"How do you mean?" cried the Professor; "no—what are your reasons?"
"Hans is wrong," said I, rising.
After all the innumerable surprises of this journey, a yet more singular one was reserved to us. I expected to see a cone covered by snow, by extensive and widespread glaciers, in the midst of the arid deserts of the extreme northern regions, beneath the full rays of a polar sky, beyond the highest latitudes.
But contrary to all our expectations, I, my uncle, and the Icelander, were cast upon the slope of a mountain calcined by the burning rays of a sun which was literally baking us with its fires.
I could not believe my eyes, but the actual heat which affected my body allowed me no chance of doubting. We came out of the crater half naked, and the radiant star from which we had asked nothing for two months, was good enough to be prodigal to us of light and warmth—a light and warmth we could easily have dispensed with.
When our eyes were accustomed to the light we had lost sight of so long, I used them to rectify the errors of my imagination. Whatever happened, we should have been at Spitsbergen, and I was in no humor to yield to anything but the most absolute proof.
After some delay, the Professor spoke.
"Hem!" he said, in a hesitating kind of way, "it really does not look like Iceland."
"But supposing it were the island of Jan Mayen?" I ventured to observe.
"Not in the least, my boy. This is not one of the volcanoes of the north, with its hills of granite and its crown of snow."