He looked again at the telemeter; but, to his dismay, the needle was still far from the spot that would indicate the center.
A sudden fear came over our hero. "Something must be wrong!" he exclaimed in anguish. "I must calculate at once how far I ought to have fallen already, and compare it with the indications of the telemeter."
With feverish haste he jotted down the figures and performed the operations; but when he looked up again at the instrument a cry escaped him.
"I am lost!" he exclaimed in despair. "I am already one whole minute behind time! There must have been more air in the tube than the doctor calculated. One minute seems like a very small delay, and yet it is sufficient to keep me from arriving within six hundred miles of my destination. I shall never come anywhere near New York, but shall keep falling backward and forward in the tube until I finally come to a stop in the center; and there I may have to remain several days before the doctor can find some means of fishing me out—dead or alive!"
