While I spoke thus, my uncle evidently avoided my face: he held down his head; his eyes were turned in every possible direction but the right one.
"Yes," I continued, getting excited by my own words, "we must go back to Sneffels. May heaven give us strength to enable us once more to revisit the light of day. Would that we now stood on the summit of the crater."
"Go back," said my uncle, speaking to himself, "and must it be so?"
"Go back--yes, and without losing a single moment," I vehemently cried.
For some moments there was silence under that dark and gloomy vault.
"So, my dear Harry," said the Professor in a very singular tone of voice, "those few drops of water have not sufficed to restore your energy and courage."
"Courage!" I cried.
"I see that you are quite as downcast as befo
