shot off in the direction
of the sphinx.

At the same moment, all the articles on board the boat that were
made of iron or steel--cooking utensils, arms, Endicott's stove,
our knives, which were torn from out pockets--took flight