CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

We walked through the bones of animals for another half and an hour. We kept going, curious about what else we would see. The beach was far behind us. The professor was not concerned with getting lost, and so we continued. We moved in silence under the electric light of the sky. Since the light was all around us, not coming from one place, there were no shadows.

After walking a mile, we came to a great forest It had no giant mushrooms like the one we had seen at Port Grauben. Here there were tall pine trees that are no longer on the surface of the Earth. There was no color in the trees, without the light of the sun. Everything was rather the color brown with no smell. My uncle walked into the forest; I followed him. Then, I saw different plants from around the world mixed together in that forest. I saw trees from Australia next to those from Norway and New Zealand.

Suddenly, I stopped, grabbing my uncle's arm. Far away in the forest, I saw a huge animal moving. I then saw a large group of ancient elephants, such animals that were no longer anywhere on the surface.

Then, my uncle pointed into the distance. I was then shocked to see an ancient human in the forest. This human was standing next to a tree, watching the group of ancient elephants go by. This was not like the ones we saw near the beach, rather this man was a giant. He was more than twelve feet tall. I was afraid we would soon be in danger if we went farther into the forest. My uncle finally agreed, and we were soon back on the beach.

Now, I think back to that time in the underground forest, after so many months have gone by, and still cannot believe that we saw ancient humans living under the surface of the Earth. Our eyes must have been lying to us. It is impossible. Humans living inside the Earth, with no communication with those living on the surface, it's crazy!

I prefer to believe that we saw an animal that was built looking similar to a human being, but not actually a human. But what we saw was much larger than any human that has ever lived on the surface of the Earth. A man living his entire life inside the Earth? Never!

We left the forest in silence, shocked by what we had seen. We were running, perhaps afraid of what we had just seen. We went back to the Lidenbrock Sea. Though I was sure we were going a different way than we had come to the forest, I saw rocks that looked like those at Port Grauben. I then knew that we were now on the north beach of the Lidenbrock Sea. I then told my uncle of my suspicions about our location.

"We obviously didn't come back exactly to our starting point at Port Grauben, but we are near it."

"Are you sure you're right, Axel?"

"No, I can't be sure because all these rocks look alike."

"Well, Axel, if this were Port Grauben, we'd see things that we went by, or reminders of our presence here, and I don't see anything ... "

"But I do see something!" I said, as I picked up a knife I saw lying on the ground.

I showed my uncle the old knife I found on the ground.

"So you brought that knife with you?" he asked.

"No, I didn't bring it. Didn't you?"

"No, I've never had a knife like that. But, Axel, Icelanders often have such knives. This one belongs to Hans and he lost it"

I disagreed, knowing that Hans had never had it. My uncle silently examined the knife.

"This knife looks old, Axel. Someone who has come before us lost this knife, and it had been in the sea for a great deal of time, but the storm has brought it to this beach."

We then walked along the beach, and saw between two rocks, the entrance to a dark passageway.

There, on one of the rocks, appeared two mysterious letters in ancient Icelandic.

"A.S.!" cried my uncle. "Arne Saknussemm! Arne Saknussemm again!"

(end of section)