A Journey to the Centre of the Earth | Page 4

all?
Suddenly, just as I had consumed the last apple and drunk the last glass of wine, a terrible
voice was heard at no great distance. It was my uncle roaring for me to come to him. I
made very nearly one leap of it--so loud, so fierce was his tone.

CHAPTER 2
THE MYSTERIOUS PARCHMENT
[Illustration: Runic Glyphs]
"I Declare," cried my uncle, striking the table fiercely with his fist, "I declare to you it is
Runic--and contains some wonderful secret, which I must get at, at any price."
I was about to reply when he stopped me.
"Sit down," he said, quite fiercely, "and write to my dictation."
I obeyed.
"I will substitute," he said, "a letter of our alphabet for that of the Runic: we will then see
what that will produce. Now, begin and make no mistakes."
The dictation commenced with the following incomprehensible result:
mm.rnlls esruel seecJde sgtssmf unteief niedrke kt,samn atrateS Saodrrn emtnaeI nuaect
rrilSa Atvaar .nscrc ieaabs ccdrmi eeutul frantu dt,iac oseibo KediiY
Scarcely giving me time to finish, my uncle snatched the document from my hands and
examined it with the most rapt and deep attention.
"I should like to know what it means," he said, after a long period.
I certainly could not tell him, nor did he expect me to--his conversation being uniformly
answered by himself.
"I declare it puts me in mind of a cryptograph," he cried, "unless, indeed, the letters have
been written without any real meaning; and yet why take so much trouble? Who knows
but I may be on the verge of some great discovery?"
My candid opinion was that it was all rubbish! But this opinion I kept carefully to myself,
as my uncle's choler was not pleasant to bear. All this time he was comparing the book
with the parchment.
"The manuscript volume and the smaller document are written in different hands," he
said, "the cryptograph is of much later date than the book; there is an undoubted proof of
the correctness of my surmise. [An irrefragable proof I took it to be.] The first letter is a
double M, which was only added to the Icelandic language in the twelfth century--this
makes the parchment two hundred years posterior to the volume."
The circumstances appeared very probable and very logical, but it was all surmise to me.
"To me it appears probable that this sentence was written by some owner of the book.

Now who was the owner, is the next important question. Perhaps by great good luck it
may be written somewhere in the volume."
With these words Professor Hardwigg took off his spectacles, and, taking a powerful
magnifying glass, examined the book carefully.
On the fly leaf was what appeared to be a blot of ink, but on examination proved to be a
line of writing almost effaced by time. This was what he sought; and, after some
considerable time, he made out these letters:
[Illustration: Runic Glyphs]
"Arne Saknussemm!" he cried in a joyous and triumphant tone, "that is not only an
Icelandic name, but of a learned professor of the sixteenth century, a celebrated
alchemist."
I bowed as a sign of respect.
"These alchemists," he continued, "Avicenna, Bacon, Lully, Paracelsus, were the true, the
only learned men of the day. They made surprising discoveries. May not this
Saknussemm, nephew mine, have hidden on this bit of parchment some astounding
invention? I believe the cryptograph to have a profound meaning--which I must make
out."
My uncle walked about the room in a state of excitement almost impossible to describe.
"It may be so, sir," I timidly observed, "but why conceal it from posterity, if it be a useful,
a worthy discovery?"
"Why--how should I know? Did not Galileo make a secret of his discoveries in
connection with Saturn? But we shall see. Until I discover the meaning of this sentence I
will neither eat nor sleep."
"My dear uncle--" I began.
"Nor you neither," he added.
It was lucky I had taken double allowance that day.
"In the first place," he continued, "there must be a clue to the meaning. If we could find
that, the rest would be easy enough."
I began seriously to reflect. The prospect of going without food and sleep was not a
promising one, so I determined to do my best to solve the mystery. My uncle, meanwhile,
went on with his soliloquy.
"The way to discover it is easy enough. In this document there are one hundred and
thirty-two letters, giving seventy-nine consonants to fifty-three vowels. This is about the

proportion found in most southern languages, the idioms of the north being much more
rich in consonants. We may confidently predict, therefore, that we have to deal with a
southern dialect."
Nothing could be more logical.
"Now," said