Chapter 10 The First Sign of Trouble When I opened my eyes, I was looking straight up the tunnel we had just climbed down.
If I stood in the right spot, I could still see the blue sky above.
It was the perfect view.
Well, Axel, my uncle said, did you sleep well?
I'd say it was a much better sleep than we'd have at home.
No noise from the streets, no sounds from the market.
It's very peaceful here, don't you think?
Well, we are deep underground, I said.
Heavens no, he replied.
We have not even reached ground level.
We climbed 5,000 feet to the top of a volcano.
We've only gone down 3,000 feet.
We still have a long way to go.
In his journal, Uncle Edenbrock wrote down the temperature and the direction we were heading, whether south east, west or north.
He did this every morning to record our progress.
With that, we set off again.
Even though I could see a bit of the sky from here, we still needed extra light.
Our lamps glowed against the sides of the tunnel.
The last time this volcano had erupted, it was 1219.
Boiling hot lava passed through these corridors and coated the walls.
They were now shiny as metal.
We could see the different colors of the hardened lava.
It's magnificent, I exclaimed.
Look, uncle, I've never seen anything so incredible.
I'm glad you are finally enjoying yourself, he said.
I knew you would be impressed once you stopped worrying.
As we continued on, I noticed that it was not getting hotter.
Most theories said the center of the earth was filled with hot gases.
Although we were not far underground, I wondered when the temperature would start to change.
My uncle took precise measurements so that he could record any differences.
I tried not to worry about this either.
At 8 p.m. we sat down for our dinner.
We had some bread and canned meat.
I enjoyed my little bit of food, but I started to worry about something else.
Water.
Would we have enough water to get us through our journey?
I mentioned this fear to my uncle.
He quieted me with a wave of his hand.
I'm certain that we will find a stream along the way.
We do not have to worry about our water supply.
This did little to calm my worries, but there was no point in arguing.
My uncle was sure of himself.
I settled down for another night's sleep.
All our activity was making me very tired by the end of each day.
The next morning we began our journey again.
We did not get too far before we had to stop.
Our tunnel came to a chamber.
There were two tunnels leading from it.
We had no idea what to do.
Uncle Lidenbrock made a quick decision.
He pointed to the tunnel on the right and headed inside.
Hans and I followed.
As we walked, I noticed something strange.
The rock formations were changing again, but this time they were getting newer, not older.
We were not walking down, we were heading back up to the surface.
I pointed this out to my uncle, but he didn't listen.
I think he did not want to admit that he had made the wrong choice.
But uncle, I said, haven't you noticed the tunnel is sloping upward?
I'm sure we are going in the wrong direction.
And I'm sure that you are mistaken, he replied.
We continued on.
I'm worried about our water supply, I said a little while later.
We're already running short.
If we go too far in the wrong direction, we won't have enough to survive.
You worry too much, Uncle Lidenbrock said.
We will continue until we reach the end.
We will not turn back.
We will portion the water if necessary.
We continued.
