ng out of her kitchen at the nois

lied, "compl

ut his dinner?" sa

n't ha

his s

n't ha

Martha, with

o eat anything at all. Uncle Liedenbrock is going to make us all f

ust we then all

with so absolute a ruler as my

moved, returned to the ki

e Professor might return at any moment. And suppose he called me? And suppose he tackled me again with this logomachy, whic

siliceous nodules, which I had to classify: so I set to work; I sorted, labelled, and arranged in their

ent kept working in my brain. My head throbbed with excitement, and I felt

mused myself watching the process of the conversion of the tobacco into carbon, which was by slow degrees making my naiad into a negress. Now and then I listened to hear whether a well-known step was on the stairs. No. Where could my uncle be at that m

king myself questions, and mechanically taking between my fingers the sheet of paper mysteriously disfigured wit

f it but nonsense. To be sure the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth letters made the English word 'ice'; the eighty-third and two following

the fourth line appeared the word "luco", which means a sacred wood. It is true that in the third line was

ea of ice; but it was quite another thing to get to the end of this cryptogram with so small a clue. So I was struggling with an insurmountable difficulty; my brain got heated, my eyes watered over that sheet of paper; its hundred and thirty-two letters seemed to flutter and fly around me like those motes of mingled light and darkness which float in the air around the head when the blood is rushing

rough the paper. Such as it was, just such as it had been dictated to me, so it might be spelt out with ease. All those ingenious professorial combinations were coming right. He was right as to the

, I could scarcely see. I had laid the paper upon t

k twice round the room quietly and settle my nerves, and

ed, after having well dis

upon every letter; and without a pause, without one m

deadly blow. What! that which I read had actually, really be

want to know all about it. Ropes could not hold him, such a determined geologist as he is! He would start, he would,

ent was beyond

ent the knowledge of it coming into the mind of my tyrant, I will do it. By dint of tu

parchment; with a feverish hand I was about to fling it all upon the coals and utterly de