Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

PART ONE

CHAPTER I
A SHIFTING REEF

The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and
puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to mention
rumours which agitated the maritime population and excited the public mind,
even in the interior of continents, seafaring men were particularly excited.
Merchants, common sailors, captains of vessels, skippers, both of Europe and
America, naval officers of all countries, and the Governments of several states
on the two continents, were deeply interested in the matter.

For some time past, vessels had been met by “an enormous thing,” a long object,
spindle-shaped, occasionally phosphorescent, and infinitely larger and more
rapid in its movements than a whale.

The facts relating to this apparition (entered in various log-books) agreed in
most respects as to the shape of the object or creature in question, the
untiring rapidity of its movements, its surprising power of locomotion, and the
peculiar life with which it seemed endowed. If it was a cetacean, it surpassed
in size all those hitherto classified in science. Taking into consideration the
mean of observations made at divers times,—rejecting the timid estimate of
those who assigned to this object a length of two hundred feet, equally with
the exaggerated opinions which set it down as a mile in width and three in
length,—we might fairly conclude that this mysterious being surpassed greatly
all dimensions admitted by the ichthyologists of the day, if it existed at all.
And that it did exist was an undeniable fact; and, with that tendency
which disposes the human mind in favour of the marvellous, we can understand
the excitement produced in the entire world by this supernatural apparition. As
to classing it in the list of fables, the idea was out of the question.

On the 20th of July, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, of the
Calcutta and Burnach Steam Navigation Company, had met this moving mass five
miles off the east coast of Australia. Captain Baker thought at first that he
was in the presence of an unknown sandbank; he even prepared to determine its
exact position, when two columns of water, projected by the inexplicable
object, shot with a hissing noise a hundred and fifty feet up into the air.
Now, unless the sandbank had been submitted to the intermittent eruption of a
geyser, the Governor Higginson had to do neither more nor less than with
an aquatic mammal, unknown till then, which threw up from its blow-holes
columns of water mixed with air and vapour.

Similar facts were observed on the 23rd of July in the same year, in the
Pacific Ocean, by the Columbus, of the West India and Pacific Steam
Navigation Company. But this extraordinary cetaceous creature could transport
itself from one place to another with surprising velocity; as, in an interval
of three days, the Governor Higginson and the Columbus had
observed it at two different points of the chart, separated by a distance of
more than seven hundred nautical leagues.

Fifteen days later, two thousand miles farther off, the Helvetia, of the
Compagnie-Nationale, and the Shannon, of the Royal Mail Steamship
Company, sailing to windward in that portion of the Atlantic lying between the
United States and Europe, respectively signalled the monster to each other in
42° 15′ N. lat. and 60° 35′ W. long. In these simultaneous
observations they thought themselves justified in estimating the minimum length
of the mammal at more than three hundred and fifty feet, as the Shannon
and Helvetia were of smaller dimensions than it, though they measured
three hundred feet over all.

Now the largest whales, those which frequent those parts of the sea round the
Aleutian, Kulammak, and Umgullich islands, have never exceeded the length of
sixty yards, if they attain that.

These reports arriving one after the other, with fresh observations made on
board the transatlantic ship Pereire, a collision which occurred between
the Etna of the Inman line and the monster, a procès verbal
directed by the officers of the French frigate Normandie, a very
accurate survey made by the staff of Commodore Fitz-James on board the Lord
Clyde, greatly influenced public opinion. Light-thinking people jested upon
the phenomenon, but grave practical countries, such as England, America, and
Germany, treated the matter more seriously.

In every place of great resort the monster was the fashion. They sang of it in
the cafés, ridiculed it in the papers, and represented it on the stage. All
kinds of stories were circulated regarding it. There appeared in the papers
caricatures of every gigantic and imaginary creature, from the white whale, the
terrible “Moby Dick” of hyperborean regions, to the immense kraken whose
tentacles could entangle a ship of five hundred tons, and hurry it into the
abyss of the ocean. The legends of ancient times were even resuscitated, and
the opinions of Aristotle and Pliny revived, who admitted the existence of
these monsters, as well as the Norwegian tales of Bishop Pontoppidan, the
accounts of Paul Heggede, and, last of all, the reports of Mr. Harrington
(whose good faith no one could suspect), who affirmed that, being on board the
Castillan, in 1857, he had seen this enormous serpent, which had never
until that time frequented any other seas but those of the ancient
“Constitutionnel.”

Then burst forth the interminable controversy between the credulous and the
incredulous in the societies of savants and the scientific journals. “The
question of the monster” inflamed all minds. Editors of scientific journals,
quarrelling with believers in the supernatural, spilled seas of ink during this
memorable campaign, some even drawing blood; for, from the sea-serpent they
came to direct personalities.

For six months war was waged with various fortune in the leading articles of
the Geographical Institution of Brazil, the Royal Academy of Science of Berlin,
the British Association, the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, in the
discussions of the “Indian Archipelago,” of the Cosmos of the Abbé Moigno, in
the Mittheilungen of Petermann, in the scientific chronicles of the great
journals of France and other countries. The cheaper journals replied keenly and
with inexhaustible zest. These satirical writers parodied a remark of Linnæus,
quoted by the adversaries of the monster, maintaining “that nature did not make
fools,” and adjured their contemporaries not to give the lie to nature, by
admitting the existence of krakens, sea-serpents, “Moby Dicks,” and other
lucubrations of delirious sailors. At length an article in a well-known
satirical journal by a favourite contributor, the chief of the staff, settled
the monster, like Hippolytus, giving it the death-blow amidst an universal
burst of laughter. Wit had conquered science.

During the first months of the year 1867 the question seemed buried, never to
revive, when new facts were brought before the public. It was then no longer a
scientific problem to be solved, but a real danger seriously to be avoided. The
question took quite another shape. The monster became a small island, a rock, a
reef, but a reef of indefinite and shifting proportions.

On the 5th of March, 1867, the Moravian, of the Montreal Ocean Company,
finding herself during the night in 27° 30′ lat. and 72° 15′
long., struck on her starboard quarter a rock, marked in no chart for that part
of the sea. Under the combined efforts of the wind and its four hundred
horse-power, it was going at the rate of thirteen knots. Had it not been for
the superior strength of the hull of the Moravian, she would have been
broken by the shock and gone down with the 237 passengers she was bringing home
from Canada.

The accident happened about five o’clock in the morning, as the day was
breaking. The officers of the quarter-deck hurried to the after-part of the
vessel. They examined the sea with the most scrupulous attention. They saw
nothing but a strong eddy about three cables’ length distant, as if the surface
had been violently agitated. The bearings of the place were taken exactly, and
the Moravian continued its route without apparent damage. Had it struck
on a submerged rock, or on an enormous wreck? they could not tell; but on
examination of the ship’s bottom when undergoing repairs, it was found that
part of her keel was broken.

This fact, so grave in itself, might perhaps have been forgotten like many
others if, three weeks after, it had not been re-enacted under similar
circumstances. But, thanks to the nationality of the victim of the shock,
thanks to the reputation of the company to which the vessel belonged, the
circumstance became extensively circulated.

The 13th of April, 1867, the sea being beautiful, the breeze favourable, the
Scotia, of the Cunard Company’s line, found herself in 15° 12′
long. and 45° 37′ lat. She was going at the speed of thirteen knots and
a half.

At seventeen minutes past four in the afternoon, whilst the passengers were
assembled at lunch in the great saloon, a slight shock was felt on the hull of
the Scotia, on her quarter, a little aft of the port-paddle.

The Scotia had not struck, but she had been struck, and seemingly by
something rather sharp and penetrating than blunt. The shock had been so slight
that no one had been alarmed, had it not been for the shouts of the carpenter’s
watch, who rushed on to the bridge, exclaiming, “We are sinking! we are
sinking!” At first the passengers were much frightened, but Captain Anderson
hastened to reassure them. The danger could not be imminent. The Scotia,
divided into seven compartments by strong partitions, could brave with impunity
any leak. Captain Anderson went down immediately into the hold. He found that
the sea was pouring into the fifth compartment; and the rapidity of the influx
proved that the force of the water was considerable. Fortunately this
compartment did not hold the boilers, or the fires would have been immediately
extinguished. Captain Anderson ordered the engines to be stopped at once, and
one of the men went down to ascertain the extent of the injury. Some minutes
afterwards they discovered the existence of a large hole, of two yards in
diameter, in the ship’s bottom. Such a leak could not be stopped; and the
Scotia, her paddles half submerged, was obliged to continue her course.
She was then three hundred miles from Cape Clear, and after three days’ delay,
which caused great uneasiness in Liverpool, she entered the basin of the
company.

The engineers visited the Scotia, which was put in dry dock. They could
scarcely believe it possible; at two yards and a half below water-mark was a
regular rent, in the form of an isosceles triangle. The broken place in the
iron plates was so perfectly defined that it could not have been more neatly
done by a punch. It was clear, then, that the instrument producing the
perforation was not of a common stamp; and after having been driven with
prodigious strength, and piercing an iron plate 1-3/8 inches thick, had
withdrawn itself by a retrograde motion truly inexplicable.

Such was the last fact, which resulted in exciting once more the torrent of
public opinion. From this moment all unlucky casualties which could not be
otherwise accounted for were put down to the monster. Upon this imaginary
creature rested the responsibility of all these shipwrecks, which unfortunately
were considerable; for of three thousand ships whose loss was annually recorded
at Lloyd’s, the number of sailing and steam ships supposed to be totally lost,
from the absence of all news, amounted to not less than two hundred!

Now, it was the “monster” who, justly or unjustly, was accused of their
disappearance, and, thanks to it, communication between the different
continents became more and more dangerous. The public demanded peremptorily
that the seas should at any price be relieved from this formidable cetacean.

CHAPTER II
PRO AND CON

At the period when these events took place, I had just returned from a
scientific research in the disagreeable territory of Nebraska, in the United
States. In virtue of my office as Assistant Professor in the Museum of Natural
History in Paris, the French Government had attached me to that expedition.
After six months in Nebraska, I arrived in New York towards the end of March,
laden with a precious collection. My departure for France was fixed for the
first days in May. Meanwhile, I was occupying myself in classifying my
mineralogical, botanical, and zoological riches, when the accident happened to
the Scotia.

I was perfectly up in the subject which was the question of the day. How could
I be otherwise? I had read and re-read all the American and European papers
without being any nearer a conclusion. This mystery puzzled me. Under the
impossibility of forming an opinion, I jumped from one extreme to the other.
That there really was something could not be doubted, and the incredulous were
invited to put their finger on the wound of the Scotia.

On my arrival at New York the question was at its height. The hypothesis of the
floating island, and the unapproachable sandbank, supported by minds little
competent to form a judgment, was abandoned. And, indeed, unless this shoal had
a machine in its stomach, how could it change its position with such
astonishing rapidity?

From the same cause, the idea of a floating hull of an enormous wreck was given
up.

There remained then only two possible solutions of the question, which created
two distinct parties: on one side, those who were for a monster of colossal
strength; on the other, those who were for a submarine vessel of enormous
motive power.

But this last hypothesis, plausible as it was, could not stand against
inquiries made in both worlds. That a private gentleman should have such a
machine at his command was not likely. Where, when, and how was it built? and
how could its construction have been kept secret? Certainly a Government might
possess such a destructive machine. And in these disastrous times, when the
ingenuity of man has multiplied the power of weapons of war, it was possible
that, without the knowledge of others, a state might try to work such a
formidable engine. After the chassepots came the torpedoes, after the torpedoes
the submarine rams, then—the reaction. At least, I hope so.

But the hypothesis of a war machine fell before the declaration of Governments.
As public interest was in question, and transatlantic communications suffered,
their veracity could not be doubted. But, how admit that the construction of
this submarine boat had escaped the public eye? For a private gentleman to keep
the secret under such circumstances would be very difficult, and for a state
whose every act is persistently watched by powerful rivals, certainly
impossible.

After inquiries made in England, France, Russia, Prussia, Spain, Italy, and
America, even in Turkey, the hypothesis of a submarine monitor was definitely
rejected.

Upon my arrival in New York several persons did me the honour of consulting me
on the phenomenon in question. I had published in France a work in quarto, in
two volumes, entitled “Mysteries of the Great Submarine Grounds.” This book,
highly approved of in the learned world, gained for me a special reputation in
this rather obscure branch of Natural History. My advice was asked. As long as
I could deny the reality of the fact, I confined myself to a decided negative.
But soon, finding myself driven into a corner, I was obliged to explain myself
categorically. And even “the Honourable Pierre Aronnax, Professor in the Museum
of Paris,” was called upon by the New York Herald to express a definite
opinion of some sort. I did something. I spoke, for want of power to hold my
tongue. I discussed the question in all its forms, politically and
scientifically; and I give here an extract from a carefully-studied article
which I published in the number of the 30th of April. It ran as follows:—

“After examining one by one the different hypotheses, rejecting all other
suggestions, it becomes necessary to admit the existence of a marine animal of
enormous power.

“The great depths of the ocean are entirely unknown to us. Soundings cannot
reach them. What passes in those remote depths—what beings live, or can live,
twelve or fifteen miles beneath the surface of the waters—what is the
organisation of these animals, we can scarcely conjecture. However, the
solution of the problem submitted to me may modify the form of the dilemma.
Either we do know all the varieties of beings which people our planet, or we do
not. If we do not know them all—if Nature has still secrets in
ichthyology for us, nothing is more conformable to reason than to admit the
existence of fishes, or cetaceans of other kinds, or even of new species, of an
organisation formed to inhabit the strata inaccessible to soundings, and which
an accident of some sort, either fatastical or capricious, has brought at long
intervals to the upper level of the ocean.

“If, on the contrary, we do know all living kinds, we must necessarily
seek for the animal in question amongst those marine beings already classed;
and, in that case, I should be disposed to admit the existence of a gigantic
narwhal.

“The common narwhal, or unicorn of the sea, often attains a length of sixty
feet. Increase its size fivefold or tenfold, give it strength proportionate to
its size, lengthen its destructive weapons, and you obtain the animal required.
It will have the proportions determined by the officers of the Shannon,
the instrument required by the perforation of the Scotia, and the power
necessary to pierce the hull of the steamer.

“Indeed, the narwhal is armed with a sort of ivory sword, a halberd, according
to the expression of certain naturalists. The principal tusk has the hardness
of steel. Some of these tusks have been found buried in the bodies of whales,
which the unicorn always attacks with success. Others have been drawn out, not
without trouble, from the bottoms of ships, which they had pierced through and
through, as a gimlet pierces a barrel. The Museum of the Faculty of Medicine of
Paris possesses one of these defensive weapons, two yards and a quarter in
length, and fifteen inches in diameter at the base.

“Very well! suppose this weapon to be six times stronger and the animal ten
times more powerful; launch it at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and you
obtain a shock capable of producing the catastrophe required. Until further
information, therefore, I shall maintain it to be a sea-unicorn of colossal
dimensions, armed not with a halberd, but with a real spur, as the armoured
frigates, or the ‘rams’ of war, whose massiveness and motive power it would
possess at the same time. Thus may this puzzling phenomenon be explained,
unless there be something over and above all that one has ever conjectured,
seen, perceived, or experienced; which is just within the bounds of
possibility.”

These last words were cowardly on my part; but, up to a certain point, I wished
to shelter my dignity as Professor, and not give too much cause for laughter to
the Americans, who laugh well when they do laugh.

I reserved for myself a way of escape. In effect, however, I admitted the
existence of the “monster.” My article was warmly discussed, which procured it
a high reputation. It rallied round it a certain number of partisans. The
solution it proposed gave, at least, full liberty to the imagination. The human
mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings. And the sea is
precisely their best vehicle, the only medium through which these giants
(against which terrestrial animals, such as elephants or rhinoceroses, are as
nothing) can be produced or developed.

The industrial and commercial papers treated the question chiefly from this
point of view. The Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, the Lloyd’s
List, the Packet-Boat, and the Maritime and Colonial Review,
all papers devoted to insurance companies which threatened to raise their rates
of premium, were unanimous on this point. Public opinion had been pronounced.
The United States were the first in the field; and in New York they made
preparations for an expedition destined to pursue this narwhal. A frigate of
great speed, the Abraham Lincoln, was put in commission as soon as
possible. The arsenals were opened to Commander Farragut, who hastened the
arming of his frigate; but, as it always happens, the moment it was decided to
pursue the monster, the monster did not appear. For two months no one heard it
spoken of. No ship met with it. It seemed as if this unicorn knew of the plots
weaving around it. It had been so much talked of, even through the Atlantic
cable, that jesters pretended that this slender fly had stopped a telegram on
its passage and was making the most of it.

So when the frigate had been armed for a long campaign, and provided with
formidable fishing apparatus, no one could tell what course to pursue.
Impatience grew apace, when, on the 2nd of July, they learned that a steamer of
the line of San Francisco, from California to Shanghai, had seen the animal
three weeks before in the North Pacific Ocean. The excitement caused by this
news was extreme. The ship was revictualled and well stocked with coal.

Three hours before the Abraham Lincoln left Brooklyn pier, I received a
letter worded as follows:—

“Very cordially yours,                    
“J.B. HOBSON,          
“Secretary of Marine.”

CHAPTER III
I FORM MY RESOLUTION

Three seconds before the arrival of J. B. Hobson’s letter, I no more thought of
pursuing the unicorn than of attempting the passage of the North Sea. Three
seconds after reading the letter of the honourable Secretary of Marine, I felt
that my true vocation, the sole end of my life, was to chase this disturbing
monster, and purge it from the world.

But I had just returned from a fatiguing journey, weary and longing for repose.
I aspired to nothing more than again seeing my country, my friends, my little
lodging by the Jardin des Plantes, my dear and precious collections. But
nothing could keep me back! I forgot all—fatigue, friends and collections—and
accepted without hesitation the offer of the American Government.

“Besides,” thought I, “all roads lead back to Europe (for my particular
benefit), and I will not hurry me towards the coast of France. This worthy
animal may allow itself to be caught in the seas of Europe (for my particular
benefit), and I will not bring back less than half a yard of his ivory halberd
to the Museum of Natural History.” But in the meanwhile I must seek this
narwhal in the North Pacific Ocean, which, to return to France, was taking the
road to the antipodes.

“Conseil,” I called in an impatient voice.

Conseil was my servant, a true, devoted Flemish boy, who had accompanied me in
all my travels. I liked him, and he returned the liking well. He was phlegmatic
by nature, regular from principle, zealous from habit, evincing little
disturbance at the different surprises of life, very quick with his hands, and
apt at any service required of him; and, despite his name, never giving
advice—even when asked for it.

Conseil had followed me for the last ten years wherever science led. Never once
did he complain of the length or fatigue of a journey, never make an objection
to pack his portmanteau for whatever country it might be, or however far away,
whether China or Congo. Besides all this, he had good health, which defied all
sickness, and solid muscles, but no nerves; good morals are understood. This
boy was thirty years old, and his age to that of his master as fifteen to
twenty. May I be excused for saying that I was forty years old?

But Conseil had one fault: he was ceremonious to a degree, and would never
speak to me but in the third person, which was sometimes provoking.

“Conseil,” said I again, beginning with feverish hands to make preparations for
my departure.

Certainly I was sure of this devoted boy. As a rule, I never asked him if it
were convenient for him or not to follow me in my travels; but this time the
expedition in question might be prolonged, and the enterprise might be
hazardous in pursuit of an animal capable of sinking a frigate as easily as a
nutshell. Here there was matter for reflection even to the most impassive man
in the world. What would Conseil say?

“Conseil,” I called a third time.

Conseil appeared.

“Did you call, sir?” said he, entering.

“Yes, my boy; make preparations for me and yourself too. We leave in two
hours.”

“As you please, sir,” replied Conseil, quietly.

“Not an instant to lose;—lock in my trunk all travelling utensils, coats,
shirts, and stockings—without counting, as many as you can, and make haste.”

“And your collections, sir?” observed Conseil.

“We will think of them by and by.”

“What! the archiotherium, the hyracotherium, the oreodons, the cheropotamus,
and the other skins?”

“They will keep them at the hotel.”

“And your live Babiroussa, sir?”

“They will feed it during our absence; besides, I will give orders to forward
our menagerie to France.”

“We are not returning to Paris, then?” said Conseil.

“Oh! certainly,” I answered, evasively, “by making a curve.”

“Will the curve please you, sir?”

“Oh! it will be nothing; not quite so direct a road, that is all. We take our
passage in the Abraham Lincoln.”

“As you think proper, sir,” coolly replied Conseil.

“You see, my friend, it has to do with the monster—the famous narwhal. We are
going to purge it from the seas. The author of a work in quarto in two volumes,
on the ‘Mysteries of the Great Submarine Grounds’ cannot forbear embarking with
Commander Farragut. A glorious mission, but a dangerous one! We cannot tell
where we may go; these animals can be very capricious. But we will go whether
or no; we have got a captain who is pretty wide-awake.”

I opened a credit account for Babiroussa, and, Conseil following, I jumped into
a cab. Our luggage was transported to the deck of the frigate immediately. I
hastened on board and asked for Commander Farragut. One of the sailors
conducted me to the poop, where I found myself in the presence of a
good-looking officer, who held out his hand to me.

“Monsieur Pierre Aronnax?” said he.

“Himself,” replied I; “Commander Farragut?”

“You are welcome, Professor; your cabin is ready for you.”

I bowed, and desired to be conducted to the cabin destined for me.

The Abraham Lincoln had been well chosen and equipped for her new
destination. She was a frigate of great speed, fitted with high-pressure
engines which admitted a pressure of seven atmospheres. Under this the
Abraham Lincoln attained the mean speed of nearly eighteen knots and a
third an hour—a considerable speed, but, nevertheless, insufficient to grapple
with this gigantic cetacean.

The interior arrangements of the frigate corresponded to its nautical
qualities. I was well satisfied with my cabin, which was in the after part,
opening upon the gunroom.

“We shall be well off here,” said I to Conseil.

“As well, by your honour’s leave, as a hermit-crab in the shell of a whelk,”
said Conseil.

I left Conseil to stow our trunks conveniently away, and remounted the poop in
order to survey the preparations for departure.

At that moment Commander Farragut was ordering the last moorings to be cast
loose which held the Abraham Lincoln to the pier of Brooklyn. So in a
quarter of an hour, perhaps less, the frigate would have sailed without me. I
should have missed this extraordinary, supernatural, and incredible expedition,
the recital of which may well meet with some scepticism.

But Commander Farragut would not lose a day nor an hour in scouring the seas in
which the animal had been sighted. He sent for the engineer.

“Is the steam full on?” asked he.

“Yes, sir,” replied the engineer.

“Go ahead,” cried Commander Farragut.

The quay of Brooklyn, and all that part of New York bordering on the East
River, was crowded with spectators. Three cheers burst successively from five
hundred thousand throats; thousands of handkerchiefs were waved above the heads
of the compact mass, saluting the Abraham Lincoln, until she reached the
waters of the Hudson, at the point of that elongated peninsula which forms the
town of New York. Then the frigate, following the coast of New Jersey along the
right bank of the beautiful river, covered with villas, passed between the
forts, which saluted her with their heaviest guns. The Abraham Lincoln
answered by hoisting the American colours three times, whose thirty-nine stars
shone resplendent from the mizzen-peak; then modifying its speed to take the
narrow channel marked by buoys placed in the inner bay formed by Sandy Hook
Point, it coasted the long sandy beach, where some thousands of spectators gave
it one final cheer. The escort of boats and tenders still followed the frigate,
and did not leave her until they came abreast of the lightship, whose two
lights marked the entrance of New York Channel.

Six bells struck, the pilot got into his boat, and rejoined the little schooner
which was waiting under our lee, the fires were made up, the screw beat the
waves more rapidly, the frigate skirted the low yellow coast of Long Island;
and at eight bells, after having lost sight in the north-west of the lights of
Fire Island, she ran at full steam on to the dark waters of the Atlantic.

CHAPTER IV
NED LAND

Captain Farragut was a good seaman, worthy of the frigate he commanded. His
vessel and he were one. He was the soul of it. On the question of the cetacean
there was no doubt in his mind, and he would not allow the existence of the
animal to be disputed on board. He believed in it, as certain good women
believe in the leviathan—by faith, not by reason. The monster did exist, and he
had sworn to rid the seas of it. He was a kind of Knight of Rhodes, a second
Dieudonné de Gozon, going to meet the serpent which desolated the island.
Either Captain Farragut would kill the narwhal, or the narwhal would kill the
captain. There was no third course.

The officers on board shared the opinion of their chief. They were ever
chatting, discussing, and calculating the various chances of a meeting,
watching narrowly the vast surface of the ocean. More than one took up his
quarters voluntarily in the cross-trees, who would have cursed such a berth
under any other circumstances. As long as the sun described its daily course,
the rigging was crowded with sailors, whose feet were burnt to such an extent
by the heat of the deck as to render it unbearable; still the Abraham
Lincoln had not yet breasted the suspected waters of the Pacific. As to the
ship’s company, they desired nothing better than to meet the unicorn, to
harpoon it, hoist it on board, and despatch it. They watched the sea with eager
attention.

Besides, Captain Farragut had spoken of a certain sum of two thousand dollars,
set apart for whoever should first sight the monster, were he cabin-boy, common
seaman, or officer.

I leave you to judge how eyes were used on board the Abraham Lincoln.

For my own part I was not behind the others, and left to no one my share of
daily observations. The frigate might have been called the Argus, for a
hundred reasons. Only one amongst us, Conseil, seemed to protest by his
indifference against the question which so interested us all, and seemed to be
out of keeping with the general enthusiasm on board.

I have said that Captain Farragut had carefully provided his ship with every
apparatus for catching the gigantic cetacean. No whaler had ever been better
armed. We possessed every known engine, from the harpoon thrown by the hand to
the barbed arrows of the blunderbuss, and the explosive balls of the duck-gun.
On the forecastle lay the perfection of a breech-loading gun, very thick at the
breech, and very narrow in the bore, the model of which had been in the
Exhibition of 1867. This precious weapon of American origin could throw with
ease a conical projectile of nine pounds to a mean distance of ten miles.

Thus the Abraham Lincoln wanted for no means of destruction; and, what
was better still, she had on board Ned Land, the prince of harpooners.

Ned Land was a Canadian, with an uncommon quickness of hand, and who knew no
equal in his dangerous occupation. Skill, coolness, audacity, and cunning he
possessed in a superior degree, and it must be a cunning whale or a singularly
“cute” cachalot to escape the stroke of his harpoon.

Ned Land was about forty years of age; he was a tall man (more than six feet
high), strongly built, grave and taciturn, occasionally violent, and very
passionate when contradicted. His person attracted attention, but above all the
boldness of his look, which gave a singular expression to his face.

Who calls himself Canadian calls himself French; and, little communicative as
Ned Land was, I must admit that he took a certain liking for me. My nationality
drew him to me, no doubt. It was an opportunity for him to talk, and for me to
hear, that old language of Rabelais, which is still in use in some Canadian
provinces. The harpooner’s family was originally from Quebec, and was already a
tribe of hardy fishermen when this town belonged to France.

Little by little, Ned Land acquired a taste for chatting, and I loved to hear
the recital of his adventures in the polar seas. He related his fishing, and
his combats, with natural poetry of expression; his recital took the form of an
epic poem, and I seemed to be listening to a Canadian Homer singing the Iliad
of the regions of the North.

I am portraying this hardy companion as I really knew him. We are old friends
now, united in that unchangeable friendship which is born and cemented amidst
extreme dangers. Ah, brave Ned! I ask no more than to live a hundred years
longer, that I may have more time to dwell the longer on your memory.

Now, what was Ned Land’s opinion upon the question of the marine monster? I
must admit that he did not believe in the unicorn, and was the only one on
board who did not share that universal conviction. He even avoided the subject,
which I one day thought it my duty to press upon him. One magnificent evening,
the 30th of July—that is to say, three weeks after our departure—the frigate
was abreast of Cape Blanc, thirty miles to leeward of the coast of Patagonia.
We had crossed the tropic of Capricorn, and the Straits of Magellan opened less
than seven hundred miles to the south. Before eight days were over the
Abraham Lincoln would be ploughing the waters of the Pacific.

Seated on the poop, Ned Land and I were chatting of one thing and another as we
looked at this mysterious sea, whose great depths had up to this time been
inaccessible to the eye of man. I naturally led up the conversation to the
giant unicorn, and examined the various chances of success or failure of the
expedition. But, seeing that Ned Land let me speak without saying too much
himself, I pressed him more closely.

“Well, Ned,” said I, “is it possible that you are not convinced of the
existence of this cetacean that we are following? Have you any particular
reason for being so incredulous?”

The harpooner looked at me fixedly for some moments before answering, struck
his broad forehead with his hand (a habit of his), as if to collect himself,
and said at last, “Perhaps I have, Mr. Aronnax.”

“But, Ned, you, a whaler by profession, familiarised with all the great marine
mammalia—you, whose imagination might easily accept the hypothesis of enormous
cetaceans, you ought to be the last to doubt under such circumstances!”

“That is just what deceives you, Professor,” replied Ned. “That the vulgar
should believe in extraordinary comets traversing space, and in the existence
of antediluvian monsters in the heart of the globe, may well be; but neither
astronomer nor geologist believes in such chimeras. As a whaler I have followed
many a cetacean, harpooned a great number, and killed several; but, however
strong or well-armed they may have been, neither their tails nor their weapons
would have been able even to scratch the iron plates of a steamer.”

“But, Ned, they tell of ships which the teeth of the narwhal have pierced
through and through.”

“Wooden ships—that is possible,” replied the Canadian, “but I have never seen
it done; and, until further proof, I deny that whales, cetaceans, or
sea-unicorns could ever produce the effect you describe.”

“Well, Ned, I repeat it with a conviction resting on the logic of facts. I
believe in the existence of a mammal power fully organised, belonging to the
branch of vertebrata, like the whales, the cachalots, or the dolphins, and
furnished with a horn of defence of great penetrating power.”

“Hum!” said the harpooner, shaking his head with the air of a man who would not
be convinced.

“Notice one thing, my worthy Canadian,” I resumed. “If such an animal is in
existence, if it inhabits the depths of the ocean, if it frequents the strata
lying miles below the surface of the water, it must necessarily possess an
organisation the strength of which would defy all comparison.”

“And why this powerful organisation?” demanded Ned.

“Because it requires incalculable strength to keep one’s self in these strata
and resist their pressure. Listen to me. Let us admit that the pressure of the
atmosphere is represented by the weight of a column of water thirty-two feet
high. In reality the column of water would be shorter, as we are speaking of
sea water, the density of which is greater than that of fresh water. Very well,
when you dive, Ned, as many times thirty-two feet of water as there are above
you, so many times does your body bear a pressure equal to that of the
atmosphere, that is to say, 15 lbs. for each square inch of its surface. It
follows, then, that at 320 feet this pressure = that of 10 atmospheres, of 100
atmospheres at 3200 feet, and of 1000 atmospheres at 32,000 feet, that is,
about 6 miles; which is equivalent to saying that if you could attain this
depth in the ocean, each square three-eighths of an inch of the surface of your
body would bear a pressure of 5600 lbs. Ah! my brave Ned, do you know how many
square inches you carry on the surface of your body?”

“I have no idea, Mr. Aronnax.”

“About 6500; and, as in reality the atmospheric pressure is about 15 lbs. to
the square inch, your 6500 square inches bear at this moment a pressure of
97,500 lbs.”

“Without my perceiving it?”

“Without your perceiving it. And if you are not crushed by such a pressure, it
is because the air penetrates the interior of your body with equal pressure.
Hence perfect equilibrium between the interior and exterior pressure, which
thus neutralise each other, and which allows you to bear it without
inconvenience. But in the water it is another thing.”

“Yes, I understand,” replied Ned, becoming more attentive; “because the water
surrounds me, but does not penetrate.”

“Precisely, Ned: so that at 32 feet beneath the surface of the sea you would
undergo a pressure of 97,500 lbs.; at 320 feet, ten times that pressure; at
3200 feet, a hundred times that pressure; lastly, at 32,000 feet, a thousand
times that pressure would be 97,500,000 lbs.—that is to say, that you would be
flattened as if you had been drawn from the plates of a hydraulic machine!”

“The devil!” exclaimed Ned.

“Very well, my worthy harpooner, if some vertebrate, several hundred yards
long, and large in proportion, can maintain itself in such depths—of those
whose surface is represented by millions of square inches, that is by tens of
millions of pounds, we must estimate the pressure they undergo. Consider, then,
what must be the resistance of their bony structure, and the strength of their
organisation to withstand such pressure!”

“Why!” exclaimed Ned Land, “they must be made of iron plates eight inches
thick, like the armoured frigates.”

“As you say, Ned. And think what destruction such a mass would cause, if hurled
with the speed of an express train against the hull of a vessel.”

“Yes—certainly—perhaps,” replied the Canadian, shaken by these figures, but not
yet willing to give in.

“Well, have I convinced you?”

“You have convinced me of one thing, sir, which is that, if such animals do
exist at the bottom of the seas, they must necessarily be as strong as you
say.”

“But if they do not exist, mine obstinate harpooner, how explain the accident
to the Scotia?”

CHAPTER V
AT A VENTURE

The voyage of the Abraham Lincoln was for a long time marked by no
special incident. But one circumstance happened which showed the wonderful
dexterity of Ned Land, and proved what confidence we might place in him.

The 30th of June, the frigate spoke some American whalers, from whom we learned
that they knew nothing about the narwhal. But one of them, the captain of the
Monroe, knowing that Ned Land had shipped on board the Abraham
Lincoln, begged for his help in chasing a whale they had in sight.
Commander Farragut, desirous of seeing Ned Land at work, gave him permission to
go on board the Monroe. And fate served our Canadian so well that,
instead of one whale, he harpooned two with a double blow, striking one
straight to the heart, and catching the other after some minutes’ pursuit.

Decidedly, if the monster ever had to do with Ned Land’s harpoon, I would not
bet in its favour.

The frigate skirted the south-east coast of America with great rapidity. The
3rd of July we were at the opening of the Straits of Magellan, level with Cape
Vierges. But Commander Farragut would not take a tortuous passage, but doubled
Cape Horn.

The ship’s crew agreed with him. And certainly it was possible that they might
meet the narwhal in this narrow pass. Many of the sailors affirmed that the
monster could not pass there, “that he was too big for that!”

The 6th of July, about three o’clock in the afternoon, the Abraham
Lincoln, at fifteen miles to the south, doubled the solitary island, this
lost rock at the extremity of the American continent, to which some Dutch
sailors gave the name of their native town, Cape Horn. The course was taken
towards the north-west, and the next day the screw of the frigate was at last
beating the waters of the Pacific.

“Keep your eyes open!” called out the sailors.

And they were opened widely. Both eyes and glasses, a little dazzled, it is
true, by the prospect of two thousand dollars, had not an instant’s repose. Day
and night they watched the surface of the ocean, and even nyctalopes, whose
faculty of seeing in the darkness multiplies their chances a hundredfold, would
have had enough to do to gain the prize.

I myself, for whom money had no charms, was not the least attentive on board.
Giving but few minutes to my meals, but a few hours to sleep, indifferent to
either rain or sunshine, I did not leave the poop of the vessel. Now leaning on
the netting of the forecastle, now on the taffrail, I devoured with eagerness
the soft foam which whitened the sea as far as the eye could reach; and how
often have I shared the emotion of the majority of the crew, when some
capricious whale raised its black back above the waves! The poop of the vessel
was crowded in a moment. The cabins poured forth a torrent of sailors and
officers, each with heaving breast and troubled eye watching the course of the
cetacean. I looked and looked, till I was nearly blind, whilst Conseil, always
phlegmatic, kept repeating in a calm voice:

“If, sir, you would not squint so much, you would see better!”

But vain excitement! The Abraham Lincoln checked its speed and made for
the animal signalled, a simple whale, or common cachalot, which soon
disappeared amidst a storm of execration.

But the weather was good. The voyage was being accomplished under the most
favourable auspices. It was then the bad season in Australia, the July of that
zone corresponding to our January in Europe, but the sea was beautiful and
easily scanned round a vast circumference.

The 20th of July, the tropic of Capricorn was cut by 105° of longitude, and the
27th of the same month we crossed the equator on the 110th meridian. This
passed, the frigate took a more decided westerly direction, and scoured the
central waters of the Pacific. Commander Farragut thought, and with reason,
that it was better to remain in deep water, and keep clear of continents or
islands, which the beast itself seemed to shun (perhaps because there was not
enough water for him! suggested the greater part of the crew). The frigate
passed at some distance from the Marquesas and the Sandwich Islands, crossed
the tropic of Cancer, and made for the China Seas. We were on the theatre of
the last diversions of the monster: and, to say truth, we no longer
lived on board. Hearts palpitated, fearfully preparing themselves for
future incurable aneurism. The entire ship’s crew were undergoing a nervous
excitement, of which I can give no idea: they could not eat, they could not
sleep—twenty times a day, a misconception or an optical illusion of some sailor
seated on the taffrail, would cause dreadful perspirations, and these emotions,
twenty times repeated, kept us in a state of excitement so violent that a
reaction was unavoidable.

And truly, reaction soon showed itself. For three months, during which a day
seemed an age, the Abraham Lincoln furrowed all the waters of the
Northern Pacific, running at whales, making sharp deviations from her course,
veering suddenly from one tack to another, stopping suddenly, putting on steam,
and backing ever and anon at the risk of deranging her machinery, and not one
point of the Japanese or American coast was left unexplored.

The warmest partisans of the enterprise now became its most ardent detractors.
Reaction mounted from the crew to the captain himself, and certainly, had it
not been for resolute determination on the part of Captain Farragut, the
frigate would have headed due southward. This useless search could not last
much longer. The Abraham Lincoln had nothing to reproach herself with,
she had done her best to succeed. Never had an American ship’s crew shown more
zeal or patience; its failure could not be placed to their charge—there
remained nothing but to return.

This was represented to the commander. The sailors could not hide their
discontent, and the service suffered. I will not say there was a mutiny on
board, but after a reasonable period of obstinacy, Captain Farragut (as
Columbus did) asked for three days’ patience. If in three days the monster did
not appear, the man at the helm should give three turns of the wheel, and the
Abraham Lincoln would make for the European seas.

This promise was made on the 2nd of November. It had the effect of rallying the
ship’s crew. The ocean was watched with renewed attention. Each one wished for
a last glance in which to sum up his remembrance. Glasses were used with
feverish activity. It was a grand defiance given to the giant narwhal, and he
could scarcely fail to answer the summons and “appear.”

Two days passed, the steam was at half pressure; a thousand schemes were tried
to attract the attention and stimulate the apathy of the animal in case it
should be met in those parts. Large quantities of bacon were trailed in the
wake of the ship, to the great satisfaction (I must say) of the sharks. Small
craft radiated in all directions round the Abraham Lincoln as she lay
to, and did not leave a spot of the sea unexplored. But the night of the 4th of
November arrived without the unveiling of this submarine mystery.

The next day, the 5th of November, at twelve, the delay would (morally
speaking) expire; after that time, Commander Farragut, faithful to his promise,
was to turn the course to the south-east and abandon for ever the northern
regions of the Pacific.

The frigate was then in 31° 15′ north latitude and 136° 42′ east
longitude. The coast of Japan still remained less than two hundred miles to
leeward. Night was approaching. They had just struck eight bells; large clouds
veiled the face of the moon, then in its first quarter. The sea undulated
peaceably under the stern of the vessel.

At that moment I was leaning forward on the starboard netting. Conseil,
standing near me, was looking straight before him. The crew, perched in the
ratlines, examined the horizon, which contracted and darkened by degrees.
Officers with their night glasses scoured the growing darkness; sometimes the
ocean sparkled under the rays of the moon, which darted between two clouds,
then all trace of light was lost in the darkness.

In looking at Conseil, I could see he was undergoing a little of the general
influence. At least I thought so. Perhaps for the first time his nerves
vibrated to a sentiment of curiosity.

“Come, Conseil,” said I, “this is the last chance of pocketing the two thousand
dollars.”

“May I be permitted to say, sir,” replied Conseil, “that I never reckoned on
getting the prize; and, had the government of the Union offered a hundred
thousand dollars, it would have been none the poorer.”

“You are right, Conseil. It is a foolish affair after all, and one upon which
we entered too lightly. What time lost, what useless emotions! We should have
been back in France six months ago.”

“In your little room, sir,” replied Conseil, “and in your museum, sir, and I
should have already classed all your fossils, sir. And the Babiroussa would
have been installed in its cage in the Jardin des Plantes, and have drawn all
the curious people of the capital!”

“As you say, Conseil. I fancy we shall run a fair chance of being laughed at
for our pains.”

“That’s tolerably certain,” replied Conseil, quietly; “I think they will make
fun of you, sir. And, must I say it?”

“Go on, my good friend.”

“Well, sir, you will only get your deserts.”

“Indeed!”

“When one has the honour of being a savant as you are, sir, one should not
expose one’s self to——”

Conseil had not time to finish his compliment. In the midst of general silence
a voice had just been heard. It was the voice of Ned Land shouting—

“Look out there! The very thing we are looking for—on our weather beam!”

CHAPTER VI
AT FULL STEAM

At this cry the whole ship’s crew hurried towards the harpooner,—commander,
officers, masters, sailors, cabin boys; even the engineers left their engines,
and the stokers their furnaces.

The order to stop her had been given, and the frigate now simply went on by her
own momentum. The darkness was then profound, and however good the Canadian’s
eyes were, I asked myself how he had managed to see, and what he had been able
to see. My heart beat as if it would break. But Ned Land was not mistaken, and
we all perceived the object he pointed to. At two cables’ length from the
Abraham Lincoln, on the starboard quarter, the sea seemed to be
illuminated all over. It was not a mere phosphoric phenomenon. The monster
emerged some fathoms from the water, and then threw out that very intense but
inexplicable light mentioned in the report of several captains. This
magnificent irradiation must have been produced by an agent of great
shining power. The luminous part traced on the sea an immense oval, much
elongated, the centre of which condensed a burning heat, whose overpowering
brilliancy died out by successive gradations.

“It is only an agglomeration of phosphoric particles,” cried one of the
officers.

“No, sir, certainly not,” I replied. “Never did pholades or salpæ produce such
a powerful light. That brightness is of an essentially electrical nature.
Besides, see, see! it moves; it is moving forwards, backwards; it is darting
towards us!”

A general cry rose from the frigate.

“Silence!” said the Captain; “up with the helm, reverse the engines.”

The steam was shut off, and the Abraham Lincoln, beating to port,
described a semicircle.

“Right the helm, go ahead,” cried the Captain.

These orders were executed, and the frigate moved rapidly from the burning
light.

I was mistaken. She tried to sheer off, but the supernatural animal approached
with a velocity double her own.

We gasped for breath. Stupefaction more than fear made us dumb and motionless.
The animal gained on us, sporting with the waves. It made the round of the
frigate, which was then making fourteen knots, and enveloped it with its
electric rings like luminous dust. Then it moved away two or three miles,
leaving a phosphorescent track, like those volumes of steam that the express
trains leave behind. All at once from the dark line of the horizon whither it
retired to gain its momentum, the monster rushed suddenly towards the
Abraham Lincoln with alarming rapidity, stopped suddenly about twenty
feet from the hull, and died out,—not diving under the water, for its
brilliancy did not abate,—but suddenly, and as if the source of this brilliant
emanation was exhausted. Then it reappeared on the other side of the vessel, as
if it had turned and slid under the hull. Any moment a collision might have
occurred which would have been fatal to us. However, I was astonished at the
manœuvres of the frigate. She fled and did not attack.

On the captain’s face, generally so impassive, was an expression of
unaccountable astonishment.

“Mr. Aronnax,” he said, “I do not know with what formidable being I have to
deal, and I will not imprudently risk my frigate in the midst of this darkness.
Besides, how attack this unknown thing, how defend one’s self from it? Wait for
daylight, and the scene will change.”

“You have no further doubt, captain, of the nature of the animal?”

“No, sir; it is evidently a gigantic narwhal, and an electric one.”

“Perhaps,” added I, “one can only approach it with a gymnotus or a torpedo.”

“Undoubtedly,” replied the captain, “if it possesses such dreadful power, it is
the most terrible animal that ever was created. That is why, sir, I must be on
my guard.”

The crew were on their feet all night. No one thought of sleep. The Abraham
Lincoln, not being able to struggle with such velocity, had moderated its
pace, and sailed at half speed. For its part, the narwhal, imitating the
frigate, let the waves rock it at will, and seemed decided not to leave the
scene of the struggle. Towards midnight, however, it disappeared, or, to use a
more appropriate term, it “died out” like a large glow-worm. Had it fled? One
could only fear, not hope. But at seven minutes to one o’clock in the morning a
deafening whistling was heard, like that produced by a body of water rushing
with great violence.

The captain, Ned Land, and I, were then on the poop, eagerly peering through
the profound darkness.

“Ned Land,” asked the commander, “you have often heard the roaring of whales?”

“Often, sir; but never such whales the sight of which brought me in two
thousand dollars. If I can only approach within four harpoon lengths of it!”

“But to approach it,” said the commander, “I ought to put a whaler at your
disposal?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“That will be trifling with the lives of my men.”

“And mine too,” simply said the harpooner.

Towards two o’clock in the morning, the burning light reappeared, not less
intense, about five miles to windward of the Abraham Lincoln.
Notwithstanding the distance, and the noise of the wind and sea, one heard
distinctly the loud strokes of the animal’s tail, and even its panting breath.
It seemed that, at the moment that the enormous narwhal had come to take breath
at the surface of the water, the air was engulfed in its lungs, like the steam
in the vast cylinders of a machine of two thousand horse-power.

“Hum!” thought I, “a whale with the strength of a cavalry regiment would be a
pretty whale!”

We were on the qui vive till daylight, and prepared for the combat. The
fishing implements were laid along the hammock nettings. The second lieutenant
loaded the blunderbusses, which could throw harpoons to the distance of a mile,
and long duck-guns, with explosive bullets, which inflicted mortal wounds even
to the most terrible animals. Ned Land contented himself with sharpening his
harpoon—a terrible weapon in his hands.

At six o’clock day began to break; and, with the first glimmer of light, the
electric light of the narwhal disappeared. At seven o’clock the day was
sufficiently advanced, but a very thick sea fog obscured our view, and the best
spy-glasses could not pierce it. That caused disappointment and anger.

I climbed the mizzen-mast. Some officers were already perched on the mast
heads. At eight o’clock the fog lay heavily on the waves, and its thick scrolls
rose little by little. The horizon grew wider and clearer at the same time.
Suddenly, just as on the day before, Ned Land’s voice was heard:

“The thing itself on the port quarter!” cried the harpooner.

Every eye was turned towards the point indicated. There, a mile and a half from
the frigate, a long blackish body emerged a yard above the waves. Its tail,
violently agitated, produced a considerable eddy. Never did a caudal appendage
beat the sea with such violence. An immense track, of dazzling whiteness,
marked the passage of the animal, and described a long curve.

The frigate approached the cetacean. I examined it thoroughly.

The reports of the Shannon and of the Helvetia had rather
exaggerated its size, and I estimated its length at only two hundred and fifty
feet. As to its dimensions, I could only conjecture them to be admirably
proportioned. While I watched this phenomenon, two jets of steam and water were
ejected from its vents, and rose to the height of 120 feet; thus I ascertained
its way of breathing. I concluded definitely that it belonged to the vertebrate
branch, class mammalia.

The crew waited impatiently for their chief’s orders. The latter, after having
observed the animal attentively, called the engineer. The engineer ran to him.

“Sir,” said the commander, “you have steam up?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the engineer.

“Well, make up your fires and put on all steam.”

Three hurrahs greeted this order. The time for the struggle had arrived. Some
moments after, the two funnels of the frigate vomited torrents of black smoke,
and the bridge quaked under the trembling of the boilers.

The Abraham Lincoln, propelled by her wonderful screw, went straight at
the animal. The latter allowed it to come within half a cable’s length; then,
as if disdaining to dive, it took a little turn, and stopped a short distance
off.

This pursuit lasted nearly three-quarters of an hour, without the frigate
gaining two yards on the cetacean. It was quite evident that at that rate we
should never come up with it.

“Well, Mr. Land,” asked the captain, “do you advise me to put the boats out to
sea?”

“No, sir,” replied Ned Land; “because we shall not take that beast easily.”

“What shall we do then?”

“Put on more steam if you can, sir. With your leave, I mean to post myself
under the bowsprit, and if we get within harpooning distance, I shall throw my
harpoon.”

“Go, Ned,” said the captain. “Engineer, put on more pressure.”

Ned Land went to his post. The fires were increased, the screw revolved
forty-three times a minute, and the steam poured out of the valves. We heaved
the log, and calculated that the Abraham Lincoln was going at the rate
of 18½ miles an hour.

But the accursed animal swam too at the rate of 18½ miles an hour.

For a whole hour, the frigate kept up this pace, without gaining six feet. It
was humiliating for one of the swiftest sailers in the American navy. A
stubborn anger seized the crew; the sailors abused the monster, who, as before,
disdained to answer them; the captain no longer contented himself with twisting
his beard—he gnawed it.

The engineer was again called.

“You have turned full steam in?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the engineer.

The speed of the Abraham Lincoln increased. Its masts trembled down to
their stepping holes, and the clouds of smoke could hardly find way out of the
narrow funnels.

They heaved the log a second time.

“Well?” asked the captain of the man at the wheel.

“Nineteen miles and three-tenths, sir.”

“Clap on more steam.”

The engineer obeyed. The manometer showed ten degrees. But the cetacean grew
warm itself, no doubt; for without straining itself, it made 19-3/10 miles.

What a pursuit! No, I cannot describe the emotion that vibrated through me. Ned
Land kept his post, harpoon in hand. Several times the animal let us gain upon
it.—“We shall catch it! we shall catch it!” cried the Canadian. But just as he
was going to strike, the cetacean stole away with a rapidity that could not be
estimated at less than thirty miles an hour, and even during our maximum of
speed, it bullied the frigate, going round and round it. A cry of fury broke
from everyone!

At noon we were no further advanced than at eight o’clock in the morning.

The captain then decided to take more direct means.

“Ah!” said he, “that animal goes quicker than the Abraham Lincoln. Very
well! we will see whether it will escape these conical bullets. Send your men
to the forecastle, sir.”

The forecastle gun was immediately loaded and slewed round. But the shot passed
some feet above the cetacean, which was half a mile off.

“Another, more to the right,” cried the commander, “and five dollars to whoever
will hit that infernal beast.”

An old gunner with a grey beard—that I can see now—with steady eye and grave
face, went up to the gun and took a long aim. A loud report was heard, with
which were mingled the cheers of the crew.

An old grey-bearded gunner . . . .

The bullet did its work; it hit the animal, but not fatally, and sliding off
the rounded surface, was lost in two miles depth of sea.

The chase began again, and the captain, leaning towards me, said—

“I will pursue that beast till my frigate bursts up.”

“Yes,” answered I; “and you will be quite right to do it.”

I wished the beast would exhaust itself, and not be insensible to fatigue like
a steam engine! But it was of no use. Hours passed, without its showing any
signs of exhaustion.

However, it must be said in praise of the Abraham Lincoln, that she
struggled on indefatigably. I cannot reckon the distance she made under three
hundred miles during this unlucky day, November the 6th. But night came on, and
overshadowed the rough ocean.

Now I thought our expedition was at an end, and that we should never again see
the extraordinary animal. I was mistaken. At ten minutes to eleven in the
evening, the electric light reappeared three miles to windward of the frigate,
as pure, as intense as during the preceding night.

The narwhal seemed motionless; perhaps, tired with its day’s work, it slept,
letting itself float with the undulation of the waves. Now was a chance of
which the captain resolved to take advantage.

He gave his orders. The Abraham Lincoln kept up half steam, and advanced
cautiously so as not to awake its adversary. It is no rare thing to meet in the
middle of the ocean whales so sound asleep that they can be successfully
attacked, and Ned Land had harpooned more than one during its sleep. The
Canadian went to take his place again under the bowsprit.

The frigate approached noiselessly, stopped at two cables’ lengths from the
animal, and following its track. No one breathed; a deep silence reigned on the
bridge. We were not a hundred feet from the burning focus, the light of which
increased and dazzled our eyes.

At this moment, leaning on the forecastle bulwark, I saw below me Ned Land
grappling the martingale in one hand, brandishing his terrible harpoon in the
other, scarcely twenty feet from the motionless animal. Suddenly his arm
straightened, and the harpoon was thrown; I heard the sonorous stroke of the
weapon, which seemed to have struck a hard body. The electric light went out
suddenly, and two enormous waterspouts broke over the bridge of the frigate,
rushing like a torrent from stem to stern, overthrowing men, and breaking the
lashings of the spars. A fearful shock followed, and, thrown over the rail
without having time to stop myself, I fell into the sea.

CHAPTER VII
AN UNKNOWN SPECIES OF WHALE

This unexpected fall so stunned me that I have no clear recollection of my
sensations at the time. I was at first drawn down to a depth of about twenty
feet. I am a good swimmer (though without pretending to rival Byron or Edgar
Poe, who were masters of the art), and in that plunge I did not lose my
presence of mind. Two vigorous strokes brought me to the surface of the water.
My first care was to look for the frigate. Had the crew seen me disappear? Had
the Abraham Lincoln veered round? Would the captain put out a boat?
Might I hope to be saved?

The darkness was intense. I caught a glimpse of a black mass disappearing in
the east, its beacon lights dying out in the distance. It was the frigate! I
was lost.

“Help, help!” I shouted, swimming towards the Abraham Lincoln in
desperation.

My clothes encumbered me; they seemed glued to my body, and paralysed my
movements.

I was sinking! I was suffocating!

“Help!”

This was my last cry. My mouth filled with water; I struggled against being
drawn down the abyss. Suddenly my clothes were seized by a strong hand, and I
felt myself quickly drawn up to the surface of the sea; and I heard, yes, I
heard these words pronounced in my ear—

“If master would be so good as to lean on my shoulder, master would swim with
much greater ease.”

I seized with one hand my faithful Conseil’s arm.

“Is it you?” said I, “you?”

“Myself,” answered Conseil; “and waiting master’s orders.”

“That shock threw you as well as me into the sea?”

“No; but being in my master’s service, I followed him.”

The worthy fellow thought that was but natural.

“And the frigate?” I asked.

“The frigate?” replied Conseil, turning on his back; “I think that master had
better not count too much on her.”

“You think so?”

“I say that, at the time I threw myself into the sea, I heard the men at the
wheel say, ‘The screw and the rudder are broken.’”

“Broken?”

“Yes, broken by the monster’s teeth. It is the only injury the Abraham
Lincoln has sustained. But it is a bad look out for us—she no longer
answers her helm.”

“Then we are lost!”

“Perhaps so,” calmly answered Conseil. “However, we have still several hours
before us, and one can do a good deal in some hours.”

Conseil’s imperturbable coolness set me up again. I swam more vigorously; but,
cramped by my clothes, which stuck to me like a leaden weight, I felt great
difficulty in bearing up. Conseil saw this.

“Will master let me make a slit?” said he; and, slipping an open knife under my
clothes, he ripped them up from top to bottom very rapidly. Then he cleverly
slipped them off me, while I swam for both of us.

Then I did the same for Conseil, and we continued to swim near to each other.

Nevertheless, our situation was no less terrible. Perhaps our disappearance had
not been noticed; and if it had been, the frigate could not tack, being without
its helm. Conseil argued on this supposition, and laid his plans accordingly.
This phlegmatic boy was perfectly self-possessed. We then decided that, as our
only chance of safety was being picked up by the Abraham Lincoln’s
boats, we ought to manage so as to wait for them as long as possible. I
resolved then to husband our strength, so that both should not be exhausted at
the same time; and this is how we managed: while one of us lay on our back,
quite still, with arms crossed, and legs stretched out, the other would swim
and push the other on in front. This towing business did not last more than ten
minutes each; and relieving each other thus, we could swim on for some hours,
perhaps till daybreak. Poor chance! but hope is so firmly rooted in the heart
of man! Moreover, there were two of us. Indeed I declare (though it may seem
improbable) if I sought to destroy all hope,—if I wished to despair, I could
not.

The collision of the frigate with the cetacean had occurred about eleven
o’clock the evening before. I reckoned then we should have eight hours to swim
before sunrise, an operation quite practicable if we relieved each other. The
sea, very calm, was in our favour. Sometimes I tried to pierce the intense
darkness that was only dispelled by the phosphorescence caused by our
movements. I watched the luminous waves that broke over my hand, whose
mirror-like surface was spotted with silvery rings. One might have said that we
were in a bath of quicksilver.

Near one o’clock in the morning, I was seized with dreadful fatigue. My limbs
stiffened under the strain of violent cramp. Conseil was obliged to keep me up,
and our preservation devolved on him alone. I heard the poor boy pant; his
breathing became short and hurried. I found that he could not keep up much
longer.

“Leave me! leave me!” I said to him.

“Leave my master? Never!” replied he. “I would drown first.”

Just then the moon appeared through the fringes of a thick cloud that the wind
was driving to the east. The surface of the sea glittered with its rays. This
kindly light reanimated us. My head got better again. I looked at all points of
the horizon. I saw the frigate! She was five miles from us, and looked like a
dark mass, hardly discernible. But no boats!

I would have cried out. But what good would it have been at such a distance! My
swollen lips could utter no sounds. Conseil could articulate some words, and I
heard him repeat at intervals, “Help! help!”

Our movements were suspended for an instant; we listened. It might be only a
singing in the ear, but it seemed to me as if a cry answered the cry from
Conseil.

“Did you hear?” I murmured.

“Yes! Yes!”

And Conseil gave one more despairing call.

This time there was no mistake! A human voice responded to ours! Was it the
voice of another unfortunate creature, abandoned in the middle of the ocean,
some other victim of the shock sustained by the vessel? Or rather was it a boat
from the frigate, that was hailing us in the darkness?

Conseil made a last effort, and, leaning on my shoulder, while I struck out in
a despairing effort, he raised himself half out of the water, then fell back
exhausted.

“What did you see?”

“I saw”—murmured he; “I saw—but do not talk—reserve all your strength!”

What had he seen? Then, I know not why, the thought of the monster came into my
head for the first time! But that voice! The time is past for Jonahs to take
refuge in whales’ bellies! However, Conseil was towing me again. He raised his
head sometimes, looked before us, and uttered a cry of recognition, which was
responded to by a voice that came nearer and nearer. I scarcely heard it. My
strength was exhausted; my fingers stiffened; my hand afforded me support no
longer; my mouth, convulsively opening, filled with salt water. Cold crept over
me. I raised my head for the last time, then I sank.

At this moment a hard body struck me. I clung to it: then I felt that I was
being drawn up, that I was brought to the surface of the water, that my chest
collapsed:—I fainted.

It is certain that I soon came to, thanks to the vigorous rubbings that I
received. I half opened my eyes.

“Conseil!” I murmured.

“Does master call me?” asked Conseil.

Just then, by the waning light of the moon which was sinking down to the
horizon, I saw a face which was not Conseil’s and which I immediately
recognised.

“Ned!” I cried.

“The same, sir, who is seeking his prize!” replied the Canadian.

“Were you thrown into the sea by the shock to the frigate?”

“Yes, Professor; but more fortunate than you, I was able to find a footing
almost directly upon a floating island.”

“An island?”

“Or, more correctly speaking, on our gigantic narwhal.”

“Explain yourself, Ned!”

“Only I soon found out why my harpoon had not entered its skin and was
blunted.”

“Why, Ned, why?”

“Because, Professor, that beast is made of sheet iron.”

The Canadian’s last words produced a sudden revolution in my brain. I wriggled
myself quickly to the top of the being, or object, half out of the water, which
served us for a refuge. I kicked it. It was evidently a hard impenetrable body,
and not the soft substance that forms the bodies of the great marine mammalia.
But this hard body might be a bony carapace, like that of the antediluvian
animals; and I should be free to class this monster among amphibious reptiles,
such as tortoises or alligators.

Well, no! the blackish back that supported me was smooth, polished, without
scales. The blow produced a metallic sound; and incredible though it may be, it
seemed, I might say, as if it was made of riveted plates.

There was no doubt about it! This monster, this natural phenomenon that had
puzzled the learned world, and overthrown and misled the imagination of seamen
of both hemispheres, it must be owned, a still more astonishing phenomenon,
inasmuch as it was a simply human construction.

We had no time to lose, however. We were lying upon the back of a sort of
submarine boat, which appeared (as far as I could judge) like a huge fish of
steel. Ned Land’s mind was made up on this point. Conseil and I could only
agree with him.

Just then a bubbling began at the back of this strange thing (which was
evidently propelled by a screw), and it began to move. We had only just time to
seize hold of the upper part, which rose about seven feet out of the water, and
happily its speed was not great.

“As long as it sails horizontally,” muttered Ned Land, “I do not mind; but if
it takes a fancy to dive, I would not give two straws for my life.”

The Canadian might have said still less. It became really necessary to
communicate with the beings, whatever they were, shut up inside the machine. I
searched all over the outside for an aperture, a panel, or a man-hole, to use a
technical expression; but the lines of the iron rivets, solidly driven into the
joints of the iron plates, were clear and uniform. Besides, the moon
disappeared then, and left us in total darkness.

At last this long night passed. My indistinct remembrance prevents my
describing all the impressions it made. I can only recall one circumstance.
During some lulls of the wind and sea, I fancied I heard several times vague
sounds, a sort of fugitive harmony produced by words of command. What was then
the mystery of this submarine craft, of which the whole world vainly sought an
explanation? What kind of beings existed in this strange boat? What mechanical
agent caused its prodigious speed?

Daybreak appeared. The morning mists surrounded us, but they soon cleared off.
I was about to examine the hull, which formed on deck a kind of horizontal
platform, when I felt it gradually sinking.

“Oh! confound it!” cried Ned Land, kicking the resounding plate. “Open, you
inhospitable rascals!”

Happily the sinking movement ceased. Suddenly a noise, like iron works
violently pushed aside, came from the interior of the boat. One iron plate was
moved, a man appeared, uttered an odd cry, and disappeared immediately.

Some moments after, eight strong men, with masked faces, appeared noiselessly,
and drew us down into their formidable machine.

CHAPTER VIII
MOBILIS IN MOBILI

This forcible abduction, so roughly carried out, was accomplished with the
rapidity of lightning. I shivered all over. Whom had we to deal with? No doubt
some new sort of pirates, who explored the sea in their own way.

Hardly had the narrow panel closed upon me, when I was enveloped in darkness.
My eyes, dazzled with the outer light, could distinguish nothing. I felt my
naked feet cling to the rungs of an iron ladder. Ned Land and Conseil, firmly
seized, followed me. At the bottom of the ladder, a door opened, and shut after
us immediately with a bang.

We were alone. Where, I could not say, hardly imagine. All was black, and such
a dense black that, after some minutes, my eyes had not been able to discern
even the faintest glimmer.

Meanwhile, Ned Land, furious at these proceedings, gave free vent to his
indignation.

“Confound it!” cried he, “here are people who come up to the Scotch for
hospitality. They only just miss being cannibals. I should not be surprised at
it, but I declare that they shall not eat me without my protesting.”

“Calm yourself, friend Ned, calm yourself,” replied Conseil, quietly. “Do not
cry out before you are hurt. We are not quite done for yet.”

“Not quite,” sharply replied the Canadian, “but pretty near, at all events.
Things look black. Happily, my bowie knife I have still, and I can always see
well enough to use it. The first of these pirates who lays a hand on me——”

“Do not excite yourself, Ned,” I said to the harpooner, “and do not compromise
us by useless violence. Who knows that they will not listen to us? Let us
rather try to find out where we are.”

I groped about. In five steps I came to an iron wall, made of plates bolted
together. Then turning back I struck against a wooden table, near which were
ranged several stools. The boards of this prison were concealed under a thick
mat of phormium, which deadened the noise of the feet. The bare walls revealed
no trace of window or door. Conseil, going round the reverse way, met me, and
we went back to the middle of the cabin, which measured about twenty feet by
ten. As to its height, Ned Land, in spite of his own great height, could not
measure it.

Half an hour had already passed without our situation being bettered, when the
dense darkness suddenly gave way to extreme light. Our prison was suddenly
lighted—that is to say, it became filled with a luminous matter, so strong that
I could not bear it at first. In its whiteness and intensity I recognised that
electric light which played round the submarine boat like a magnificent
phenomenon of phosphorescence. After shutting my eyes involuntarily, I opened
them, and saw that this luminous agent came from a half globe, unpolished,
placed in the roof of the cabin.

“At last one can see,” cried Ned Land, who, knife in hand, stood on the
defensive.

“Yes,” said I; “but we are still in the dark about ourselves.”

“Let master have patience,” said the imperturbable Conseil.

The sudden lighting of the cabin enabled me to examine it minutely. It only
contained a table and five stools. The invisible door might be hermetically
sealed. No noise was heard. All seemed dead in the interior of this boat. Did
it move, did it float on the surface of the ocean, or did it dive into its
depths? I could not guess.

A noise of bolts was now heard, the door opened, and two men appeared.

One was short, very muscular, broad-shouldered, with robust limbs, strong head,
an abundance of black hair, thick moustache, a quick penetrating look, and the
vivacity which characterises the population of Southern France.

The second stranger merits a more detailed description. A disciple of Gratiolet
or Engel would have read his face like an open book. I made out his prevailing
qualities directly:—self-confidence,—because his head was well set on his
shoulders, and his black eyes looked around with cold assurance; calmness,—for
his skin, rather pale, showed his coolness of blood; energy,—evinced by the
rapid contraction of his lofty brows; and courage,—because his deep breathing
denoted great power of lungs.

Whether this person was thirty-five or fifty years of age, I could not say. He
was tall, had a large forehead, straight nose, a clearly cut mouth, beautiful
teeth, with fine taper hands, indicative of a highly nervous temperament. This
man was certainly the most admirable specimen I had ever met. One particular
feature was his eyes, rather far from each other, and which could take in
nearly a quarter of the horizon at once.

This faculty—(I verified it later)—gave him a range of vision far superior to
Ned Land’s. When this stranger fixed upon an object, his eyebrows met, his
large eyelids closed around so as to contract the range of his vision, and he
looked as if he magnified the objects lessened by distance, as if he pierced
those sheets of water so opaque to our eyes, and as if he read the very depths
of the seas.

The two strangers, with caps made from the fur of the sea otter, and shod with
sea boots of seal’s skin, were dressed in clothes of a particular texture,
which allowed free movement of the limbs. The taller of the two, evidently the
chief on board, examined us with great attention, without saying a word; then
turning to his companion, talked with him in an unknown tongue. It was a
sonorous, harmonious, and flexible dialect, the vowels seeming to admit of very
varied accentuation.

The other replied by a shake of the head, and added two or three perfectly
incomprehensible words. Then he seemed to question me by a look.

I replied in good French that I did not know his language; but he seemed not to
understand me, and my situation became more embarrassing.

“If master were to tell our story,” said Conseil, “perhaps these gentlemen may
understand some words.”

I began to tell our adventures, articulating each syllable clearly, and without
omitting one single detail. I announced our names and rank, introducing in
person Professor Aronnax, his servant Conseil, and master Ned Land, the
harpooner.

The man with the soft calm eyes listened to me quietly, even politely, and with
extreme attention; but nothing in his countenance indicated that he had
understood my story. When I finished, he said not a word. There remained one
resource, to speak English. Perhaps they would know this almost universal
language. I knew it, as well as the German language,—well enough to read it
fluently, but not to speak it correctly. But, anyhow, we must make ourselves
understood.

“Go on in your turn,” I said to the harpooner; “speak your best Anglo-Saxon,
and try to do better than I.”

Ned did not beg off, and recommenced our story.

To his great disgust, the harpooner did not seem to have made himself more
intelligible than I had. Our visitors did not stir. They evidently understood
neither the language of Arago nor of Faraday.

Very much embarrassed, after having vainly exhausted our speaking resources, I
knew not what part to take, when Conseil said—

“If master will permit me, I will relate it in German.”

But in spite of the elegant terms and good accent of the narrator, the German
language had no success. At last, nonplussed, I tried to remember my first
lessons, and to narrate our adventures in Latin, but with no better success.
This last attempt being of no avail, the two strangers exchanged some words in
their unknown language, and retired.

The door shut.

“It is an infamous shame,” cried Ned Land, who broke out for the twentieth
time. “We speak to those rogues in French, English, German, and Latin, and not
one of them has the politeness to answer!”

“Calm yourself,” I said to the impetuous Ned, “anger will do no good.”

“But do you see, Professor,” replied our irascible companion, “that we shall
absolutely die of hunger in this iron cage?”

“Bah!” said Conseil, philosophically; “we can hold out some time yet.”

“My friends,” I said, “we must not despair. We have been worse off than this.
Do me the favour to wait a little before forming an opinion upon the commander
and crew of this boat.”

“My opinion is formed,” replied Ned Land, sharply. “They are rascals.”

“Good! and from what country?”

“From the land of rogues!”

“My brave Ned, that country is not clearly indicated on the map of the world;
but I admit that the nationality of the two strangers is hard to determine.
Neither English, French, nor German, that is quite certain. However, I am
inclined to think that the commander and his companion were born in low
latitudes. There is southern blood in them. But I cannot decide by their
appearance whether they are Spaniards, Turks, Arabians, or Indians. As to their
language, it is quite incomprehensible.”

“There is the disadvantage of not knowing all languages,” said Conseil, “or the
disadvantage of not having one universal language.”

As he said these words, the door opened. A steward entered. He brought us
clothes, coats and trousers, made of a stuff I did not know. I hastened to
dress myself, and my companions followed my example. During that time, the
steward—dumb, perhaps deaf—had arranged the table, and laid three plates.

“This is something like,” said Conseil.

“Bah!” said the rancorous harpooner, “what do you suppose they eat here?
Tortoise liver, filleted shark, and beefsteaks from sea-dogs.”

“We shall see,” said Conseil.

The dishes, of bell metal, were placed on the table, and we took our places.
Undoubtedly we had to do with civilised people, and, had it not been for the
electric light which flooded us, I could have fancied I was in the dining-room
of the Adelphi Hotel at Liverpool, or at the Grand Hotel in Paris. I must say,
however, that there was neither bread nor wine. The water was fresh and clear,
but it was water, and did not suit Ned Land’s taste. Amongst the dishes which
were brought to us, I recognised several fish delicately dressed; but of some,
although excellent, I could give no opinion, neither could I tell to what
kingdom they belonged, whether animal or vegetable. As to the dinner service,
it was elegant, and in perfect taste. Each utensil, spoon, fork, knife, plate,
had a letter engraved on it, with a motto above it, of which this is an exact
facsimile:—

MOBILIS IN MOBILI
N.

The letter N was no doubt the initial of the name of the enigmatical person,
who commanded at the bottom of the sea.

Ned and Conseil did not reflect much. They devoured the food, and I did
likewise. I was, besides, reassured as to our fate; and it seemed evident that
our hosts would not let us die of want.

However, everything has an end, everything passes away, even the hunger of
people who have not eaten for fifteen hours. Our appetites satisfied, we felt
overcome with sleep.

“Faith! I shall sleep well,” said Conseil.

“So shall I,” replied Ned Land.

My two companions stretched themselves on the cabin carpet, and were soon sound
asleep. For my own part, too many thoughts crowded my brain, too many insoluble
questions pressed upon me, too many fancies kept my eyes half open. Where were
we? What strange power carried us on? I felt—or rather fancied I felt—the
machine sinking down to the lowest beds of the sea. Dreadful nightmares beset
me; I saw in these mysterious asylums a world of unknown animals, amongst which
this submarine boat seemed to be of the same kind, living, moving, and
formidable as they. Then my brain grew calmer, my imagination wandered into
vague unconsciousness, and I soon fell into a deep sleep.

CHAPTER IX
NED LAND’S TEMPERS

How long we slept I do not know; but our sleep must have lasted long, for it
rested us completely from our fatigues. I woke first. My companions had not
moved, and were still stretched in their corner.

Hardly roused from my somewhat hard couch, I felt my brain freed, my mind
clear. I then began an attentive examination of our cell. Nothing was changed
inside. The prison was still a prison,—the prisoners, prisoners. However, the
steward, during our sleep, had cleared the table. I breathed with difficulty.
The heavy air seemed to oppress my lungs. Although the cell was large, we had
evidently consumed a great part of the oxygen that it contained. Indeed, each
man consumes, in one hour, the oxygen contained in more than 176 pints of air,
and this air, charged (as then) with a nearly equal quantity of carbonic acid,
becomes unbreathable.

It became necessary to renew the atmosphere of our prison, and no doubt the
whole in the submarine boat. That gave rise to a question in my mind. How would
the commander of this floating dwelling-place proceed? Would he obtain air by
chemical means, in getting by heat the oxygen contained in chlorate of potash,
and in absorbing carbonic acid by caustic potash? Or, a more convenient,
economical, and consequently more probable alternative, would he be satisfied
to rise and take breath at the surface of the water, like a cetacean, and so
renew for twenty-four hours the atmospheric provision?

In fact, I was already obliged to increase my respirations to eke out of this
cell the little oxygen it contained, when suddenly I was refreshed by a current
of pure air, and perfumed with saline emanations. It was an invigorating sea
breeze, charged with iodine. I opened my mouth wide, and my lungs saturated
themselves with fresh particles.

At the same time I felt the boat rolling. The iron-plated monster had evidently
just risen to the surface of the ocean to breathe, after the fashion of whales.
I found out from that the mode of ventilating the boat.

When I had inhaled this air freely, I sought the conduit-pipe, which conveyed
to us the beneficial whiff, and I was not long in finding it. Above the door
was a ventilator, through which volumes of fresh air renewed the impoverished
atmosphere of the cell.

I was making my observations, when Ned and Conseil awoke almost at the same
time, under the influence of this reviving air. They rubbed their eyes,
stretched themselves, and were on their feet in an instant.

“Did master sleep well?” asked Conseil, with his usual politeness.

“Very well, my brave boy. And you, Mr. Land?”

“Soundly, Professor. But I don’t know if I am right or not; there seems to be a
sea breeze!”

A seaman could not be mistaken, and I told the Canadian all that had passed
during his sleep.

“Good!” said he; “that accounts for those roarings we heard, when the supposed
narwhal sighted the Abraham Lincoln.”

“Quite so, Master Land; it was taking breath.”

“Only, Mr. Aronnax, I have no idea what o’clock it is, unless it is
dinner-time.”

“Dinner-time! my good fellow? Say rather breakfast-time, for we certainly have
begun another day.”

“So,” said Conseil, “we have slept twenty-four hours?”

“That is my opinion.”

“I will not contradict you,” replied Ned Land. “But dinner or breakfast, the
steward will be welcome, whichever he brings.”

“Master Land, we must conform to the rules on board, and I suppose our
appetites are in advance of the dinner hour.”

“That is just like you, friend Conseil,” said Ned, impatiently. “You are never
out of temper, always calm; you would return thanks before grace, and die of
hunger rather than complain!”

Time was getting on, and we were fearfully hungry; and this time the steward
did not appear. It was rather too long to leave us, if they really had good
intentions towards us. Ned Land, tormented by the cravings of hunger, got still
more angry; and, notwithstanding his promise, I dreaded an explosion when he
found himself with one of the crew.

For two hours more Ned Land’s temper increased; he cried, he shouted, but in
vain. The walls were deaf. There was no sound to be heard in the boat: all was
still as death. It did not move, for I should have felt the trembling motion of
the hull under the influence of the screw. Plunged in the depths of the waters,
it belonged no longer to earth:—this silence was dreadful.

I felt terrified, Conseil was calm, Ned Land roared.

Just then a noise was heard outside. Steps sounded on the metal flags. The
locks were turned, the door opened, and the steward appeared.

Before I could rush forward to stop him, the Canadian had thrown him down, and
held him by the throat. The steward was choking under the grip of his powerful
hand.

Conseil was already trying to unclasp the harpooner’s hand from his
half-suffocated victim, and I was going to fly to the rescue, when suddenly I
was nailed to the spot by hearing these words in French—

“Be quiet, Master Land; and you, Professor, will you be so good as to listen to
me?”

CHAPTER X
THE MAN OF THE SEAS

It was the commander of the vessel who thus spoke.

At these words, Ned Land rose suddenly. The steward, nearly strangled, tottered
out on a sign from his master; but such was the power of the commander on
board, that not a gesture betrayed the resentment which this man must have felt
towards the Canadian. Conseil, interested in spite of himself, I stupefied,
awaited in silence the result of this scene.

The commander, leaning against the corner of a table with his arms folded,
scanned us with profound attention. Did he hesitate to speak? Did he regret the
words which he had just spoken in French? One might almost think so.

After some moments of silence, which not one of us dreamed of breaking,
“Gentlemen,” said he, in a calm and penetrating voice, “I speak French,
English, German, and Latin equally well. I could, therefore, have answered you
at our first interview, but I wished to know you first, then to reflect. The
story told by each one, entirely agreeing in the main points, convinced me of
your identity. I know now that chance has brought before me M. Pierre Aronnax,
Professor of Natural History at the Museum of Paris, entrusted with a
scientific mission abroad, Conseil, his servant, and Ned Land, of Canadian
origin, harpooner on board the frigate Abraham Lincoln of the navy of
the United States of America.”

I bowed assent. It was not a question that the commander put to me. Therefore
there was no answer to be made. This man expressed himself with perfect ease,
without any accent. His sentences were well turned, his words clear, and his
fluency of speech remarkable. Yet, I did not recognise in him a
fellow-countryman.

He continued the conversation in these terms:

“You have doubtless thought, sir, that I have delayed long in paying you this
second visit. The reason is that, your identity recognised, I wished to weigh
maturely what part to act towards you. I have hesitated much. Most annoying
circumstances have brought you into the presence of a man who has broken all
the ties of humanity. You have come to trouble my existence.”

“Unintentionally!” said I.

“Unintentionally?” replied the stranger, raising his voice a little; “was it
unintentionally that the Abraham Lincoln pursued me all over the seas?
Was it unintentionally that you took passage in this frigate? Was it
unintentionally that your cannon balls rebounded off the plating of my vessel?
Was it unintentionally that Mr. Ned Land struck me with his harpoon?”

I detected a restrained irritation in these words. But to these recriminations
I had a very natural answer to make and I made it.

“Sir,” said I, “no doubt you are ignorant of the discussions which have taken
place concerning you in America and Europe. You do not know that divers
accidents, caused by collisions with your submarine machine, have excited
public feeling in the two continents. I omit the hypotheses without number by
which it was sought to explain the inexplicable phenomenon of which you alone
possess the secret. But you must understand that, in pursuing you over the high
seas of the Pacific, the Abraham Lincoln believed itself to be chasing
some powerful sea-monster, of which it was necessary to rid the ocean at any
price.”

A half-smile curled the lips of the commander: then, in a calmer tone—

“M. Aronnax,” he replied, “dare you affirm that your frigate would not as soon
have pursued and cannonaded a submarine boat as a monster?”

This question embarrassed me, for certainly Captain Farragut might not have
hesitated. He might have thought it his duty to destroy a contrivance of this
kind, as he would a gigantic narwhal.

“You understand then, sir,” continued the stranger, “that I have the right to
treat you as enemies?”

I answered nothing, purposely. For what good would it be to discuss such a
proposition, when force could destroy the best arguments?

“I have hesitated some time,” continued the commander; “nothing obliged me to
show you hospitality. If I chose to separate myself from you, I should have no
interest in seeing you again; I could place you upon the deck of this vessel
which has served you as a refuge, I could sink beneath the waters, and forget
that you had ever existed. Would not that be my right?”

“It might be the right of a savage,” I answered, “but not that of a civilised
man.”

“Professor,” replied the commander, quickly, “I am not what you call a
civilised man! I have done with society entirely, for reasons which I alone
have the right of appreciating. I do not therefore obey its laws, and I desire
you never to allude to them before me again!”

This was said plainly. A flash of anger and disdain kindled in the eyes of the
Unknown, and I had a glimpse of a terrible past in the life of this man. Not
only had he put himself beyond the pale of human laws, but he had made himself
independent of them, free in the strictest acceptation of the word, quite
beyond their reach! Who then would dare to pursue him at the bottom of the sea,
when, on its surface, he defied all attempts made against him? What vessel
could resist the shock of his submarine monitor? What cuirass, however thick,
could withstand the blows of his spur? No man could demand from him an account
of his actions; God, if he believed in one—his conscience, if he had one—were
the sole judges to whom he was answerable.

These reflections crossed my mind rapidly, whilst the stranger personage was
silent, absorbed, and as if wrapped up in himself. I regarded him with fear
mingled with interest, as doubtless, Œdipus regarded the Sphinx.

After rather a long silence, the commander resumed the conversation.

“I have hesitated,” said he, “but I have thought that my interest might be
reconciled with that pity to which every human being has a right. You will
remain on board my vessel, since fate has cast you there. You will be free;
and, in exchange for this liberty, I shall only impose one single condition.
Your word of honour to submit to it will suffice.”

“Speak, sir,” I answered. “I suppose this condition is one which a man of
honour may accept?”

“Yes, sir; it is this. It is possible that certain events, unforeseen, may
oblige me to consign you to your cabins for some hours or some days, as the
case may be. As I desire never to use violence, I expect from you, more than
all the others, a passive obedience. In thus acting, I take all the
responsibility: I acquit you entirely, for I make it an impossibility for you
to see what ought not to be seen. Do you accept this condition?”

Then things took place on board which, to say the least, were singular, and
which ought not to be seen by people who were not placed beyond the pale of
social laws. Amongst the surprises which the future was preparing for me, this
might not be the least.

“We accept,” I answered; “only I will ask your permission, sir, to address one
question to you—one only.”

“Speak, sir.”

“You said that we should be free on board.”

“Entirely.”

“I ask you, then, what you mean by this liberty?”

“Just the liberty to go, to come, to see, to observe even all that passes
here,—save under rare circumstances,—the liberty, in short, which we enjoy
ourselves, my companions and I.”

It was evident that we did not understand one another.

“Pardon me, sir,” I resumed, “but this liberty is only what every prisoner has
of pacing his prison. It cannot suffice us.”

“It must suffice you, however.”

“What! we must renounce for ever seeing our country, our friends, our relations
again?”

“Yes, sir. But to renounce that unendurable worldly yoke which men believe to
be liberty, is not perhaps so painful as you think.”

“Well,” exclaimed Ned Land, “never will I give my word of honour not to try to
escape.”

“I did not ask you for your word of honour, Master Land,” answered the
commander, coldly.

“Sir,” I replied, beginning to get angry in spite of myself, “you abuse your
situation towards us; it is cruelty.”

“No, sir, it is clemency. You are my prisoners of war. I keep you, when I
could, by a word, plunge you into the depths of the ocean. You attacked me. You
came to surprise a secret which no man in the world must penetrate,—the secret
of my whole existence. And you think that I am going to send you back to that
world which must know me no more? Never! In retaining you, it is not you whom I
guard—it is myself.”

These words indicated a resolution taken on the part of the commander, against
which no arguments would prevail.

“So, sir,” I rejoined, “you give us simply the choice between life and death?”

“Simply.”

“My friends,” said I, “to a question thus put, there is nothing to answer. But
no word of honour binds us to the master of this vessel.”

“None, sir,” answered the Unknown.

Then, in a gentler tone, he continued—

“Now, permit me to finish what I have to say to you. I know you, M. Aronnax.
You and your companions will not, perhaps, have so much to complain of in the
chance which has bound you to my fate. You will find amongst the books which
are my favourite study the work which you have published on ‘the depths of the
sea.’ I have often read it. You have carried out your work as far as
terrestrial science permitted you. But you do not know all—you have not seen
all. Let me tell you then, Professor, that you will not regret the time passed
on board my vessel. You are going to visit the land of marvels.”

These words of the commander had a great effect upon me. I cannot deny it. My
weak point was touched; and I forgot, for a moment, that the contemplation of
these sublime subjects was not worth the loss of liberty. Besides, I trusted to
the future to decide this grave question. So I contented myself with saying—

“By what name ought I to address you?”

“Sir,” replied the commander, “I am nothing to you but Captain Nemo; and you
and your companions are nothing to me but the passengers of the
Nautilus.”

Captain Nemo called. A steward appeared. The captain gave him his orders in
that strange language which I did not understand. Then, turning towards the
Canadian and Conseil—

“A repast awaits you in your cabin,” said he. “Be so good as to follow this
man.

“And now, M. Aronnax, our breakfast is ready. Permit me to lead the way.”

“I am at your service, Captain.”

I followed Captain Nemo; and as soon as I had passed through the door, I found
myself in a kind of passage lighted by electricity, similar to the waist of a
ship. After we had proceeded a dozen yards, a second door opened before me.

I then entered a dining-room, decorated and furnished in severe taste. High
oaken sideboards, inlaid with ebony, stood at the two extremities of the room,
and upon their shelves glittered china, porcelain, and glass of inestimable
value. The plate on the table sparkled in the rays which the luminous ceiling
shed around, while the light was tempered and softened by exquisite paintings.

In the centre of the room was a table richly laid out. Captain Nemo indicated
the place I was to occupy.

The breakfast consisted of a certain number of dishes, the contents of which
were furnished by the sea alone; and I was ignorant of the nature and mode of
preparation of some of them. I acknowledged that they were good, but they had a
peculiar flavour, which I easily became accustomed to. These different aliments
appeared to me to be rich in phosphorus, and I thought they must have a marine
origin.

Captain Nemo looked at me. I asked him no questions, but he guessed my
thoughts, and answered of his own accord the questions which I was burning to
address to him.

“The greater part of these dishes are unknown to you,” he said to me. “However,
you may partake of them without fear. They are wholesome and nourishing. For a
long time I have renounced the food of the earth, and am never ill now. My
crew, who are healthy, are fed on the same food.”

“So,” said I, “all these eatables are the produce of the sea?”

“Yes, Professor, the sea supplies all my wants. Sometimes I cast my nets in
tow, and I draw them in ready to break. Sometimes I hunt in the midst of this
element, which appears to be inaccessible to man, and quarry the game which
dwells in my submarine forests. My flocks, like those of Neptune’s old
shepherds, graze fearlessly in the immense prairies of the ocean. I have a vast
property there, which I cultivate myself, and which is always sown by the hand
of the Creator of all things.”

“I can understand perfectly, sir, that your nets furnish excellent fish for
your table; I can understand also that you hunt aquatic game in your submarine
forests; but I cannot understand at all how a particle of meat, no matter how
small, can figure in your bill of fare.”

“This, which you believe to be meat, Professor, is nothing else than fillet of
turtle. Here are also some dolphins’ livers, which you take to be ragout of
pork. My cook is a clever fellow, who excels in dressing these various products
of the ocean. Taste all these dishes. Here is a preserve of holothuria, which a
Malay would declare to be unrivalled in the world; here is a cream, of which
the milk has been furnished by the cetacea, and the sugar by the great fucus of
the North Sea; and lastly, permit me to offer you some preserve of anemones,
which is equal to that of the most delicious fruits.”

I tasted, more from curiosity than as a connoisseur, whilst Captain Nemo
enchanted me with his extraordinary stories.

“You like the sea, Captain?”

“Yes; I love it! The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the
terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert,
where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is
only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing
but love and emotion; it is the ‘Living Infinite,’ as one of your poets has
said. In fact, Professor, Nature manifests herself in it by her three kingdoms,
mineral, vegetable, and animal. The sea is the vast reservoir of Nature. The
globe began with sea, so to speak; and who knows if it will not end with it? In
it is supreme tranquillity. The sea does not belong to despots. Upon its
surface men can still exercise unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces,
and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at thirty feet below its
level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched, and their power
disappears. Ah! sir, live—live in the bosom of the waters! There only is
independence! There I recognise no masters! There I am free!”

Captain Nemo suddenly became silent in the midst of this enthusiasm, by which
he was quite carried away. For a few moments he paced up and down, much
agitated. Then he became more calm, regained his accustomed coldness of
expression, and turning towards me—

“Now, Professor,” said he, “if you wish to go over the Nautilus, I am at
your service.”

Captain Nemo rose. I followed him. A double door, contrived at the back of the
dining-room, opened, and I entered a room equal in dimensions to that which I
had just quitted.

It was a library. High pieces of furniture, of black violet ebony inlaid with
brass, supported upon their wide shelves a great number of books uniformly
bound. They followed the shape of the room, terminating at the lower part in
huge divans, covered with brown leather, which were curved, to afford the
greatest comfort. Light movable desks, made to slide in and out at will,
allowed one to rest one’s book while reading. In the centre stood an immense
table, covered with pamphlets, amongst which were some newspapers, already of
old date. The electric light flooded everything; it was shed from four
unpolished globes half sunk in the volutes of the ceiling. I looked with real
admiration at this room, so ingeniously fitted up, and I could scarcely believe
my eyes.

“Captain Nemo,” said I to my host, who had just thrown himself on one of the
divans, “this is a library which would do honour to more than one of the
continental palaces, and I am absolutely astounded when I consider that it can
follow you to the bottom of the seas.”

“Where could one find greater solitude or silence, Professor?” replied Captain
Nemo. “Did your study in the Museum afford you such perfect quiet?”

“No, sir; and I must confess that it is a very poor one after yours. You must
have six or seven thousand volumes here.”

“Twelve thousand, M. Aronnax. These are the only ties which bind me to the
earth. But I had done with the world on the day when my Nautilus plunged
for the first time beneath the waters. That day I bought my last volumes, my
last pamphlets, my last papers, and from that time I wish to think that men no
longer think or write. These books, Professor, are at your service besides, and
you can make use of them freely.”

I thanked Captain Nemo, and went up to the shelves of the library. Works on
science, morals, and literature abounded in every language; but I did not see
one single work on political economy; that subject appeared to be strictly
proscribed. Strange to say, all these books were irregularly arranged, in
whatever language they were written; and this medley proved that the Captain of
the Nautilus must have read indiscriminately the books which he took up
by chance.

“Sir,” said I to the Captain, “I thank you for having placed this library at my
disposal. It contains treasures of science, and I shall profit by them.”

“This room is not only a library,” said Captain Nemo, “it is also a
smoking-room.”

“A smoking-room!” I cried. “Then one may smoke on board?”

“Certainly.”

“Then, sir, I am forced to believe that you have kept up a communication with
Havannah.”

“Not any,” answered the Captain. “Accept this cigar, M. Aronnax; and, though it
does not come from Havannah, you will be pleased with it, if you are a
connoisseur.”

I took the cigar which was offered me; its shape recalled the London ones, but
it seemed to be made of leaves of gold. I lighted it at a little brazier, which
was supported upon an elegant bronze stem, and drew the first whiffs with the
delight of a lover of smoking who has not smoked for two days.

“It is excellent, but it is not tobacco.”

“No!” answered the Captain, “this tobacco comes neither from Havannah nor from
the East. It is a kind of sea-weed, rich in nicotine, with which the sea
provides me, but somewhat sparingly.”

At that moment Captain Nemo opened a door which stood opposite to that by which
I had entered the library, and I passed into an immense drawing-room splendidly
lighted.

It was a vast four-sided room, thirty feet long, eighteen wide, and fifteen
high. A luminous ceiling, decorated with light arabesques, shed a soft clear
light over all the marvels accumulated in this museum. For it was in fact a
museum, in which an intelligent and prodigal hand had gathered all the
treasures of nature and art, with the artistic confusion which distinguishes a
painter’s studio.

Thirty first-rate pictures, uniformly framed, separated by bright drapery,
ornamented the walls, which were hung with tapestry of severe design. I saw
works of great value, the greater part of which I had admired in the special
collections of Europe, and in the exhibitions of paintings. The several schools
of the old masters were represented by a Madonna of Raphael, a Virgin of
Leonardo da Vinci, a nymph of Corregio, a woman of Titan, an Adoration of
Veronese, an Assumption of Murillo, a portrait of Holbein, a monk of Velasquez,
a martyr of Ribera, a fair of Rubens, two Flemish landscapes of Teniers, three
little “genre” pictures of Gerard Dow, Metsu, and Paul Potter, two specimens of
Géricault and Prudhon, and some sea-pieces of Backhuysen and Vernet. Amongst
the works of modern painters were pictures with the signatures of Delacroix,
Ingres, Decamps, Troyon, Meissonier, Daubigny, etc.; and some admirable statues
in marble and bronze, after the finest antique models, stood upon pedestals in
the corners of this magnificent museum. Amazement, as the Captain of the
Nautilus had predicted, had already begun to take possession of me.

“Professor,” said this strange man, “you must excuse the unceremonious way in
which I receive you, and the disorder of this room.”

“Sir,” I answered, “without seeking to know who you are, I recognise in you an
artist.”

“An amateur, nothing more, sir. Formerly I loved to collect these beautiful
works created by the hand of man. I sought them greedily, and ferreted them out
indefatigably, and I have been able to bring together some objects of great
value. These are my last souvenirs of that world which is dead to me. In my
eyes, your modern artists are already old; they have two or three thousand
years of existence; I confound them in my own mind. Masters have no age.”

“And these musicians?” said I, pointing out some works of Weber, Rossini,
Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Meyerbeer, Hérold, Wagner, Auber, Gounod, and a
number of others, scattered over a large model piano-organ which occupied one
of the panels of the drawing-room.

“These musicians,” replied Captain Nemo, “are the contemporaries of Orpheus;
for in the memory of the dead all chronological differences are effaced; and I
am dead, Professor; as much dead as those of your friends who are sleeping six
feet under the earth!”

Captain Nemo was silent, and seemed lost in a profound reverie. I contemplated
him with deep interest, analysing in silence the strange expression of his
countenance. Leaning on his elbow against an angle of a costly mosaic table, he
no longer saw me,—he had forgotten my presence.

I did not disturb this reverie, and continued my observation of the curiosities
which enriched this drawing-room.

Under elegant glass cases, fixed by copper rivets, were classed and labelled
the most precious productions of the sea which had ever been presented to the
eye of a naturalist. My delight as a professor may be conceived.

The division containing the zoophytes presented the most curious specimens of
the two groups of polypi and echinodermes. In the first group, the tubipores,
were gorgones arranged like a fan, soft sponges of Syria, ises of the Moluccas,
pennatules, an admirable virgularia of the Norwegian seas, variegated
unbellulairæ, alcyonariæ, a whole series of madrepores, which my master Milne
Edwards has so cleverly classified, amongst which I remarked some wonderful
flabellinæ oculinæ of the Island of Bourbon, the “Neptune’s car” of the
Antilles, superb varieties of corals—in short, every species of those curious
polypi of which entire islands are formed, which will one day become
continents. Of the echinodermes, remarkable for their coating of spines,
asteri, sea-stars, pantacrinæ, comatules, astérophons, echini, holothuri, etc.,
represented individually a complete collection of this group.

A somewhat nervous conchyliologist would certainly have fainted before other
more numerous cases, in which were classified the specimens of molluscs. It was
a collection of inestimable value, which time fails me to describe minutely.
Amongst these specimens I will quote from memory only the elegant royal
hammer-fish of the Indian Ocean, whose regular white spots stood out brightly
on a red and brown ground, an imperial spondyle, bright-coloured, bristling
with spines, a rare specimen in the European museums—(I estimated its value at
not less than £1000); a common hammer-fish of the seas of New Holland, which is
only procured with difficulty; exotic buccardia of Senegal; fragile white
bivalve shells, which a breath might shatter like a soap-bubble; several
varieties of the aspirgillum of Java, a kind of calcareous tube, edged with
leafy folds, and much debated by amateurs; a whole series of trochi, some a
greenish-yellow, found in the American seas, others a reddish-brown, natives of
Australian waters; others from the Gulf of Mexico, remarkable for their
imbricated shell; stellari found in the Southern Seas; and last, the rarest of
all, the magnificent spur of New Zealand; and every description of delicate and
fragile shells to which science has given appropriate names.

Apart, in separate compartments, were spread out chaplets of pearls of the
greatest beauty, which reflected the electric light in little sparks of fire;
pink pearls, torn from the pinna-marina of the Red Sea; green pearls of the
haliotyde iris; yellow, blue and black pearls, the curious productions of the
divers molluscs of every ocean, and certain mussels of the water-courses of the
North; lastly, several specimens of inestimable value which had been gathered
from the rarest pintadines. Some of these pearls were larger than a pigeon’s
egg, and were worth as much, and more than that which the traveller Tavernier
sold to the Shah of Persia for three millions, and surpassed the one in the
possession of the Imaum of Muscat, which I had believed to be unrivalled in the
world.

Therefore, to estimate the value of this collection was simply impossible.
Captain Nemo must have expended millions in the acquirement of these various
specimens, and I was thinking what source he could have drawn from, to have
been able thus to gratify his fancy for collecting, when I was interrupted by
these words—

“You are examining my shells, Professor? Unquestionably they must be
interesting to a naturalist; but for me they have a far greater charm, for I
have collected them all with my own hand, and there is not a sea on the face of
the globe which has escaped my researches.”

“I can understand, Captain, the delight of wandering about in the midst of such
riches. You are one of those who have collected their treasures themselves. No
museum in Europe possesses such a collection of the produce of the ocean. But
if I exhaust all my admiration upon it, I shall have none left for the vessel
which carries it. I do not wish to pry into your secrets; but I must confess
that this Nautilus, with the motive power which is confined in it, the
contrivances which enable it to be worked, the powerful agent which propels it,
all excite my curiosity to the highest pitch. I see suspended on the walls of
this room instruments of whose use I am ignorant.”

“You will find these same instruments in my own room, Professor, where I shall
have much pleasure in explaining their use to you. But first come and inspect
the cabin which is set apart for your own use. You must see how you will be
accommodated on board the Nautilus.”

I followed Captain Nemo, who, by one of the doors opening from each panel of
the drawing-room, regained the waist. He conducted me towards the bow, and
there I found, not a cabin, but an elegant room, with a bed, dressing-table,
and several other pieces of furniture.

I could only thank my host.

“Your room adjoins mine,” said he, opening a door, “and mine opens into the
drawing-room that we have just quitted.”

I entered the Captain’s room: it had a severe, almost a monkish, aspect. A
small iron bedstead, a table, some articles for the toilet; the whole lighted
by a skylight. No comforts, the strictest necessaries only.

Captain Nemo pointed to a seat.

“Be so good as to sit down,” he said. I seated myself, and he began thus:

Captain Nemo’s state-room

CHAPTER XI
ALL BY ELECTRICITY

“Sir,” said Captain Nemo, showing me the instruments hanging on the walls of
his room, “here are the contrivances required for the navigation of the
Nautilus. Here, as in the drawing-room, I have them always under my
eyes, and they indicate my position and exact direction in the middle of the
ocean. Some are known to you, such as the thermometer, which gives the internal
temperature of the Nautilus; the barometer, which indicates the weight
of the air and foretells the changes of the weather; the hygrometer, which
marks the dryness of the atmosphere; the storm-glass, the contents of which, by
decomposing, announce the approach of tempests; the compass, which guides my
course; the sextant, which shows the latitude by the altitude of the sun;
chronometers, by which I calculate the longitude; and glasses for day and
night, which I use to examine the points of the horizon, when the
Nautilus rises to the surface of the waves.”

“These are the usual nautical instruments,” I replied, “and I know the use of
them. But these others, no doubt, answer to the particular requirements of the
Nautilus. This dial with the movable needle is a manometer, is it not?”

“It is actually a manometer. But by communication with the water, whose
external pressure it indicates, it gives our depth at the same time.”

“And these other instruments, the use of which I cannot guess?”

“Here, Professor, I ought to give you some explanations. Will you be kind
enough to listen to me?”

He was silent for a few moments, then he said—

“There is a powerful agent, obedient, rapid, easy, which conforms to every use,
and reigns supreme on board my vessel. Everything is done by means of it. It
lights it, warms it, and is the soul of my mechanical apparatus. This agent is
electricity.”

“Electricity?” I cried in surprise.

“Yes, sir.”

“Nevertheless, Captain, you possess an extreme rapidity of movement, which does
not agree with the power of electricity. Until now, its dynamic force has
remained under restraint, and has only been able to produce a small amount of
power.”

“Professor,” said Captain Nemo, “my electricity is not everybody’s. You know
what sea-water is composed of. In a thousand grammes are found 96½ per cent. of
water, and about 2-2/3 per cent. of chloride of sodium; then, in a smaller
quantity, chlorides of magnesium and of potassium, bromide of magnesium,
sulphate of magnesia, sulphate and carbonate of lime. You see, then, that
chloride of sodium forms a large part of it. So it is this sodium that I
extract from sea-water, and of which I compose my ingredients. I owe all to the
ocean; it produces electricity, and electricity gives heat, light, motion, and,
in a word, life to the Nautilus.”

“But not the air you breathe?”

“Oh! I could manufacture the air necessary for my consumption, but it is
useless, because I go up to the surface of the water when I please. However, if
electricity does not furnish me with air to breathe, it works at least the
powerful pumps that are stored in spacious reservoirs, and which enable me to
prolong at need, and as long as I will, my stay in the depths of the sea. It
gives a uniform and unintermittent light, which the sun does not. Now look at
this clock; it is electrical, and goes with a regularity that defies the best
chronometers. I have divided it into twenty-four hours, like the Italian
clocks, because for me there is neither night nor day, sun nor moon, but only
that factitious light that I take with me to the bottom of the sea. Look! just
now, it is ten o’clock in the morning.”

“Exactly.”

“Another application of electricity. This dial hanging in front of us indicates
the speed of the Nautilus. An electric thread puts it in communication
with the screw, and the needle indicates the real speed. Look! now we are
spinning along with a uniform speed of fifteen miles an hour.”

“It is marvelous! And I see, Captain, you were right to make use of this agent
that takes the place of wind, water, and steam.”

“We have not finished, M. Aronnax,” said Captain Nemo, rising. “If you will
follow me, we will examine the stern of the Nautilus.”

Really, I knew already the anterior part of this submarine boat, of which this
is the exact division, starting from the ship’s head:—the dining-room, five
yards long, separated from the library by a water-tight partition; the library,
five yards long; the large drawing-room, ten yards long, separated from the
Captain’s room by a second water-tight partition; the said room, five yards in
length; mine, two and a half yards; and, lastly a reservoir of air, seven and a
half yards, that extended to the bows. Total length thirty five yards, or one
hundred and five feet. The partitions had doors that were shut hermetically by
means of india-rubber instruments, and they ensured the safety of the
Nautilus in case of a leak.

I followed Captain Nemo through the waist, and arrived at the centre of the
boat. There was a sort of well that opened between two partitions. An iron
ladder, fastened with an iron hook to the partition, led to the upper end. I
asked the Captain what the ladder was used for.

“It leads to the small boat,” he said.

“What! have you a boat?” I exclaimed, in surprise.

“Of course; an excellent vessel, light and insubmersible, that serves either as
a fishing or as a pleasure boat.”

“But then, when you wish to embark, you are obliged to come to the surface of
the water?”

“Not at all. This boat is attached to the upper part of the hull of the
Nautilus, and occupies a cavity made for it. It is decked, quite
water-tight, and held together by solid bolts. This ladder leads to a man-hole
made in the hull of the Nautilus, that corresponds with a similar hole
made in the side of the boat. By this double opening I get into the small
vessel. They shut the one belonging to the Nautilus; I shut the other by
means of screw pressure. I undo the bolts, and the little boat goes up to the
surface of the sea with prodigious rapidity. I then open the panel of the
bridge, carefully shut till then; I mast it, hoist my sail, take my oars, and
I’m off.”

“But how do you get back on board?”

“I do not come back, M. Aronnax; the Nautilus comes to me.”

“By your orders?”

“By my orders. An electric thread connects us. I telegraph to it, and that is
enough.”

“Really,” I said, astonished at these marvels, “nothing can be more simple.”

After having passed by the cage of the staircase that led to the platform, I
saw a cabin six feet long, in which Conseil and Ned Land, enchanted with their
repast, were devouring it with avidity. Then a door opened into a kitchen nine
feet long, situated between the large storerooms. There electricity, better
than gas itself, did all the cooking. The streams under the furnaces gave out
to the sponges of platina a heat which was regularly kept up and distributed.
They also heated a distilling apparatus, which, by evaporation, furnished
excellent drinkable water. Near this kitchen was a bathroom comfortably
furnished, with hot and cold water taps.

Next to the kitchen was the berthroom of the vessel, sixteen feet long. But the
door was shut, and I could not see the management of it, which might have given
me an idea of the number of men employed on board the Nautilus.

At the bottom was a fourth partition that separated this office from the
engine-room. A door opened, and I found myself in the compartment where Captain
Nemo—certainly an engineer of a very high order—had arranged his locomotive
machinery. This engine-room, clearly lighted, did not measure less than
sixty-five feet in length. It was divided into two parts; the first contained
the materials for producing electricity, and the second the machinery that
connected it with the screw. I examined it with great interest, in order to
understand the machinery of the Nautilus.

“You see,” said the Captain, “I use Bunsen’s contrivances, not Ruhmkorff’s.
Those would not have been powerful enough. Bunsen’s are fewer in number, but
strong and large, which experience proves to be the best. The electricity
produced passes forward, where it works, by electro-magnets of great size, on a
system of levers and cog-wheels that transmit the movement to the axle of the
screw. This one, the diameter of which is nineteen feet, and the thread
twenty-three feet, performs about a hundred and twenty revolutions in a
second.”

“And you get then?”

“A speed of fifty miles an hour.”

“I have seen the Nautilus manœuvre before the Abraham Lincoln,
and I have my own ideas as to its speed. But this is not enough. We must see
where we go. We must be able to direct it to the right, to the left, above,
below. How do you get to the great depths, where you find an increasing
resistance, which is rated by hundreds of atmospheres? How do you return to the
surface of the ocean? And how do you maintain yourselves in the requisite
medium? Am I asking too much?”

“Not at all, Professor,” replied the Captain, with some hesitation; “since you
may never leave this submarine boat. Come into the saloon, it is our usual
study, and there you will learn all you want to know about the
Nautilus.”

CHAPTER XII
SOME FIGURES

A moment after we were seated on a divan in the saloon smoking. The Captain
showed me a sketch that gave the plan, section, and elevation of the
Nautilus. Then he began his description in these words:—

“Here, M. Aronnax, are the several dimensions of the boat you are in. It is an
elongated cylinder with conical ends. It is very like a cigar in shape, a shape
already adopted in London in several constructions of the same sort. The length
of this cylinder, from stem to stern, is exactly 232 feet, and its maximum
breadth is twenty-six feet. It is not built quite like your long-voyage
steamers, but its lines are sufficiently long, and its curves prolonged enough,
to allow the water to slide off easily, and oppose no obstacle to its passage.
These two dimensions enable you to obtain by a simple calculation the surface
and cubic contents of the Nautilus. Its area measures 6032 feet; and its
contents about 1500 cubic yards—that is to say, when completely immersed it
displaces 50,000 feet of water, or weighs 1500 tons.

“When I made the plans for this submarine vessel, I meant that nine-tenths
should be submerged: consequently, it ought only to displace nine-tenths of its
bulk—that is to say, only to weigh that number of tons. I ought not, therefore,
to have exceeded that weight, constructing it on the aforesaid dimensions.

“The Nautilus is composed of two hulls, one inside, the other outside,
joined by T-shaped irons, which render it very strong. Indeed, owing to this
cellular arrangement it resists like a block, as if it were solid. Its sides
cannot yield; it coheres spontaneously, and not by the closeness of its rivets;
and the homogenity of its construction, due to the perfect union of the
materials, enables it to defy the roughest seas.

“These two hulls are composed of steel plates, whose density is from .7 to .8
that of water. The first is not less than two inches and a half thick and
weighs 394 tons. The second envelope, the keel, twenty inches high and ten
thick, weighs alone sixty-two tons. The engine, the ballast, the several
accessories and apparatus appendages, the partitions and bulkheads, weigh
961.62 tons. Do you follow all this?”

“I do.”

“Then, when the Nautilus is afloat under these circumstances, one-tenth
is out of the water. Now, if I have made reservoirs of a size equal to this
tenth, or capable of holding 150 tons, and if I fill them with water, the boat,
weighing then 1507 tons, will be completely immersed. That would happen,
Professor. These reservoirs are in the lower parts of the Nautilus. I
turn on taps and they fill, and the vessel sinks that had just been level with
the surface.”

“Well, Captain, but now we come to the real difficulty. I can understand your
rising to the surface; but diving below the surface, does not your submarine
contrivance encounter a pressure, and consequently undergo an upward thrust of
one atmosphere for every thirty feet of water, just about fifteen pounds per
square inch?”

“Just so, sir.”

“Then, unless you quite fill the Nautilus, I do not see how you can draw
it down to those depths.”

“Professor, you must not confound statics with dynamics or you will be exposed
to grave errors. There is very little labour spent in attaining the lower
regions of the ocean, for all bodies have a tendency to sink. When I wanted to
find out the necessary increase of weight required to sink the Nautilus,
I had only to calculate the reduction of volume that sea-water acquires
according to the depth.”

“That is evident.”

“Now, if water is not absolutely incompressible, it is at least capable of very
slight compression. Indeed, after the most recent calculations this reduction
is only .000436 of an atmosphere for each thirty feet of depth. If we want to
sink 3000 feet, I should keep account of the reduction of bulk under a pressure
equal to that of a column of water of a thousand feet. The calculation is
easily verified. Now, I have supplementary reservoirs capable of holding a
hundred tons. Therefore I can sink to a considerable depth. When I wish to rise
to the level of the sea, I only let off the water, and empty all the reservoirs
if I want the Nautilus to emerge from the tenth part of her total
capacity.”

I had nothing to object to these reasonings.

“I admit your calculations, Captain,” I replied; “I should be wrong to dispute
them since daily experience confirms them; but I foresee a real difficulty in
the way.”

“What, sir?”

“When you are about 1000 feet deep, the walls of the Nautilus bear a
pressure of 100 atmospheres. If, then, just now you were to empty the
supplementary reservoirs, to lighten the vessel, and to go up to the surface,
the pumps must overcome the pressure of 100 atmospheres, which is 1500 pounds
per square inch. From that a power——”

“That electricity alone can give,” said the Captain, hastily. “I repeat, sir,
that the dynamic power of my engines is almost infinite. The pumps of the
Nautilus have an enormous power, as you must have observed when their
jets of water burst like a torrent upon the Abraham Lincoln. Besides I
use subsidiary reservoirs only to attain a mean depth of 750 to 1000 fathoms,
and that with a view of managing my machines. Also, when I have a mind to visit
the depths of the ocean five or six miles below the surface, I make use of
slower but not less infallible means.”

“What are they, Captain?”

“That involves my telling you how the Nautilus is worked.”

“I am impatient to learn.”

“To steer this boat to starboard or port, to turn—in a word, following a
horizontal plan, I use an ordinary rudder fixed on the back of the stern-post,
and with one wheel and some tackle to steer by. But I can also make the
Nautilus rise and sink, and sink and rise, by a vertical movement by
means of two inclined planes fastened to its sides, opposite the centre of
flotation, planes that move in every direction, and that are worked by powerful
levers from the interior. If the planes are kept parallel with the boat, it
moves horizontally. If slanted, the Nautilus, according to this
inclination, and under the influence of the screw, either sinks diagonally or
rises diagonally as it suits me. And even if I wish to rise more quickly to the
surface, I ship the screw, and the pressure of the water causes the
Nautilus to rise vertically like a balloon filled with hydrogen.”

“Bravo, Captain! But how can the steersman follow the route in the middle of
the waters?”

“The steersman is placed in a glazed box, that is raised about the hull of the
Nautilus, and furnished with lenses.”

“Are these lenses capable of resisting such pressure?”

“Perfectly. Glass, which breaks at a blow, is, nevertheless, capable of
offering considerable resistance. During some experiments of fishing by
electric light in 1864 in the Northern Seas, we saw plates less than a third of
an inch thick resist a pressure of sixteen atmospheres. Now, the glass that I
use is not less than thirty times thicker.”

“Granted. But, after all, in order to see, the light must exceed the darkness,
and in the midst of the darkness in the water, how can you see?”

“Behind the steersman’s cage is placed a powerful electric reflector, the rays
from which light up the sea for half a mile in front.”

“Ah! bravo, bravo, Captain! Now I can account for this phosphorescence in the
supposed narwhal that puzzled us so. I now ask you if the boarding of the
Nautilus and of the Scotia, that has made such a noise, has been
the result of a chance rencontre?”

“Quite accidental, sir. I was sailing only one fathom below the surface of the
water, when the shock came. It had no bad result.”

“None, sir. But now, about your rencontre with the Abraham Lincoln?”

“Professor, I am sorry for one of the best vessels in the American navy; but
they attacked me, and I was bound to defend myself. I contented myself,
however, with putting the frigate hors de combat; she will not have any
difficulty in getting repaired at the next port.”

“Ah, Commander! your Nautilus is certainly a marvellous boat.”

“Yes, Professor; and I love it as if it were part of myself. If danger
threatens one of your vessels on the ocean, the first impression is the feeling
of an abyss above and below. On the Nautilus men’s hearts never fail
them. No defects to be afraid of, for the double shell is as firm as iron; no
rigging to attend to; no sails for the wind to carry away; no boilers to burst;
no fire to fear, for the vessel is made of iron, not of wood; no coal to run
short, for electricity is the only mechanical agent; no collision to fear, for
it alone swims in deep water; no tempest to brave, for when it dives below the
water, it reaches absolute tranquillity. There, sir! that is the perfection of
vessels! And if it is true that the engineer has more confidence in the vessel
than the builder, and the builder than the captain himself, you understand the
trust I repose in my Nautilus; for I am at once captain, builder, and
engineer.”

“But how could you construct this wonderful Nautilus in secret?”

“Each separate portion, M. Aronnax, was brought from different parts of the
globe. The keel was forged at Creusot, the shaft of the screw at Penn &
Co.’s, London, the iron plates of the hull at Laird’s of Liverpool, the screw
itself at Scott’s at Glasgow. The reservoirs were made by Cail & Co. at
Paris, the engine by Krupp in Prussia, its beak in Motala’s workshop in Sweden,
its mathematical instruments by Hart Brothers, of New York, etc.; and each of
these people had my orders under different names.”

“But these parts had to be put together and arranged?”

“Professor, I had set up my workshops upon a desert island in the ocean. There
my workmen, that is to say, the brave men that I instructed and educated, and
myself have put together our Nautilus. Then when the work was finished,
fire destroyed all trace of our proceedings on this island, that I could have
jumped over if I had liked.”

“Then the cost of this vessel is great?”

“M. Aronnax, an iron vessel costs £145 per ton. Now the Nautilus weighed
1500. It came therefore to £67,500, and £80,000 more for fitting it up, and
about £200,000 with the works of art and the collections it contains.”

“One last question, Captain Nemo.”

“Ask it, Professor.”

“You are rich?”

“Immensely rich, sir; and I could, without missing it, pay the national debt of
France.”

I stared at the singular person who spoke thus. Was he playing upon my
credulity? The future would decide that.

CHAPTER XIII
THE BLACK RIVER

The portion of the terrestrial globe which is covered by water is estimated at
upwards of eighty millions of acres. This fluid mass comprises two billions two
hundred and fifty millions of cubic miles, forming a spherical body of a
diameter of sixty leagues, the weight of which would be three quintillions of
tons. To comprehend the meaning of these figures, it is necessary to observe
that a quintillion is to a billion as a billion is to unity; in other words,
there are as many billions in a quintillion as there are units in a billion.
This mass of fluid is equal to about the quantity of water which would be
discharged by all the rivers of the earth in forty thousand years.

During the geological epochs, the igneous period succeeded to the aqeous. The
ocean originally prevailed everywhere. Then by degrees, in the silurian period,
the tops of the mountains began to appear, the islands emerged, then
disappeared in partial deluges, reappeared, became settled, formed continents,
till at length the earth became geographically arranged, as we see in the
present day. The solid had wrested from the liquid thirty-seven million six
hundred and fifty-seven square miles, equal to twelve billion nine hundred and
sixty millions of acres.

The shape of continents allows us to divide the waters into five great
portions: the Arctic or Frozen Ocean, the Antarctic or Frozen Ocean, the
Indian, the Atlantic, and the Pacific Oceans.

The Pacific Ocean extends from north to south between the two polar circles,
and from east to west between Asia and America, over an extent of 145 degrees
of longitude. It is the quietest of seas; its currents are broad and slow, it
has medium tides, and abundant rain. Such was the ocean that my fate destined
me first to travel over under these strange conditions.

“Sir,” said Captain Nemo, “we will, if you please, take our bearings and fix
the starting-point of this voyage. It is a quarter to twelve; I will go up
again to the surface.”

The Captain pressed an electric clock three times. The pumps began to drive the
water from the tanks; the needle of the manometer marked by a different
pressure the ascent of the Nautilus, then it stopped.

“We have arrived,” said the Captain.

I went to the central staircase which opened on to the platform, clambered up
the iron steps, and found myself on the upper part of the Nautilus.

The platform was only three feet out of water. The front and back of the
Nautilus was of that spindle-shape which caused it justly to be compared
to a cigar. I noticed that its iron plates, slightly overlaying each other,
resembled the shell which clothes the bodies of our large terrestrial reptiles.
It explained to me how natural it was, in spite of all glasses, that this boat
should have been taken for a marine animal.

Toward the middle of the platform the long-boat, half buried in the hull of the
vessel, formed a slight excrescence. Fore and aft rose two cages of medium
height with inclined sides, and partly closed by thick lenticular glasses; one
destined for the steersman who directed the Nautilus, the other
containing a brilliant lantern to give light on the road.

The sea was beautiful, the sky pure. Scarcely could the long vehicle feel the
broad undulations of the ocean. A light breeze from the east rippled the
surface of the waters. The horizon, free from fog, made observation easy.
Nothing was in sight. Not a quicksand, not an island. A vast desert.

Captain Nemo, by the help of his sextant, took the altitude of the sun, which
ought also to give the latitude. He waited for some moments till its disc
touched the horizon. Whilst taking observations not a muscle moved, the
instrument could not have been more motionless in a hand of marble.

Captain Nemo took the Sun’s altitude

“Twelve o’clock, sir,” said he. “When you like——”

I cast a last look upon the sea, slightly yellowed by the Japanese coast, and
descended to the saloon.

“And now, sir, I leave you to your studies,” added the Captain; “our course is
E.N.E., our depth is twenty-six fathoms. Here are maps on a large scale by
which you may follow it. The saloon is at your disposal, and with your
permission, I will retire.” Captain Nemo bowed, and I remained alone, lost in
thoughts all bearing on the commander of the Nautilus.

For a whole hour was I deep in these reflections, seeking to pierce this
mystery so interesting to me. Then my eyes fell upon the vast planisphere
spread upon the table, and I placed my finger on the very spot where the given
latitude and longitude crossed.

The sea has its large rivers like the continents. They are special currents
known by their temperature and their colour. The most remarkable of these is
known by the name of the Gulf Stream. Science has decided on the globe the
direction of five principal currents: one in the North Atlantic, a second in
the South, a third in the North Pacific, a fourth in the South, and a fifth in
the Southern Indian Ocean. It is even probable that a sixth current existed at
one time or another in the Northern Indian Ocean, when the Caspian and Aral
Seas formed but one vast sheet of water.

At this point indicated on the planisphere one of these currents was rolling,
the Kuro-Scivo of the Japanese, the Black River, which, leaving the Gulf of
Bengal, where it is warmed by the perpendicular rays of a tropical sun, crosses
the Straits of Malacca along the coast of Asia, turns into the North Pacific to
the Aleutian Islands, carrying with it trunks of camphor-trees and other
indigenous productions, and edging the waves of the ocean with the pure indigo
of its warm water. It was this current that the Nautilus was to follow.
I followed it with my eye; saw it lose itself in the vastness of the Pacific,
and felt myself drawn with it, when Ned Land and Conseil appeared at the door
of the saloon.

My two brave companions remained petrified at the sight of the wonders spread
before them.

“Where are we, where are we?” exclaimed the Canadian. “In the museum at
Quebec?”

“My friends,” I answered, making a sign for them to enter, “you are not in
Canada, but on board the Nautilus, fifty yards below the level of the
sea.”

“But, M. Aronnax,” said Ned Land, “can you tell me how many men there are on
board? Ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred?”

“I cannot answer you, Mr. Land; it is better to abandon for a time all idea of
seizing the Nautilus or escaping from it. This ship is a masterpiece of
modern industry, and I should be sorry not to have seen it. Many people would
accept the situation forced upon us, if only to move amongst such wonders. So
be quiet and let us try and see what passes around us.”

“See!” exclaimed the harpooner, “but we can see nothing in this iron prison! We
are walking—we are sailing—blindly.”

Ned Land had scarcely pronounced these words when all was suddenly darkness.
The luminous ceiling was gone, and so rapidly that my eyes received a painful
impression.

We remained mute, not stirring, and not knowing what surprise awaited us,
whether agreeable or disagreeable. A sliding noise was heard: one would have
said that panels were working at the sides of the Nautilus.

“It is the end of the end!” said Ned Land.

Suddenly light broke at each side of the saloon, through two oblong openings.
The liquid mass appeared vividly lit up by the electric gleam. Two crystal
plates separated us from the sea. At first I trembled at the thought that this
frail partition might break, but strong bands of copper bound them, giving an
almost infinite power of resistance.

The sea was distinctly visible for a mile all round the Nautilus. What a
spectacle! What pen can describe it? Who could paint the effects of the light
through those transparent sheets of water, and the softness of the successive
gradations from the lower to the superior strata of the ocean?

We know the transparency of the sea and that its clearness is far beyond that
of rock-water. The mineral and organic substances which it holds in suspension
heightens its transparency. In certain parts of the ocean at the Antilles,
under seventy-five fathoms of water, can be seen with surprising clearness a
bed of sand. The penetrating power of the solar rays does not seem to cease for
a depth of one hundred and fifty fathoms. But in this middle fluid travelled
over by the Nautilus, the electric brightness was produced even in the
bosom of the waves. It was no longer luminous water, but liquid light.

On each side a window opened into this unexplored abyss. The obscurity of the
saloon showed to advantage the brightness outside, and we looked out as if this
pure crystal had been the glass of an immense aquarium.

“You wished to see, friend Ned; well, you see now.”

“Curious! curious!” muttered the Canadian, who, forgetting his ill-temper,
seemed to submit to some irresistible attraction; “and one would come further
than this to admire such a sight!”

“Ah!” thought I to myself, “I understand the life of this man; he has made a
world apart for himself, in which he treasures all his greatest wonders.”

For two whole hours an aquatic army escorted the Nautilus. During their
games, their bounds, while rivalling each other in beauty, brightness, and
velocity, I distinguished the green labre; the banded mullet, marked by a
double line of black; the round-tailed goby, of a white colour, with violet
spots on the back; the Japanese scombrus, a beautiful mackerel of those seas,
with a blue body and silvery head; the brilliant azurors, whose name alone
defies description; some banded spares, with variegated fins of blue and
yellow; the woodcocks of the seas, some specimens of which attain a yard in
length; Japanese salamanders, spider lampreys, serpents six feet long, with
eyes small and lively, and a huge mouth bristling with teeth; with many other
species.

Our imagination was kept at its height, interjections followed quickly on each
other. Ned named the fish, and Conseil classed them. I was in ecstasies with
the vivacity of their movements and the beauty of their forms. Never had it
been given to me to surprise these animals, alive and at liberty, in their
natural element. I will not mention all the varieties which passed before my
dazzled eyes, all the collection of the seas of China and Japan. These fish,
more numerous than the birds of the air, came, attracted, no doubt, by the
brilliant focus of the electric light.

Suddenly there was daylight in the saloon, the iron panels closed again, and
the enchanting vision disappeared. But for a long time I dreamt on till my eyes
fell on the instruments hanging on the partition. The compass still showed the
course to be E.N.E., the manometer indicated a pressure of five atmospheres,
equivalent to a depth of twenty-five fathoms, and the electric log gave a speed
of fifteen miles an hour. I expected Captain Nemo, but he did not appear. The
clock marked the hour of five.

Ned Land and Conseil returned to their cabin, and I retired to my chamber. My
dinner was ready. It was composed of turtle soup made of the most delicate
hawksbills, of a surmullet served with puff paste (the liver of which, prepared
by itself, was most delicious), and fillets of the emperor-holocanthus, the
savour of which seemed to me superior even to salmon.

I passed the evening reading, writing, and thinking. Then sleep overpowered me,
and I stretched myself on my couch of zostera, and slept profoundly, whilst the
Nautilus was gliding rapidly through the current of the Black River.

CHAPTER XIV
A NOTE OF INVITATION

The next day was the 9th of November. I awoke after a long sleep of twelve
hours. Conseil came, according to custom, to know “how I had passed the night,”
and to offer his services. He had left his friend the Canadian sleeping like a
man who had never done anything else all his life. I let the worthy fellow
chatter as he pleased, without caring to answer him. I was pre-occupied by the
absence of the Captain during our sitting of the day before, and hoping to see
him to-day.

As soon as I was dressed I went into the saloon. It was deserted.

I plunged into the study of the shell treasures hidden behind the glasses. I
revelled also in great herbals filled with the rarest marine plants, which,
although dried up, retained their lovely colours. Amongst these precious
hydrophytes I remarked some vorticellæ, pavonariæ, delicate ceramies with
scarlet tints, some fan-shaped agari, and some natabuli like flat mushrooms,
which at one time used to be classed as zoophytes; in short, a perfect series
of algæ.

The whole day passed without my being honoured by a visit from Captain Nemo.
The panels of the saloon did not open. Perhaps they did not wish us to tire of
these beautiful things.

The course of the Nautilus was E.N.E., her speed twelve knots, the depth
below the surface between twenty-five and thirty fathoms.

The next day, 10th of November, the same desertion, the same solitude. I did
not see one of the ship’s crew: Ned and Conseil spent the greater part of the
day with me. They were astonished at the inexplicable absence of the Captain.
Was this singular man ill?—had he altered his intentions with regard to us?

After all, as Conseil said, we enjoyed perfect liberty, we were delicately and
abundantly fed. Our host kept to his terms of the treaty. We could not
complain, and, indeed, the singularity of our fate reserved such wonderful
compensation for us, that we had no right to accuse it as yet.

That day I commenced the journal of these adventures which has enabled me to
relate them with more scrupulous exactitude and minute detail. I wrote it on
paper made from the zostera marina.

11th November, early in the morning. The fresh air spreading over the interior
of the Nautilus told me that we had come to the surface of the ocean to
renew our supply of oxygen. I directed my steps to the central staircase, and
mounted the platform.

It was six o’clock, the weather was cloudy, the sea grey but calm. Scarcely a
billow. Captain Nemo, whom I hoped to meet, would he be there? I saw no one but
the steersman imprisoned in his glass cage. Seated upon the projection formed
by the hull of the pinnace, I inhaled the salt breeze with delight.

By degrees the fog disappeared under the action of the sun’s rays, the radiant
orb rose from behind the eastern horizon. The sea flamed under its glance like
a train of gunpowder. The clouds scattered in the heights were coloured with
lively tints of beautiful shades, and numerous “mare’s tails,” which betokened
wind for that day. But what was wind to this Nautilus which tempests
could not frighten!

I was admiring this joyous rising of the sun, so gay, and so lifegiving, when I
heard steps approaching the platform. I was prepared to salute Captain Nemo,
but it was his second (whom I had already seen on the Captain’s first visit)
who appeared. He advanced on the platform, not seeming to see me. With his
powerful glass to his eye he scanned every point of the horizon with great
attention. This examination over, he approached the panel and pronounced a
sentence in exactly these terms. I have remembered it, for every morning it was
repeated under exactly the same conditions. It was thus worded—

“Nautron respoc lorni virch.”

What it meant I could not say.

These words pronounced, the second descended. I thought that the
Nautilus was about to return to its submarine navigation. I regained the
panel and returned to my chamber.

Five days sped thus, without any change in our situation. Every morning I
mounted the platform. The same phrase was pronounced by the same individual.
But Captain Nemo did not appear.

I had made up my mind that I should never see him again, when, on the 16th
November, on returning to my room with Ned and Conseil, I found upon my table a
note addressed to me. I opened it impatiently. It was written in a bold, clear
hand, the characters rather pointed, recalling the German type. The note was
worded as follows—

16th of November, 1867.

CAPTAIN NEMO, Commander of the Nautilus.

“A hunt!” exclaimed Ned.

“And in the forests of the island of Crespo!” added Conseil.

“Oh! then the gentleman is going on terra firma?” replied Ned Land.

“That seems to me to be clearly indicated,” said I, reading the letter once
more.

“Well, we must accept,” said the Canadian. “But once more on dry ground, we
shall know what to do. Indeed, I shall not be sorry to eat a piece of fresh
venison.”

Without seeking to reconcile what was contradictory between Captain Nemo’s
manifest aversion to islands and continents, and his invitation to hunt in a
forest, I contented myself with replying—

“Let us first see where the island of Crespo is.”

I consulted the planisphere, and in 32° 40′ north lat. and 157°
50′ west long., I found a small island, recognised in 1801 by Captain
Crespo, and marked in the ancient Spanish maps as Rocca de la Plata, the
meaning of which is “The Silver Rock.” We were then about eighteen hundred
miles from our starting-point, and the course of the Nautilus, a little
changed, was bringing it back towards the south-east.

I showed this little rock lost in the midst of the North Pacific to my
companions.

“If Captain Nemo does sometimes go on dry ground,” said I, “he at least chooses
desert islands.”

Ned Land shrugged his shoulders without speaking, and Conseil and he left me.

After supper, which was served by the steward mute and impassive, I went to
bed, not without some anxiety.

The next morning, the 17th of November, on awakening, I felt that the
Nautilus was perfectly still. I dressed quickly and entered the saloon.

Captain Nemo was there, waiting for me. He rose, bowed, and asked me if it was
convenient for me to accompany him. As he made no allusion to his absence
during the last eight days, I did not mention it, and simply answered that my
companions and myself were ready to follow him.

We entered the dining-room, where breakfast was served.

“M. Aronnax,” said the Captain, “pray, share my breakfast without ceremony; we
will chat as we eat. For though I promised you a walk in the forest, I did not
undertake to find hotels there. So breakfast as a man who will most likely not
have his dinner till very late.”

I did honour to the repast. It was composed of several kinds of fish, and
slices of holothuridæ (excellent zoophytes), and different sorts of sea-weed.
Our drink consisted of pure water, to which the Captain added some drops of a
fermented liquor, extracted by the Kamschatcha method from a sea-weed known
under the name of Rhodomenia palmata. Captain Nemo ate at first without
saying a word. Then he began—

“Sir, when I proposed to you to hunt in my submarine forest of Crespo, you
evidently thought me mad. Sir, you should never judge lightly of any man.”

“But Captain, believe me——”

“Be kind enough to listen, and you will then see whether you have any cause to
accuse me of folly and contradiction.”

“I listen.”

“You know as well as I do, Professor, that man can live under water, providing
he carries with him a sufficient supply of breathable air. In submarine works,
the workman, clad in an impervious dress, with his head in a metal helmet,
receives air from above by means of forcing pumps and regulators.”

“That is a diving apparatus,” said I.

“Just so, but under these conditions the man is not at liberty; he is attached
to the pump which sends him air through an india-rubber tube, and if we were
obliged to be thus held to the Nautilus, we could not go far.”

“And the means of getting free?” I asked.

“It is to use the Rouquayrol apparatus, invented by two of your own countrymen,
which I have brought to perfection for my own use, and which will allow you to
risk yourself under these new physiological conditions without any organ
whatever suffering. It consists of a reservoir of thick iron plates, in which I
store the air under a pressure of fifty atmospheres. This reservoir is fixed on
the back by means of braces, like a soldier’s knapsack. Its upper part forms a
box in which the air is kept by means of a bellows, and therefore cannot escape
unless at its normal tension. In the Rouquayrol apparatus such as we use, two
india-rubber pipes leave this box and join a sort of tent which holds the nose
and mouth; one is to introduce fresh air, the other to let out the foul, and
the tongue closes one or the other according to the wants of the respirator.
But I, in encountering great pressures at the bottom of the sea, was obliged to
shut my head, like that of a diver in a ball of copper; and it is to this ball
of copper that the two pipes, the inspirator and the expirator, open.”

“Perfectly, Captain Nemo; but the air that you carry with you must soon be
used; when it only contains fifteen per cent. of oxygen it is no longer fit to
breathe.”

“Right! But I told you, M. Aronnax, that the pumps of the Nautilus allow
me to store the air under considerable pressure, and on those conditions the
reservoir of the apparatus can furnish breathable air for nine or ten hours.”

“I have no further objections to make,” I answered; “I will only ask you one
thing, Captain—how can you light your road at the bottom of the sea?”

“With the Ruhmkorff apparatus, M. Aronnax; one is carried on the back, the
other is fastened to the waist. It is composed of a Bunsen pile, which I do not
work with bichromate of potash, but with sodium. A wire is introduced which
collects the electricity produced, and directs it towards a particularly made
lantern. In this lantern is a spiral glass which contains a small quantity of
carbonic gas. When the apparatus is at work this gas becomes luminous, giving
out a white and continuous light. Thus provided, I can breathe and I can see.”

“Captain Nemo, to all my objections you make such crushing answers, that I dare
no longer doubt. But if I am forced to admit the Rouquayrol and Ruhmkorff
apparatus, I must be allowed some reservations with regard to the gun I am to
carry.”

“But it is not a gun for powder,” answered the Captain.

“Then it is an air-gun.”

“Doubtless! How would you have me manufacture gunpowder on board, without
either saltpetre, sulphur, or charcoal?”

“Besides,” I added, “to fire under water in a medium eight hundred and
fifty-five times denser than the air, we must conquer very considerable
resistance.”

“That would be no difficulty. There exist guns, according to Fulton, perfected
in England by Philip Coles and Burley, in France by Furcy, and in Italy by
Landi, which are furnished with a peculiar system of closing, which can fire
under these conditions. But I repeat, having no powder, I use air under great
pressure, which the pumps of the Nautilus furnish abundantly.”

“But this air must be rapidly used?”

“Well, have I not my Rouquayrol reservoir, which can furnish it at need? A tap
is all that is required. Besides, M. Aronnax, you must see yourself that,
during our submarine hunt, we can spend but little air and but few balls.”

“But it seems to me that in this twilight, and in the midst of this fluid,
which is very dense compared with the atmosphere, shots could not go far, nor
easily prove mortal.”

“Sir, on the contrary, with this gun every blow is mortal; and however lightly
the animal is touched, it falls as if struck by a thunderbolt.”

“Why?”

“Because the balls sent by this gun are not ordinary balls, but little cases of
glass (invented by Leniebroek, an Austrian chemist), of which I have a large
supply. These glass cases are covered with a case of steel, and weighted with a
pellet of lead; they are real Leyden bottles, into which the electricity is
forced to a very high tension. With the slightest shock they are discharged,
and the animal, however strong it may be, falls dead. I must tell you that
these cases are size number four, and that the charge for an ordinary gun would
be ten.”

“I will argue no longer,” I replied, rising from the table; “I have nothing
left me but to take my gun. At all events, I will go where you go.”

Captain Nemo then led me aft; and in passing before Ned’s and Conseil’s cabin,
I called my two companions, who followed immediately. We then came to a kind of
cell near the machinery-room, in which we were to put on our walking-dress.

CHAPTER XV
A WALK ON THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

This cell was, to speak correctly, the arsenal and wardrobe of the
Nautilus. A dozen diving apparatuses hung from the partition, waiting
our use.

Ned Land, on seeing them, showed evident repugnance to dress himself in one.

“But, my worthy Ned, the forests of the Island of Crespo are nothing but
submarine forests.”

“Good!” said the disappointed harpooner, who saw his dreams of fresh meat fade
away. “And you, M. Aronnax, are you going to dress yourself in those clothes?”

“There is no alternative, Master Ned.”

“As you please, sir,” replied the harpooner, shrugging his shoulders; “but as
for me, unless I am forced, I will never get into one.”

“No one will force you, Master Ned,” said Captain Nemo.

“Is Conseil going to risk it?” asked Ned.

“I follow my master wherever he goes,” replied Conseil.

At the Captain’s call two of the ship’s crew came to help us to dress in these
heavy and impervious clothes, made of india-rubber without seam, and
constructed expressly to resist considerable pressure. One would have thought
it a suit of armour, both supple and resisting. This suit formed trousers and
waistcoat. The trousers were finished off with thick boots, weighted with heavy
leaden soles. The texture of the waistcoat was held together by bands of
copper, which crossed the chest, protecting it from the great pressure of the
water, and leaving the lungs free to act; the sleeves ended in gloves, which in
no way restrained the movement of the hands. There was a vast difference
noticeable between these consummate apparatuses and the old cork breastplates,
jackets, and other contrivances in vogue during the eighteenth century.

Captain Nemo and one of his companions (a sort of Hercules, who must have
possessed great strength), Conseil, and myself, were soon enveloped in the
dresses. There remained nothing more to be done but to enclose our heads in the
metal box. But before proceeding to this operation, I asked the Captain’s
permission to examine the guns we were to carry.

One of the Nautilus men gave me a simple gun, the butt end of which,
made of steel, hollow in the centre, was rather large. It served as a reservoir
for compressed air, which a valve, worked by a spring, allowed to escape into a
metal tube. A box of projectiles, in a groove in the thickness of the butt end,
contained about twenty of these electric balls, which, by means of a spring,
were forced into the barrel of the gun. As soon as one shot was fired, another
was ready.

“Captain Nemo,” said I, “this arm is perfect, and easily handled: I only ask to
be allowed to try it. But how shall we gain the bottom of the sea?”

“At this moment, Professor, the Nautilus is stranded in five fathoms,
and we have nothing to do but to start.”

“But how shall we get off?”

“You shall see.”

Captain Nemo thrust his head into the helmet, Conseil and I did the same, not
without hearing an ironical “Good sport!” from the Canadian. The upper part of
our dress terminated in a copper collar upon which was screwed the metal
helmet. Three holes, protected by thick glass, allowed us to see in all
directions, by simply turning our head in the interior of the head-dress. As
soon as it was in position, the Rouquayrol apparatus on our backs began to act;
and, for my part, I could breathe with ease.

With the Ruhmkorff lamp hanging from my belt, and the gun in my hand, I was
ready to set out. But to speak the truth, imprisoned in these heavy garments,
and glued to the deck by my leaden soles, it was impossible for me to take a
step.

I was ready to set out

But this state of things was provided for. I felt myself being pushed into a
little room contiguous to the wardrobe-room. My companions followed, towed
along in the same way. I heard a water-tight door, furnished with
stopper-plates, close upon us, and we were wrapped in profound darkness.

After some minutes, a loud hissing was heard. I felt the cold mount from my
feet to my chest. Evidently from some part of the vessel they had, by means of
a tap, given entrance to the water, which was invading us, and with which the
room was soon filled. A second door cut in the side of the Nautilus then
opened. We saw a faint light. In another instant our feet trod the bottom of
the sea.

And now, how can I retrace the impression left upon me by that walk under the
waters? Words are impotent to relate such wonders! Captain Nemo walked in
front, his companion followed some steps behind. Conseil and I remained near
each other, as if an exchange of words had been possible through our metallic
cases. I no longer felt the weight of my clothing, or of my shoes, of my
reservoir of air, or my thick helmet, in the midst of which my head rattled
like an almond in its shell.

The light, which lit the soil thirty feet below the surface of the ocean,
astonished me by its power. The solar rays shone through the watery mass
easily, and dissipated all colour, and I clearly distinguished objects at a
distance of a hundred and fifty yards. Beyond that the tints darkened into fine
gradations of ultramarine, and faded into vague obscurity. Truly this water
which surrounded me was but another air denser than the terrestrial atmosphere,
but almost as transparent. Above me was the calm surface of the sea.

We were walking on fine, even sand, not wrinkled, as on a flat shore, which
retains the impression of the billows. This dazzling carpet, really a
reflector, repelled the rays of the sun with wonderful intensity, which
accounted for the vibration which penetrated every atom of liquid. Shall I be
believed when I say that, at the depth of thirty feet, I could see as if I was
in broad daylight?

For a quarter of an hour I trod on this sand, sown with the impalpable dust of
shells. The hull of the Nautilus, resembling a long shoal, disappeared
by degrees; but its lantern, when darkness should overtake us in the waters,
would help to guide us on board by its distinct rays.

Soon forms of objects outlined in the distance were discernible. I recognised
magnificent rocks, hung with a tapestry of zoophytes of the most beautiful
kind, and I was at first struck by the peculiar effect of this medium.

It was then ten in the morning; the rays of the sun struck the surface of the
waves at rather an oblique angle, and at the touch of their light, decomposed
by refraction as through a prism, flowers, rocks, plants, shells, and polypi
were shaded at the edges by the seven solar colours. It was marvellous, a feast
for the eyes, this complication of coloured tints, a perfect kaleidoscope of
green, yellow, orange, violet, indigo, and blue; in one word, the whole palette
of an enthusiastic colourist! Why could I not communicate to Conseil the lively
sensations which were mounting to my brain, and rival him in expressions of
admiration? For aught I knew, Captain Nemo and his companion might be able to
exchange thoughts by means of signs previously agreed upon. So, for want of
better, I talked to myself; I declaimed in the copper box which covered my
head, thereby expending more air in vain words than was perhaps expedient.

Various kinds of isis, clusters of pure tuft-coral, prickly fungi, and anemones
formed a brilliant garden of flowers, enamelled with porphitæ, decked with
their collarettes of blue tentacles, sea-stars studding the sandy bottom,
together with asterophytons like fine lace embroidered by the hands of naïads,
whose festoons were waved by the gentle undulations caused by our walk. It was
a real grief to me to crush under my feet the brilliant specimens of molluscs
which strewed the ground by thousands, of hammer-heads, donaciae (veritable
bounding shells), of staircases, and red helmet-shells, angel-wings, and many
others produced by this inexhaustible ocean. But we were bound to walk, so we
went on, whilst above our heads waved shoals of physalides leaving their
tentacles to float in their train, medusæ whose umbrellas of opal or rose-pink,
escalloped with a band of blue, sheltered us from the rays of the sun and fiery
pelagiæ, which, in the darkness, would have strewn our path with phosphorescent
light.

All these wonders I saw in the space of a quarter of a mile, scarcely stopping,
and following Captain Nemo, who beckoned me on by signs. Soon the nature of the
soil changed; to the sandy plain succeeded an extent of slimy mud, which the
Americans call “ooze,” composed of equal parts of silicious and calcareous
shells. We then travelled over a plain of sea-weed of wild and luxuriant
vegetation. This sward was of close texture, and soft to the feet, and rivalled
the softest carpet woven by the hand of man. But whilst verdure was spread at
our feet, it did not abandon our heads. A light network of marine plants, of
that inexhaustible family of sea-weeds of which more than two thousand kinds
are known, grew on the surface of the water. I saw long ribbons of fucus
floating, some globular, others tuberous; laurenciæ and cladostephi of most
delicate foliage, and some rhodomeniæ palmatæ, resembling the fan of a cactus.
I noticed that the green plants kept nearer the top of the sea, whilst the red
were at a greater depth, leaving to the black or brown hydrophytes the care of
forming gardens and parterres in the remote beds of the ocean.

We had quitted the Nautilus about an hour and a half. It was near noon;
I knew by the perpendicularity of the sun’s rays, which were no longer
refracted. The magical colours disappeared by degrees, and the shades of
emerald and sapphire were effaced. We walked with a regular step, which rang
upon the ground with astonishing intensity; the slightest noise was transmitted
with a quickness to which the ear is unaccustomed on the earth; indeed, water
is a better conductor of sound than air, in the ratio of four to one. At this
period the earth sloped downwards; the light took a uniform tint. We were at a
depth of a hundred and five yards and twenty inches, undergoing a pressure of
six atmospheres.

At this depth I could still see the rays of the sun, though feebly; to their
intense brilliancy had succeeded a reddish twilight, the lowest state between
day and night; but we could still see well enough; it was not necessary to
resort to the Ruhmkorff apparatus as yet. At this moment Captain Nemo stopped;
he waited till I joined him, and then pointed to an obscure mass, looming in
the shadow, at a short distance.

“It is the forest of the Island of Crespo,” thought I;—and I was not mistaken.

CHAPTER XVI
A SUBMARINE FOREST

We had at last arrived on the borders of this forest, doubtless one of the
finest of Captain Nemo’s immense domains. He looked upon it as his own, and
considered he had the same right over it that the first men had in the first
days of the world. And, indeed, who would have disputed with him the possession
of this submarine property? What other hardier pioneer would come, hatchet in
hand, to cut down the dark copses?

This forest was composed of large tree-plants; and the moment we penetrated
under its vast arcades, I was struck by the singular position of their
branches—a position I had not yet observed.

Not a herb which carpeted the ground, not a branch which clothed the trees, was
either broken or bent, nor did they extend horizontally; all stretched up to
the surface of the ocean. Not a filament, not a ribbon, however thin they might
be, but kept as straight as a rod of iron. The fuci and llianas grew in rigid
perpendicular lines, due to the density of the element which had produced them.
Motionless, yet when bent to one side by the hand, they directly resumed their
former position. Truly it was the region of perpendicularity!

I soon accustomed myself to this fantastic position, as well as to the
comparative darkness which surrounded us. The soil of the forest seemed covered
with sharp blocks, difficult to avoid. The submarine flora struck me as being
very perfect, and richer even than it would have been in the arctic or tropical
zones, where these productions are not so plentiful. But for some minutes I
involuntarily confounded the genera, taking zoophytes for hydrophytes, animals
for plants; and who would not have been mistaken? The fauna and the flora are
too closely allied in this submarine world.

These plants are self-propagated, and the principle of their existence is in
the water, which upholds and nourishes them. The greater number, instead of
leaves, shot forth blades of capricious shapes, comprised within a scale of
colours,—pink, carmine, green, olive, fawn, and brown. I saw there (but not
dried up, as our specimens of the Nautilus are) pavonari spread like a
fan, as if to catch the breeze; scarlet ceramies, whose laminaries extended
their edible shoots of fern-shaped nereocysti, which grow to a height of
fifteen feet; clusters of acetabuli, whose stems increase in size upwards; and
numbers of other marine plants, all devoid of flowers!

“Curious anomaly, fantastic element!” said an ingenious naturalist, “in which
the animal kingdom blossoms, and the vegetable does not!”

Under these numerous shrubs (as large as trees of the temperate zone), and
under their damp shadow, were massed together real bushes of living flowers,
hedges of zoophytes, on which blossomed some zebrameandrines, with crooked
grooves, some yellow caryophylliæ; and, to complete the allusion, the
fish-flies flew from branch to branch like a swarm of humming-birds, whilst
yellow lepisacomthi, with bristling jaws, dactylopteri, and monocentrides rose
at our feet like a flight of snipes.

In about an hour Captain Nemo gave the signal to halt. I, for my part, was not
sorry, and we stretched ourselves under an arbour of alariæ, the long thin
blades of which stood up like arrows.

This short rest seemed delicious to me; there was nothing wanting but the charm
of conversation; but, impossible to speak, impossible to answer, I only put my
great copper head to Conseil’s. I saw the worthy fellow’s eyes glistening with
delight, and to show his satisfaction, he shook himself in his breastplate of
air in the most comical way in the world.

After four hours of this walking I was surprised not to find myself dreadfully
hungry. How to account for this state of the stomach I could not tell. But
instead I felt an insurmountable desire to sleep, which happens to all divers.
And my eyes soon closed behind the thick glasses, and I fell into a heavy
slumber, which the movement alone had prevented before. Captain Nemo and his
robust companion, stretched in the clear crystal, set us the example.

How long I remained buried in this drowsiness I cannot judge; but, when I woke,
the sun seemed sinking towards the horizon. Captain Nemo had already risen, and
I was beginning to stretch my limbs, when an unexpected apparition brought me
briskly to my feet.

A few steps off, a monstrous sea-spider, about thirty-eight inches high, was
watching me with squinting eyes, ready to spring upon me. Though my diver’s
dress was thick enough to defend me from the bite of this animal, I could not
help shuddering with horror. Conseil and the sailor of the Nautilus
awoke at this moment. Captain Nemo pointed out the hideous crustacean, which a
blow from the butt end of the gun knocked over, and I saw the horrible claws of
the monster writhe in terrible convulsions. This accident reminded me that
other animals more to be feared might haunt these obscure depths, against whose
attacks my diving-dress would not protect me. I had never thought of it before,
but I now resolved to be upon my guard. Indeed, I thought that this halt would
mark the termination of our walk; but I was mistaken, for, instead of returning
to the Nautilus, Captain Nemo continued his bold excursion. The ground
was still on the incline, its declivity seemed to be getting greater, and to be
leading us to greater depths. It must have been about three o’clock when we
reached a narrow valley, between high perpendicular walls, situated about
seventy-five fathoms deep. Thanks to the perfection of our apparatus, we were
forty-five fathoms below the limit which nature seems to have imposed on man as
to his submarine excursions.

I say seventy-five fathoms, though I had no instrument by which to judge the
distance. But I knew that even in the clearest waters the solar rays could not
penetrate further. And accordingly the darkness deepened. At ten paces not an
object was visible. I was groping my way, when I suddenly saw a brilliant white
light. Captain Nemo had just put his electric apparatus into use; his companion
did the same, and Conseil and I followed their example. By turning a screw I
established a communication between the wire and the spiral glass, and the sea,
lit by our four lanterns, was illuminated for a circle of thirty-six yards.

Captain Nemo was still plunging into the dark depths of the forest, whose trees
were getting scarcer at every step. I noticed that vegetable life disappeared
sooner than animal life. The medusæ had already abandoned the arid soil, from
which a great number of animals, zoophytes, articulata, molluscs, and fishes,
still obtained sustenance.

As we walked I, thought the light of our Ruhmkorff apparatus could not fail to
draw some inhabitant from its dark couch. But if they did approach us, they at
least kept at a respectful distance from the hunters. Several times I saw
Captain Nemo stop, put his gun to his shoulder, and after some moments drop it
and walk on. At last, after about four hours, this marvellous excursion came to
an end. A wall of superb rocks, in an imposing mass, rose before us, a heap of
gigantic blocks, an enormous, steep granite shore, forming dark grottos, but
which presented no practicable slope; it was the prop of the Island of Crespo.
It was the earth! Captain Nemo stopped suddenly. A gesture of his brought us
all to a halt, and, however desirous I might be to scale the wall, I was
obliged to stop. Here ended Captain Nemo’s domains. And he would not go beyond
them. Further on was a portion of the globe he might not trample upon.

The return began. Captain Nemo had returned to the head of his little band,
directing their course without hesitation. I thought we were not following the
same road to return to the Nautilus. The new road was very steep, and
consequently very painful. We approached the surface of the sea rapidly. But
this return to the upper strata was not so sudden as to cause relief from the
pressure too rapidly, which might have produced serious disorder in our
organisation, and brought on internal lesions, so fatal to divers. Very soon
light reappeared and grew, and the sun being low on the horizon, the refraction
edged the different objects with a spectral ring. At ten yards and a half deep,
we walked amidst a shoal of little fishes of all kinds, more numerous than the
birds of the air, and also more agile; but no aquatic game worthy of a shot had
as yet met our gaze, when at that moment I saw the Captain shoulder his gun
quickly, and follow a moving object into the shrubs. He fired;—I heard a slight
hissing, and a creature fell stunned at some distance from us. It was a
magnificent sea-otter, an enhydrus, the only exclusively marine quadruped. This
otter was five feet long, and must have been very valuable. Its skin,
chestnut-brown above and silvery underneath, would have made one of those
beautiful furs so sought after in the Russian and Chinese markets; the fineness
and the lustre of its coat would certainly fetch £80. I admired this curious
mammal, with its rounded head ornamented with short ears, its round eyes, and
white whiskers like those of a cat, with webbed feet and nails, and tufted
tail. This precious animal, hunted and tracked by fishermen, has now become
very rare, and taken refuge chiefly in the northern parts of the Pacific, or
probably its race would soon become extinct.

Captain Nemo’s companion took the beast, threw it over his shoulder, and we
continued our journey. For one hour a plain of sand lay stretched before us.
Sometimes it rose to within two yards and some inches of the surface of the
water. I then saw our image clearly reflected, drawn inversely, and above us
appeared an identical group reflecting our movements and our actions; in a
word, like us in every point, except that they walked with their heads downward
and their feet in the air.

Another effect I noticed, which was the passage of thick clouds which formed
and vanished rapidly; but on reflection I understood that these seeming clouds
were due to the varying thickness of the reeds at the bottom, and I could even
see the fleecy foam which their broken tops multiplied on the water, and the
shadows of large birds passing above our heads, whose rapid flight I could
discern on the surface of the sea.

On this occasion, I was witness to one of the finest gun-shots which ever made
the nerves of a hunter thrill. A large bird of great breadth of wing, clearly
visible, approached, hovering over us. Captain Nemo’s companion shouldered his
gun and fired, when it was only a few yards above the waves. The creature fell
stunned, and the force of its fall brought it within the reach of dexterous
hunter’s grasp. It was an albatross of the finest kind.

Our march had not been interrupted by this incident. For two hours we followed
these sandy plains, then fields of algæ very disagreeable to cross. Candidly, I
could do no more when I saw a glimmer of light, which, for a half mile, broke
the darkness of the waters. It was the lantern of the Nautilus. Before
twenty minutes were over we should be on board, and I should be able to breathe
with ease, for it seemed that my reservoir supplied air very deficient in
oxygen. But I did not reckon on an accidental meeting, which delayed our
arrival for some time.

I had remained some steps behind, when I presently saw Captain Nemo coming
hurriedly towards me. With his strong hand he bent me to the ground, his
companion doing the same to Conseil. At first I knew not what to think of this
sudden attack, but I was soon reassured by seeing the Captain lie down beside
me, and remain immovable.

I was stretched on the ground, just under the shelter of a bush of algæ, when,
raising my head, I saw some enormous mass, casting phosphorescent gleams, pass
blusteringly by.

My blood froze in my veins as I recognised two formidable sharks which
threatened us. It was a couple of tintoreas, terrible creatures, with enormous
tails and a dull glassy stare, the phosphorescent matter ejected from holes
pierced around the muzzle. Monstrous brutes! which would crush a whole man in
their iron jaws. I did not know whether Conseil stopped to classify them; for
my part, I noticed their silver bellies, and their huge mouths bristling with
teeth, from a very unscientific point of view, and more as a possible victim
than as a naturalist.

Happily the voracious creatures do not see well. They passed without seeing us,
brushing us with their brownish fins, and we escaped by a miracle from a danger
certainly greater than meeting a tiger full-face in the forest. Half an hour
after, guided by the electric light, we reached the Nautilus. The
outside door had been left open, and Captain Nemo closed it as soon as we had
entered the first cell. He then pressed a knob. I heard the pumps working in
the midst of the vessel, I felt the water sinking from around me, and in a few
moments the cell was entirely empty. The inside door then opened, and we
entered the vestry.

There our diving-dress was taken off, not without some trouble; and, fairly
worn out from want of food and sleep. I returned to my room, in great wonder at
this surprising excursion at the bottom of the sea.

CHAPTER XVII
FOUR THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE PACIFIC

The next morning, the 18th of November, I had quite recovered from my fatigues
of the day before, and I went up on to the platform, just as the second
lieutenant was uttering his daily phrase.

I was admiring the magnificent aspect of the ocean when Captain Nemo appeared.
He did not seem to be aware of my presence, and began a series of astronomical
observations. Then, when he had finished, he went and leant on the cage of the
watch-light, and gazed abstractedly on the ocean. In the meantime, a number of
the sailors of the Nautilus, all strong and healthy men, had come up
onto the platform. They came to draw up the nets that had been laid all night.
These sailors were evidently of different nations, although the European type
was visible in all of them. I recognised some unmistakable Irishmen, Frenchmen,
some Sclaves, and a Greek, or a Candiote. They were civil, and only used that
odd language among themselves, the origin of which I could not guess, neither
could I question them.

The nets were hauled in. They were a large kind of “chaluts,” like those on the
Normandy coasts, great pockets that the waves and a chain fixed in the smaller
meshes kept open. These pockets, drawn by iron poles, swept through the water,
and gathered in everything in their way. That day they brought up curious
specimens from those productive coasts.

I reckoned that the haul had brought in more than nine hundredweight of fish.
It was a fine haul, but not to be wondered at. Indeed, the nets are let down
for several hours, and enclose in their meshes an infinite variety. We had no
lack of excellent food, and the rapidity of the Nautilus and the
attraction of the electric light could always renew our supply. These several
productions of the sea were immediately lowered through the panel to the
steward’s room, some to be eaten fresh, and others pickled.

The fishing ended, the provision of air renewed, I thought that the
Nautilus was about to continue its submarine excursion, and was
preparing to return to my room, when, without further preamble, the Captain
turned to me, saying:

“Professor, is not this ocean gifted with real life? It has its tempers and its
gentle moods. Yesterday it slept as we did, and now it has woke after a quiet
night. Look!” he continued, “it wakes under the caresses of the sun. It is
going to renew its diurnal existence. It is an interesting study to watch the
play of its organisation. It has a pulse, arteries, spasms; and I agree with
the learned Maury, who discovered in it a circulation as real as the
circulation of blood in animals.

“Yes, the ocean has indeed circulation, and to promote it, the Creator has
caused things to multiply in it—caloric, salt, and animalculae.”

When Captain Nemo spoke thus, he seemed altogether changed, and aroused an
extraordinary emotion in me.

“Also,” he added, “true existence is there; and I can imagine the foundations
of nautical towns, clusters of submarine houses, which, like the
Nautilus, would ascend every morning to breathe at the surface of the
water, free towns, independent cities. Yet who knows whether some despot——”

Captain Nemo finished his sentence with a violent gesture. Then, addressing me
as if to chase away some sorrowful thought:

“M. Aronnax,” he asked, “do you know the depth of the ocean?”

“I only know, Captain, what the principal soundings have taught us.”

“Could you tell me them, so that I can suit them to my purpose?”

“These are some,” I replied, “that I remember. If I am not mistaken, a depth of
8,000 yards has been found in the North Atlantic, and 2,500 yards in the
Mediterranean. The most remarkable soundings have been made in the South
Atlantic, near the thirty-fifth parallel, and they gave 12,000 yards, 14,000
yards, and 15,000 yards. To sum up all, it is reckoned that if the bottom of
the sea were levelled, its mean depth would be about one and three-quarter
leagues.”

“Well, Professor,” replied the Captain, “we shall show you better than that I
hope. As to the mean depth of this part of the Pacific, I tell you it is only
4,000 yards.”

Having said this, Captain Nemo went towards the panel, and disappeared down the
ladder. I followed him, and went into the large drawing-room. The screw was
immediately put in motion, and the log gave twenty miles an hour.

During the days and weeks that passed, Captain Nemo was very sparing of his
visits. I seldom saw him. The lieutenant pricked the ship’s course regularly on
the chart, so I could always tell exactly the route of the Nautilus.

Nearly every day, for some time, the panels of the drawing-room were opened,
and we were never tired of penetrating the mysteries of the submarine world.

The general direction of the Nautilus was south-east, and it kept
between 100 and 150 yards of depth. One day, however, I do not know why, being
drawn diagonally by means of the inclined planes, it touched the bed of the
sea. The thermometer indicated a temperature of 4.25 (cent.): a temperature
that at this depth seemed common to all latitudes.

At three o’clock in the morning of the 26th of November the Nautilus
crossed the tropic of Cancer at 172° long. On 27th instant it sighted the
Sandwich Islands, where Cook died, February 14, 1779. We had then gone 4,860
leagues from our starting-point. In the morning, when I went on the platform, I
saw two miles to windward, Hawaii, the largest of the seven islands that form
the group. I saw clearly the cultivated ranges, and the several mountain-chains
that run parallel with the side, and the volcanoes that overtop Mouna-Rea,
which rise 5,000 yards above the level of the sea. Besides other things the
nets brought up, were several flabellariae and graceful polypi, that are
peculiar to that part of the ocean. The direction of the Nautilus was
still to the south-east. It crossed the equator December 1, in 142° long.; and
on the 4th of the same month, after crossing rapidly and without anything in
particular occurring, we sighted the Marquesas group. I saw, three miles off,
Martin’s peak in Nouka-Hiva, the largest of the group that belongs to France. I
only saw the woody mountains against the horizon, because Captain Nemo did not
wish to bring the ship to the wind. There the nets brought up beautiful
specimens of fish: some with azure fins and tails like gold, the flesh of which
is unrivalled; some nearly destitute of scales, but of exquisite flavour;
others, with bony jaws, and yellow-tinged gills, as good as bonitos; all fish
that would be of use to us. After leaving these charming islands protected by
the French flag, from the 4th to the 11th of December the Nautilus
sailed over about 2,000 miles.

During the daytime of the 11th of December I was busy reading in the large
drawing-room. Ned Land and Conseil watched the luminous water through the
half-open panels. The Nautilus was immovable. While its reservoirs were
filled, it kept at a depth of 1,000 yards, a region rarely visited in the
ocean, and in which large fish were seldom seen.

I was then reading a charming book by Jean Mace, The Slaves of the Stomach, and
I was learning some valuable lessons from it, when Conseil interrupted me.

“Will master come here a moment?” he said, in a curious voice.

“What is the matter, Conseil?”

“I want master to look.”

I rose, went, and leaned on my elbows before the panes and watched.

In a full electric light, an enormous black mass, quite immovable, was
suspended in the midst of the waters. I watched it attentively, seeking to find
out the nature of this gigantic cetacean. But a sudden thought crossed my mind.
“A vessel!” I said, half aloud.

“Yes,” replied the Canadian, “a disabled ship that has sunk perpendicularly.”

Ned Land was right; we were close to a vessel of which the tattered shrouds
still hung from their chains. The keel seemed to be in good order, and it had
been wrecked at most some few hours. Three stumps of masts, broken off about
two feet above the bridge, showed that the vessel had had to sacrifice its
masts. But, lying on its side, it had filled, and it was heeling over to port.
This skeleton of what it had once been was a sad spectacle as it lay lost under
the waves, but sadder still was the sight of the bridge, where some corpses,
bound with ropes, were still lying. I counted five—four men, one of whom was
standing at the helm, and a woman standing by the poop, holding an infant in
her arms. She was quite young. I could distinguish her features, which the
water had not decomposed, by the brilliant light from the Nautilus. In
one despairing effort, she had raised her infant above her head—poor little
thing!—whose arms encircled its mother’s neck. The attitude of the four sailors
was frightful, distorted as they were by their convulsive movements, whilst
making a last effort to free themselves from the cords that bound them to the
vessel. The steersman alone, calm, with a grave, clear face, his grey hair
glued to his forehead, and his hand clutching the wheel of the helm, seemed
even then to be guiding the three broken masts through the depths of the ocean.

What a scene! We were dumb; our hearts beat fast before this shipwreck, taken
as it were from life and photographed in its last moments. And I saw already,
coming towards it with hungry eyes, enormous sharks, attracted by the human
flesh.

However, the Nautilus, turning, went round the submerged vessel, and in
one instant I read on the stern—“The Florida, Sunderland.”

CHAPTER XVIII
VANIKORO

This terrible spectacle was the forerunner of the series of maritime
catastrophes that the Nautilus was destined to meet with in its route.
As long as it went through more frequented waters, we often saw the hulls of
shipwrecked vessels that were rotting in the depths, and deeper down cannons,
bullets, anchors, chains, and a thousand other iron materials eaten up by rust.
However, on the 11th of December we sighted the Pomotou Islands, the old
“dangerous group” of Bougainville, that extend over a space of 500 leagues at
E.S.E. to W.N.W., from the Island Ducie to that of Lazareff. This group covers
an area of 370 square leagues, and it is formed of sixty groups of islands,
among which the Gambier group is remarkable, over which France exercises sway.
These are coral islands, slowly raised, but continuous, created by the daily
work of polypi. Then this new island will be joined later on to the neighboring
groups, and a fifth continent will stretch from New Zealand and New Caledonia,
and from thence to the Marquesas.

One day, when I was suggesting this theory to Captain Nemo, he replied coldly:

“The earth does not want new continents, but new men.”

Chance had conducted the Nautilus towards the Island of
Clermont-Tonnere, one of the most curious of the group, that was discovered in
1822 by Captain Bell of the Minerva. I could study now the madreporal system,
to which are due the islands in this ocean.

Madrepores (which must not be mistaken for corals) have a tissue lined with a
calcareous crust, and the modifications of its structure have induced M. Milne
Edwards, my worthy master, to class them into five sections. The animalcule
that the marine polypus secretes live by millions at the bottom of their cells.
Their calcareous deposits become rocks, reefs, and large and small islands.
Here they form a ring, surrounding a little inland lake, that communicates with
the sea by means of gaps. There they make barriers of reefs like those on the
coasts of New Caledonia and the various Pomoton islands. In other places, like
those at Reunion and at Maurice, they raise fringed reefs, high, straight
walls, near which the depth of the ocean is considerable.

Some cable-lengths off the shores of the Island of Clermont I admired the
gigantic work accomplished by these microscopical workers. These walls are
specially the work of those madrepores known as milleporas, porites,
madrepores, and astraeas. These polypi are found particularly in the rough beds
of the sea, near the surface; and consequently it is from the upper part that
they begin their operations, in which they bury themselves by degrees with the
debris of the secretions that support them. Such is, at least, Darwin’s theory,
who thus explains the formation of the atolls, a superior theory (to my
mind) to that given of the foundation of the madreporical works, summits of
mountains or volcanoes, that are submerged some feet below the level of the
sea.

I could observe closely these curious walls, for perpendicularly they were more
than 300 yards deep, and our electric sheets lighted up this calcareous matter
brilliantly. Replying to a question Conseil asked me as to the time these
colossal barriers took to be raised, I astonished him much by telling him that
learned men reckoned it about the eighth of an inch in a hundred years.

Towards evening Clermont-Tonnerre was lost in the distance, and the route of
the Nautilus was sensibly changed. After having crossed the tropic of
Capricorn in 135° longitude, it sailed W.N.W., making again for the tropical
zone. Although the summer sun was very strong, we did not suffer from heat, for
at fifteen or twenty fathoms below the surface, the temperature did not rise
above from ten to twelve degrees.

On 15th of December, we left to the east the bewitching group of the Societies
and the graceful Tahiti, queen of the Pacific. I saw in the morning, some miles
to the windward, the elevated summits of the island. These waters furnished our
table with excellent fish, mackerel, bonitos, and some varieties of a
sea-serpent.

On the 25th of December the Nautilus sailed into the midst of the New
Hebrides, discovered by Quiros in 1606, and that Bougainville explored in 1768,
and to which Cook gave its present name in 1773. This group is composed
principally of nine large islands, that form a band of 120 leagues N.N.S. to
S.S.W., between 15° and 2° S. lat., and 164 deg. and 168° long. We passed
tolerably near to the Island of Aurou, that at noon looked like a mass of green
woods, surmounted by a peak of great height.

That day being Christmas Day, Ned Land seemed to regret sorely the
non-celebration of “Christmas,” the family fete of which Protestants are so
fond. I had not seen Captain Nemo for a week, when, on the morning of the 27th,
he came into the large drawing-room, always seeming as if he had seen you five
minutes before. I was busily tracing the route of the Nautilus on the
planisphere. The Captain came up to me, put his finger on one spot on the
chart, and said this single word.

“Vanikoro.”

The effect was magical! It was the name of the islands on which La Perouse had
been lost! I rose suddenly.

“The Nautilus has brought us to Vanikoro?” I asked.

“Yes, Professor,” said the Captain.

“And I can visit the celebrated islands where the Boussole and the Astrolabe
struck?”

“If you like, Professor.”

“When shall we be there?”

“We are there now.”

Followed by Captain Nemo, I went up on to the platform, and greedily scanned
the horizon.

To the N.E. two volcanic islands emerged of unequal size, surrounded by a coral
reef that measured forty miles in circumference. We were close to Vanikoro,
really the one to which Dumont d’Urville gave the name of Isle de la Recherche,
and exactly facing the little harbour of Vanou, situated in 16° 4′ S.
lat., and 164° 32′ E. long. The earth seemed covered with verdure from
the shore to the summits in the interior, that were crowned by Mount Kapogo,
476 feet high. The Nautilus, having passed the outer belt of rocks by a
narrow strait, found itself among breakers where the sea was from thirty to
forty fathoms deep. Under the verdant shade of some mangroves I perceived some
savages, who appeared greatly surprised at our approach. In the long black
body, moving between wind and water, did they not see some formidable cetacean
that they regarded with suspicion?

Just then Captain Nemo asked me what I knew about the wreck of La Perouse.

“Only what everyone knows, Captain,” I replied.

“And could you tell me what everyone knows about it?” he inquired, ironically.

“Easily.”

I related to him all that the last works of Dumont d’Urville had made
known—works from which the following is a brief account.

La Perouse, and his second, Captain de Langle, were sent by Louis XVI, in 1785,
on a voyage of circumnavigation. They embarked in the corvettes Boussole and
the Astrolabe, neither of which were again heard of. In 1791, the French
Government, justly uneasy as to the fate of these two sloops, manned two large
merchantmen, the Recherche and the Esperance, which left Brest the 28th of
September under the command of Bruni d’Entrecasteaux.

Two months after, they learned from Bowen, commander of the Albemarle, that the
debris of shipwrecked vessels had been seen on the coasts of New Georgia. But
D’Entrecasteaux, ignoring this communication—rather uncertain, besides—directed
his course towards the Admiralty Islands, mentioned in a report of Captain
Hunter’s as being the place where La Perouse was wrecked.

They sought in vain. The Esperance and the Recherche passed before Vanikoro
without stopping there, and, in fact, this voyage was most disastrous, as it
cost D’Entrecasteaux his life, and those of two of his lieutenants, besides
several of his crew.

Captain Dillon, a shrewd old Pacific sailor, was the first to find unmistakable
traces of the wrecks. On the 15th of May, 1824, his vessel, the St. Patrick,
passed close to Tikopia, one of the New Hebrides. There a Lascar came alongside
in a canoe, sold him the handle of a sword in silver that bore the print of
characters engraved on the hilt. The Lascar pretended that six years before,
during a stay at Vanikoro, he had seen two Europeans that belonged to some
vessels that had run aground on the reefs some years ago.

Dillon guessed that he meant La Perouse, whose disappearance had troubled the
whole world. He tried to get on to Vanikoro, where, according to the Lascar, he
would find numerous debris of the wreck, but winds and tides prevented him.

Dillon returned to Calcutta. There he interested the Asiatic Society and the
Indian Company in his discovery. A vessel, to which was given the name of the
Recherche, was put at his disposal, and he set out, 23rd January, 1827,
accompanied by a French agent.

The Recherche, after touching at several points in the Pacific, cast anchor
before Vanikoro, 7th July, 1827, in that same harbour of Vanou where the
Nautilus was at this time.

There it collected numerous relics of the wreck—iron utensils, anchors,
pulley-strops, swivel-guns, an 18 lbs. shot, fragments of astronomical
instruments, a piece of crown work, and a bronze clock, bearing this
inscription—“Bazin m’a fait,” the mark of the foundry of the arsenal at Brest
about 1785. There could be no further doubt.

Dillon, having made all inquiries, stayed in the unlucky place till October.
Then he quitted Vanikoro, and directed his course towards New Zealand; put into
Calcutta, 7th April, 1828, and returned to France, where he was warmly welcomed
by Charles X.

But at the same time, without knowing Dillon’s movements, Dumont d’Urville had
already set out to find the scene of the wreck. And they had learned from a
whaler that some medals and a cross of St. Louis had been found in the hands of
some savages of Louisiade and New Caledonia. Dumont d’Urville, commander of the
Astrolabe, had then sailed, and two months after Dillon had left Vanikoro he
put into Hobart Town. There he learned the results of Dillon’s inquiries, and
found that a certain James Hobbs, second lieutenant of the Union of Calcutta,
after landing on an island situated 8° 18′ S. lat., and 156° 30′
E. long., had seen some iron bars and red stuffs used by the natives of these
parts. Dumont d’Urville, much perplexed, and not knowing how to credit the
reports of low-class journals, decided to follow Dillon’s track.

On the 10th of February, 1828, the Astrolabe appeared off Tikopia, and took as
guide and interpreter a deserter found on the island; made his way to Vanikoro,
sighted it on the 12th inst., lay among the reefs until the 14th, and not until
the 20th did he cast anchor within the barrier in the harbour of Vanou.

On the 23rd, several officers went round the island and brought back some
unimportant trifles. The natives, adopting a system of denials and evasions,
refused to take them to the unlucky place. This ambiguous conduct led them to
believe that the natives had ill-treated the castaways, and indeed they seemed
to fear that Dumont d’Urville had come to avenge La Perouse and his unfortunate
crew.

However, on the 26th, appeased by some presents, and understanding that they
had no reprisals to fear, they led M. Jacquireot to the scene of the wreck.

There, in three or four fathoms of water, between the reefs of Pacou and Vanou,
lay anchors, cannons, pigs of lead and iron, embedded in the limy concretions.
The large boat and the whaler belonging to the Astrolabe were sent to this
place, and, not without some difficulty, their crews hauled up an anchor
weighing 1,800 lbs., a brass gun, some pigs of iron, and two copper
swivel-guns.

Dumont d’Urville, questioning the natives, learned too that La Perouse, after
losing both his vessels on the reefs of this island, had constructed a smaller
boat, only to be lost a second time. Where, no one knew.

But the French Government, fearing that Dumont d’Urville was not acquainted
with Dillon’s movements, had sent the sloop Bayonnaise, commanded by Legoarant
de Tromelin, to Vanikoro, which had been stationed on the west coast of
America. The Bayonnaise cast her anchor before Vanikoro some months after the
departure of the Astrolabe, but found no new document; but stated that the
savages had respected the monument to La Perouse. That is the substance of what
I told Captain Nemo.

“So,” he said, “no one knows now where the third vessel perished that was
constructed by the castaways on the island of Vanikoro?”

“No one knows.”

Captain Nemo said nothing, but signed to me to follow him into the large
saloon. The Nautilus sank several yards below the waves, and the panels
were opened.

I hastened to the aperture, and under the crustations of coral, covered with
fungi, syphonules, alcyons, madrepores, through myriads of charming
fish—girelles, glyphisidri, pompherides, diacopes, and holocentres—I recognised
certain debris that the drags had not been able to tear up—iron stirrups,
anchors, cannons, bullets, capstan fittings, the stem of a ship, all objects
clearly proving the wreck of some vessel, and now carpeted with living flowers.
While I was looking on this desolate scene, Captain Nemo said, in a sad voice:

“Commander La Perouse set out 7th December, 1785, with his vessels La Boussole
and the Astrolabe. He first cast anchor at Botany Bay, visited the Friendly
Isles, New Caledonia, then directed his course towards Santa Cruz, and put into
Namouka, one of the Hapai group. Then his vessels struck on the unknown reefs
of Vanikoro. The Boussole, which went first, ran aground on the southerly
coast. The Astrolabe went to its help, and ran aground too. The first vessel
was destroyed almost immediately. The second, stranded under the wind, resisted
some days. The natives made the castaways welcome. They installed themselves in
the island, and constructed a smaller boat with the debris of the two large
ones. Some sailors stayed willingly at Vanikoro; the others, weak and ill, set
out with La Perouse. They directed their course towards the Solomon Islands,
and there perished, with everything, on the westerly coast of the chief island
of the group, between Capes Deception and Satisfaction.”

“How do you know that?”

“By this, that I found on the spot where was the last wreck.”

Captain Nemo showed me a tin-plate box, stamped with the French arms, and
corroded by the salt water. He opened it, and I saw a bundle of papers, yellow
but still readable.

They were the instructions of the naval minister to Commander La Perouse,
annotated in the margin in Louis XVI’s handwriting.

“Ah! it is a fine death for a sailor!” said Captain Nemo, at last. “A coral
tomb makes a quiet grave; and I trust that I and my comrades will find no
other.”

CHAPTER XIX
TORRES STRAITS

During the night of the 27th or 28th of December, the Nautilus left the
shores of Vanikoro with great speed. Her course was south-westerly, and in
three days she had gone over the 750 leagues that separated it from La
Perouse’s group and the south-east point of Papua.

Early on the 1st of January, 1863, Conseil joined me on the platform.

“Master, will you permit me to wish you a happy New Year?”

“What! Conseil; exactly as if I was at Paris in my study at the Jardin des
Plantes? Well, I accept your good wishes, and thank you for them. Only, I will
ask you what you mean by a ‘Happy New Year’ under our circumstances? Do you
mean the year that will bring us to the end of our imprisonment, or the year
that sees us continue this strange voyage?”

“Really, I do not know how to answer, master. We are sure to see curious
things, and for the last two months we have not had time for dullness. The last
marvel is always the most astonishing; and, if we continue this progression, I
do not know how it will end. It is my opinion that we shall never again see the
like. I think then, with no offence to master, that a happy year would be one
in which we could see everything.”

On 2nd January we had made 11,340 miles, or 5,250 French leagues, since our
starting-point in the Japan Seas. Before the ship’s head stretched the
dangerous shores of the coral sea, on the north-east coast of Australia. Our
boat lay along some miles from the redoubtable bank on which Cook’s vessel was
lost, 10th June, 1770. The boat in which Cook was struck on a rock, and, if it
did not sink, it was owing to a piece of coral that was broken by the shock,
and fixed itself in the broken keel.

I had wished to visit the reef, 360 leagues long, against which the sea, always
rough, broke with great violence, with a noise like thunder. But just then the
inclined planes drew the Nautilus down to a great depth, and I could see
nothing of the high coral walls. I had to content myself with the different
specimens of fish brought up by the nets. I remarked, among others, some
germons, a species of mackerel as large as a tunny, with bluish sides, and
striped with transverse bands, that disappear with the animal’s life.

These fish followed us in shoals, and furnished us with very delicate food. We
took also a large number of gilt-heads, about one and a half inches long,
tasting like dorys; and flying pyrapeds like submarine swallows, which, in dark
nights, light alternately the air and water with their phosphorescent light.
Among the molluscs and zoophytes, I found in the meshes of the net several
species of alcyonarians, echini, hammers, spurs, dials, cerites, and hyalleae.
The flora was represented by beautiful floating seaweeds, laminariae, and
macrocystes, impregnated with the mucilage that transudes through their pores;
and among which I gathered an admirable Nemastoma Geliniarois, that was classed
among the natural curiosities of the museum.

Two days after crossing the coral sea, 4th January, we sighted the Papuan
coasts. On this occasion, Captain Nemo informed me that his intention was to
get into the Indian Ocean by the Strait of Torres. His communication ended
there.

The Torres Straits are nearly thirty-four leagues wide; but they are obstructed
by an innumerable quantity of islands, islets, breakers, and rocks, that make
its navigation almost impracticable; so that Captain Nemo took all needful
precautions to cross them. The Nautilus, floating betwixt wind and
water, went at a moderate pace. Her screw, like a cetacean’s tail, beat the
waves slowly.

Profiting by this, I and my two companions went up on to the deserted platform.
Before us was the steersman’s cage, and I expected that Captain Nemo was there
directing the course of the Nautilus. I had before me the excellent
charts of the Straits of Torres, and I consulted them attentively. Round the
Nautilus the sea dashed furiously. The course of the waves, that went
from south-east to north-west at the rate of two and a half miles, broke on the
coral that showed itself here and there.

“This is a bad sea!” remarked Ned Land.

“Detestable indeed, and one that does not suit a boat like the
Nautilus.”

“The Captain must be very sure of his route, for I see there pieces of coral
that would do for its keel if it only touched them slightly.”

Indeed the situation was dangerous, but the Nautilus seemed to slide
like magic off these rocks. It did not follow the routes of the Astrolabe and
the Zelee exactly, for they proved fatal to Dumont d’Urville. It bore more
northwards, coasted the Islands of Murray, and came back to the south-west
towards Cumberland Passage. I thought it was going to pass it by, when, going
back to north-west, it went through a large quantity of islands and islets
little known, towards the Island Sound and Canal Mauvais.

I wondered if Captain Nemo, foolishly imprudent, would steer his vessel into
that pass where Dumont d’Urville’s two corvettes touched; when, swerving again,
and cutting straight through to the west, he steered for the Island of Gilboa.

It was then three in the afternoon. The tide began to recede, being quite full.
The Nautilus approached the island, that I still saw, with its
remarkable border of screw-pines. He stood off it at about two miles distant.
Suddenly a shock overthrew me. The Nautilus just touched a rock, and
stayed immovable, laying lightly to port side.

When I rose, I perceived Captain Nemo and his lieutenant on the platform. They
were examining the situation of the vessel, and exchanging words in their
incomprehensible dialect.

She was situated thus: Two miles, on the starboard side, appeared Gilboa,
stretching from north to west like an immense arm. Towards the south and east
some coral showed itself, left by the ebb. We had run aground, and in one of
those seas where the tides are middling—a sorry matter for the floating of the
Nautilus. However, the vessel had not suffered, for her keel was solidly
joined. But, if she could neither glide off nor move, she ran the risk of being
for ever fastened to these rocks, and then Captain Nemo’s submarine vessel
would be done for.

I was reflecting thus, when the Captain, cool and calm, always master of
himself, approached me.

“An accident?” I asked.

“No; an incident.”

“But an incident that will oblige you perhaps to become an inhabitant of this
land from which you flee?”

Captain Nemo looked at me curiously, and made a negative gesture, as much as to
say that nothing would force him to set foot on terra firma again. Then he
said:

“Besides, M. Aronnax, the Nautilus is not lost; it will carry you yet
into the midst of the marvels of the ocean. Our voyage is only begun, and I do
not wish to be deprived so soon of the honour of your company.”

“However, Captain Nemo,” I replied, without noticing the ironical turn of his
phrase, “the Nautilus ran aground in open sea. Now the tides are not
strong in the Pacific; and, if you cannot lighten the Nautilus, I do not
see how it will be reinflated.”

“The tides are not strong in the Pacific: you are right there, Professor; but
in Torres Straits one finds still a difference of a yard and a half between the
level of high and low seas. To-day is 4th January, and in five days the moon
will be full. Now, I shall be very much astonished if that satellite does not
raise these masses of water sufficiently, and render me a service that I should
be indebted to her for.”

Having said this, Captain Nemo, followed by his lieutenant, redescended to the
interior of the Nautilus. As to the vessel, it moved not, and was
immovable, as if the coralline polypi had already walled it up with their in
destructible cement.

“Well, sir?” said Ned Land, who came up to me after the departure of the
Captain.

“Well, friend Ned, we will wait patiently for the tide on the 9th instant; for
it appears that the moon will have the goodness to put it off again.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And this Captain is not going to cast anchor at all since the tide will
suffice?” said Conseil, simply.

The Canadian looked at Conseil, then shrugged his shoulders.

“Sir, you may believe me when I tell you that this piece of iron will navigate
neither on nor under the sea again; it is only fit to be sold for its weight. I
think, therefore, that the time has come to part company with Captain Nemo.”

“Friend Ned, I do not despair of this stout Nautilus, as you do; and in
four days we shall know what to hold to on the Pacific tides. Besides, flight
might be possible if we were in sight of the English or Provencal coast; but on
the Papuan shores, it is another thing; and it will be time enough to come to
that extremity if the Nautilus does not recover itself again, which I
look upon as a grave event.”

“But do they know, at least, how to act circumspectly? There is an island; on
that island there are trees; under those trees, terrestrial animals, bearers of
cutlets and roast beef, to which I would willingly give a trial.”

“In this, friend Ned is right,” said Conseil, “and I agree with him. Could not
master obtain permission from his friend Captain Nemo to put us on land, if
only so as not to lose the habit of treading on the solid parts of our planet?”

“I can ask him, but he will refuse.”

“Will master risk it?” asked Conseil, “and we shall know how to rely upon the
Captain’s amiability.”

To my great surprise, Captain Nemo gave me the permission I asked for, and he
gave it very agreeably, without even exacting from me a promise to return to
the vessel; but flight across New Guinea might be very perilous, and I should
not have counselled Ned Land to attempt it. Better to be a prisoner on board
the Nautilus than to fall into the hands of the natives.

At eight o’clock, armed with guns and hatchets, we got off the Nautilus.
The sea was pretty calm; a slight breeze blew on land. Conseil and I rowing, we
sped along quickly, and Ned steered in the straight passage that the breakers
left between them. The boat was well handled, and moved rapidly.

Ned Land could not restrain his joy. He was like a prisoner that had escaped
from prison, and knew not that it was necessary to re-enter it.

“Meat! We are going to eat some meat; and what meat!” he replied. “Real game!
no, bread, indeed.”

“I do not say that fish is not good; we must not abuse it; but a piece of fresh
venison, grilled on live coals, will agreeably vary our ordinary course.”

“Glutton!” said Conseil, “he makes my mouth water.”

“It remains to be seen,” I said, “if these forests are full of game, and if the
game is not such as will hunt the hunter himself.”

“Well said, M. Aronnax,” replied the Canadian, whose teeth seemed sharpened
like the edge of a hatchet; “but I will eat tiger—loin of tiger—if there is no
other quadruped on this island.”

“Friend Ned is uneasy about it,” said Conseil.

“Whatever it may be,” continued Ned Land, “every animal with four paws without
feathers, or with two paws without feathers, will be saluted by my first shot.”

“Very well! Master Land’s imprudences are beginning.”

“Never fear, M. Aronnax,” replied the Canadian; “I do not want twenty-five
minutes to offer you a dish, of my sort.”

At half-past eight the Nautilus boat ran softly aground on a heavy sand,
after having happily passed the coral reef that surrounds the Island of Gilboa.

CHAPTER XX
A FEW DAYS ON LAND

I was much impressed on touching land. Ned Land tried the soil with his feet,
as if to take possession of it. However, it was only two months before that we
had become, according to Captain Nemo, “passengers on board the
Nautilus,” but, in reality, prisoners of its commander.

In a few minutes we were within musket-shot of the coast. The whole horizon was
hidden behind a beautiful curtain of forests. Enormous trees, the trunks of
which attained a height of 200 feet, were tied to each other by garlands of
bindweed, real natural hammocks, which a light breeze rocked. They were
mimosas, figs, hibisci, and palm trees, mingled together in profusion; and
under the shelter of their verdant vault grew orchids, leguminous plants, and
ferns.

But, without noticing all these beautiful specimens of Papuan flora, the
Canadian abandoned the agreeable for the useful. He discovered a coco-tree,
beat down some of the fruit, broke them, and we drunk the milk and ate the nut
with a satisfaction that protested against the ordinary food on the
Nautilus.

“Excellent!” said Ned Land.

“Exquisite!” replied Conseil.

“And I do not think,” said the Canadian, “that he would object to our
introducing a cargo of coco-nuts on board.”

“I do not think he would, but he would not taste them.”

“So much the worse for him,” said Conseil.

“And so much the better for us,” replied Ned Land. “There will be more for us.”

“One word only, Master Land,” I said to the harpooner, who was beginning to
ravage another coco-nut tree. “Coco-nuts are good things, but before filling
the canoe with them it would be wise to reconnoitre and see if the island does
not produce some substance not less useful. Fresh vegetables would be welcome
on board the Nautilus.”

“Master is right,” replied Conseil; “and I propose to reserve three places in
our vessel, one for fruits, the other for vegetables, and the third for the
venison, of which I have not yet seen the smallest specimen.”

“Conseil, we must not despair,” said the Canadian.

“Let us continue,” I returned, “and lie in wait. Although the island seems
uninhabited, it might still contain some individuals that would be less hard
than we on the nature of game.”

“Ho! ho!” said Ned Land, moving his jaws significantly.

“Well, Ned!” said Conseil.

“My word!” returned the Canadian, “I begin to understand the charms of
anthropophagy.”

“Ned! Ned! what are you saying? You, a man-eater? I should not feel safe with
you, especially as I share your cabin. I might perhaps wake one day to find
myself half devoured.”

“Friend Conseil, I like you much, but not enough to eat you unnecessarily.”

“I would not trust you,” replied Conseil. “But enough. We must absolutely bring
down some game to satisfy this cannibal, or else one of these fine mornings,
master will find only pieces of his servant to serve him.”

While we were talking thus, we were penetrating the sombre arches of the
forest, and for two hours we surveyed it in all directions.

Chance rewarded our search for eatable vegetables, and one of the most useful
products of the tropical zones furnished us with precious food that we missed
on board. I would speak of the bread-fruit tree, very abundant in the island of
Gilboa; and I remarked chiefly the variety destitute of seeds, which bears in
Malaya the name of “rima.”

Ned Land knew these fruits well. He had already eaten many during his numerous
voyages, and he knew how to prepare the eatable substance. Moreover, the sight
of them excited him, and he could contain himself no longer.

“Master,” he said, “I shall die if I do not taste a little of this bread-fruit
pie.”

“Taste it, friend Ned—taste it as you want. We are here to make
experiments—make them.”

“It won’t take long,” said the Canadian.

And, provided with a lentil, he lighted a fire of dead wood that crackled
joyously. During this time, Conseil and I chose the best fruits of the
bread-fruit. Some had not then attained a sufficient degree of maturity; and
their thick skin covered a white but rather fibrous pulp. Others, the greater
number yellow and gelatinous, waited only to be picked.

These fruits enclosed no kernel. Conseil brought a dozen to Ned Land, who
placed them on a coal fire, after having cut them in thick slices, and while
doing this repeating:

“You will see, master, how good this bread is. More so when one has been
deprived of it so long. It is not even bread,” added he, “but a delicate
pastry. You have eaten none, master?”

“No, Ned.”

“Very well, prepare yourself for a juicy thing. If you do not come for more, I
am no longer the king of harpooners.”

After some minutes, the part of the fruits that was exposed to the fire was
completely roasted. The interior looked like a white pasty, a sort of soft
crumb, the flavour of which was like that of an artichoke.

It must be confessed this bread was excellent, and I ate of it with great
relish.

“What time is it now?” asked the Canadian.

“Two o’clock at least,” replied Conseil.

“How time flies on firm ground!” sighed Ned Land.

“Let us be off,” replied Conseil.

We returned through the forest, and completed our collection by a raid upon the
cabbage-palms, that we gathered from the tops of the trees, little beans that I
recognised as the “abrou” of the Malays, and yams of a superior quality.

We were loaded when we reached the boat. But Ned Land did not find his
provisions sufficient. Fate, however, favoured us. Just as we were pushing off,
he perceived several trees, from twenty-five to thirty feet high, a species of
palm-tree.

At last, at five o’clock in the evening, loaded with our riches, we quitted the
shore, and half an hour after we hailed the Nautilus. No one appeared on
our arrival. The enormous iron-plated cylinder seemed deserted. The provisions
embarked, I descended to my chamber, and after supper slept soundly.

The next day, 6th January, nothing new on board. Not a sound inside, not a sign
of life. The boat rested along the edge, in the same place in which we had left
it. We resolved to return to the island. Ned Land hoped to be more fortunate
than on the day before with regard to the hunt, and wished to visit another
part of the forest.

At dawn we set off. The boat, carried on by the waves that flowed to shore,
reached the island in a few minutes.

We landed, and, thinking that it was better to give in to the Canadian, we
followed Ned Land, whose long limbs threatened to distance us. He wound up the
coast towards the west: then, fording some torrents, he gained the high plain
that was bordered with admirable forests. Some kingfishers were rambling along
the water-courses, but they would not let themselves be approached. Their
circumspection proved to me that these birds knew what to expect from bipeds of
our species, and I concluded that, if the island was not inhabited, at least
human beings occasionally frequented it.

After crossing a rather large prairie, we arrived at the skirts of a little
wood that was enlivened by the songs and flight of a large number of birds.

“There are only birds,” said Conseil.

“But they are eatable,” replied the harpooner.

“I do not agree with you, friend Ned, for I see only parrots there.”

“Friend Conseil,” said Ned, gravely, “the parrot is like pheasant to those who
have nothing else.”

“And,” I added, “this bird, suitably prepared, is worth knife and fork.”

Indeed, under the thick foliage of this wood, a world of parrots were flying
from branch to branch, only needing a careful education to speak the human
language. For the moment, they were chattering with parrots of all colours, and
grave cockatoos, who seemed to meditate upon some philosophical problem, whilst
brilliant red lories passed like a piece of bunting carried away by the breeze,
papuans, with the finest azure colours, and in all a variety of winged things
most charming to behold, but few eatable.

However, a bird peculiar to these lands, and which has never passed the limits
of the Arrow and Papuan islands, was wanting in this collection. But fortune
reserved it for me before long.

After passing through a moderately thick copse, we found a plain obstructed
with bushes. I saw then those magnificent birds, the disposition of whose long
feathers obliges them to fly against the wind. Their undulating flight,
graceful aerial curves, and the shading of their colours, attracted and charmed
one’s looks. I had no trouble in recognising them.

“Birds of paradise!” I exclaimed.

The Malays, who carry on a great trade in these birds with the Chinese, have
several means that we could not employ for taking them. Sometimes they put
snares on the top of high trees that the birds of paradise prefer to frequent.
Sometimes they catch them with a viscous birdlime that paralyses their
movements. They even go so far as to poison the fountains that the birds
generally drink from. But we were obliged to fire at them during flight, which
gave us few chances to bring them down; and, indeed, we vainly exhausted one
half our ammunition.

About eleven o’clock in the morning, the first range of mountains that form the
centre of the island was traversed, and we had killed nothing. Hunger drove us
on. The hunters had relied on the products of the chase, and they were wrong.
Happily Conseil, to his great surprise, made a double shot and secured
breakfast. He brought down a white pigeon and a wood-pigeon, which, cleverly
plucked and suspended from a skewer, was roasted before a red fire of dead
wood. While these interesting birds were cooking, Ned prepared the fruit of the
bread-tree. Then the wood-pigeons were devoured to the bones, and declared
excellent. The nutmeg, with which they are in the habit of stuffing their
crops, flavours their flesh and renders it delicious eating.

“Now, Ned, what do you miss now?”

“Some four-footed game, M. Aronnax. All these pigeons are only side-dishes and
trifles; and until I have killed an animal with cutlets I shall not be
content.”

“Nor I, Ned, if I do not catch a bird of paradise.”

“Let us continue hunting,” replied Conseil. “Let us go towards the sea. We have
arrived at the first declivities of the mountains, and I think we had better
regain the region of forests.”

That was sensible advice, and was followed out. After walking for one hour we
had attained a forest of sago-trees. Some inoffensive serpents glided away from
us. The birds of paradise fled at our approach, and truly I despaired of
getting near one when Conseil, who was walking in front, suddenly bent down,
uttered a triumphal cry, and came back to me bringing a magnificent specimen.

“Ah! bravo, Conseil!”

“Master is very good.”

“No, my boy; you have made an excellent stroke. Take one of these living birds,
and carry it in your hand.”

“If master will examine it, he will see that I have not deserved great merit.”

“Why, Conseil?”

“Because this bird is as drunk as a quail.”

“Drunk!”

“Yes, sir; drunk with the nutmegs that it devoured under the nutmeg-tree, under
which I found it. See, friend Ned, see the monstrous effects of intemperance!”

“By Jove!” exclaimed the Canadian, “because I have drunk gin for two months,
you must needs reproach me!”

However, I examined the curious bird. Conseil was right. The bird, drunk with
the juice, was quite powerless. It could not fly; it could hardly walk.

This bird belonged to the most beautiful of the eight species that are found in
Papua and in the neighbouring islands. It was the “large emerald bird, the most
rare kind.” It measured three feet in length. Its head was comparatively small,
its eyes placed near the opening of the beak, and also small. But the shades of
colour were beautiful, having a yellow beak, brown feet and claws, nut-coloured
wings with purple tips, pale yellow at the back of the neck and head, and
emerald colour at the throat, chestnut on the breast and belly. Two horned,
downy nets rose from below the tail, that prolonged the long light feathers of
admirable fineness, and they completed the whole of this marvellous bird, that
the natives have poetically named the “bird of the sun.”

But if my wishes were satisfied by the possession of the bird of paradise, the
Canadian’s were not yet. Happily, about two o’clock, Ned Land brought down a
magnificent hog; from the brood of those the natives call “bari-outang.” The
animal came in time for us to procure real quadruped meat, and he was well
received. Ned Land was very proud of his shot. The hog, hit by the electric
ball, fell stone dead. The Canadian skinned and cleaned it properly, after
having taken half a dozen cutlets, destined to furnish us with a grilled repast
in the evening. Then the hunt was resumed, which was still more marked by Ned
and Conseil’s exploits.

Indeed, the two friends, beating the bushes, roused a herd of kangaroos that
fled and bounded along on their elastic paws. But these animals did not take to
flight so rapidly but what the electric capsule could stop their course.

“Ah, Professor!” cried Ned Land, who was carried away by the delights of the
chase, “what excellent game, and stewed, too! What a supply for the
Nautilus! Two! three! five down! And to think that we shall eat that
flesh, and that the idiots on board shall not have a crumb!”

I think that, in the excess of his joy, the Canadian, if he had not talked so
much, would have killed them all. But he contented himself with a single dozen
of these interesting marsupians. These animals were small. They were a species
of those “kangaroo rabbitss” that live habitually in the hollows of trees, and
whose speed is extreme; but they are moderately fat, and furnish, at least,
estimable food. We were very satisfied with the results of the hunt. Happy Ned
proposed to return to this enchanting island the next day, for he wished to
depopulate it of all the eatable quadrupeds. But he had reckoned without his
host.

At six o’clock in the evening we had regained the shore; our boat was moored to
the usual place. The Nautilus, like a long rock, emerged from the waves
two miles from the beach. Ned Land, without waiting, occupied himself about the
important dinner business. He understood all about cooking well. The
“bari-outang,” grilled on the coals, soon scented the air with a delicious
odour.

Indeed, the dinner was excellent. Two wood-pigeons completed this extraordinary
menu. The sago pasty, the artocarpus bread, some mangoes, half a dozen
pineapples, and the liquor fermented from some coco-nuts, overjoyed us. I even
think that my worthy companions’ ideas had not all the plainness desirable.

“Suppose we do not return to the Nautilus this evening?” said Conseil.

“Suppose we never return?” added Ned Land.

Just then a stone fell at our feet and cut short the harpooner’s proposition.

CHAPTER XXI
CAPTAIN NEMO’S THUNDERBOLT

We looked at the edge of the forest without rising, my hand stopping in the
action of putting it to my mouth, Ned Land’s completing its office.

“Stones do not fall from the sky,” remarked Conseil, “or they would merit the
name aerolites.”

A second stone, carefully aimed, that made a savoury pigeon’s leg fall from
Conseil’s hand, gave still more weight to his observation. We all three arose,
shouldered our guns, and were ready to reply to any attack.

“Are they apes?” cried Ned Land.

“Very nearly—they are savages.”

“To the boat!” I said, hurrying to the sea.

It was indeed necessary to beat a retreat, for about twenty natives armed with
bows and slings appeared on the skirts of a copse that masked the horizon to
the right, hardly a hundred steps from us.

Our boat was moored about sixty feet from us. The savages approached us, not
running, but making hostile demonstrations. Stones and arrows fell thickly.

Ned Land had not wished to leave his provisions; and, in spite of his imminent
danger, his pig on one side and kangaroos on the other, he went tolerably fast.
In two minutes we were on the shore. To load the boat with provisions and arms,
to push it out to sea, and ship the oars, was the work of an instant. We had
not gone two cable-lengths, when a hundred savages, howling and gesticulating,
entered the water up to their waists. I watched to see if their apparition
would attract some men from the Nautilus on to the platform. But no. The
enormous machine, lying off, was absolutely deserted.

Twenty minutes later we were on board. The panels were open. After making the
boat fast, we entered into the interior of the Nautilus.

I descended to the drawing-room, from whence I heard some chords. Captain Nemo
was there, bending over his organ, and plunged in a musical ecstasy.

“Captain!”

He did not hear me.

“Captain!” I said, touching his hand.

He shuddered, and, turning round, said, “Ah! it is you, Professor? Well, have
you had a good hunt, have you botanised successfully?”

“Yes Captain; but we have unfortunately brought a troop of bipeds, whose
vicinity troubles me.”

“What bipeds?”

“Savages.”

“Savages!” he echoed, ironically. “So you are astonished, Professor, at having
set foot on a strange land and finding savages? Savages! where are there not
any? Besides, are they worse than others, these whom you call savages?”

“But Captain——”

“How many have you counted?”

“A hundred at least.”

“M. Aronnax,” replied Captain Nemo, placing his fingers on the organ stops,
“when all the natives of Papua are assembled on this shore, the Nautilus
will have nothing to fear from their attacks.”

The Captain’s fingers were then running over the keys of the instrument, and I
remarked that he touched only the black keys, which gave his melodies an
essentially Scotch character. Soon he had forgotten my presence, and had
plunged into a reverie that I did not disturb. I went up again on to the
platform: night had already fallen; for, in this low latitude, the sun sets
rapidly and without twilight. I could only see the island indistinctly; but the
numerous fires, lighted on the beach, showed that the natives did not think of
leaving it. I was alone for several hours, sometimes thinking of the
natives—but without any dread of them, for the imperturbable confidence of the
Captain was catching—sometimes forgetting them to admire the splendours of the
night in the tropics. My remembrances went to France in the train of those
zodiacal stars that would shine in some hours’ time. The moon shone in the
midst of the constellations of the zenith.

The night slipped away without any mischance, the islanders frightened no doubt
at the sight of a monster aground in the bay. The panels were open, and would
have offered an easy access to the interior of the Nautilus.

At six o’clock in the morning of the 8th January I went up on to the platform.
The dawn was breaking. The island soon showed itself through the dissipating
fogs, first the shore, then the summits.

The natives were there, more numerous than on the day before—five or six
hundred perhaps—some of them, profiting by the low water, had come on to the
coral, at less than two cable-lengths from the Nautilus. I distinguished
them easily; they were true Papuans, with athletic figures, men of good race,
large high foreheads, large, but not broad and flat, and white teeth. Their
woolly hair, with a reddish tinge, showed off on their black shining bodies
like those of the Nubians. From the lobes of their ears, cut and distended,
hung chaplets of bones. Most of these savages were naked. Amongst them, I
remarked some women, dressed from the hips to knees in quite a crinoline of
herbs, that sustained a vegetable waistband. Some chiefs had ornamented their
necks with a crescent and collars of glass beads, red and white; nearly all
were armed with bows, arrows, and shields and carried on their shoulders a sort
of net containing those round stones which they cast from their slings with
great skill. One of these chiefs, rather near to the Nautilus, examined
it attentively. He was, perhaps, a “mado” of high rank, for he was draped in a
mat of banana-leaves, notched round the edges, and set off with brilliant
colours.

I could easily have knocked down this native, who was within a short length;
but I thought that it was better to wait for real hostile demonstrations.
Between Europeans and savages, it is proper for the Europeans to parry sharply,
not to attack.

During low water the natives roamed about near the Nautilus, but were
not troublesome; I heard them frequently repeat the word “Assai,” and by their
gestures I understood that they invited me to go on land, an invitation that I
declined.

So that, on that day, the boat did not push off, to the great displeasure of
Master Land, who could not complete his provisions.

This adroit Canadian employed his time in preparing the viands and meat that he
had brought off the island. As for the savages, they returned to the shore
about eleven o’clock in the morning, as soon as the coral tops began to
disappear under the rising tide; but I saw their numbers had increased
considerably on the shore. Probably they came from the neighbouring islands, or
very likely from Papua. However, I had not seen a single native canoe. Having
nothing better to do, I thought of dragging these beautiful limpid waters,
under which I saw a profusion of shells, zoophytes, and marine plants.
Moreover, it was the last day that the Nautilus would pass in these
parts, if it float in open sea the next day, according to Captain Nemo’s
promise.

I therefore called Conseil, who brought me a little light drag, very like those
for the oyster fishery. Now to work! For two hours we fished unceasingly, but
without bringing up any rarities. The drag was filled with midas-ears, harps,
melames, and particularly the most beautiful hammers I have ever seen. We also
brought up some sea-slugs, pearl-oysters, and a dozen little turtles that were
reserved for the pantry on board.

But just when I expected it least, I put my hand on a wonder, I might say a
natural deformity, very rarely met with. Conseil was just dragging, and his net
came up filled with divers ordinary shells, when, all at once, he saw me plunge
my arm quickly into the net, to draw out a shell, and heard me utter a cry.

“What is the matter, sir?” he asked in surprise. “Has master been bitten?”

“No, my boy; but I would willingly have given a finger for my discovery.”

“What discovery?”

“This shell,” I said, holding up the object of my triumph.

“It is simply an olive porphyry, genus olive, order of the pectinibranchidæ,
class of gasteropods, sub-class mollusca.”

“Yes, Conseil; but, instead of being rolled from right to left, this olive
turns from left to right.”

“Is it possible?”

“Yes, my boy; it is a left shell.”

Shells are all right-handed, with rare exceptions; and, when by chance their
spiral is left, amateurs are ready to pay their weight in gold.

Conseil and I were absorbed in the contemplation of our treasure, and I was
promising myself to enrich the museum with it, when a stone unfortunately
thrown by a native struck against, and broke, the precious object in Conseil’s
hand. I uttered a cry of despair! Conseil took up his gun, and aimed at a
savage who was poising his sling at ten yards from him. I would have stopped
him, but his blow took effect and broke the bracelet of amulets which encircled
the arm of the savage.

Conseil seized his gun

“Conseil!” cried I. “Conseil!”

“Well, sir! do you not see that the cannibal has commenced the attack?”

“A shell is not worth the life of a man,” said I.

“Ah! the scoundrel!” cried Conseil; “I would rather he had broken my shoulder!”

Conseil was in earnest, but I was not of his opinion. However, the situation
had changed some minutes before, and we had not perceived. A score of canoes
surrounded the Nautilus. These canoes, scooped out of the trunk of a
tree, long, narrow, well adapted for speed, were balanced by means of a long
bamboo pole, which floated on the water. They were managed by skilful,
half-naked paddlers, and I watched their advance with some uneasiness. It was
evident that these Papuans had already had dealings with the Europeans and knew
their ships. But this long iron cylinder anchored in the bay, without masts or
chimneys, what could they think of it? Nothing good, for at first they kept at
a respectful distance. However, seeing it motionless, by degrees they took
courage, and sought to familiarise themselves with it. Now this familiarity was
precisely what it was necessary to avoid. Our arms, which were noiseless, could
only produce a moderate effect on the savages, who have little respect for
aught but blustering things. The thunderbolt without the reverberations of
thunder would frighten man but little, though the danger lies in the lightning,
not in the noise.

At this moment the canoes approached the Nautilus, and a shower of
arrows alighted on her.

I went down to the saloon, but found no one there. I ventured to knock at the
door that opened into the Captain’s room. “Come in,” was the answer.

I entered, and found Captain Nemo deep in algebraical calculations of x
and other quantities.

“I am disturbing you,” said I, for courtesy’s sake.

“That is true, M. Aronnax,” replied the Captain; “but I think you have serious
reasons for wishing to see me?”

“Very grave ones; the natives are surrounding us in their canoes, and in a few
minutes we shall certainly be attacked by many hundreds of savages.”

“Ah!” said Captain Nemo quietly, “they are come with their canoes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, sir, we must close the hatches.”

“Exactly, and I came to say to you——”

“Nothing can be more simple,” said Captain Nemo. And, pressing an electric
button, he transmitted an order to the ship’s crew.

“It is all done, sir,” said he, after some moments. “The pinnace is ready, and
the hatches are closed. You do not fear, I imagine, that these gentlemen could
stave in walls on which the balls of your frigate have had no effect?”

“No, Captain; but a danger still exists.”

“What is that, sir?”

“It is that to-morrow, at about this hour, we must open the hatches to renew
the air of the Nautilus. Now, if, at this moment, the Papuans should
occupy the platform, I do not see how you could prevent them from entering.”

“Then, sir, you suppose that they will board us?”

“I am certain of it.”

“Well, sir, let them come. I see no reason for hindering them. After all, these
Papuans are poor creatures, and I am unwilling that my visit to the island
should cost the life of a single one of these wretches.”

Upon that I was going away; But Captain Nemo detained me, and asked me to sit
down by him. He questioned me with interest about our excursions on shore, and
our hunting; and seemed not to understand the craving for meat that possessed
the Canadian. Then the conversation turned on various subjects, and, without
being more communicative, Captain Nemo showed himself more amiable.

Amongst other things, we happened to speak of the situation of the
Nautilus, run aground in exactly the same spot in this strait where
Dumont d’Urville was nearly lost. Apropos of this:

“This D’Urville was one of your great sailors,” said the Captain to me, “one of
your most intelligent navigators. He is the Captain Cook of you Frenchmen.
Unfortunate man of science, after having braved the icebergs of the South Pole,
the coral reefs of Oceania, the cannibals of the Pacific, to perish miserably
in a railway train! If this energetic man could have reflected during the last
moments of his life, what must have been uppermost in his last thoughts, do you
suppose?”

So speaking, Captain Nemo seemed moved, and his emotion gave me a better
opinion of him. Then, chart in hand, we reviewed the travels of the French
navigator, his voyages of circumnavigation, his double detention at the South
Pole, which led to the discovery of Adelaide and Louis Philippe, and fixing the
hydrographical bearings of the principal islands of Oceania.

“That which your D’Urville has done on the surface of the seas,” said Captain
Nemo, “that have I done under them, and more easily, more completely than he.
The Astrolabe and the Zelee, incessantly tossed about by the hurricane, could
not be worth the Nautilus, quiet repository of labour that she is, truly
motionless in the midst of the waters.

“To-morrow,” added the Captain, rising, “to-morrow, at twenty minutes to three
p.m., the Nautilus shall float, and leave the Strait of Torres
uninjured.”

Having curtly pronounced these words, Captain Nemo bowed slightly. This was to
dismiss me, and I went back to my room.

There I found Conseil, who wished to know the result of my interview with the
Captain.

“My boy,” said I, “when I feigned to believe that his Nautilus was
threatened by the natives of Papua, the Captain answered me very sarcastically.
I have but one thing to say to you: Have confidence in him, and go to sleep in
peace.”

“Have you no need of my services, sir?”

“No, my friend. What is Ned Land doing?”

“If you will excuse me, sir,” answered Conseil, “friend Ned is busy making a
kangaroo-pie which will be a marvel.”

I remained alone and went to bed, but slept indifferently. I heard the noise of
the savages, who stamped on the platform, uttering deafening cries. The night
passed thus, without disturbing the ordinary repose of the crew. The presence
of these cannibals affected them no more than the soldiers of a masked battery
care for the ants that crawl over its front.

At six in the morning I rose. The hatches had not been opened. The inner air
was not renewed, but the reservoirs, filled ready for any emergency, were now
resorted to, and discharged several cubic feet of oxygen into the exhausted
atmosphere of the Nautilus.

I worked in my room till noon, without having seen Captain Nemo, even for an
instant. On board no preparations for departure were visible.

I waited still some time, then went into the large saloon. The clock marked
half-past two. In ten minutes it would be high-tide: and, if Captain Nemo had
not made a rash promise, the Nautilus would be immediately detached. If
not, many months would pass ere she could leave her bed of coral.

However, some warning vibrations began to be felt in the vessel. I heard the
keel grating against the rough calcareous bottom of the coral reef.

At five-and-twenty minutes to three, Captain Nemo appeared in the saloon.

“We are going to start,” said he.

“Ah!” replied I.

“I have given the order to open the hatches.”

“And the Papuans?”

“The Papuans?” answered Captain Nemo, slightly shrugging his shoulders.

“Will they not come inside the Nautilus?”

“How?”

“Only by leaping over the hatches you have opened.”

“M. Aronnax,” quietly answered Captain Nemo, “they will not enter the hatches
of the Nautilus in that way, even if they were open.”

I looked at the Captain.

“You do not understand?” said he.

“Hardly.”

“Well, come and you will see.”

I directed my steps towards the central staircase. There Ned Land and Conseil
were slyly watching some of the ship’s crew, who were opening the hatches,
while cries of rage and fearful vociferations resounded outside.

The port lids were pulled down outside. Twenty horrible faces appeared. But the
first native who placed his hand on the stair-rail, struck from behind by some
invisible force, I know not what, fled, uttering the most fearful cries and
making the wildest contortions.

Ten of his companions followed him. They met with the same fate.

Conseil was in ecstasy. Ned Land, carried away by his violent instincts, rushed
on to the staircase. But the moment he seized the rail with both hands, he, in
his turn, was overthrown.

“I am struck by a thunderbolt,” cried he, with an oath.

This explained all. It was no rail; but a metallic cable charged with
electricity from the deck communicating with the platform. Whoever touched it
felt a powerful shock—and this shock would have been mortal if Captain Nemo had
discharged into the conductor the whole force of the current. It might truly be
said that between his assailants and himself he had stretched a network of
electricity which none could pass with impunity.

Meanwhile, the exasperated Papuans had beaten a retreat paralysed with terror.
As for us, half laughing, we consoled and rubbed the unfortunate Ned Land, who
swore like one possessed.

But at this moment the Nautilus, raised by the last waves of the tide,
quitted her coral bed exactly at the fortieth minute fixed by the Captain. Her
screw swept the waters slowly and majestically. Her speed increased gradually,
and, sailing on the surface of the ocean, she quitted safe and sound the
dangerous passes of the Straits of Torres.

CHAPTER XXII
“ÆGRI SOMNIA”

The following day 10th January, the Nautilus continued her course
between two seas, but with such remarkable speed that I could not estimate it
at less than thirty-five miles an hour. The rapidity of her screw was such that
I could neither follow nor count its revolutions. When I reflected that this
marvellous electric agent, after having afforded motion, heat, and light to the
Nautilus, still protected her from outward attack, and transformed her
into an ark of safety which no profane hand might touch without being
thunderstricken, my admiration was unbounded, and from the structure it
extended to the engineer who had called it into existence.

Our course was directed to the west, and on the 11th of January we doubled Cape
Wessel, situation in 135° long. and 10° S. lat., which forms the east point of
the Gulf of Carpentaria. The reefs were still numerous, but more equalised, and
marked on the chart with extreme precision. The Nautilus easily avoided
the breakers of Money to port and the Victoria reefs to starboard, placed at
130° long. and on the 10th parallel, which we strictly followed.

On the 13th of January, Captain Nemo arrived in the Sea of Timor, and
recognised the island of that name in 122° long.

From this point the direction of the Nautilus inclined towards the
south-west. Her head was set for the Indian Ocean. Where would the fancy of
Captain Nemo carry us next? Would he return to the coast of Asia or would he
approach again the shores of Europe? Improbable conjectures both, to a man who
fled from inhabited continents. Then would he descend to the south? Was he
going to double the Cape of Good Hope, then Cape Horn, and finally go as far as
the Antarctic pole? Would he come back at last to the Pacific, where his
Nautilus could sail free and independently? Time would show.

After having skirted the sands of Cartier, of Hibernia, Seringapatam, and
Scott, last efforts of the solid against the liquid element, on the 14th of
January we lost sight of land altogether. The speed of the Nautilus was
considerably abated, and with irregular course she sometimes swam in the bosom
of the waters, sometimes floated on their surface.

During this period of the voyage, Captain Nemo made some interesting
experiments on the varied temperature of the sea, in different beds. Under
ordinary conditions these observations are made by means of rather complicated
instruments, and with somewhat doubtful results, by means of thermometrical
sounding-leads, the glasses often breaking under the pressure of the water, or
an apparatus grounded on the variations of the resistance of metals to the
electric currents. Results so obtained could not be correctly calculated. On
the contrary, Captain Nemo went himself to test the temperature in the depths
of the sea, and his thermometer, placed in communication with the different
sheets of water, gave him the required degree immediately and accurately.

It was thus that, either by overloading her reservoirs or by descending
obliquely by means of her inclined planes, the Nautilus successively
attained the depth of three, four, five, seven, nine, and ten thousand yards,
and the definite result of this experience was that the sea preserved an
average temperature of four degrees and a half at a depth of five thousand
fathoms under all latitudes.

On the 16th of January, the Nautilus seemed becalmed only a few yards
beneath the surface of the waves. Her electric apparatus remained inactive and
her motionless screw left her to drift at the mercy of the currents. I supposed
that the crew was occupied with interior repairs, rendered necessary by the
violence of the mechanical movements of the machine.

My companions and I then witnessed a curious spectacle. The hatches of the
saloon were open, and, as the beacon light of the Nautilus was not in
action, a dim obscurity reigned in the midst of the waters. I observed the
state of the sea, under these conditions, and the largest fish appeared to me
no more than scarcely defined shadows, when the Nautilus found herself
suddenly transported into full light. I thought at first that the beacon had
been lighted, and was casting its electric radiance into the liquid mass. I was
mistaken, and after a rapid survey perceived my error.

The Nautilus floated in the midst of a phosphorescent bed which, in this
obscurity, became quite dazzling. It was produced by myriads of luminous
animalculae, whose brilliancy was increased as they glided over the metallic
hull of the vessel. I was surprised by lightning in the midst of these luminous
sheets, as though they had been rivulets of lead melted in an ardent furnace or
metallic masses brought to a white heat, so that, by force of contrast, certain
portions of light appeared to cast a shade in the midst of the general
ignition, from which all shade seemed banished. No; this was not the calm
irradiation of our ordinary lightning. There was unusual life and vigour: this
was truly living light!

In reality, it was an infinite agglomeration of coloured infusoria, of
veritable globules of jelly, provided with a threadlike tentacle, and of which
as many as twenty-five thousand have been counted in less than two cubic
half-inches of water.

During several hours the Nautilus floated in these brilliant waves, and
our admiration increased as we watched the marine monsters disporting
themselves like salamanders. I saw there in the midst of this fire that burns
not the swift and elegant porpoise (the indefatigable clown of the ocean), and
some swordfish ten feet long, those prophetic heralds of the hurricane whose
formidable sword would now and then strike the glass of the saloon. Then
appeared the smaller fish, the balista, the leaping mackerel, wolf-thorn-tails,
and a hundred others which striped the luminous atmosphere as they swam. This
dazzling spectacle was enchanting! Perhaps some atmospheric condition increased
the intensity of this phenomenon. Perhaps some storm agitated the surface of
the waves. But at this depth of some yards, the Nautilus was unmoved by
its fury and reposed peacefully in still water.

So we progressed, incessantly charmed by some new marvel. The days passed
rapidly away, and I took no account of them. Ned, according to habit, tried to
vary the diet on board. Like snails, we were fixed to our shells, and I declare
it is easy to lead a snail’s life.

Thus this life seemed easy and natural, and we thought no longer of the life we
led on land; but something happened to recall us to the strangeness of our
situation.

On the 18th of January, the Nautilus was in 105° long. and 15° S. lat.
The weather was threatening, the sea rough and rolling. There was a strong east
wind. The barometer, which had been going down for some days, foreboded a
coming storm. I went up on to the platform just as the second lieutenant was
taking the measure of the horary angles, and waited, according to habit till
the daily phrase was said. But on this day it was exchanged for another phrase
not less incomprehensible. Almost directly, I saw Captain Nemo appear with a
glass, looking towards the horizon.

For some minutes he was immovable, without taking his eye off the point of
observation. Then he lowered his glass and exchanged a few words with his
lieutenant. The latter seemed to be a victim to some emotion that he tried in
vain to repress. Captain Nemo, having more command over himself, was cool. He
seemed, too, to be making some objections to which the lieutenant replied by
formal assurances. At least I concluded so by the difference of their tones and
gestures. For myself, I had looked carefully in the direction indicated without
seeing anything. The sky and water were lost in the clear line of the horizon.

However, Captain Nemo walked from one end of the platform to the other, without
looking at me, perhaps without seeing me. His step was firm, but less regular
than usual. He stopped sometimes, crossed his arms, and observed the sea. What
could he be looking for on that immense expanse?

The Nautilus was then some hundreds of miles from the nearest coast.

The lieutenant had taken up the glass and examined the horizon steadfastly,
going and coming, stamping his foot and showing more nervous agitation than his
superior officer. Besides, this mystery must necessarily be solved, and before
long; for, upon an order from Captain Nemo, the engine, increasing its
propelling power, made the screw turn more rapidly.

Just then the lieutenant drew the Captain’s attention again. The latter stopped
walking and directed his glass towards the place indicated. He looked long. I
felt very much puzzled, and descended to the drawing-room, and took out an
excellent telescope that I generally used. Then, leaning on the cage of the
watch-light that jutted out from the front of the platform, set myself to look
over all the line of the sky and sea.

But my eye was no sooner applied to the glass than it was quickly snatched out
of my hands.

I turned round. Captain Nemo was before me, but I did not know him. His face
was transfigured. His eyes flashed sullenly; his teeth were set; his stiff
body, clenched fists, and head shrunk between his shoulders, betrayed the
violent agitation that pervaded his whole frame. He did not move. My glass,
fallen from his hands, had rolled at his feet.

Had I unwittingly provoked this fit of anger? Did this incomprehensible person
imagine that I had discovered some forbidden secret? No; I was not the object
of this hatred, for he was not looking at me; his eye was steadily fixed upon
the impenetrable point of the horizon. At last Captain Nemo recovered himself.
His agitation subsided. He addressed some words in a foreign language to his
lieutenant, then turned to me. “M. Aronnax,” he said, in rather an imperious
tone, “I require you to keep one of the conditions that bind you to me.”

“What is it, Captain?”

“You must be confined, with your companions, until I think fit to release you.”

“You are the master,” I replied, looking steadily at him. “But may I ask you
one question?”

“None, sir.”

There was no resisting this imperious command, it would have been useless. I
went down to the cabin occupied by Ned Land and Conseil, and told them the
Captain’s determination. You may judge how this communication was received by
the Canadian.

But there was not time for altercation. Four of the crew waited at the door,
and conducted us to that cell where we had passed our first night on board the
Nautilus.

Ned Land would have remonstrated, but the door was shut upon him.

“Will master tell me what this means?” asked Conseil.

I told my companions what had passed. They were as much astonished as I, and
equally at a loss how to account for it.

Meanwhile, I was absorbed in my own reflections, and could think of nothing but
the strange fear depicted in the Captain’s countenance. I was utterly at a loss
to account for it, when my cogitations were disturbed by these words from Ned
Land:

“Hallo! breakfast is ready.”

And indeed the table was laid. Evidently Captain Nemo had given this order at
the same time that he had hastened the speed of the Nautilus.

“Will master permit me to make a recommendation?” asked Conseil.

“Yes, my boy.”

“Well, it is that master breakfasts. It is prudent, for we do not know what may
happen.”

“You are right, Conseil.”

“Unfortunately,” said Ned Land, “they have only given us the ship’s fare.”

“Friend Ned,” asked Conseil, “what would you have said if the breakfast had
been entirely forgotten?”

This argument cut short the harpooner’s recriminations.

We sat down to table. The meal was eaten in silence.

Just then the luminous globe that lighted the cell went out, and left us in
total darkness. Ned Land was soon asleep, and what astonished me was that
Conseil went off into a heavy slumber. I was thinking what could have caused
his irresistible drowsiness, when I felt my brain becoming stupefied. In spite
of my efforts to keep my eyes open, they would close. A painful suspicion
seized me. Evidently soporific substances had been mixed with the food we had
just taken. Imprisonment was not enough to conceal Captain Nemo’s projects from
us, sleep was more necessary. I then heard the panels shut. The undulations of
the sea, which caused a slight rolling motion, ceased. Had the Nautilus
quitted the surface of the ocean? Had it gone back to the motionless bed of
water? I tried to resist sleep. It was impossible. My breathing grew weak. I
felt a mortal cold freeze my stiffened and half-paralysed limbs. My eye lids,
like leaden caps, fell over my eyes. I could not raise them; a morbid sleep,
full of hallucinations, bereft me of my being. Then the visions disappeared,
and left me in complete insensibility.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE CORAL KINGDOM

The next day I woke with my head singularly clear. To my great surprise, I was
in my own room. My companions, no doubt, had been reinstated in their cabin,
without having perceived it any more than I. Of what had passed during the
night they were as ignorant as I was, and to penetrate this mystery I only
reckoned upon the chances of the future.

I then thought of quitting my room. Was I free again or a prisoner? Quite free.
I opened the door, went to the half-deck, went up the central stairs. The
panels, shut the evening before, were open. I went on to the platform.

Ned Land and Conseil waited there for me. I questioned them; they knew nothing.
Lost in a heavy sleep in which they had been totally unconscious, they had been
astonished at finding themselves in their cabin.

As for the Nautilus, it seemed quiet and mysterious as ever. It floated
on the surface of the waves at a moderate pace. Nothing seemed changed on
board.

The second lieutenant then came on to the platform, and gave the usual order
below.

As for Captain Nemo, he did not appear.

Of the people on board, I only saw the impassive steward, who served me with
his usual dumb regularity.

About two o’clock, I was in the drawing-room, busied in arranging my notes,
when the Captain opened the door and appeared. I bowed. He made a slight
inclination in return, without speaking. I resumed my work, hoping that he
would perhaps give me some explanation of the events of the preceding night. He
made none. I looked at him. He seemed fatigued; his heavy eyes had not been
refreshed by sleep; his face looked very sorrowful. He walked to and fro, sat
down and got up again, took a chance book, put it down, consulted his
instruments without taking his habitual notes, and seemed restless and uneasy.
At last, he came up to me, and said:

“Are you a doctor, M. Aronnax?”

I so little expected such a question that I stared some time at him without
answering.

“Are you a doctor?” he repeated. “Several of your colleagues have studied
medicine.”

“Well,” said I, “I am a doctor and resident surgeon to the hospital. I
practised several years before entering the museum.”

“Very well, sir.”

My answer had evidently satisfied the Captain. But, not knowing what he would
say next, I waited for other questions, reserving my answers according to
circumstances.

“M. Aronnax, will you consent to prescribe for one of my men?” he asked.

“Is he ill?”

“Yes.”

“I am ready to follow you.”

“Come, then.”

I own my heart beat, I do not know why. I saw certain connection between the
illness of one of the crew and the events of the day before; and this mystery
interested me at least as much as the sick man.

Captain Nemo conducted me to the poop of the Nautilus, and took me into
a cabin situated near the sailors’ quarters.

There, on a bed, lay a man about forty years of age, with a resolute expression
of countenance, a true type of an Anglo-Saxon.

I leant over him. He was not only ill, he was wounded. His head, swathed in
bandages covered with blood, lay on a pillow. I undid the bandages, and the
wounded man looked at me with his large eyes and gave no sign of pain as I did
it. It was a horrible wound. The skull, shattered by some deadly weapon, left
the brain exposed, which was much injured. Clots of blood had formed in the
bruised and broken mass, in colour like the dregs of wine.

There was both contusion and suffusion of the brain. His breathing was slow,
and some spasmodic movements of the muscles agitated his face. I felt his
pulse. It was intermittent. The extremities of the body were growing cold
already, and I saw death must inevitably ensue. After dressing the unfortunate
man’s wounds, I readjusted the bandages on his head, and turned to Captain
Nemo.

“What caused this wound?” I asked.

“What does it signify?” he replied, evasively. “A shock has broken one of the
levers of the engine, which struck myself. But your opinion as to his state?”

I hesitated before giving it.

“You may speak,” said the Captain. “This man does not understand French.”

I gave a last look at the wounded man.

“He will be dead in two hours.”

“Can nothing save him?”

“Nothing.”

Captain Nemo’s hand contracted, and some tears glistened in his eyes, which I
thought incapable of shedding any.

For some moments I still watched the dying man, whose life ebbed slowly. His
pallor increased under the electric light that was shed over his death-bed. I
looked at his intelligent forehead, furrowed with premature wrinkles, produced
probably by misfortune and sorrow. I tried to learn the secret of his life from
the last words that escaped his lips.

“You can go now, M. Aronnax,” said the Captain.

I left him in the dying man’s cabin, and returned to my room much affected by
this scene. During the whole day, I was haunted by uncomfortable suspicions,
and at night I slept badly, and between my broken dreams I fancied I heard
distant sighs like the notes of a funeral psalm. Were they the prayers of the
dead, murmured in that language that I could not understand?

The next morning I went on to the bridge. Captain Nemo was there before me. As
soon as he perceived me he came to me.

“Professor, will it be convenient to you to make a submarine excursion to-day?”

“With my companions?” I asked.

“If they like.”

“We obey your orders, Captain.”

“Will you be so good then as to put on your cork jackets?”

It was not a question of dead or dying. I rejoined Ned Land and Conseil, and
told them of Captain Nemo’s proposition. Conseil hastened to accept it, and
this time the Canadian seemed quite willing to follow our example.

It was eight o’clock in the morning. At half-past eight we were equipped for
this new excursion, and provided with two contrivances for light and breathing.
The double door was open; and, accompanied by Captain Nemo, who was followed by
a dozen of the crew, we set foot, at a depth of about thirty feet, on the solid
bottom on which the Nautilus rested.

A slight declivity ended in an uneven bottom, at fifteen fathoms depth. This
bottom differed entirely from the one I had visited on my first excursion under
the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Here, there was no fine sand, no submarine
prairies, no sea-forest. I immediately recognised that marvellous region in
which, on that day, the Captain did the honours to us. It was the coral
kingdom.

The light produced a thousand charming varieties, playing in the midst of the
branches that were so vividly coloured. I seemed to see the membraneous and
cylindrical tubes tremble beneath the undulation of the waters. I was tempted
to gather their fresh petals, ornamented with delicate tentacles, some just
blown, the others budding, while a small fish, swimming swiftly, touched them
slightly, like flights of birds. But if my hand approached these living
flowers, these animated, sensitive plants, the whole colony took alarm. The
white petals re-entered their red cases, the flowers faded as I looked, and the
bush changed into a block of stony knobs.

Chance had thrown me just by the most precious specimens of the zoophyte. This
coral was more valuable than that found in the Mediterranean, on the coasts of
France, Italy and Barbary. Its tints justified the poetical names of “Flower of
Blood,” and “Froth of Blood,” that trade has given to its most beautiful
productions. Coral is sold for £20 per ounce; and in this place the watery beds
would make the fortunes of a company of coral-divers. This precious matter,
often confused with other polypi, formed then the inextricable plots called
“macciota,” and on which I noticed several beautiful specimens of pink coral.

But soon the bushes contract, and the arborisations increase. Real petrified
thickets, long joints of fantastic architecture, were disclosed before us.
Captain Nemo placed himself under a dark gallery, where by a slight declivity
we reached a depth of a hundred yards. The light from our lamps produced
sometimes magical effects, following the rough outlines of the natural arches
and pendants disposed like lustres, that were tipped with points of fire.

At last, after walking two hours, we had attained a depth of about three
hundred yards, that is to say, the extreme limit on which coral begins to form.
But there was no isolated bush, nor modest brushwood, at the bottom of lofty
trees. It was an immense forest of large mineral vegetations, enormous
petrified trees, united by garlands of elegant sea-bindweed, all adorned with
clouds and reflections. We passed freely under their high branches, lost in the
shade of the waves.

Captain Nemo had stopped. I and my companions halted, and, turning round, I saw
his men were forming a semi-circle round their chief. Watching attentively, I
observed that four of them carried on their shoulders an object of an oblong
shape.

We occupied, in this place, the centre of a vast glade surrounded by the lofty
foliage of the submarine forest. Our lamps threw over this place a sort of
clear twilight that singularly elongated the shadows on the ground. At the end
of the glade the darkness increased, and was only relieved by little sparks
reflected by the points of coral.

Ned Land and Conseil were near me. We watched, and I thought I was going to
witness a strange scene. On observing the ground, I saw that it was raised in
certain places by slight excrescences encrusted with limy deposits, and
disposed with a regularity that betrayed the hand of man.

In the midst of the glade, on a pedestal of rocks roughly piled up, stood a
cross of coral that extended its long arms that one might have thought were
made of petrified blood. Upon a sign from Captain Nemo one of the men advanced;
and at some feet from the cross he began to dig a hole with a pickaxe that he
took from his belt. I understood all! This glade was a cemetery, this hole a
tomb, this oblong object the body of the man who had died in the night! The
Captain and his men had come to bury their companion in this general
resting-place, at the bottom of this inaccessible ocean!

The grave was being dug slowly; the fish fled on all sides while their retreat
was being thus disturbed; I heard the strokes of the pickaxe, which sparkled
when it hit upon some flint lost at the bottom of the waters. The hole was soon
large and deep enough to receive the body. Then the bearers approached; the
body, enveloped in a tissue of white linen, was lowered into the damp grave.
Captain Nemo, with his arms crossed on his breast, and all the friends of him
who had loved them, knelt in prayer.

All fell on their knees in an attitude of prayer

The grave was then filled in with the rubbish taken from the ground, which
formed a slight mound. When this was done, Captain Nemo and his men rose; then,
approaching the grave, they knelt again, and all extended their hands in sign
of a last adieu. Then the funeral procession returned to the Nautilus,
passing under the arches of the forest, in the midst of thickets, along the
coral bushes, and still on the ascent. At last the light of the ship appeared,
and its luminous track guided us to the Nautilus. At one o’clock we had
returned.

As soon as I had changed my clothes I went up on to the platform, and, a prey
to conflicting emotions, I sat down near the binnacle. Captain Nemo joined me.
I rose and said to him:

“So, as I said he would, this man died in the night?”

“Yes, M. Aronnax.”

“And he rests now, near his companions, in the coral cemetery?”

“Yes, forgotten by all else, but not by us. We dug the grave, and the polypi
undertake to seal our dead for eternity.” And, burying his face quickly in his
hands, he tried in vain to suppress a sob. Then he added: “Our peaceful
cemetery is there, some hundred feet below the surface of the waves.”

“Your dead sleep quietly, at least, Captain, out of the reach of sharks.”

“Yes, sir, of sharks and men,” gravely replied the Captain.

PART TWO

CHAPTER I
THE INDIAN OCEAN

We now come to the second part of our journey under the sea. The first ended
with the moving scene in the coral cemetery which left such a deep impression
on my mind. Thus, in the midst of this great sea, Captain Nemo’s life was
passing, even to his grave, which he had prepared in one of its deepest
abysses. There, not one of the ocean’s monsters could trouble the last sleep of
the crew of the Nautilus, of those friends riveted to each other in
death as in life. “Nor any man, either,” had added the Captain. Still the same
fierce, implacable defiance towards human society!

I could no longer content myself with the theory which satisfied Conseil.

That worthy fellow persisted in seeing in the Commander of the Nautilus
one of those unknown savants who return mankind contempt for
indifference. For him, he was a misunderstood genius who, tired of earth’s
deceptions, had taken refuge in this inaccessible medium, where he might follow
his instincts freely. To my mind, this explains but one side of Captain Nemo’s
character. Indeed, the mystery of that last night during which we had been
chained in prison, the sleep, and the precaution so violently taken by the
Captain of snatching from my eyes the glass I had raised to sweep the horizon,
the mortal wound of the man, due to an unaccountable shock of the
Nautilus, all put me on a new track. No; Captain Nemo was not satisfied
with shunning man. His formidable apparatus not only suited his instinct of
freedom, but perhaps also the design of some terrible retaliation.

At this moment nothing is clear to me; I catch but a glimpse of light amidst
all the darkness, and I must confine myself to writing as events shall dictate.

That day, the 24th of January, 1868, at noon, the second officer came to take
the altitude of the sun. I mounted the platform, lit a cigar, and watched the
operation. It seemed to me that the man did not understand French; for several
times I made remarks in a loud voice, which must have drawn from him some
involuntary sign of attention, if he had understood them; but he remained
undisturbed and dumb.

As he was taking observations with the sextant, one of the sailors of the
Nautilus (the strong man who had accompanied us on our first submarine
excursion to the Island of Crespo) came to clean the glasses of the lantern. I
examined the fittings of the apparatus, the strength of which was increased a
hundredfold by lenticular rings, placed similar to those in a lighthouse, and
which projected their brilliance in a horizontal plane. The electric lamp was
combined in such a way as to give its most powerful light. Indeed, it was
produced in vacuo, which insured both its steadiness and its intensity. This
vacuum economised the graphite points between which the luminous arc was
developed—an important point of economy for Captain Nemo, who could not easily
have replaced them; and under these conditions their waste was imperceptible.
When the Nautilus was ready to continue its submarine journey, I went
down to the saloon. The panel was closed, and the course marked direct west.

We were furrowing the waters of the Indian Ocean, a vast liquid plain, with a
surface of 1,200,000,000 of acres, and whose waters are so clear and
transparent that any one leaning over them would turn giddy. The
Nautilus usually floated between fifty and a hundred fathoms deep. We
went on so for some days. To anyone but myself, who had a great love for the
sea, the hours would have seemed long and monotonous; but the daily walks on
the platform, when I steeped myself in the reviving air of the ocean, the sight
of the rich waters through the windows of the saloon, the books in the library,
the compiling of my memoirs, took up all my time, and left me not a moment of
ennui or weariness.

For some days we saw a great number of aquatic birds, sea-mews or gulls. Some
were cleverly killed and, prepared in a certain way, made very acceptable
water-game. Amongst large-winged birds, carried a long distance from all lands
and resting upon the waves from the fatigue of their flight, I saw some
magnificent albatrosses, uttering discordant cries like the braying of an ass,
and birds belonging to the family of the long-wings.

As to the fish, they always provoked our admiration when we surprised the
secrets of their aquatic life through the open panels. I saw many kinds which I
never before had a chance of observing.

I shall notice chiefly ostracions peculiar to the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean,
and that part which washes the coast of tropical America. These fishes, like
the tortoise, the armadillo, the sea-hedgehog, and the Crustacea, are protected
by a breastplate which is neither chalky nor stony, but real bone. In some it
takes the form of a solid triangle, in others of a solid quadrangle. Amongst
the triangular I saw some an inch and a half in length, with wholesome flesh
and a delicious flavour; they are brown at the tail, and yellow at the fins,
and I recommend their introduction into fresh water, to which a certain number
of sea-fish easily accustom themselves. I would also mention quadrangular
ostracions, having on the back four large tubercles; some dotted over with
white spots on the lower part of the body, and which may be tamed like birds;
trigons provided with spikes formed by the lengthening of their bony shell, and
which, from their strange gruntings, are called “seapigs”; also dromedaries
with large humps in the shape of a cone, whose flesh is very tough and
leathery.

I now borrow from the daily notes of Master Conseil. “Certain fish of the genus
petrodon peculiar to those seas, with red backs and white chests, which are
distinguished by three rows of longitudinal filaments; and some electrical,
seven inches long, decked in the liveliest colours. Then, as specimens of other
kinds, some ovoides, resembling an egg of a dark brown colour, marked with
white bands, and without tails; diodons, real sea-porcupines, furnished with
spikes, and capable of swelling in such a way as to look like cushions
bristling with darts; hippocampi, common to every ocean; some pegasi with
lengthened snouts, which their pectoral fins, being much elongated and formed
in the shape of wings, allow, if not to fly, at least to shoot into the air;
pigeon spatulae, with tails covered with many rings of shell; macrognathi with
long jaws, an excellent fish, nine inches long, and bright with most agreeable
colours; pale-coloured calliomores, with rugged heads; and plenty of
chaetpdons, with long and tubular muzzles, which kill insects by shooting them,
as from an air-gun, with a single drop of water. These we may call the
flycatchers of the seas.

“In the eighty-ninth genus of fishes, classed by Lacepede, belonging to the
second lower class of bony, characterised by opercules and bronchial membranes,
I remarked the scorpaena, the head of which is furnished with spikes, and which
has but one dorsal fin; these creatures are covered, or not, with little
shells, according to the sub-class to which they belong. The second sub-class
gives us specimens of didactyles fourteen or fifteen inches in length, with
yellow rays, and heads of a most fantastic appearance. As to the first
sub-class, it gives several specimens of that singular looking fish
appropriately called a ‘seafrog,’ with large head, sometimes pierced with
holes, sometimes swollen with protuberances, bristling with spikes, and covered
with tubercles; it has irregular and hideous horns; its body and tail are
covered with callosities; its sting makes a dangerous wound; it is both
repugnant and horrible to look at.”

From the 21st to the 23rd of January the Nautilus went at the rate of
two hundred and fifty leagues in twenty-four hours, being five hundred and
forty miles, or twenty-two miles an hour. If we recognised so many different
varieties of fish, it was because, attracted by the electric light, they tried
to follow us; the greater part, however, were soon distanced by our speed,
though some kept their place in the waters of the Nautilus for a time.
The morning of the 24th, in 12° 5′ S. lat., and 94° 33′ long., we
observed Keeling Island, a coral formation, planted with magnificent cocos, and
which had been visited by Mr. Darwin and Captain Fitzroy. The Nautilus
skirted the shores of this desert island for a little distance. Its nets
brought up numerous specimens of polypi and curious shells of mollusca. Some
precious productions of the species of delphinulae enriched the treasures of
Captain Nemo, to which I added an astraea punctifera, a kind of parasite
polypus often found fixed to a shell.

Soon Keeling Island disappeared from the horizon, and our course was directed
to the north-west in the direction of the Indian Peninsula.

From Keeling Island our course was slower and more variable, often taking us
into great depths. Several times they made use of the inclined planes, which
certain internal levers placed obliquely to the waterline. In that way we went
about two miles, but without ever obtaining the greatest depths of the Indian
Sea, which soundings of seven thousand fathoms have never reached. As to the
temperature of the lower strata, the thermometer invariably indicated 4° above
zero. I only observed that in the upper regions the water was always colder in
the high levels than at the surface of the sea.

On the 25th of January the ocean was entirely deserted; the Nautilus
passed the day on the surface, beating the waves with its powerful screw and
making them rebound to a great height. Who under such circumstances would not
have taken it for a gigantic cetacean? Three parts of this day I spent on the
platform. I watched the sea. Nothing on the horizon, till about four o’clock a
steamer running west on our counter. Her masts were visible for an instant, but
she could not see the Nautilus, being too low in the water. I fancied
this steamboat belonged to the P.O. Company, which runs from Ceylon to Sydney,
touching at King George’s Point and Melbourne.

At five o’clock in the evening, before that fleeting twilight which binds night
to day in tropical zones, Conseil and I were astonished by a curious spectacle.

It was a shoal of argonauts travelling along on the surface of the ocean. We
could count several hundreds. They belonged to the tubercle kind which are
peculiar to the Indian seas.

These graceful molluscs moved backwards by means of their locomotive tube,
through which they propelled the water already drawn in. Of their eight
tentacles, six were elongated, and stretched out floating on the water, whilst
the other two, rolled up flat, were spread to the wing like a light sail. I saw
their spiral-shaped and fluted shells, which Cuvier justly compares to an
elegant skiff. A boat indeed! It bears the creature which secretes it without
its adhering to it.

For nearly an hour the Nautilus floated in the midst of this shoal of
molluscs. Then I know not what sudden fright they took. But as if at a signal
every sail was furled, the arms folded, the body drawn in, the shells turned
over, changing their centre of gravity, and the whole fleet disappeared under
the waves. Never did the ships of a squadron manœuvre with more unity.

At that moment night fell suddenly, and the reeds, scarcely raised by the
breeze, lay peaceably under the sides of the Nautilus.

The next day, 26th of January, we cut the equator at the eighty-second meridian
and entered the northern hemisphere. During the day a formidable troop of
sharks accompanied us, terrible creatures, which multiply in these seas and
make them very dangerous. They were “cestracio philippi” sharks, with brown
backs and whitish bellies, armed with eleven rows of teeth—eyed sharks—their
throat being marked with a large black spot surrounded with white like an eye.
There were also some Isabella sharks, with rounded snouts marked with dark
spots. These powerful creatures often hurled themselves at the windows of the
saloon with such violence as to make us feel very insecure. At such times Ned
Land was no longer master of himself. He wanted to go to the surface and
harpoon the monsters, particularly certain smooth-hound sharks, whose mouth is
studded with teeth like a mosaic; and large tiger-sharks nearly six yards long,
the last named of which seemed to excite him more particularly. But the
Nautilus, accelerating her speed, easily left the most rapid of them
behind.

The 27th of January, at the entrance of the vast Bay of Bengal, we met
repeatedly a forbidding spectacle, dead bodies floating on the surface of the
water. They were the dead of the Indian villages, carried by the Ganges to the
level of the sea, and which the vultures, the only undertakers of the country,
had not been able to devour. But the sharks did not fail to help them at their
funeral work.

About seven o’clock in the evening, the Nautilus, half-immersed, was
sailing in a sea of milk. At first sight the ocean seemed lactified. Was it the
effect of the lunar rays? No; for the moon, scarcely two days old, was still
lying hidden under the horizon in the rays of the sun. The whole sky, though
lit by the sidereal rays, seemed black by contrast with the whiteness of the
waters.

Conseil could not believe his eyes, and questioned me as to the cause of this
strange phenomenon. Happily I was able to answer him.

“It is called a milk sea,” I explained. “A large extent of white wavelets often
to be seen on the coasts of Amboyna, and in these parts of the sea.”

“But, sir,” said Conseil, “can you tell me what causes such an effect? for I
suppose the water is not really turned into milk.”

“No, my boy; and the whiteness which surprises you is caused only by the
presence of myriads of infusoria, a sort of luminous little worm, gelatinous
and without colour, of the thickness of a hair, and whose length is not more
than seven-thousandths of an inch. These insects adhere to one another
sometimes for several leagues.”

“Several leagues!” exclaimed Conseil.

“Yes, my boy; and you need not try to compute the number of these infusoria.
You will not be able, for, if I am not mistaken, ships have floated on these
milk seas for more than forty miles.”

Towards midnight the sea suddenly resumed its usual colour; but behind us, even
to the limits of the horizon, the sky reflected the whitened waves, and for a
long time seemed impregnated with the vague glimmerings of an aurora borealis.

CHAPTER II
A NOVEL PROPOSAL OF CAPTAIN NEMO’S

On the 28th of February, when at noon the Nautilus came to the surface
of the sea, in 9° 4′ N. lat., there was land in sight about eight miles
to westward. The first thing I noticed was a range of mountains about two
thousand feet high, the shapes of which were most capricious. On taking the
bearings, I knew that we were nearing the island of Ceylon, the pearl which
hangs from the lobe of the Indian Peninsula.

Captain Nemo and his second appeared at this moment. The Captain glanced at the
map. Then turning to me, said:

“The Island of Ceylon, noted for its pearl-fisheries. Would you like to visit
one of them, M. Aronnax?”

“Certainly, Captain.”

“Well, the thing is easy. Though, if we see the fisheries, we shall not see the
fishermen. The annual exportation has not yet begun. Never mind, I will give
orders to make for the Gulf of Manaar, where we shall arrive in the night.”

The Captain said something to his second, who immediately went out. Soon the
Nautilus returned to her native element, and the manometer showed that
she was about thirty feet deep.

“Well, sir,” said Captain Nemo, “you and your companions shall visit the Bank
of Manaar, and if by chance some fisherman should be there, we shall see him at
work.”

“Agreed, Captain!”

“By the bye, M. Aronnax you are not afraid of sharks?”

“Sharks!” exclaimed I.

This question seemed a very hard one.

“Well?” continued Captain Nemo.

“I admit, Captain, that I am not yet very familiar with that kind of fish.”

“We are accustomed to them,” replied Captain Nemo, “and in time you will be
too. However, we shall be armed, and on the road we may be able to hunt some of
the tribe. It is interesting. So, till to-morrow, sir, and early.”

This said in a careless tone, Captain Nemo left the saloon. Now, if you were
invited to hunt the bear in the mountains of Switzerland, what would you say?

“Very well! to-morrow we will go and hunt the bear.” If you were asked to hunt
the lion in the plains of Atlas, or the tiger in the Indian jungles, what would
you say?

“Ha! ha! it seems we are going to hunt the tiger or the lion!” But when you are
invited to hunt the shark in its natural element, you would perhaps reflect
before accepting the invitation. As for myself, I passed my hand over my
forehead, on which stood large drops of cold perspiration. “Let us reflect,”
said I, “and take our time. Hunting otters in submarine forests, as we did in
the Island of Crespo, will pass; but going up and down at the bottom of the
sea, where one is almost certain to meet sharks, is quite another thing! I know
well that in certain countries, particularly in the Andaman Islands, the
negroes never hesitate to attack them with a dagger in one hand and a running
noose in the other; but I also know that few who affront those creatures ever
return alive. However, I am not a negro, and if I were I think a little
hesitation in this case would not be ill-timed.”

At this moment Conseil and the Canadian entered, quite composed, and even
joyous. They knew not what awaited them.

“Faith, sir,” said Ned Land, “your Captain Nemo—the devil take him!—has just
made us a very pleasant offer.”

“Ah!” said I, “you know?”

“If agreeable to you, sir,” interrupted Conseil, “the commander of the
Nautilus has invited us to visit the magnificent Ceylon fisheries
to-morrow, in your company; he did it kindly, and behaved like a real
gentleman.”

“He said nothing more?”

“Nothing more, sir, except that he had already spoken to you of this little
walk.”

“Sir,” said Conseil, “would you give us some details of the pearl fishery?”

“As to the fishing itself,” I asked, “or the incidents, which?”

“On the fishing,” replied the Canadian; “before entering upon the ground, it is
as well to know something about it.”

“Very well; sit down, my friends, and I will teach you.”

Ned and Conseil seated themselves on an ottoman, and the first thing the
Canadian asked was:

“Sir, what is a pearl?”

“My worthy Ned,” I answered, “to the poet, a pearl is a tear of the sea; to the
Orientals, it is a drop of dew solidified; to the ladies, it is a jewel of an
oblong shape, of a brilliancy of mother-of-pearl substance, which they wear on
their fingers, their necks, or their ears; for the chemist it is a mixture of
phosphate and carbonate of lime, with a little gelatine; and lastly, for
naturalists, it is simply a morbid secretion of the organ that produces the
mother-of-pearl amongst certain bivalves.”

“Branch of molluscs,” said Conseil.

“Precisely so, my learned Conseil; and, amongst these testacea the earshell,
the tridacnae, the turbots, in a word, all those which secrete mother-of-pearl,
that is, the blue, bluish, violet, or white substance which lines the interior
of their shells, are capable of producing pearls.”

“Mussels too?” asked the Canadian.

“Yes, mussels of certain waters in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Saxony, Bohemia,
and France.”

“Good! For the future I shall pay attention,” replied the Canadian.

“But,” I continued, “the particular mollusc which secretes the pearl is the
pearl-oyster, the meleagrina margaritiferct, that precious pintadine. The pearl
is nothing but a nacreous formation, deposited in a globular form, either
adhering to the oyster shell, or buried in the folds of the creature. On the
shell it is fast; in the flesh it is loose; but always has for a kernel a small
hard substance, may be a barren egg, may be a grain of sand, around which the
pearly matter deposits itself year after year successively, and by thin
concentric layers.”

“Are many pearls found in the same oyster?” asked Conseil.

“Yes, my boy. Some are a perfect casket. One oyster has been mentioned, though
I allow myself to doubt it, as having contained no less than a hundred and
fifty sharks.”

“A hundred and fifty sharks!” exclaimed Ned Land.

“Did I say sharks?” said I hurriedly. “I meant to say a hundred and fifty
pearls. Sharks would not be sense.”

“Certainly not,” said Conseil; “but will you tell us now by what means they
extract these pearls?”

“They proceed in various ways. When they adhere to the shell, the fishermen
often pull them off with pincers; but the most common way is to lay the oysters
on mats of the seaweed which covers the banks. Thus they die in the open air;
and at the end of ten days they are in a forward state of decomposition. They
are then plunged into large reservoirs of sea-water; then they are opened and
washed.”

“The price of these pearls varies according to their size?” asked Conseil.

“Not only according to their size,” I answered, “but also according to their
shape, their water (that is, their colour), and their lustre: that is, that
bright and diapered sparkle which makes them so charming to the eye. The most
beautiful are called virgin pearls, or paragons. They are formed alone in the
tissue of the mollusc, are white, often opaque, and sometimes have the
transparency of an opal; they are generally round or oval. The round are made
into bracelets, the oval into pendants, and, being more precious, are sold
singly. Those adhering to the shell of the oyster are more irregular in shape,
and are sold by weight. Lastly, in a lower order are classed those small pearls
known under the name of seed-pearls; they are sold by measure, and are
especially used in embroidery for church ornaments.”

“But,” said Conseil, “is this pearl-fishery dangerous?”

“No,” I answered, quickly; “particularly if certain precautions are taken.”

“What does one risk in such a calling?” said Ned Land, “the swallowing of some
mouthfuls of sea-water?”

“As you say, Ned. By the bye,” said I, trying to take Captain Nemo’s careless
tone, “are you afraid of sharks, brave Ned?”

“I!” replied the Canadian; “a harpooner by profession? It is my trade to make
light of them.”

“But,” said I, “it is not a question of fishing for them with an iron-swivel,
hoisting them into the vessel, cutting off their tails with a blow of a
chopper, ripping them up, and throwing their heart into the sea!”

“Then, it is a question of——”

“Precisely.”

“In the water?”

“In the water.”

“Faith, with a good harpoon! You know, sir, these sharks are ill-fashioned
beasts. They turn on their bellies to seize you, and in that time——”

Ned Land had a way of saying “seize” which made my blood run cold.

“Well, and you, Conseil, what do you think of sharks?”

“Me!” said Conseil. “I will be frank, sir.”

“So much the better,” thought I.

“If you, sir, mean to face the sharks, I do not see why your faithful servant
should not face them with you.”

CHAPTER III
A PEARL OF TEN MILLIONS

The next morning at four o’clock I was awakened by the steward whom Captain
Nemo had placed at my service. I rose hurriedly, dressed, and went into the
saloon.

Captain Nemo was awaiting me.

“M. Aronnax,” said he, “are you ready to start?”

“I am ready.”

“Then please to follow me.”

“And my companions, Captain?”

“They have been told and are waiting.”

“Are we not to put on our diver’s dresses?” asked I.

“Not yet. I have not allowed the Nautilus to come too near this coast,
and we are some distance from the Manaar Bank; but the boat is ready, and will
take us to the exact point of disembarking, which will save us a long way. It
carries our diving apparatus, which we will put on when we begin our submarine
journey.”

Captain Nemo conducted me to the central staircase, which led on the platform.
Ned and Conseil were already there, delighted at the idea of the “pleasure
party” which was preparing. Five sailors from the Nautilus, with their
oars, waited in the boat, which had been made fast against the side.

The night was still dark. Layers of clouds covered the sky, allowing but few
stars to be seen. I looked on the side where the land lay, and saw nothing but
a dark line enclosing three parts of the horizon, from south-west to north
west. The Nautilus, having returned during the night up the western
coast of Ceylon, was now west of the bay, or rather gulf, formed by the
mainland and the Island of Manaar. There, under the dark waters, stretched the
pintadine bank, an inexhaustible field of pearls, the length of which is more
than twenty miles.

Captain Nemo, Ned Land, Conseil, and I took our places in the stern of the
boat. The master went to the tiller; his four companions leaned on their oars,
the painter was cast off, and we sheered off.

The boat went towards the south; the oarsmen did not hurry. I noticed that
their strokes, strong in the water, only followed each other every ten seconds,
according to the method generally adopted in the navy. Whilst the craft was
running by its own velocity, the liquid drops struck the dark depths of the
waves crisply like spats of melted lead. A little billow, spreading wide, gave
a slight roll to the boat, and some samphire reeds flapped before it.

We were silent. What was Captain Nemo thinking of? Perhaps of the land he was
approaching, and which he found too near to him, contrary to the Canadian’s
opinion, who thought it too far off. As to Conseil, he was merely there from
curiosity.

About half-past five the first tints on the horizon showed the upper line of
coast more distinctly. Flat enough in the east, it rose a little to the south.
Five miles still lay between us, and it was indistinct owing to the mist on the
water. At six o’clock it became suddenly daylight, with that rapidity peculiar
to tropical regions, which know neither dawn nor twilight. The solar rays
pierced the curtain of clouds, piled up on the eastern horizon, and the radiant
orb rose rapidly. I saw land distinctly, with a few trees scattered here and
there. The boat neared Manaar Island, which was rounded to the south. Captain
Nemo rose from his seat and watched the sea.

At a sign from him the anchor was dropped, but the chain scarcely ran, for it
was little more than a yard deep, and this spot was one of the highest points
of the bank of pintadines.

“Here we are, M. Aronnax,” said Captain Nemo. “You see that enclosed bay? Here,
in a month will be assembled the numerous fishing boats of the exporters, and
these are the waters their divers will ransack so boldly. Happily, this bay is
well situated for that kind of fishing. It is sheltered from the strongest
winds; the sea is never very rough here, which makes it favourable for the
diver’s work. We will now put on our dresses, and begin our walk.”

I did not answer, and, while watching the suspected waves, began with the help
of the sailors to put on my heavy sea-dress. Captain Nemo and my companions
were also dressing. None of the Nautilus men were to accompany us on
this new excursion.

Soon we were enveloped to the throat in india-rubber clothing; the air
apparatus fixed to our backs by braces. As to the Ruhmkorff apparatus, there
was no necessity for it. Before putting my head into the copper cap, I had
asked the question of the Captain.

“They would be useless,” he replied. “We are going to no great depth, and the
solar rays will be enough to light our walk. Besides, it would not be prudent
to carry the electric light in these waters; its brilliancy might attract some
of the dangerous inhabitants of the coast most inopportunely.”

As Captain Nemo pronounced these words, I turned to Conseil and Ned Land. But
my two friends had already encased their heads in the metal cap, and they could
neither hear nor answer.

One last question remained to ask of Captain Nemo.

“And our arms?” asked I; “our guns?”

“Guns! What for? Do not mountaineers attack the bear with a dagger in their
hand, and is not steel surer than lead? Here is a strong blade; put it in your
belt, and we start.”

I looked at my companions; they were armed like us, and, more than that, Ned
Land was brandishing an enormous harpoon, which he had placed in the boat
before leaving the Nautilus.

Then, following the Captain’s example, I allowed myself to be dressed in the
heavy copper helmet, and our reservoirs of air were at once in activity. An
instant after we were landed, one after the other, in about two yards of water
upon an even sand. Captain Nemo made a sign with his hand, and we followed him
by a gentle declivity till we disappeared under the waves.

Over our feet, like coveys of snipe in a bog, rose shoals of fish, of the genus
monoptera, which have no other fins but their tail. I recognized the Javanese,
a real serpent two and a half feet long, of a livid colour underneath, and
which might easily be mistaken for a conger eel if it were not for the golden
stripes on its side. In the genus stromateus, whose bodies are very flat and
oval, I saw some of the most brilliant colours, carrying their dorsal fin like
a scythe; an excellent eating fish, which, dried and pickled, is known by the
name of Karawade; then some tranquebars, belonging to the genus apsiphoroides,
whose body is covered with a shell cuirass of eight longitudinal plates.

The heightening sun lit the mass of waters more and more. The soil changed by
degrees. To the fine sand succeeded a perfect causeway of boulders, covered
with a carpet of molluscs and zoophytes. Amongst the specimens of these
branches I noticed some placenae, with thin unequal shells, a kind of ostracion
peculiar to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean; some orange lucinae with rounded
shells; rockfish three feet and a half long, which raised themselves under the
waves like hands ready to seize one. There were also some panopyres, slightly
luminous; and lastly, some oculines, like magnificent fans, forming one of the
richest vegetations of these seas.

In the midst of these living plants, and under the arbours of the hydrophytes,
were layers of clumsy articulates, particularly some raninae, whose carapace
formed a slightly rounded triangle; and some horrible looking parthenopes.

At about seven o’clock we found ourselves at last surveying the oyster-banks on
which the pearl-oysters are reproduced by millions.

Captain Nemo pointed with his hand to the enormous heap of oysters; and I could
well understand that this mine was inexhaustible, for Nature’s creative power
is far beyond man’s instinct of destruction. Ned Land, faithful to his
instinct, hastened to fill a net which he carried by his side with some of the
finest specimens. But we could not stop. We must follow the Captain, who seemed
to guide him self by paths known only to himself. The ground was sensibly
rising, and sometimes, on holding up my arm, it was above the surface of the
sea. Then the level of the bank would sink capriciously. Often we rounded high
rocks scarped into pyramids. In their dark fractures huge crustacea, perched
upon their high claws like some war-machine, watched us with fixed eyes, and
under our feet crawled various kinds of annelides.

At this moment there opened before us a large grotto dug in a picturesque heap
of rocks and carpeted with all the thick warp of the submarine flora. At first
it seemed very dark to me. The solar rays seemed to be extinguished by
successive gradations, until its vague transparency became nothing more than
drowned light. Captain Nemo entered; we followed. My eyes soon accustomed
themselves to this relative state of darkness. I could distinguish the arches
springing capriciously from natural pillars, standing broad upon their granite
base, like the heavy columns of Tuscan architecture. Why had our
incomprehensible guide led us to the bottom of this submarine crypt? I was soon
to know. After descending a rather sharp declivity, our feet trod the bottom of
a kind of circular pit. There Captain Nemo stopped, and with his hand indicated
an object I had not yet perceived. It was an oyster of extraordinary
dimensions, a gigantic tridacne, a goblet which could have contained a whole
lake of holy-water, a basin the breadth of which was more than two yards and a
half, and consequently larger than that ornamenting the saloon of the
Nautilus. I approached this extraordinary mollusc. It adhered by its
filaments to a table of granite, and there, isolated, it developed itself in
the calm waters of the grotto. I estimated the weight of this tridacne at 600
lbs. Such an oyster would contain 30 lbs. of meat; and one must have the
stomach of a Gargantua to demolish some dozens of them.

Captain Nemo was evidently acquainted with the existence of this bivalve, and
seemed to have a particular motive in verifying the actual state of this
tridacne. The shells were a little open; the Captain came near and put his
dagger between to prevent them from closing; then with his hand he raised the
membrane with its fringed edges, which formed a cloak for the creature. There,
between the folded plaits, I saw a loose pearl, whose size equalled that of a
coco-nut. Its globular shape, perfect clearness, and admirable lustre made it
altogether a jewel of inestimable value. Carried away by my curiosity, I
stretched out my hand to seize it, weigh it, and touch it; but the Captain
stopped me, made a sign of refusal, and quickly withdrew his dagger, and the
two shells closed suddenly. I then understood Captain Nemo’s intention. In
leaving this pearl hidden in the mantle of the tridacne he was allowing it to
grow slowly. Each year the secretions of the mollusc would add new concentric
circles. I estimated its value at £500,000 at least.

After ten minutes Captain Nemo stopped suddenly. I thought he had halted
previously to returning. No; by a gesture he bade us crouch beside him in a
deep fracture of the rock, his hand pointed to one part of the liquid mass,
which I watched attentively.

About five yards from me a shadow appeared, and sank to the ground. The
disquieting idea of sharks shot through my mind, but I was mistaken; and once
again it was not a monster of the ocean that we had anything to do with.

It was a man, a living man, an Indian, a fisherman, a poor devil who, I
suppose, had come to glean before the harvest. I could see the bottom of his
canoe anchored some feet above his head. He dived and went up successively. A
stone held between his feet, cut in the shape of a sugar loaf, whilst a rope
fastened him to his boat, helped him to descend more rapidly. This was all his
apparatus. Reaching the bottom, about five yards deep, he went on his knees and
filled his bag with oysters picked up at random. Then he went up, emptied it,
pulled up his stone, and began the operation once more, which lasted thirty
seconds.

The diver did not see us. The shadow of the rock hid us from sight. And how
should this poor Indian ever dream that men, beings like himself, should be
there under the water watching his movements and losing no detail of the
fishing? Several times he went up in this way, and dived again. He did not
carry away more than ten at each plunge, for he was obliged to pull them from
the bank to which they adhered by means of their strong byssus. And how many of
those oysters for which he risked his life had no pearl in them! I watched him
closely; his manœuvres were regular; and for the space of half an hour no
danger appeared to threaten him.

I was beginning to accustom myself to the sight of this interesting fishing,
when suddenly, as the Indian was on the ground, I saw him make a gesture of
terror, rise, and make a spring to return to the surface of the sea.

I understood his dread. A gigantic shadow appeared just above the unfortunate
diver. It was a shark of enormous size advancing diagonally, his eyes on fire,
and his jaws open. I was mute with horror and unable to move.

The voracious creature shot towards the Indian, who threw himself on one side
to avoid the shark’s fins; but not its tail, for it struck his chest and
stretched him on the ground.

This scene lasted but a few seconds: the shark returned, and, turning on his
back, prepared himself for cutting the Indian in two, when I saw Captain Nemo
rise suddenly, and then, dagger in hand, walk straight to the monster, ready to
fight face to face with him. The very moment the shark was going to snap the
unhappy fisherman in two, he perceived his new adversary, and, turning over,
made straight towards him.

I can still see Captain Nemo’s position. Holding himself well together, he
waited for the shark with admirable coolness; and, when it rushed at him, threw
himself on one side with wonderful quickness, avoiding the shock, and burying
his dagger deep into its side. But it was not all over. A terrible combat
ensued.

A terrible combat began

The shark had seemed to roar, if I might say so. The blood rushed in torrents
from its wound. The sea was dyed red, and through the opaque liquid I could
distinguish nothing more. Nothing more until the moment when, like lightning, I
saw the undaunted Captain hanging on to one of the creature’s fins, struggling,
as it were, hand to hand with the monster, and dealing successive blows at his
enemy, yet still unable to give a decisive one.

The shark’s struggles agitated the water with such fury that the rocking
threatened to upset me.

I wanted to go to the Captain’s assistance, but, nailed to the spot with
horror, I could not stir.

I saw the haggard eye; I saw the different phases of the fight. The Captain
fell to the earth, upset by the enormous mass which leant upon him. The shark’s
jaws opened wide, like a pair of factory shears, and it would have been all
over with the Captain; but, quick as thought, harpoon in hand, Ned Land rushed
towards the shark and struck it with its sharp point.

The waves were impregnated with a mass of blood. They rocked under the shark’s
movements, which beat them with indescribable fury. Ned Land had not missed his
aim. It was the monster’s death-rattle. Struck to the heart, it struggled in
dreadful convulsions, the shock of which overthrew Conseil.

But Ned Land had disentangled the Captain, who, getting up without any wound,
went straight to the Indian, quickly cut the cord which held him to his stone,
took him in his arms, and, with a sharp blow of his heel, mounted to the
surface.

We all three followed in a few seconds, saved by a miracle, and reached the
fisherman’s boat.

Captain Nemo’s first care was to recall the unfortunate man to life again. I
did not think he could succeed. I hoped so, for the poor creature’s immersion
was not long; but the blow from the shark’s tail might have been his
death-blow.

Happily, with the Captain’s and Conseil’s sharp friction, I saw consciousness
return by degrees. He opened his eyes. What was his surprise, his terror even,
at seeing four great copper heads leaning over him! And, above all, what must
he have thought when Captain Nemo, drawing from the pocket of his dress a bag
of pearls, placed it in his hand! This munificent charity from the man of the
waters to the poor Cingalese was accepted with a trembling hand. His wondering
eyes showed that he knew not to what super-human beings he owed both fortune
and life.

At a sign from the Captain we regained the bank, and, following the road
already traversed, came in about half an hour to the anchor which held the
canoe of the Nautilus to the earth.

Once on board, we each, with the help of the sailors, got rid of the heavy
copper helmet.

Captain Nemo’s first word was to the Canadian.

“Thank you, Master Land,” said he.

“It was in revenge, Captain,” replied Ned Land. “I owed you that.”

A ghastly smile passed across the Captain’s lips, and that was all.

“To the Nautilus,” said he.

The boat flew over the waves. Some minutes after we met the shark’s dead body
floating. By the black marking of the extremity of its fins, I recognised the
terrible melanopteron of the Indian Seas, of the species of shark so properly
called. It was more than twenty-five feet long; its enormous mouth occupied
one-third of its body. It was an adult, as was known by its six rows of teeth
placed in an isosceles triangle in the upper jaw.

Whilst I was contemplating this inert mass, a dozen of these voracious beasts
appeared round the boat; and, without noticing us, threw themselves upon the
dead body and fought with one another for the pieces.

At half-past eight we were again on board the Nautilus. There I
reflected on the incidents which had taken place in our excursion to the Manaar
Bank.

Two conclusions I must inevitably draw from it—one bearing upon the
unparalleled courage of Captain Nemo, the other upon his devotion to a human
being, a representative of that race from which he fled beneath the sea.
Whatever he might say, this strange man had not yet succeeded in entirely
crushing his heart.

When I made this observation to him, he answered in a slightly moved tone:

“That Indian, sir, is an inhabitant of an oppressed country; and I am still,
and shall be, to my last breath, one of them!”

CHAPTER IV
THE RED SEA

In the course of the day of the 29th of January, the island of Ceylon
disappeared under the horizon, and the Nautilus, at a speed of twenty
miles an hour, slid into the labyrinth of canals which separate the Maldives
from the Laccadives. It coasted even the Island of Kiltan, a land originally
coraline, discovered by Vasco da Gama in 1499, and one of the nineteen
principal islands of the Laccadive Archipelago, situated between 10° and 14°
30′ N. lat., and 69° 50′ 72″ E. long.

We had made 16,220 miles, or 7,500 (French) leagues from our starting-point in
the Japanese Seas.

The next day (30th January), when the Nautilus went to the surface of
the ocean there was no land in sight. Its course was N.N.E., in the direction
of the Sea of Oman, between Arabia and the Indian Peninsula, which serves as an
outlet to the Persian Gulf. It was evidently a block without any possible
egress. Where was Captain Nemo taking us to? I could not say. This, however,
did not satisfy the Canadian, who that day came to me asking where we were
going.

“We are going where our Captain’s fancy takes us, Master Ned.”

“His fancy cannot take us far, then,” said the Canadian. “The Persian Gulf has
no outlet: and, if we do go in, it will not be long before we are out again.”

“Very well, then, we will come out again, Master Land; and if, after the
Persian Gulf, the Nautilus would like to visit the Red Sea, the Straits
of Bab-el-mandeb are there to give us entrance.”

“I need not tell you, sir,” said Ned Land, “that the Red Sea is as much closed
as the Gulf, as the Isthmus of Suez is not yet cut; and, if it was, a boat as
mysterious as ours would not risk itself in a canal cut with sluices. And
again, the Red Sea is not the road to take us back to Europe.”

“But I never said we were going back to Europe.”

“What do you suppose, then?”

“I suppose that, after visiting the curious coasts of Arabia and Egypt, the
Nautilus will go down the Indian Ocean again, perhaps cross the Channel
of Mozambique, perhaps off the Mascarenhas, so as to gain the Cape of Good
Hope.”

“And once at the Cape of Good Hope?” asked the Canadian, with peculiar
emphasis.

“Well, we shall penetrate into that Atlantic which we do not yet know. Ah!
friend Ned, you are getting tired of this journey under the sea; you are
surfeited with the incessantly varying spectacle of submarine wonders. For my
part, I shall be sorry to see the end of a voyage which it is given to so few
men to make.”

For four days, till the 3rd of February, the Nautilus scoured the Sea of
Oman, at various speeds and at various depths. It seemed to go at random, as if
hesitating as to which road it should follow, but we never passed the Tropic of
Cancer.

In quitting this sea we sighted Muscat for an instant, one of the most
important towns of the country of Oman. I admired its strange aspect,
surrounded by black rocks upon which its white houses and forts stood in
relief. I saw the rounded domes of its mosques, the elegant points of its
minarets, its fresh and verdant terraces. But it was only a vision! The
Nautilus soon sank under the waves of that part of the sea.

We passed along the Arabian coast of Mahrah and Hadramaut, for a distance of
six miles, its undulating line of mountains being occasionally relieved by some
ancient ruin. The 5th of February we at last entered the Gulf of Aden, a
perfect funnel introduced into the neck of Bab-el-mandeb, through which the
Indian waters entered the Red Sea.

The 6th of February, the Nautilus floated in sight of Aden, perched upon
a promontory which a narrow isthmus joins to the mainland, a kind of
inaccessible Gibraltar, the fortifications of which were rebuilt by the English
after taking possession in 1839. I caught a glimpse of the octagon minarets of
this town, which was at one time the richest commercial magazine on the coast.

I certainly thought that Captain Nemo, arrived at this point, would back out
again; but I was mistaken, for he did no such thing, much to my surprise.

The next day, the 7th of February, we entered the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb, the
name of which, in the Arab tongue, means The Gate of Tears.

To twenty miles in breadth, it is only thirty-two in length. And for the
Nautilus, starting at full speed, the crossing was scarcely the work of
an hour. But I saw nothing, not even the Island of Perim, with which the
British Government has fortified the position of Aden. There were too many
English or French steamers of the line of Suez to Bombay, Calcutta to
Melbourne, and from Bourbon to the Mauritius, furrowing this narrow passage,
for the Nautilus to venture to show itself. So it remained prudently
below. At last about noon, we were in the waters of the Red Sea.

I would not even seek to understand the caprice which had decided Captain Nemo
upon entering the gulf. But I quite approved of the Nautilus entering
it. Its speed was lessened: sometimes it kept on the surface, sometimes it
dived to avoid a vessel, and thus I was able to observe the upper and lower
parts of this curious sea.

The 8th of February, from the first dawn of day, Mocha came in sight, now a
ruined town, whose walls would fall at a gunshot, yet which shelters here and
there some verdant date-trees; once an important city, containing six public
markets, and twenty-six mosques, and whose walls, defended by fourteen forts,
formed a girdle of two miles in circumference.

The Nautilus then approached the African shore, where the depth of the
sea was greater. There, between two waters clear as crystal, through the open
panels we were allowed to contemplate the beautiful bushes of brilliant coral
and large blocks of rock clothed with a splendid fur of green variety of sites
and landscapes along these sandbanks and algæ and fuci. What an indescribable
spectacle, and what variety of sites and landscapes along these sandbanks and
volcanic islands which bound the Libyan coast! But where these shrubs appeared
in all their beauty was on the eastern coast, which the Nautilus soon
gained. It was on the coast of Tehama, for there not only did this display of
zoophytes flourish beneath the level of the sea, but they also formed
picturesque interlacings which unfolded themselves about sixty feet above the
surface, more capricious but less highly coloured than those whose freshness
was kept up by the vital power of the waters.

What charming hours I passed thus at the window of the saloon! What new
specimens of submarine flora and fauna did I admire under the brightness of our
electric lantern!

The 9th of February the Nautilus floated in the broadest part of the Red
Sea, which is comprised between Souakin, on the west coast, and Komfidah, on
the east coast, with a diameter of ninety miles.

That day at noon, after the bearings were taken, Captain Nemo mounted the
platform, where I happened to be, and I was determined not to let him go down
again without at least pressing him regarding his ulterior projects. As soon as
he saw me he approached and graciously offered me a cigar.

“Well, sir, does this Red Sea please you? Have you sufficiently observed the
wonders it covers, its fishes, its zoophytes, its parterres of sponges, and its
forests of coral? Did you catch a glimpse of the towns on its borders?”

“Yes, Captain Nemo,” I replied; “and the Nautilus is wonderfully fitted
for such a study. Ah! it is an intelligent boat!”

“Yes, sir, intelligent and invulnerable. It fears neither the terrible tempests
of the Red Sea, nor its currents, nor its sandbanks.”

“Certainly,” said I, “this sea is quoted as one of the worst, and in the time
of the ancients, if I am not mistaken, its reputation was detestable.”

“Detestable, M. Aronnax. The Greek and Latin historians do not speak favourably
of it, and Strabo says it is very dangerous during the Etesian winds and in the
rainy season. The Arabian Edrisi portrays it under the name of the Gulf of
Colzoum, and relates that vessels perished there in great numbers on the
sandbanks and that no one would risk sailing in the night. It is, he pretends,
a sea subject to fearful hurricanes, strewn with inhospitable islands, and
‘which offers nothing good either on its surface or in its depths.’”

“One may see,” I replied, “that these historians never sailed on board the
Nautilus.”

“Just so,” replied the Captain, smiling; “and in that respect moderns are not
more advanced than the ancients. It required many ages to find out the
mechanical power of steam. Who knows if, in another hundred years, we may not
see a second Nautilus? Progress is slow, M. Aronnax.”

“It is true,” I answered; “your boat is at least a century before its time,
perhaps an era. What a misfortune that the secret of such an invention should
die with its inventor!”

Captain Nemo did not reply. After some minutes’ silence he continued:

“You were speaking of the opinions of ancient historians upon the dangerous
navigation of the Red Sea.”

“It is true,” said I; “but were not their fears exaggerated?”

“Yes and no, M. Aronnax,” replied Captain Nemo, who seemed to know the Red Sea
by heart. “That which is no longer dangerous for a modern vessel, well rigged,
strongly built, and master of its own course, thanks to obedient steam, offered
all sorts of perils to the ships of the ancients. Picture to yourself those
first navigators venturing in ships made of planks sewn with the cords of the
palmtree, saturated with the grease of the seadog, and covered with powdered
resin! They had not even instruments wherewith to take their bearings, and they
went by guess amongst currents of which they scarcely knew anything. Under such
conditions shipwrecks were, and must have been, numerous. But in our time,
steamers running between Suez and the South Seas have nothing more to fear from
the fury of this gulf, in spite of contrary trade-winds. The captain and
passengers do not prepare for their departure by offering propitiatory
sacrifices; and, on their return, they no longer go ornamented with wreaths and
gilt fillets to thank the gods in the neighbouring temple.”

“I agree with you,” said I; “and steam seems to have killed all gratitude in
the hearts of sailors. But, Captain, since you seem to have especially studied
this sea, can you tell me the origin of its name?”

“There exist several explanations on the subject, M. Aronnax. Would you like to
know the opinion of a chronicler of the fourteenth century?”

“Willingly.”

“This fanciful writer pretends that its name was given to it after the passage
of the Israelites, when Pharaoh perished in the waves which closed at the voice
of Moses.”

“A poet’s explanation, Captain Nemo,” I replied; “but I cannot content myself
with that. I ask you for your personal opinion.”

“Here it is, M. Aronnax. According to my idea, we must see in this appellation
of the Red Sea a translation of the Hebrew word ‘Edom’; and if the ancients
gave it that name, it was on account of the particular colour of its waters.”

“But up to this time I have seen nothing but transparent waves and without any
particular colour.”

“Very likely; but as we advance to the bottom of the gulf, you will see this
singular appearance. I remember seeing the Bay of Tor entirely red, like a sea
of blood.”

“And you attribute this colour to the presence of a microscopic seaweed?”

“Yes.”

“So, Captain Nemo, it is not the first time you have overrun the Red Sea on
board the Nautilus?”

“No, sir.”

“As you spoke a while ago of the passage of the Israelites and of the
catastrophe to the Egyptians, I will ask whether you have met with the traces
under the water of this great historical fact?”

“No, sir; and for a good reason.”

“What is it?”

“It is that the spot where Moses and his people passed is now so blocked up
with sand that the camels can barely bathe their legs there. You can well
understand that there would not be water enough for my Nautilus.”

“And the spot?” I asked.

“The spot is situated a little above the Isthmus of Suez, in the arm which
formerly made a deep estuary, when the Red Sea extended to the Salt Lakes. Now,
whether this passage were miraculous or not, the Israelites, nevertheless,
crossed there to reach the Promised Land, and Pharaoh’s army perished precisely
on that spot; and I think that excavations made in the middle of the sand would
bring to light a large number of arms and instruments of Egyptian origin.”

“That is evident,” I replied; “and for the sake of archaeologists let us hope
that these excavations will be made sooner or later, when new towns are
established on the isthmus, after the construction of the Suez Canal; a canal,
however, very useless to a vessel like the Nautilus.”

“Very likely; but useful to the whole world,” said Captain Nemo. “The ancients
well understood the utility of a communication between the Red Sea and the
Mediterranean for their commercial affairs: but they did not think of digging a
canal direct, and took the Nile as an intermediate. Very probably the canal
which united the Nile to the Red Sea was begun by Sesostris, if we may believe
tradition. One thing is certain, that in the year 615 before Jesus Christ,
Necos undertook the works of an alimentary canal to the waters of the Nile
across the plain of Egypt, looking towards Arabia. It took four days to go up
this canal, and it was so wide that two triremes could go abreast. It was
carried on by Darius, the son of Hystaspes, and probably finished by Ptolemy
II. Strabo saw it navigated: but its decline from the point of departure, near
Bubastes, to the Red Sea was so slight that it was only navigable for a few
months in the year. This canal answered all commercial purposes to the age of
Antonius, when it was abandoned and blocked up with sand. Restored by order of
the Caliph Omar, it was definitely destroyed in 761 or 762 by Caliph Al-Mansor,
who wished to prevent the arrival of provisions to Mohammed-ben-Abdallah, who
had revolted against him. During the expedition into Egypt, your General
Bonaparte discovered traces of the works in the Desert of Suez; and, surprised
by the tide, he nearly perished before regaining Hadjaroth, at the very place
where Moses had encamped three thousand years before him.”

“Well, Captain, what the ancients dared not undertake, this junction between
the two seas, which will shorten the road from Cadiz to India, M. Lesseps has
succeeded in doing; and before long he will have changed Africa into an immense
island.”

“Yes, M. Aronnax; you have the right to be proud of your countryman. Such a man
brings more honour to a nation than great captains. He began, like so many
others, with disgust and rebuffs; but he has triumphed, for he has the genius
of will. And it is sad to think that a work like that, which ought to have been
an international work and which would have sufficed to make a reign
illustrious, should have succeeded by the energy of one man. All honour to M.
Lesseps!”

“Yes! honour to the great citizen,” I replied, surprised by the manner in which
Captain Nemo had just spoken.

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “I cannot take you through the Suez Canal; but
you will be able to see the long jetty of Port Said after to-morrow, when we
shall be in the Mediterranean.”

“The Mediterranean!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, sir; does that astonish you?”

“What astonishes me is to think that we shall be there the day after
to-morrow.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, Captain, although by this time I ought to have accustomed myself to be
surprised at nothing since I have been on board your boat.”

“But the cause of this surprise?”

“Well! it is the fearful speed you will have to put on the Nautilus, if
the day after to-morrow she is to be in the Mediterranean, having made the
round of Africa, and doubled the Cape of Good Hope!”

“Who told you that she would make the round of Africa and double the Cape of
Good Hope, sir?”

“Well, unless the Nautilus sails on dry land, and passes above the
isthmus——”

“Or beneath it, M. Aronnax.”

“Beneath it?”

“Certainly,” replied Captain Nemo quietly. “A long time ago Nature made under
this tongue of land what man has this day made on its surface.”

“What! such a passage exists?”

“Yes; a subterranean passage, which I have named the Arabian Tunnel. It takes
us beneath Suez and opens into the Gulf of Pelusium.”

“But this isthmus is composed of nothing but quick sands?”

“To a certain depth. But at fifty-five yards only there is a solid layer of
rock.”

“Did you discover this passage by chance?” I asked more and more surprised.

“Chance and reasoning, sir; and by reasoning even more than by chance. Not only
does this passage exist, but I have profited by it several times. Without that
I should not have ventured this day into the impassable Red Sea. I noticed that
in the Red Sea and in the Mediterranean there existed a certain number of
fishes of a kind perfectly identical. Certain of the fact, I asked myself was
it possible that there was no communication between the two seas? If there was,
the subterranean current must necessarily run from the Red Sea to the
Mediterranean, from the sole cause of difference of level. I caught a large
number of fishes in the neighbourhood of Suez. I passed a copper ring through
their tails, and threw them back into the sea. Some months later, on the coast
of Syria, I caught some of my fish ornamented with the ring. Thus the
communication between the two was proved. I then sought for it with my
Nautilus; I discovered it, ventured into it, and before long, sir, you
too will have passed through my Arabian tunnel!”

CHAPTER V
THE ARABIAN TUNNEL

That same evening, in 21° 30′ N. lat., the Nautilus floated on
the surface of the sea, approaching the Arabian coast. I saw Djeddah, the most
important counting-house of Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and India. I distinguished
clearly enough its buildings, the vessels anchored at the quays, and those
whose draught of water obliged them to anchor in the roads. The sun, rather low
on the horizon, struck full on the houses of the town, bringing out their
whiteness. Outside, some wooden cabins, and some made of reeds, showed the
quarter inhabited by the Bedouins. Soon Djeddah was shut out from view by the
shadows of night, and the Nautilus found herself under water slightly
phosphorescent.

The next day, the 10th of February, we sighted several ships running to
windward. The Nautilus returned to its submarine navigation; but at
noon, when her bearings were taken, the sea being deserted, she rose again to
her waterline.

Accompanied by Ned and Conseil, I seated myself on the platform. The coast on
the eastern side looked like a mass faintly printed upon a damp fog.

We were leaning on the sides of the pinnace, talking of one thing and another,
when Ned Land, stretching out his hand towards a spot on the sea, said:

“Do you see anything there, sir?”

“No, Ned,” I replied; “but I have not your eyes, you know.”

“Look well,” said Ned, “there, on the starboard beam, about the height of the
lantern! Do you not see a mass which seems to move?”

“Certainly,” said I, after close attention; “I see something like a long black
body on the top of the water.”

And certainly before long the black object was not more than a mile from us. It
looked like a great sandbank deposited in the open sea. It was a gigantic
dugong!

Ned Land looked eagerly. His eyes shone with covetousness at the sight of the
animal. His hand seemed ready to harpoon it. One would have thought he was
awaiting the moment to throw himself into the sea and attack it in its element.

At this instant Captain Nemo appeared on the platform. He saw the dugong,
understood the Canadian’s attitude, and, addressing him, said:

“If you held a harpoon just now, Master Land, would it not burn your hand?”

“Just so, sir.”

“And you would not be sorry to go back, for one day, to your trade of a
fisherman and to add this cetacean to the list of those you have already
killed?”

“I should not, sir.”

“Well, you can try.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Ned Land, his eyes flaming.

“Only,” continued the Captain, “I advise you for your own sake not to miss the
creature.”

“Is the dugong dangerous to attack?” I asked, in spite of the Canadian’s shrug
of the shoulders.

“Yes,” replied the Captain; “sometimes the animal turns upon its assailants and
overturns their boat. But for Master Land this danger is not to be feared. His
eye is prompt, his arm sure.”

At this moment seven men of the crew, mute and immovable as ever, mounted the
platform. One carried a harpoon and a line similar to those employed in
catching whales. The pinnace was lifted from the bridge, pulled from its
socket, and let down into the sea. Six oarsmen took their seats, and the
coxswain went to the tiller. Ned, Conseil, and I went to the back of the boat.

“You are not coming, Captain?” I asked.

“No, sir; but I wish you good sport.”

The boat put off, and, lifted by the six rowers, drew rapidly towards the
dugong, which floated about two miles from the Nautilus.

Arrived some cables-length from the cetacean, the speed slackened, and the oars
dipped noiselessly into the quiet waters. Ned Land, harpoon in hand, stood in
the fore part of the boat. The harpoon used for striking the whale is generally
attached to a very long cord which runs out rapidly as the wounded creature
draws it after him. But here the cord was not more than ten fathoms long, and
the extremity was attached to a small barrel which, by floating, was to show
the course the dugong took under the water.

I stood and carefully watched the Canadian’s adversary. This dugong, which also
bears the name of the halicore, closely resembles the manatee; its oblong body
terminated in a lengthened tail, and its lateral fins in perfect fingers. Its
difference from the manatee consisted in its upper jaw, which was armed with
two long and pointed teeth which formed on each side diverging tusks.

This dugong which Ned Land was preparing to attack was of colossal dimensions;
it was more than seven yards long. It did not move, and seemed to be sleeping
on the waves, which circumstance made it easier to capture.

The boat approached within six yards of the animal. The oars rested on the
rowlocks. I half rose. Ned Land, his body thrown a little back, brandished the
harpoon in his experienced hand.

Suddenly a hissing noise was heard, and the dugong disappeared. The harpoon,
although thrown with great force; had apparently only struck the water.

“Curse it!” exclaimed the Canadian furiously; “I have missed it!”

“No,” said I; “the creature is wounded—look at the blood; but your weapon has
not stuck in his body.”

“My harpoon! my harpoon!” cried Ned Land.

The sailors rowed on, and the coxswain made for the floating barrel. The
harpoon regained, we followed in pursuit of the animal.

The latter came now and then to the surface to breathe. Its wound had not
weakened it, for it shot onwards with great rapidity.

The boat, rowed by strong arms, flew on its track. Several times it approached
within some few yards, and the Canadian was ready to strike, but the dugong
made off with a sudden plunge, and it was impossible to reach it.

Imagine the passion which excited impatient Ned Land! He hurled at the
unfortunate creature the most energetic expletives in the English tongue. For
my part, I was only vexed to see the dugong escape all our attacks.

We pursued it without relaxation for an hour, and I began to think it would
prove difficult to capture, when the animal, possessed with the perverse idea
of vengeance of which he had cause to repent, turned upon the pinnace and
assailed us in its turn.

This manœuvre did not escape the Canadian.

“Look out!” he cried.

The coxswain said some words in his outlandish tongue, doubtless warning the
men to keep on their guard.

The dugong came within twenty feet of the boat, stopped, sniffed the air
briskly with its large nostrils (not pierced at the extremity, but in the upper
part of its muzzle). Then, taking a spring, he threw himself upon us.

The pinnace could not avoid the shock, and half upset, shipped at least two
tons of water, which had to be emptied; but, thanks to the coxswain, we caught
it sideways, not full front, so we were not quite overturned. While Ned Land,
clinging to the bows, belaboured the gigantic animal with blows from his
harpoon, the creature’s teeth were buried in the gunwale, and it lifted the
whole thing out of the water, as a lion does a roebuck. We were upset over one
another, and I know not how the adventure would have ended, if the Canadian,
still enraged with the beast, had not struck it to the heart.

I heard its teeth grind on the iron plate, and the dugong disappeared, carrying
the harpoon with him. But the barrel soon returned to the surface, and shortly
after the body of the animal, turned on its back. The boat came up with it,
took it in tow, and made straight for the Nautilus.

It required tackle of enormous strength to hoist the dugong on to the platform.
It weighed 10,000 lbs.

The next day, 11th February, the larder of the Nautilus was enriched by
some more delicate game. A flight of sea-swallows rested on the
Nautilus. It was a species of the Sterna nilotica, peculiar to Egypt;
its beak is black, head grey and pointed, the eye surrounded by white spots,
the back, wings, and tail of a greyish colour, the belly and throat white, and
claws red. They also took some dozen of Nile ducks, a wild bird of high
flavour, its throat and upper part of the head white with black spots.

About five o’clock in the evening we sighted to the north the Cape of
Ras-Mohammed. This cape forms the extremity of Arabia Petraea, comprised
between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Acabah.

The Nautilus penetrated into the Straits of Jubal, which leads to the
Gulf of Suez. I distinctly saw a high mountain, towering between the two gulfs
of Ras-Mohammed. It was Mount Horeb, that Sinai at the top of which Moses saw
God face to face.

At six o’clock the Nautilus, sometimes floating, sometimes immersed,
passed some distance from Tor, situated at the end of the bay, the waters of
which seemed tinted with red, an observation already made by Captain Nemo. Then
night fell in the midst of a heavy silence, sometimes broken by the cries of
the pelican and other night-birds, and the noise of the waves breaking upon the
shore, chafing against the rocks, or the panting of some far-off steamer
beating the waters of the Gulf with its noisy paddles.

From eight to nine o’clock the Nautilus remained some fathoms under the
water. According to my calculation we must have been very near Suez. Through
the panel of the saloon I saw the bottom of the rocks brilliantly lit up by our
electric lamp. We seemed to be leaving the Straits behind us more and more.

At a quarter-past nine, the vessel having returned to the surface, I mounted
the platform. Most impatient to pass through Captain Nemo’s tunnel, I could not
stay in one place, so came to breathe the fresh night air.

Soon in the shadow I saw a pale light, half discoloured by the fog, shining
about a mile from us.

“A floating lighthouse!” said someone near me.

I turned, and saw the Captain.

“It is the floating light of Suez,” he continued. “It will not be long before
we gain the entrance of the tunnel.”

“The entrance cannot be easy?”

“No, sir; for that reason I am accustomed to go into the steersman’s cage and
myself direct our course. And now, if you will go down, M. Aronnax, the
Nautilus is going under the waves, and will not return to the surface
until we have passed through the Arabian Tunnel.”

Captain Nemo led me towards the central staircase; half way down he opened a
door, traversed the upper deck, and landed in the pilot’s cage, which it may be
remembered rose at the extremity of the platform. It was a cabin measuring six
feet square, very much like that occupied by the pilot on the steamboats of the
Mississippi or Hudson. In the midst worked a wheel, placed vertically, and
caught to the tiller-rope, which ran to the back of the Nautilus. Four
light-ports with lenticular glasses, let in a groove in the partition of the
cabin, allowed the man at the wheel to see in all directions.

This cabin was dark; but soon my eyes accustomed themselves to the obscurity,
and I perceived the pilot, a strong man, with his hands resting on the spokes
of the wheel. Outside, the sea appeared vividly lit up by the lantern, which
shed its rays from the back of the cabin to the other extremity of the
platform.

“Now,” said Captain Nemo, “let us try to make our passage.”

Electric wires connected the pilot’s cage with the machinery room, and from
there the Captain could communicate simultaneously to his Nautilus the
direction and the speed. He pressed a metal knob, and at once the speed of the
screw diminished.

I looked in silence at the high straight wall we were running by at this
moment, the immovable base of a massive sandy coast. We followed it thus for an
hour only some few yards off.

Captain Nemo did not take his eye from the knob, suspended by its two
concentric circles in the cabin. At a simple gesture, the pilot modified the
course of the Nautilus every instant.

I had placed myself at the port-scuttle, and saw some magnificent substructures
of coral, zoophytes, seaweed, and fucus, agitating their enormous claws, which
stretched out from the fissures of the rock.

At a quarter-past ten, the Captain himself took the helm. A large gallery,
black and deep, opened before us. The Nautilus went boldly into it. A
strange roaring was heard round its sides. It was the waters of the Red Sea,
which the incline of the tunnel precipitated violently towards the
Mediterranean. The Nautilus went with the torrent, rapid as an arrow, in
spite of the efforts of the machinery, which, in order to offer more effective
resistance, beat the waves with reversed screw.

On the walls of the narrow passage I could see nothing but brilliant rays,
straight lines, furrows of fire, traced by the great speed, under the brilliant
electric light. My heart beat fast.

At thirty-five minutes past ten, Captain Nemo quitted the helm, and, turning to
me, said:

“The Mediterranean!”

In less than twenty minutes, the Nautilus, carried along by the torrent,
had passed through the Isthmus of Suez.

CHAPTER VI
THE GRECIAN ARCHIPELAGO

The next day, the 12th of February, at the dawn of day, the Nautilus
rose to the surface. I hastened on to the platform. Three miles to the south
the dim outline of Pelusium was to be seen. A torrent had carried us from one
sea to another. About seven o’clock Ned and Conseil joined me.

“Well, Sir Naturalist,” said the Canadian, in a slightly jovial tone, “and the
Mediterranean?”

“We are floating on its surface, friend Ned.”

“What!” said Conseil, “this very night.”

“Yes, this very night; in a few minutes we have passed this impassable
isthmus.”

“I do not believe it,” replied the Canadian.

“Then you are wrong, Master Land,” I continued; “this low coast which rounds
off to the south is the Egyptian coast. And you who have such good eyes, Ned,
you can see the jetty of Port Said stretching into the sea.”

The Canadian looked attentively.

“Certainly you are right, sir, and your Captain is a first-rate man. We are in
the Mediterranean. Good! Now, if you please, let us talk of our own little
affair, but so that no one hears us.”

I saw what the Canadian wanted, and, in any case, I thought it better to let
him talk, as he wished it; so we all three went and sat down near the lantern,
where we were less exposed to the spray of the blades.

“Now, Ned, we listen; what have you to tell us?”

“What I have to tell you is very simple. We are in Europe; and before Captain
Nemo’s caprices drag us once more to the bottom of the Polar Seas, or lead us
into Oceania, I ask to leave the Nautilus.”

I wished in no way to shackle the liberty of my companions, but I certainly
felt no desire to leave Captain Nemo.

Thanks to him, and thanks to his apparatus, I was each day nearer the
completion of my submarine studies; and I was rewriting my book of submarine
depths in its very element. Should I ever again have such an opportunity of
observing the wonders of the ocean? No, certainly not! And I could not bring
myself to the idea of abandoning the Nautilus before the cycle of
investigation was accomplished.

“Friend Ned, answer me frankly, are you tired of being on board? Are you sorry
that destiny has thrown us into Captain Nemo’s hands?”

The Canadian remained some moments without answering. Then, crossing his arms,
he said:

“Frankly, I do not regret this journey under the seas. I shall be glad to have
made it; but, now that it is made, let us have done with it. That is my idea.”

“It will come to an end, Ned.”

“Where and when?”

“Where I do not know—when I cannot say; or, rather, I suppose it will end when
these seas have nothing more to teach us.”

“Then what do you hope for?” demanded the Canadian.

“That circumstances may occur as well six months hence as now by which we may
and ought to profit.”

“Oh!” said Ned Land, “and where shall we be in six months, if you please, Sir
Naturalist?”

“Perhaps in China; you know the Nautilus is a rapid traveller. It goes
through water as swallows through the air, or as an express on the land. It
does not fear frequented seas; who can say that it may not beat the coasts of
France, England, or America, on which flight may be attempted as advantageously
as here.”

“M. Aronnax,” replied the Canadian, “your arguments are rotten at the
foundation. You speak in the future, ‘We shall be there! we shall be here!’ I
speak in the present, ‘We are here, and we must profit by it.’”

Ned Land’s logic pressed me hard, and I felt myself beaten on that ground. I
knew not what argument would now tell in my favour.

“Sir,” continued Ned, “let us suppose an impossibility: if Captain Nemo should
this day offer you your liberty; would you accept it?”

“I do not know,” I answered.

“And if,” he added, “the offer made you this day was never to be renewed, would
you accept it?”

“Friend Ned, this is my answer. Your reasoning is against me. We must not rely
on Captain Nemo’s good-will. Common prudence forbids him to set us at liberty.
On the other side, prudence bids us profit by the first opportunity to leave
the Nautilus.”

“Well, M. Aronnax, that is wisely said.”

“Only one observation—just one. The occasion must be serious, and our first
attempt must succeed; if it fails, we shall never find another, and Captain
Nemo will never forgive us.”

“All that is true,” replied the Canadian. “But your observation applies equally
to all attempts at flight, whether in two years’ time, or in two days’. But the
question is still this: If a favourable opportunity presents itself, it must be
seized.”

“Agreed! And now, Ned, will you tell me what you mean by a favourable
opportunity?”

“It will be that which, on a dark night, will bring the Nautilus a short
distance from some European coast.”

“And you will try and save yourself by swimming?”

“Yes, if we were near enough to the bank, and if the vessel was floating at the
time. Not if the bank was far away, and the boat was under the water.”

“And in that case?”

“In that case, I should seek to make myself master of the pinnace. I know how
it is worked. We must get inside, and the bolts once drawn, we shall come to
the surface of the water, without even the pilot, who is in the bows,
perceiving our flight.”

“Well, Ned, watch for the opportunity; but do not forget that a hitch will ruin
us.”

“I will not forget, sir.”

“And now, Ned, would you like to know what I think of your project?”

“Certainly, M. Aronnax.”

“Well, I think—I do not say I hope—I think that this favourable opportunity
will never present itself.”

“Why not?”

“Because Captain Nemo cannot hide from himself that we have not given up all
hope of regaining our liberty, and he will be on his guard, above all, in the
seas and in the sight of European coasts.”

“We shall see,” replied Ned Land, shaking his head determinedly.

“And now, Ned Land,” I added, “let us stop here. Not another word on the
subject. The day that you are ready, come and let us know, and we will follow
you. I rely entirely upon you.”

Thus ended a conversation which, at no very distant time, led to such grave
results. I must say here that facts seemed to confirm my foresight, to the
Canadian’s great despair. Did Captain Nemo distrust us in these frequented
seas? or did he only wish to hide himself from the numerous vessels, of all
nations, which ploughed the Mediterranean? I could not tell; but we were
oftener between waters and far from the coast. Or, if the Nautilus did
emerge, nothing was to be seen but the pilot’s cage; and sometimes it went to
great depths, for, between the Grecian Archipelago and Asia Minor we could not
touch the bottom by more than a thousand fathoms.

Thus I only knew we were near the Island of Carpathos, one of the Sporades, by
Captain Nemo reciting these lines from Virgil:

“Est Carpathio Neptuni gurgite vates,
Caeruleus Proteus,”

as he pointed to a spot on the planisphere.

It was indeed the ancient abode of Proteus, the old shepherd of Neptune’s
flocks, now the Island of Scarpanto, situated between Rhodes and Crete. I saw
nothing but the granite base through the glass panels of the saloon.

The next day, the 14th of February, I resolved to employ some hours in studying
the fishes of the Archipelago; but for some reason or other the panels remained
hermetically sealed. Upon taking the course of the Nautilus, I found
that we were going towards Candia, the ancient Isle of Crete. At the time I
embarked on the Abraham Lincoln, the whole of this island had risen in
insurrection against the despotism of the Turks. But how the insurgents had
fared since that time I was absolutely ignorant, and it was not Captain Nemo,
deprived of all land communications, who could tell me.

I made no allusion to this event when that night I found myself alone with him
in the saloon. Besides, he seemed to be taciturn and preoccupied. Then,
contrary to his custom, he ordered both panels to be opened, and, going from
one to the other, observed the mass of waters attentively. To what end I could
not guess; so, on my side, I employed my time in studying the fish passing
before my eyes.

In the midst of the waters a man appeared, a diver, carrying at his belt a
leathern purse. It was not a body abandoned to the waves; it was a living man,
swimming with a strong hand, disappearing occasionally to take breath at the
surface.

I turned towards Captain Nemo, and in an agitated voice exclaimed:

“A man shipwrecked! He must be saved at any price!”

“A man! A shipwrecked sailor!” I cried

The Captain did not answer me, but came and leaned against the panel.

The man had approached, and, with his face flattened against the glass, was
looking at us.

To my great amazement, Captain Nemo signed to him. The diver answered with his
hand, mounted immediately to the surface of the water, and did not appear
again.

“Do not be uncomfortable,” said Captain Nemo. “It is Nicholas of Cape Matapan,
surnamed Pesca. He is well known in all the Cyclades. A bold diver! water is
his element, and he lives more in it than on land, going continually from one
island to another, even as far as Crete.”

“You know him, Captain?”

“Why not, M. Aronnax?”

Saying which, Captain Nemo went towards a piece of furniture standing near the
left panel of the saloon. Near this piece of furniture, I saw a chest bound
with iron, on the cover of which was a copper plate, bearing the cypher of the
Nautilus with its device.

At that moment, the Captain, without noticing my presence, opened the piece of
furniture, a sort of strong box, which held a great many ingots.

They were ingots of gold. From whence came this precious metal, which
represented an enormous sum? Where did the Captain gather this gold from? and
what was he going to do with it?

I did not say one word. I looked. Captain Nemo took the ingots one by one, and
arranged them methodically in the chest, which he filled entirely. I estimated
the contents at more than 4,000 lbs. weight of gold, that is to say, nearly
£200,000.

The chest was securely fastened, and the Captain wrote an address on the lid,
in characters which must have belonged to Modern Greece.

This done, Captain Nemo pressed a knob, the wire of which communicated with the
quarters of the crew. Four men appeared, and, not without some trouble, pushed
the chest out of the saloon. Then I heard them hoisting it up the iron
staircase by means of pulleys.

At that moment, Captain Nemo turned to me.

“And you were saying, sir?” said he.

“I was saying nothing, Captain.”

“Then, sir, if you will allow me, I will wish you good night.”

Whereupon he turned and left the saloon.

I returned to my room much troubled, as one may believe. I vainly tried to
sleep—I sought the connecting link between the apparition of the diver and the
chest filled with gold. Soon, I felt by certain movements of pitching and
tossing that the Nautilus was leaving the depths and returning to the
surface.

Then I heard steps upon the platform; and I knew they were unfastening the
pinnace and launching it upon the waves. For one instant it struck the side of
the Nautilus, then all noise ceased.

Two hours after, the same noise, the same going and coming was renewed; the
boat was hoisted on board, replaced in its socket, and the Nautilus
again plunged under the waves.

So these millions had been transported to their address. To what point of the
continent? Who was Captain Nemo’s correspondent?

The next day I related to Conseil and the Canadian the events of the night,
which had excited my curiosity to the highest degree. My companions were not
less surprised than myself.

“But where does he take his millions to?” asked Ned Land.

To that there was no possible answer. I returned to the saloon after having
breakfast and set to work. Till five o’clock in the evening I employed myself
in arranging my notes. At that moment—(ought I to attribute it to some peculiar
idiosyncrasy)—I felt so great a heat that I was obliged to take off my coat. It
was strange, for we were under low latitudes; and even then the
Nautilus, submerged as it was, ought to experience no change of
temperature. I looked at the manometer; it showed a depth of sixty feet, to
which atmospheric heat could never attain.

I continued my work, but the temperature rose to such a pitch as to be
intolerable.

“Could there be fire on board?” I asked myself.

I was leaving the saloon, when Captain Nemo entered; he approached the
thermometer, consulted it, and, turning to me, said:

“Forty-two degrees.”

“I have noticed it, Captain,” I replied; “and if it gets much hotter we cannot
bear it.”

“Oh, sir, it will not get better if we do not wish it.”

“You can reduce it as you please, then?”

“No; but I can go farther from the stove which produces it.”

“It is outward, then!”

“Certainly; we are floating in a current of boiling water.”

“Is it possible!” I exclaimed.

“Look.”

The panels opened, and I saw the sea entirely white all round. A sulphurous
smoke was curling amid the waves, which boiled like water in a copper. I placed
my hand on one of the panes of glass, but the heat was so great that I quickly
took it off again.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Near the Island of Santorin, sir,” replied the Captain. “I wished to give you
a sight of the curious spectacle of a submarine eruption.”

“I thought,” said I, “that the formation of these new islands was ended.”

“Nothing is ever ended in the volcanic parts of the sea,” replied Captain Nemo;
“and the globe is always being worked by subterranean fires. Already, in the
nineteenth year of our era, according to Cassiodorus and Pliny, a new island,
Theia (the divine), appeared in the very place where these islets have recently
been formed. Then they sank under the waves, to rise again in the year 69, when
they again subsided. Since that time to our days the Plutonian work has been
suspended. But on the 3rd of February, 1866, a new island, which they named
George Island, emerged from the midst of the sulphurous vapour near Nea
Kamenni, and settled again the 6th of the same month. Seven days after, the
13th of February, the Island of Aphroessa appeared, leaving between Nea Kamenni
and itself a canal ten yards broad. I was in these seas when the phenomenon
occurred, and I was able therefore to observe all the different phases. The
Island of Aphroessa, of round form, measured 300 feet in diameter, and 30 feet
in height. It was composed of black and vitreous lava, mixed with fragments of
felspar. And lastly, on the 10th of March, a smaller island, called Reka,
showed itself near Nea Kamenni, and since then these three have joined
together, forming but one and the same island.”

“And the canal in which we are at this moment?” I asked.

“Here it is,” replied Captain Nemo, showing me a map of the Archipelago. “You
see, I have marked the new islands.”

I returned to the glass. The Nautilus was no longer moving, the heat was
becoming unbearable. The sea, which till now had been white, was red, owing to
the presence of salts of iron. In spite of the ship’s being hermetically
sealed, an insupportable smell of sulphur filled the saloon, and the brilliancy
of the electricity was entirely extinguished by bright scarlet flames. I was in
a bath, I was choking, I was broiled.

“We can remain no longer in this boiling water,” said I to the Captain.

“It would not be prudent,” replied the impassive Captain Nemo.

An order was given; the Nautilus tacked about and left the furnace it
could not brave with impunity. A quarter of an hour after we were breathing
fresh air on the surface. The thought then struck me that, if Ned Land had
chosen this part of the sea for our flight, we should never have come alive out
of this sea of fire.

The next day, the 16th of February, we left the basin which, between Rhodes and
Alexandria, is reckoned about 1,500 fathoms in depth, and the Nautilus,
passing some distance from Cerigo, quitted the Grecian Archipelago after having
doubled Cape Matapan.

CHAPTER VII
THE MEDITERRANEAN IN FORTY-EIGHT HOURS

The Mediterranean, the blue sea par excellence, “the great sea” of the Hebrews,
“the sea” of the Greeks, the “mare nostrum” of the Romans, bordered by
orange-trees, aloes, cacti, and sea-pines; embalmed with the perfume of the
myrtle, surrounded by rude mountains, saturated with pure and transparent air,
but incessantly worked by underground fires; a perfect battlefield in which
Neptune and Pluto still dispute the empire of the world!

It is upon these banks, and on these waters, says Michelet, that man is renewed
in one of the most powerful climates of the globe. But, beautiful as it was, I
could only take a rapid glance at the basin whose superficial area is two
million of square yards. Even Captain Nemo’s knowledge was lost to me, for this
puzzling person did not appear once during our passage at full speed. I
estimated the course which the Nautilus took under the waves of the sea
at about six hundred leagues, and it was accomplished in forty-eight hours.
Starting on the morning of the 16th of February from the shores of Greece, we
had crossed the Straits of Gibraltar by sunrise on the 18th.

It was plain to me that this Mediterranean, enclosed in the midst of those
countries which he wished to avoid, was distasteful to Captain Nemo. Those
waves and those breezes brought back too many remembrances, if not too many
regrets. Here he had no longer that independence and that liberty of gait which
he had when in the open seas, and his Nautilus felt itself cramped
between the close shores of Africa and Europe.

Our speed was now twenty-five miles an hour. It may be well understood that Ned
Land, to his great disgust, was obliged to renounce his intended flight. He
could not launch the pinnace, going at the rate of twelve or thirteen yards
every second. To quit the Nautilus under such conditions would be as bad
as jumping from a train going at full speed—an imprudent thing, to say the
least of it. Besides, our vessel only mounted to the surface of the waves at
night to renew its stock of air; it was steered entirely by the compass and the
log.

I saw no more of the interior of this Mediterranean than a traveller by express
train perceives of the landscape which flies before his eyes; that is to say,
the distant horizon, and not the nearer objects which pass like a flash of
lightning.

We were then passing between Sicily and the coast of Tunis. In the narrow space
between Cape Bon and the Straits of Messina the bottom of the sea rose almost
suddenly. There was a perfect bank, on which there was not more than nine
fathoms of water, whilst on either side the depth was ninety fathoms.

The Nautilus had to manœuvre very carefully so as not to strike against
this submarine barrier.

I showed Conseil, on the map of the Mediterranean, the spot occupied by this
reef.

“But if you please, sir,” observed Conseil, “it is like a real isthmus joining
Europe to Africa.”

“Yes, my boy, it forms a perfect bar to the Straits of Lybia, and the soundings
of Smith have proved that in former times the continents between Cape Boco and
Cape Furina were joined.”

“I can well believe it,” said Conseil.

“I will add,” I continued, “that a similar barrier exists between Gibraltar and
Ceuta, which in geological times formed the entire Mediterranean.”

“What if some volcanic burst should one day raise these two barriers above the
waves?”

“It is not probable, Conseil.”

“Well, but allow me to finish, please, sir; if this phenomenon should take
place, it will be troublesome for M. Lesseps, who has taken so much pains to
pierce the isthmus.”

“I agree with you; but I repeat, Conseil, this phenomenon will never happen.
The violence of subterranean force is ever diminishing. Volcanoes, so plentiful
in the first days of the world, are being extinguished by degrees; the internal
heat is weakened, the temperature of the lower strata of the globe is lowered
by a perceptible quantity every century to the detriment of our globe, for its
heat is its life.”

“But the sun?”

“The sun is not sufficient, Conseil. Can it give heat to a dead body?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Well, my friend, this earth will one day be that cold corpse; it will become
uninhabitable and uninhabited like the moon, which has long since lost all its
vital heat.”

“In how many centuries?”

“In some hundreds of thousands of years, my boy.”

“Then,” said Conseil, “we shall have time to finish our journey—that is, if Ned
Land does not interfere with it.”

And Conseil, reassured, returned to the study of the bank, which the
Nautilus was skirting at a moderate speed.

During the night of the 16th and 17th February we had entered the second
Mediterranean basin, the greatest depth of which was 1,450 fathoms. The
Nautilus, by the action of its crew, slid down the inclined planes and
buried itself in the lowest depths of the sea.

On the 18th of February, about three o’clock in the morning, we were at the
entrance of the Straits of Gibraltar. There once existed two currents: an upper
one, long since recognised, which conveys the waters of the ocean into the
basin of the Mediterranean; and a lower counter-current, which reasoning has
now shown to exist. Indeed, the volume of water in the Mediterranean,
incessantly added to by the waves of the Atlantic and by rivers falling into
it, would each year raise the level of this sea, for its evaporation is not
sufficient to restore the equilibrium. As it is not so, we must necessarily
admit the existence of an under-current, which empties into the basin of the
Atlantic through the Straits of Gibraltar the surplus waters of the
Mediterranean. A fact indeed; and it was this counter-current by which the
Nautilus profited. It advanced rapidly by the narrow pass. For one
instant I caught a glimpse of the beautiful ruins of the temple of Hercules,
buried in the ground, according to Pliny, and with the low island which
supports it; and a few minutes later we were floating on the Atlantic.

CHAPTER VIII
VIGO BAY

The Atlantic! a vast sheet of water whose superficial area covers twenty-five
millions of square miles, the length of which is nine thousand miles, with a
mean breadth of two thousand seven hundred—an ocean whose parallel winding
shores embrace an immense circumference, watered by the largest rivers of the
world, the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Plata, the Orinoco,
the Niger, the Senegal, the Elbe, the Loire, and the Rhine, which carry water
from the most civilised, as well as from the most savage, countries!
Magnificent field of water, incessantly ploughed by vessels of every nation,
sheltered by the flags of every nation, and which terminates in those two
terrible points so dreaded by mariners, Cape Horn and the Cape of Tempests.

The Nautilus was piercing the water with its sharp spur, after having
accomplished nearly ten thousand leagues in three months and a half, a distance
greater than the great circle of the earth. Where were we going now, and what
was reserved for the future? The Nautilus, leaving the Straits of
Gibraltar, had gone far out. It returned to the surface of the waves, and our
daily walks on the platform were restored to us.

I mounted at once, accompanied by Ned Land and Conseil. At a distance of about
twelve miles, Cape St. Vincent was dimly to be seen, forming the south-western
point of the Spanish peninsula. A strong southerly gale was blowing. The sea
was swollen and billowy; it made the Nautilus rock violently. It was
almost impossible to keep one’s foot on the platform, which the heavy rolls of
the sea beat over every instant. So we descended after inhaling some mouthfuls
of fresh air.

I returned to my room, Conseil to his cabin; but the Canadian, with a
preoccupied air, followed me. Our rapid passage across the Mediterranean had
not allowed him to put his project into execution, and he could not help
showing his disappointment. When the door of my room was shut, he sat down and
looked at me silently.

“Friend Ned,” said I, “I understand you; but you cannot reproach yourself. To
have attempted to leave the Nautilus under the circumstances would have
been folly.”

Ned Land did not answer; his compressed lips and frowning brow showed with him
the violent possession this fixed idea had taken of his mind.

“Let us see,” I continued; “we need not despair yet. We are going up the coast
of Portugal again; France and England are not far off, where we can easily find
refuge. Now if the Nautilus, on leaving the Straits of Gibraltar, had
gone to the south, if it had carried us towards regions where there were no
continents, I should share your uneasiness. But we know now that Captain Nemo
does not fly from civilised seas, and in some days I think you can act with
security.”

Ned Land still looked at me fixedly; at length his fixed lips parted, and he
said, “It is for to-night.”

I drew myself up suddenly. I was, I admit, little prepared for this
communication. I wanted to answer the Canadian, but words would not come.

“We agreed to wait for an opportunity,” continued Ned Land, “and the
opportunity has arrived. This night we shall be but a few miles from the
Spanish coast. It is cloudy. The wind blows freely. I have your word, M.
Aronnax, and I rely upon you.”

As I was silent, the Canadian approached me.

“To-night, at nine o’clock,” said he. “I have warned Conseil. At that moment
Captain Nemo will be shut up in his room, probably in bed. Neither the
engineers nor the ship’s crew can see us. Conseil and I will gain the central
staircase, and you, M. Aronnax, will remain in the library, two steps from us,
waiting my signal. The oars, the mast, and the sail are in the canoe. I have
even succeeded in getting some provisions. I have procured an English wrench,
to unfasten the bolts which attach it to the shell of the Nautilus. So
all is ready, till to-night.”

“The sea is bad.”

“That I allow,” replied the Canadian; “but we must risk that. Liberty is worth
paying for; besides, the boat is strong, and a few miles with a fair wind to
carry us is no great thing. Who knows but by to-morrow we may be a hundred
leagues away? Let circumstances only favour us, and by ten or eleven o’clock we
shall have landed on some spot of terra firma, alive or dead. But adieu now
till to-night.”

With these words the Canadian withdrew, leaving me almost dumb. I had imagined
that, the chance gone, I should have time to reflect and discuss the matter. My
obstinate companion had given me no time; and, after all, what could I have
said to him? Ned Land was perfectly right. There was almost the opportunity to
profit by. Could I retract my word, and take upon myself the responsibility of
compromising the future of my companions? To-morrow Captain Nemo might take us
far from all land.

At that moment a rather loud hissing noise told me that the reservoirs were
filling, and that the Nautilus was sinking under the waves of the
Atlantic.

A sad day I passed, between the desire of regaining my liberty of action and of
abandoning the wonderful Nautilus, and leaving my submarine studies
incomplete.

What dreadful hours I passed thus! Sometimes seeing myself and companions
safely landed, sometimes wishing, in spite of my reason, that some unforeseen
circumstance, would prevent the realisation of Ned Land’s project.

Twice I went to the saloon. I wished to consult the compass. I wished to see if
the direction the Nautilus was taking was bringing us nearer or taking
us farther from the coast. But no; the Nautilus kept in Portuguese
waters.

I must therefore take my part and prepare for flight. My luggage was not heavy;
my notes, nothing more.

As to Captain Nemo, I asked myself what he would think of our escape; what
trouble, what wrong it might cause him and what he might do in case of its
discovery or failure. Certainly I had no cause to complain of him; on the
contrary, never was hospitality freer than his. In leaving him I could not be
taxed with ingratitude. No oath bound us to him. It was on the strength of
circumstances he relied, and not upon our word, to fix us for ever.

I had not seen the Captain since our visit to the Island of Santorin. Would
chance bring me to his presence before our departure? I wished it, and I feared
it at the same time. I listened if I could hear him walking the room contiguous
to mine. No sound reached my ear. I felt an unbearable uneasiness. This day of
waiting seemed eternal. Hours struck too slowly to keep pace with my
impatience.

My dinner was served in my room as usual. I ate but little; I was too
preoccupied. I left the table at seven o’clock. A hundred and twenty minutes (I
counted them) still separated me from the moment in which I was to join Ned
Land. My agitation redoubled. My pulse beat violently. I could not remain
quiet. I went and came, hoping to calm my troubled spirit by constant movement.
The idea of failure in our bold enterprise was the least painful of my
anxieties; but the thought of seeing our project discovered before leaving the
Nautilus, of being brought before Captain Nemo, irritated, or (what was
worse) saddened, at my desertion, made my heart beat.

I wanted to see the saloon for the last time. I descended the stairs and
arrived in the museum, where I had passed so many useful and agreeable hours. I
looked at all its riches, all its treasures, like a man on the eve of an
eternal exile, who was leaving never to return.

These wonders of Nature, these masterpieces of art, amongst which for so many
days my life had been concentrated, I was going to abandon them for ever! I
should like to have taken a last look through the windows of the saloon into
the waters of the Atlantic: but the panels were hermetically closed, and a
cloak of steel separated me from that ocean which I had not yet explored.

In passing through the saloon, I came near the door let into the angle which
opened into the Captain’s room. To my great surprise, this door was ajar. I
drew back involuntarily. If Captain Nemo should be in his room, he could see
me. But, hearing no sound, I drew nearer. The room was deserted. I pushed open
the door and took some steps forward. Still the same monklike severity of
aspect.

Suddenly the clock struck eight. The first beat of the hammer on the bell awoke
me from my dreams. I trembled as if an invisible eye had plunged into my most
secret thoughts, and I hurried from the room.

There my eye fell upon the compass. Our course was still north. The log
indicated moderate speed, the manometer a depth of about sixty feet.

I returned to my room, clothed myself warmly—sea boots, an otterskin cap, a
great coat of byssus, lined with sealskin; I was ready, I was waiting. The
vibration of the screw alone broke the deep silence which reigned on board. I
listened attentively. Would no loud voice suddenly inform me that Ned Land had
been surprised in his projected flight. A mortal dread hung over me, and I
vainly tried to regain my accustomed coolness.

At a few minutes to nine, I put my ear to the Captain’s door. No noise. I left
my room and returned to the saloon, which was half in obscurity, but deserted.

I opened the door communicating with the library. The same insufficient light,
the same solitude. I placed myself near the door leading to the central
staircase, and there waited for Ned Land’s signal.

At that moment the trembling of the screw sensibly diminished, then it stopped
entirely. The silence was now only disturbed by the beatings of my own heart.
Suddenly a slight shock was felt; and I knew that the Nautilus had
stopped at the bottom of the ocean. My uneasiness increased. The Canadian’s
signal did not come. I felt inclined to join Ned Land and beg of him to put off
his attempt. I felt that we were not sailing under our usual conditions.

At this moment the door of the large saloon opened, and Captain Nemo appeared.
He saw me, and without further preamble began in an amiable tone of voice:

“Ah, sir! I have been looking for you. Do you know the history of Spain?”

Now, one might know the history of one’s own country by heart; but in the
condition I was at the time, with troubled mind and head quite lost, I could
not have said a word of it.

“Well,” continued Captain Nemo, “you heard my question! Do you know the history
of Spain?”

“Very slightly,” I answered.

“Well, here are learned men having to learn,” said the Captain. “Come, sit
down, and I will tell you a curious episode in this history. Sir, listen well,”
said he; “this history will interest you on one side, for it will answer a
question which doubtless you have not been able to solve.”

“I listen, Captain,” said I, not knowing what my interlocutor was driving at,
and asking myself if this incident was bearing on our projected flight.

“Sir, if you have no objection, we will go back to 1702. You cannot be ignorant
that your king, Louis XIV, thinking that the gesture of a potentate was
sufficient to bring the Pyrenees under his yoke, had imposed the Duke of Anjou,
his grandson, on the Spaniards. This prince reigned more or less badly under
the name of Philip V, and had a strong party against him abroad. Indeed, the
preceding year, the royal houses of Holland, Austria, and England had concluded
a treaty of alliance at the Hague, with the intention of plucking the crown of
Spain from the head of Philip V, and placing it on that of an archduke to whom
they prematurely gave the title of Charles III.

“Spain must resist this coalition; but she was almost entirely unprovided with
either soldiers or sailors. However, money would not fail them, provided that
their galleons, laden with gold and silver from America, once entered their
ports. And about the end of 1702 they expected a rich convoy which France was
escorting with a fleet of twenty-three vessels, commanded by Admiral
Chateau-Renaud, for the ships of the coalition were already beating the
Atlantic. This convoy was to go to Cadiz, but the Admiral, hearing that an
English fleet was cruising in those waters, resolved to make for a French port.

“The Spanish commanders of the convoy objected to this decision. They wanted to
be taken to a Spanish port, and, if not to Cadiz, into Vigo Bay, situated on
the northwest coast of Spain, and which was not blocked.

“Admiral Chateau-Renaud had the rashness to obey this injunction, and the
galleons entered Vigo Bay.

“Unfortunately, it formed an open road which could not be defended in any way.
They must therefore hasten to unload the galleons before the arrival of the
combined fleet; and time would not have failed them had not a miserable
question of rivalry suddenly arisen.

“You are following the chain of events?” asked Captain Nemo.

“Perfectly,” said I, not knowing the end proposed by this historical lesson.

“I will continue. This is what passed. The merchants of Cadiz had a privilege
by which they had the right of receiving all merchandise coming from the West
Indies. Now, to disembark these ingots at the port of Vigo was depriving them
of their rights. They complained at Madrid, and obtained the consent of the
weak-minded Philip that the convoy, without discharging its cargo, should
remain sequestered in the roads of Vigo until the enemy had disappeared.

“But whilst coming to this decision, on the 22nd of October, 1702, the English
vessels arrived in Vigo Bay, when Admiral Chateau-Renaud, in spite of inferior
forces, fought bravely. But, seeing that the treasure must fall into the
enemy’s hands, he burnt and scuttled every galleon, which went to the bottom
with their immense riches.”

Captain Nemo stopped. I admit I could not see yet why this history should
interest me.

“Well?” I asked.

“Well, M. Aronnax,” replied Captain Nemo, “we are in that Vigo Bay; and it
rests with yourself whether you will penetrate its mysteries.”

The Captain rose, telling me to follow him. I had had time to recover. I
obeyed. The saloon was dark, but through the transparent glass the waves were
sparkling. I looked.

For half a mile around the Nautilus, the waters seemed bathed in
electric light. The sandy bottom was clean and bright. Some of the ship’s crew
in their diving-dresses were clearing away half-rotten barrels and empty cases
from the midst of the blackened wrecks. From these cases and from these barrels
escaped ingots of gold and silver, cascades of piastres and jewels. The sand
was heaped up with them. Laden with their precious booty, the men returned to
the Nautilus, disposed of their burden, and went back to this
inexhaustible fishery of gold and silver.

I understood now. This was the scene of the battle of the 22nd of October,
1702. Here on this very spot the galleons laden for the Spanish Government had
sunk. Here Captain Nemo came, according to his wants, to pack up those millions
with which he burdened the Nautilus. It was for him and him alone
America had given up her precious metals. He was heir direct, without anyone to
share, in those treasures torn from the Incas and from the conquered of
Ferdinand Cortez.

“Did you know, sir,” he asked, smiling, “that the sea contained such riches?”

“I knew,” I answered, “that they value money held in suspension in these waters
at two millions.”

“Doubtless; but to extract this money the expense would be greater than the
profit. Here, on the contrary, I have but to pick up what man has lost—and not
only in Vigo Bay, but in a thousand other ports where shipwrecks have happened,
and which are marked on my submarine map. Can you understand now the source of
the millions I am worth?”

“I understand, Captain. But allow me to tell you that in exploring Vigo Bay you
have only been beforehand with a rival society.”

“And which?”

“A society which has received from the Spanish Government the privilege of
seeking those buried galleons. The shareholders are led on by the allurement of
an enormous bounty, for they value these rich shipwrecks at five hundred
millions.”

“Five hundred millions they were,” answered Captain Nemo, “but they are so no
longer.”

“Just so,” said I; “and a warning to those shareholders would be an act of
charity. But who knows if it would be well received? What gamblers usually
regret above all is less the loss of their money than of their foolish hopes.
After all, I pity them less than the thousands of unfortunates to whom so much
riches well-distributed would have been profitable, whilst for them they will
be for ever barren.”

I had no sooner expressed this regret than I felt that it must have wounded
Captain Nemo.

“Barren!” he exclaimed, with animation. “Do you think then, sir, that these
riches are lost because I gather them? Is it for myself alone, according to
your idea, that I take the trouble to collect these treasures? Who told you
that I did not make a good use of it? Do you think I am ignorant that there are
suffering beings and oppressed races on this earth, miserable creatures to
console, victims to avenge? Do you not understand?”

Captain Nemo stopped at these last words, regretting perhaps that he had spoken
so much. But I had guessed that, whatever the motive which had forced him to
seek independence under the sea, it had left him still a man, that his heart
still beat for the sufferings of humanity, and that his immense charity was for
oppressed races as well as individuals. And I then understood for whom those
millions were destined which were forwarded by Captain Nemo when the
Nautilus was cruising in the waters of Crete.

CHAPTER IX
A VANISHED CONTINENT

The next morning, the 19th of February, I saw the Canadian enter my room. I
expected this visit. He looked very disappointed.

“Well, sir?” said he.

“Well, Ned, fortune was against us yesterday.”

“Yes; that Captain must needs stop exactly at the hour we intended leaving his
vessel.”

“Yes, Ned, he had business at his bankers.”

“His bankers!”

“Or rather his banking-house; by that I mean the ocean, where his riches are
safer than in the chests of the State.”

I then related to the Canadian the incidents of the preceding night, hoping to
bring him back to the idea of not abandoning the Captain; but my recital had no
other result than an energetically expressed regret from Ned that he had not
been able to take a walk on the battlefield of Vigo on his own account.

“However,” said he, “all is not ended. It is only a blow of the harpoon lost.
Another time we must succeed; and to-night, if necessary——”

“In what direction is the Nautilus going?” I asked.

“I do not know,” replied Ned.

“Well, at noon we shall see the point.”

The Canadian returned to Conseil. As soon as I was dressed, I went into the
saloon. The compass was not reassuring. The course of the Nautilus was
S.S.W. We were turning our backs on Europe.

I waited with some impatience till the ship’s place was pricked on the chart.
At about half-past eleven the reservoirs were emptied, and our vessel rose to
the surface of the ocean. I rushed towards the platform. Ned Land had preceded
me. No more land in sight. Nothing but an immense sea. Some sails on the
horizon, doubtless those going to San Roque in search of favourable winds for
doubling the Cape of Good Hope. The weather was cloudy. A gale of wind was
preparing. Ned raved, and tried to pierce the cloudy horizon. He still hoped
that behind all that fog stretched the land he so longed for.

At noon the sun showed itself for an instant. The second profited by this
brightness to take its height. Then, the sea becoming more billowy, we
descended, and the panel closed.

An hour after, upon consulting the chart, I saw the position of the
Nautilus was marked at 16° 17′ long., and 33° 22′ lat., at
150 leagues from the nearest coast. There was no means of flight, and I leave
you to imagine the rage of the Canadian when I informed him of our situation.

For myself, I was not particularly sorry. I felt lightened of the load which
had oppressed me, and was able to return with some degree of calmness to my
accustomed work.

That night, about eleven o’clock, I received a most unexpected visit from
Captain Nemo. He asked me very graciously if I felt fatigued from my watch of
the preceding night. I answered in the negative.

“Then, M. Aronnax, I propose a curious excursion.”

“Propose, Captain?”

“You have hitherto only visited the submarine depths by daylight, under the
brightness of the sun. Would it suit you to see them in the darkness of the
night?”

“Most willingly.”

“I warn you, the way will be tiring. We shall have far to walk, and must climb
a mountain. The roads are not well kept.”

“What you say, Captain, only heightens my curiosity; I am ready to follow you.”

“Come then, sir, we will put on our diving-dresses.”

Arrived at the robing-room, I saw that neither of my companions nor any of the
ship’s crew were to follow us on this excursion. Captain Nemo had not even
proposed my taking with me either Ned or Conseil.

In a few moments we had put on our diving-dresses; they placed on our backs the
reservoirs, abundantly filled with air, but no electric lamps were prepared. I
called the Captain’s attention to the fact.

“They will be useless,” he replied.

I thought I had not heard aright, but I could not repeat my observation, for
the Captain’s head had already disappeared in its metal case. I finished
harnessing myself. I felt them put an iron-pointed stick into my hand, and some
minutes later, after going through the usual form, we set foot on the bottom of
the Atlantic at a depth of 150 fathoms. Midnight was near. The waters were
profoundly dark, but Captain Nemo pointed out in the distance a reddish spot, a
sort of large light shining brilliantly about two miles from the
Nautilus. What this fire might be, what could feed it, why and how it
lit up the liquid mass, I could not say. In any case, it did light our way,
vaguely, it is true, but I soon accustomed myself to the peculiar darkness, and
I understood, under such circumstances, the uselessness of the Ruhmkorff
apparatus.

As we advanced, I heard a kind of pattering above my head. The noise
redoubling, sometimes producing a continual shower, I soon understood the
cause. It was rain falling violently, and crisping the surface of the waves.
Instinctively the thought flashed across my mind that I should be wet through!
By the water! in the midst of the water! I could not help laughing at the odd
idea. But, indeed, in the thick diving-dress, the liquid element is no longer
felt, and one only seems to be in an atmosphere somewhat denser than the
terrestrial atmosphere. Nothing more.

After half an hour’s walk the soil became stony. Medusae, microscopic
crustacea, and pennatules lit it slightly with their phosphorescent gleam. I
caught a glimpse of pieces of stone covered with millions of zoophytes and
masses of sea weed. My feet often slipped upon this sticky carpet of sea weed,
and without my iron-tipped stick I should have fallen more than once. In
turning round, I could still see the whitish lantern of the Nautilus
beginning to pale in the distance.

But the rosy light which guided us increased and lit up the horizon. The
presence of this fire under water puzzled me in the highest degree. Was I going
towards a natural phenomenon as yet unknown to the savants of the earth?
Or even (for this thought crossed my brain) had the hand of man aught to do
with this conflagration? Had he fanned this flame? Was I to meet in these
depths companions and friends of Captain Nemo whom he was going to visit, and
who, like him, led this strange existence? Should I find down there a whole
colony of exiles who, weary of the miseries of this earth, had sought and found
independence in the deep ocean? All these foolish and unreasonable ideas
pursued me. And in this condition of mind, over-excited by the succession of
wonders continually passing before my eyes, I should not have been surprised to
meet at the bottom of the sea one of those submarine towns of which Captain
Nemo dreamed.

Our road grew lighter and lighter. The white glimmer came in rays from the
summit of a mountain about 800 feet high. But what I saw was simply a
reflection, developed by the clearness of the waters. The source of this
inexplicable light was a fire on the opposite side of the mountain.

In the midst of this stony maze furrowing the bottom of the Atlantic, Captain
Nemo advanced without hesitation. He knew this dreary road. Doubtless he had
often travelled over it, and could not lose himself. I followed him with
unshaken confidence. He seemed to me like a genie of the sea; and, as he walked
before me, I could not help admiring his stature, which was outlined in black
on the luminous horizon.

It was one in the morning when we arrived at the first slopes of the mountain;
but to gain access to them we must venture through the difficult paths of a
vast copse.

Yes; a copse of dead trees, without leaves, without sap, trees petrified by the
action of the water and here and there overtopped by gigantic pines. It was
like a coal-pit still standing, holding by the roots to the broken soil, and
whose branches, like fine black paper cuttings, showed distinctly on the watery
ceiling. Picture to yourself a forest in the Hartz hanging on to the sides of
the mountain, but a forest swallowed up. The paths were encumbered with seaweed
and fucus, between which grovelled a whole world of crustacea. I went along,
climbing the rocks, striding over extended trunks, breaking the sea bind-weed
which hung from one tree to the other; and frightening the fishes, which flew
from branch to branch. Pressing onward, I felt no fatigue. I followed my guide,
who was never tired. What a spectacle! How can I express it? how paint the
aspect of those woods and rocks in this medium—their under parts dark and wild,
the upper coloured with red tints, by that light which the reflecting powers of
the waters doubled? We climbed rocks which fell directly after with gigantic
bounds and the low growling of an avalanche. To right and left ran long, dark
galleries, where sight was lost. Here opened vast glades which the hand of man
seemed to have worked; and I sometimes asked myself if some inhabitant of these
submarine regions would not suddenly appear to me.

But Captain Nemo was still mounting. I could not stay behind. I followed
boldly. My stick gave me good help. A false step would have been dangerous on
the narrow passes sloping down to the sides of the gulfs; but I walked with
firm step, without feeling any giddiness. Now I jumped a crevice, the depth of
which would have made me hesitate had it been among the glaciers on the land;
now I ventured on the unsteady trunk of a tree thrown across from one abyss to
the other, without looking under my feet, having only eyes to admire the wild
sites of this region.

There, monumental rocks, leaning on their regularly-cut bases, seemed to defy
all laws of equilibrium. From between their stony knees trees sprang, like a
jet under heavy pressure, and upheld others which upheld them. Natural towers,
large scarps, cut perpendicularly, like a “curtain,” inclined at an angle which
the laws of gravitation could never have tolerated in terrestrial regions.

Two hours after quitting the Nautilus we had crossed the line of trees,
and a hundred feet above our heads rose the top of the mountain, which cast a
shadow on the brilliant irradiation of the opposite slope. Some petrified
shrubs ran fantastically here and there. Fishes got up under our feet like
birds in the long grass. The massive rocks were rent with impenetrable
fractures, deep grottos, and unfathomable holes, at the bottom of which
formidable creatures might be heard moving. My blood curdled when I saw
enormous antennae blocking my road, or some frightful claw closing with a noise
in the shadow of some cavity. Millions of luminous spots shone brightly in the
midst of the darkness. They were the eyes of giant crustacea crouched in their
holes; giant lobsters setting themselves up like halberdiers, and moving their
claws with the clicking sound of pincers; titanic crabs, pointed like a gun on
its carriage; and frightful-looking poulps, interweaving their tentacles like a
living nest of serpents.

We had now arrived on the first platform, where other surprises awaited me.
Before us lay some picturesque ruins, which betrayed the hand of man and not
that of the Creator. There were vast heaps of stone, amongst which might be
traced the vague and shadowy forms of castles and temples, clothed with a world
of blossoming zoophytes, and over which, instead of ivy, sea-weed and fucus
threw a thick vegetable mantle. But what was this portion of the globe which
had been swallowed by cataclysms? Who had placed those rocks and stones like
cromlechs of prehistoric times? Where was I? Whither had Captain Nemo’s fancy
hurried me?

I would fain have asked him; not being able to, I stopped him—I seized his arm.
But, shaking his head, and pointing to the highest point of the mountain, he
seemed to say:

“Come, come along; come higher!”

I followed, and in a few minutes I had climbed to the top, which for a circle
of ten yards commanded the whole mass of rock.

I looked down the side we had just climbed. The mountain did not rise more than
seven or eight hundred feet above the level of the plain; but on the opposite
side it commanded from twice that height the depths of this part of the
Atlantic. My eyes ranged far over a large space lit by a violent fulguration.
In fact, the mountain was a volcano.

At fifty feet above the peak, in the midst of a rain of stones and scoriae, a
large crater was vomiting forth torrents of lava which fell in a cascade of
fire into the bosom of the liquid mass. Thus situated, this volcano lit the
lower plain like an immense torch, even to the extreme limits of the horizon. I
said that the submarine crater threw up lava, but no flames. Flames require the
oxygen of the air to feed upon and cannot be developed under water; but streams
of lava, having in themselves the principles of their incandescence, can attain
a white heat, fight vigorously against the liquid element, and turn it to
vapour by contact.

Rapid currents bearing all these gases in diffusion and torrents of lava slid
to the bottom of the mountain like an eruption of Vesuvius on another Terra del
Greco.

There indeed under my eyes, ruined, destroyed, lay a town—its roofs open to the
sky, its temples fallen, its arches dislocated, its columns lying on the
ground, from which one would still recognise the massive character of Tuscan
architecture. Further on, some remains of a gigantic aqueduct; here the high
base of an Acropolis, with the floating outline of a Parthenon; there traces of
a quay, as if an ancient port had formerly abutted on the borders of the ocean,
and disappeared with its merchant vessels and its war-galleys. Farther on
again, long lines of sunken walls and broad, deserted streets—a perfect Pompeii
escaped beneath the waters. Such was the sight that Captain Nemo brought before
my eyes!

Where was I? Where was I? I must know at any cost. I tried to speak, but
Captain Nemo stopped me by a gesture, and, picking up a piece of chalk-stone,
advanced to a rock of black basalt, and traced the one word:

ATLANTIS

What a light shot through my mind! Atlantis! the Atlantis of Plato, that
continent denied by Origen and Humbolt, who placed its disappearance amongst
the legendary tales. I had it there now before my eyes, bearing upon it the
unexceptionable testimony of its catastrophe. The region thus engulfed was
beyond Europe, Asia, and Lybia, beyond the columns of Hercules, where those
powerful people, the Atlantides, lived, against whom the first wars of ancient
Greeks were waged.

Thus, led by the strangest destiny, I was treading under foot the mountains of
this continent, touching with my hand those ruins a thousand generations old
and contemporary with the geological epochs. I was walking on the very spot
where the contemporaries of the first man had walked.

Whilst I was trying to fix in my mind every detail of this grand landscape,
Captain Nemo remained motionless, as if petrified in mute ecstasy, leaning on a
mossy stone. Was he dreaming of those generations long since disappeared? Was
he asking them the secret of human destiny? Was it here this strange man came
to steep himself in historical recollections, and live again this ancient
life—he who wanted no modern one? What would I not have given to know his
thoughts, to share them, to understand them! We remained for an hour at this
place, contemplating the vast plains under the brightness of the lava, which
was some times wonderfully intense. Rapid tremblings ran along the mountain
caused by internal bubblings, deep noise, distinctly transmitted through the
liquid medium were echoed with majestic grandeur. At this moment the moon
appeared through the mass of waters and threw her pale rays on the buried
continent. It was but a gleam, but what an indescribable effect! The Captain
rose, cast one last look on the immense plain, and then bade me follow him.

We descended the mountain rapidly, and, the mineral forest once passed, I saw
the lantern of the Nautilus shining like a star. The Captain walked
straight to it, and we got on board as the first rays of light whitened the
surface of the ocean.

CHAPTER X
THE SUBMARINE COAL-MINES

The next day, the 20th of February, I awoke very late: the fatigues of the
previous night had prolonged my sleep until eleven o’clock. I dressed quickly,
and hastened to find the course the Nautilus was taking. The instruments
showed it to be still toward the south, with a speed of twenty miles an hour
and a depth of fifty fathoms.

The species of fishes here did not differ much from those already noticed.
There were rays of giant size, five yards long, and endowed with great muscular
strength, which enabled them to shoot above the waves; sharks of many kinds;
amongst others, one fifteen feet long, with triangular sharp teeth, and whose
transparency rendered it almost invisible in the water.

Amongst bony fish Conseil noticed some about three yards long, armed at the
upper jaw with a piercing sword; other bright-coloured creatures, known in the
time of Aristotle by the name of the sea-dragon, which are dangerous to capture
on account of the spikes on their back.

About four o’clock, the soil, generally composed of a thick mud mixed with
petrified wood, changed by degrees, and it became more stony, and seemed strewn
with conglomerate and pieces of basalt, with a sprinkling of lava. I thought
that a mountainous region was succeeding the long plains; and accordingly,
after a few evolutions of the Nautilus, I saw the southerly horizon
blocked by a high wall which seemed to close all exit. Its summit evidently
passed the level of the ocean. It must be a continent, or at least an
island—one of the Canaries, or of the Cape Verde Islands. The bearings not
being yet taken, perhaps designedly, I was ignorant of our exact position. In
any case, such a wall seemed to me to mark the limits of that Atlantis, of
which we had in reality passed over only the smallest part.

Much longer should I have remained at the window admiring the beauties of sea
and sky, but the panels closed. At this moment the Nautilus arrived at
the side of this high, perpendicular wall. What it would do, I could not guess.
I returned to my room; it no longer moved. I laid myself down with the full
intention of waking after a few hours’ sleep; but it was eight o’clock the next
day when I entered the saloon. I looked at the manometer. It told me that the
Nautilus was floating on the surface of the ocean. Besides, I heard
steps on the platform. I went to the panel. It was open; but, instead of broad
daylight, as I expected, I was surrounded by profound darkness. Where were we?
Was I mistaken? Was it still night? No; not a star was shining and night has
not that utter darkness.

The Nautilus was floating near a mountain

I knew not what to think, when a voice near me said:

“Is that you, Professor?”

“Ah! Captain,” I answered, “where are we?”

“Underground, sir.”

“Underground!” I exclaimed. “And the Nautilus floating still?”

“It always floats.”

“But I do not understand.”

“Wait a few minutes, our lantern will be lit, and, if you like light places,
you will be satisfied.”

I stood on the platform and waited. The darkness was so complete that I could
not even see Captain Nemo; but, looking to the zenith, exactly above my head, I
seemed to catch an undecided gleam, a kind of twilight filling a circular hole.
At this instant the lantern was lit, and its vividness dispelled the faint
light. I closed my dazzled eyes for an instant, and then looked again. The
Nautilus was stationary, floating near a mountain which formed a sort of
quay. The lake, then, supporting it was a lake imprisoned by a circle of walls,
measuring two miles in diameter and six in circumference. Its level (the
manometer showed) could only be the same as the outside level, for there must
necessarily be a communication between the lake and the sea. The high
partitions, leaning forward on their base, grew into a vaulted roof bearing the
shape of an immense funnel turned upside down, the height being about five or
six hundred yards. At the summit was a circular orifice, by which I had caught
the slight gleam of light, evidently daylight.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“In the very heart of an extinct volcano, the interior of which has been
invaded by the sea, after some great convulsion of the earth. Whilst you were
sleeping, Professor, the Nautilus penetrated to this lagoon by a natural
canal, which opens about ten yards beneath the surface of the ocean. This is
its harbour of refuge, a sure, commodious, and mysterious one, sheltered from
all gales. Show me, if you can, on the coasts of any of your continents or
islands, a road which can give such perfect refuge from all storms.”

“Certainly,” I replied, “you are in safety here, Captain Nemo. Who could reach
you in the heart of a volcano? But did I not see an opening at its summit?”

“Yes; its crater, formerly filled with lava, vapour, and flames, and which now
gives entrance to the life-giving air we breathe.”

“But what is this volcanic mountain?”

“It belongs to one of the numerous islands with which this sea is strewn—to
vessels a simple sandbank—to us an immense cavern. Chance led me to discover
it, and chance served me well.”

“But of what use is this refuge, Captain? The Nautilus wants no port.”

“No, sir; but it wants electricity to make it move, and the wherewithal to make
the electricity—sodium to feed the elements, coal from which to get the sodium,
and a coal-mine to supply the coal. And exactly on this spot the sea covers
entire forests embedded during the geological periods, now mineralised and
transformed into coal; for me they are an inexhaustible mine.”

“Your men follow the trade of miners here, then, Captain?”

“Exactly so. These mines extend under the waves like the mines of Newcastle.
Here, in their diving-dresses, pick axe and shovel in hand, my men extract the
coal, which I do not even ask from the mines of the earth. When I burn this
combustible for the manufacture of sodium, the smoke, escaping from the crater
of the mountain, gives it the appearance of a still-active volcano.”

“And we shall see your companions at work?”

“No; not this time at least; for I am in a hurry to continue our submarine tour
of the earth. So I shall content myself with drawing from the reserve of sodium
I already possess. The time for loading is one day only, and we continue our
voyage. So, if you wish to go over the cavern and make the round of the lagoon,
you must take advantage of to-day, M. Aronnax.”

I thanked the Captain and went to look for my companions, who had not yet left
their cabin. I invited them to follow me without saying where we were. They
mounted the platform. Conseil, who was astonished at nothing, seemed to look
upon it as quite natural that he should wake under a mountain, after having
fallen asleep under the waves. But Ned Land thought of nothing but finding
whether the cavern had any exit. After breakfast, about ten o’clock, we went
down on to the mountain.

“Here we are, once more on land,” said Conseil.

“I do not call this land,” said the Canadian. “And besides, we are not on it,
but beneath it.”

Between the walls of the mountains and the waters of the lake lay a sandy shore
which, at its greatest breadth, measured five hundred feet. On this soil one
might easily make the tour of the lake. But the base of the high partitions was
stony ground, with volcanic locks and enormous pumice-stones lying in
picturesque heaps. All these detached masses, covered with enamel, polished by
the action of the subterraneous fires, shone resplendent by the light of our
electric lantern. The mica dust from the shore, rising under our feet, flew
like a cloud of sparks. The bottom now rose sensibly, and we soon arrived at
long circuitous slopes, or inclined planes, which took us higher by degrees;
but we were obliged to walk carefully among these conglomerates, bound by no
cement, the feet slipping on the glassy crystal, felspar, and quartz.

The volcanic nature of this enormous excavation was confirmed on all sides, and
I pointed it out to my companions.

“Picture to yourselves,” said I, “what this crater must have been when filled
with boiling lava, and when the level of the incandescent liquid rose to the
orifice of the mountain, as though melted on the top of a hot plate.”

“I can picture it perfectly,” said Conseil. “But, sir, will you tell me why the
Great Architect has suspended operations, and how it is that the furnace is
replaced by the quiet waters of the lake?”

“Most probably, Conseil, because some convulsion beneath the ocean produced
that very opening which has served as a passage for the Nautilus. Then
the waters of the Atlantic rushed into the interior of the mountain. There must
have been a terrible struggle between the two elements, a struggle which ended
in the victory of Neptune. But many ages have run out since then, and the
submerged volcano is now a peaceable grotto.”

“Very well,” replied Ned Land; “I accept the explanation, sir; but, in our own
interests, I regret that the opening of which you speak was not made above the
level of the sea.”

“But, friend Ned,” said Conseil, “if the passage had not been under the sea,
the Nautilus could not have gone through it.”

We continued ascending. The steps became more and more perpendicular and
narrow. Deep excavations, which we were obliged to cross, cut them here and
there; sloping masses had to be turned. We slid upon our knees and crawled
along. But Conseil’s dexterity and the Canadian’s strength surmounted all
obstacles. At a height of about 31 feet the nature of the ground changed
without becoming more practicable. To the conglomerate and trachyte succeeded
black basalt, the first dispread in layers full of bubbles, the latter forming
regular prisms, placed like a colonnade supporting the spring of the immense
vault, an admirable specimen of natural architecture. Between the blocks of
basalt wound long streams of lava, long since grown cold, encrusted with
bituminous rays; and in some places there were spread large carpets of sulphur.
A more powerful light shone through the upper crater, shedding a vague glimmer
over these volcanic depressions for ever buried in the bosom of this
extinguished mountain. But our upward march was soon stopped at a height of
about two hundred and fifty feet by impassable obstacles. There was a complete
vaulted arch overhanging us, and our ascent was changed to a circular walk. At
the last change vegetable life began to struggle with the mineral. Some shrubs,
and even some trees, grew from the fractures of the walls. I recognised some
euphorbias, with the caustic sugar coming from them; heliotropes, quite
incapable of justifying their name, sadly drooped their clusters of flowers,
both their colour and perfume half gone. Here and there some chrysanthemums
grew timidly at the foot of an aloe with long, sickly-looking leaves. But
between the streams of lava, I saw some little violets still slightly perfumed,
and I admit that I smelt them with delight. Perfume is the soul of the flower,
and sea-flowers have no soul.

We had arrived at the foot of some sturdy dragon-trees, which had pushed aside
the rocks with their strong roots, when Ned Land exclaimed:

“Ah! sir, a hive! a hive!”

“A hive!” I replied, with a gesture of incredulity.

“Yes, a hive,” repeated the Canadian, “and bees humming round it.”

I approached, and was bound to believe my own eyes. There at a hole bored in
one of the dragon-trees were some thousands of these ingenious insects, so
common in all the Canaries, and whose produce is so much esteemed. Naturally
enough, the Canadian wished to gather the honey, and I could not well oppose
his wish. A quantity of dry leaves, mixed with sulphur, he lit with a spark
from his flint, and he began to smoke out the bees. The humming ceased by
degrees, and the hive eventually yielded several pounds of the sweetest honey,
with which Ned Land filled his haversack.

“When I have mixed this honey with the paste of the bread-fruit,” said he, “I
shall be able to offer you a succulent cake.”

[Transcriber’s Note: ’bread-fruit’ has been substituted for ’artocarpus’ in
this ed.]

“’Pon my word,” said Conseil, “it will be gingerbread.”

“Never mind the gingerbread,” said I; “let us continue our interesting walk.”

At every turn of the path we were following, the lake appeared in all its
length and breadth. The lantern lit up the whole of its peaceable surface,
which knew neither ripple nor wave. The Nautilus remained perfectly
immovable. On the platform, and on the mountain, the ship’s crew were working
like black shadows clearly carved against the luminous atmosphere. We were now
going round the highest crest of the first layers of rock which upheld the
roof. I then saw that bees were not the only representatives of the animal
kingdom in the interior of this volcano. Birds of prey hovered here and there
in the shadows, or fled from their nests on the top of the rocks. There were
sparrow hawks, with white breasts, and kestrels, and down the slopes scampered,
with their long legs, several fine fat bustards. I leave anyone to imagine the
covetousness of the Canadian at the sight of this savoury game, and whether he
did not regret having no gun. But he did his best to replace the lead by
stones, and, after several fruitless attempts, he succeeded in wounding a
magnificent bird. To say that he risked his life twenty times before reaching
it is but the truth; but he managed so well that the creature joined the
honey-cakes in his bag. We were now obliged to descend toward the shore, the
crest becoming impracticable. Above us the crater seemed to gape like the mouth
of a well. From this place the sky could be clearly seen, and clouds,
dissipated by the west wind, leaving behind them, even on the summit of the
mountain, their misty remnants—certain proof that they were only moderately
high, for the volcano did not rise more than eight hundred feet above the level
of the ocean. Half an hour after the Canadian’s last exploit we had regained
the inner shore. Here the flora was represented by large carpets of marine
crystal, a little umbelliferous plant very good to pickle, which also bears the
name of pierce-stone and sea-fennel. Conseil gathered some bundles of it. As to
the fauna, it might be counted by thousands of crustacea of all sorts,
lobsters, crabs, spider-crabs, chameleon shrimps, and a large number of shells,
rockfish, and limpets. Three-quarters of an hour later we had finished our
circuitous walk and were on board. The crew had just finished loading the
sodium, and the Nautilus could have left that instant. But Captain Nemo
gave no order. Did he wish to wait until night, and leave the submarine passage
secretly? Perhaps so. Whatever it might be, the next day, the Nautilus,
having left its port, steered clear of all land at a few yards beneath the
waves of the Atlantic.

CHAPTER XI
THE SARGASSO SEA

That day the Nautilus crossed a singular part of the Atlantic Ocean. No
one can be ignorant of the existence of a current of warm water known by the
name of the Gulf Stream. After leaving the Gulf of Florida, we went in the
direction of Spitzbergen. But before entering the Gulf of Mexico, about 45° of
N. lat., this current divides into two arms, the principal one going towards
the coast of Ireland and Norway, whilst the second bends to the south about the
height of the Azores; then, touching the African shore, and describing a
lengthened oval, returns to the Antilles. This second arm—it is rather a collar
than an arm—surrounds with its circles of warm water that portion of the cold,
quiet, immovable ocean called the Sargasso Sea, a perfect lake in the open
Atlantic: it takes no less than three years for the great current to pass round
it. Such was the region the Nautilus was now visiting, a perfect meadow,
a close carpet of seaweed, fucus, and tropical berries, so thick and so compact
that the stem of a vessel could hardly tear its way through it. And Captain
Nemo, not wishing to entangle his screw in this herbaceous mass, kept some
yards beneath the surface of the waves. The name Sargasso comes from the
Spanish word “sargazzo” which signifies kelp. This kelp, or berry-plant, is the
principal formation of this immense bank. And this is the reason why these
plants unite in the peaceful basin of the Atlantic. The only explanation which
can be given, he says, seems to me to result from the experience known to all
the world. Place in a vase some fragments of cork or other floating body, and
give to the water in the vase a circular movement, the scattered fragments will
unite in a group in the centre of the liquid surface, that is to say, in the
part least agitated. In the phenomenon we are considering, the Atlantic is the
vase, the Gulf Stream the circular current, and the Sargasso Sea the central
point at which the floating bodies unite.

I share Maury’s opinion, and I was able to study the phenomenon in the very
midst, where vessels rarely penetrate. Above us floated products of all kinds,
heaped up among these brownish plants; trunks of trees torn from the Andes or
the Rocky Mountains, and floated by the Amazon or the Mississippi; numerous
wrecks, remains of keels, or ships’ bottoms, side-planks stove in, and so
weighted with shells and barnacles that they could not again rise to the
surface. And time will one day justify Maury’s other opinion, that these
substances thus accumulated for ages will become petrified by the action of the
water and will then form inexhaustible coal-mines—a precious reserve prepared
by far-seeing Nature for the moment when men shall have exhausted the mines of
continents.

In the midst of this inextricable mass of plants and sea weed, I noticed some
charming pink halcyons and actiniae, with their long tentacles trailing after
them, and medusæ, green, red, and blue.

All the day of the 22nd of February we passed in the Sargasso Sea, where such
fish as are partial to marine plants find abundant nourishment. The next, the
ocean had returned to its accustomed aspect. From this time for nineteen days,
from the 23rd of February to the 12th of March, the Nautilus kept in the
middle of the Atlantic, carrying us at a constant speed of a hundred leagues in
twenty-four hours. Captain Nemo evidently intended accomplishing his submarine
programme, and I imagined that he intended, after doubling Cape Horn, to return
to the Australian seas of the Pacific. Ned Land had cause for fear. In these
large seas, void of islands, we could not attempt to leave the boat. Nor had we
any means of opposing Captain Nemo’s will. Our only course was to submit; but
what we could neither gain by force nor cunning, I liked to think might be
obtained by persuasion. This voyage ended, would he not consent to restore our
liberty, under an oath never to reveal his existence?—an oath of honour which
we should have religiously kept. But we must consider that delicate question
with the Captain. But was I free to claim this liberty? Had he not himself said
from the beginning, in the firmest manner, that the secret of his life exacted
from him our lasting imprisonment on board the Nautilus? And would not
my four months’ silence appear to him a tacit acceptance of our situation? And
would not a return to the subject result in raising suspicions which might be
hurtful to our projects, if at some future time a favourable opportunity
offered to return to them?

During the nineteen days mentioned above, no incident of any kind happened to
signalise our voyage. I saw little of the Captain; he was at work. In the
library I often found his books left open, especially those on natural history.
My work on submarine depths, conned over by him, was covered with marginal
notes, often contradicting my theories and systems; but the Captain contented
himself with thus purging my work; it was very rare for him to discuss it with
me. Sometimes I heard the melancholy tones of his organ; but only at night, in
the midst of the deepest obscurity, when the Nautilus slept upon the
deserted ocean. During this part of our voyage we sailed whole days on the
surface of the waves. The sea seemed abandoned. A few sailing-vessels, on the
road to India, were making for the Cape of Good Hope. One day we were followed
by the boats of a whaler, who, no doubt, took us for some enormous whale of
great price; but Captain Nemo did not wish the worthy fellows to lose their
time and trouble, so ended the chase by plunging under the water. Our
navigation continued until the 13th of March; that day the Nautilus was
employed in taking soundings, which greatly interested me. We had then made
about 13,000 leagues since our departure from the high seas of the Pacific. The
bearings gave us 45° 37′ S. lat., and 37° 53′ W. long. It was the
same water in which Captain Denham of the Herald sounded 7,000 fathoms without
finding the bottom. There, too, Lieutenant Parker, of the American frigate
Congress, could not touch the bottom with 15,140 fathoms. Captain Nemo intended
seeking the bottom of the ocean by a diagonal sufficiently lengthened by means
of lateral planes placed at an angle of 45° with the water-line of the
Nautilus. Then the screw set to work at its maximum speed, its four
blades beating the waves with in describable force. Under this powerful
pressure, the hull of the Nautilus quivered like a sonorous chord and
sank regularly under the water.

At 7,000 fathoms I saw some blackish tops rising from the midst of the waters;
but these summits might belong to high mountains like the Himalayas or Mont
Blanc, even higher; and the depth of the abyss remained incalculable. The
Nautilus descended still lower, in spite of the great pressure. I felt
the steel plates tremble at the fastenings of the bolts; its bars bent, its
partitions groaned; the windows of the saloon seemed to curve under the
pressure of the waters. And this firm structure would doubtless have yielded,
if, as its Captain had said, it had not been capable of resistance like a solid
block. We had attained a depth of 16,000 yards (four leagues), and the sides of
the Nautilus then bore a pressure of 1,600 atmospheres, that is to say,
3,200 lbs. to each square two-fifths of an inch of its surface.

“What a situation to be in!” I exclaimed. “To overrun these deep regions where
man has never trod! Look, Captain, look at these magnificent rocks, these
uninhabited grottoes, these lowest receptacles of the globe, where life is no
longer possible! What unknown sights are here! Why should we be unable to
preserve a remembrance of them?”

“Would you like to carry away more than the remembrance?” said Captain Nemo.

“What do you mean by those words?”

“I mean to say that nothing is easier than to make a photographic view of this
submarine region.”

I had not time to express my surprise at this new proposition, when, at Captain
Nemo’s call, an objective was brought into the saloon. Through the
widely-opened panel, the liquid mass was bright with electricity, which was
distributed with such uniformity that not a shadow, not a gradation, was to be
seen in our manufactured light. The Nautilus remained motionless, the
force of its screw subdued by the inclination of its planes: the instrument was
propped on the bottom of the oceanic site, and in a few seconds we had obtained
a perfect negative.

But, the operation being over, Captain Nemo said, “Let us go up; we must not
abuse our position, nor expose the Nautilus too long to such great
pressure.”

“Go up again!” I exclaimed.

“Hold well on.”

I had not time to understand why the Captain cautioned me thus, when I was
thrown forward on to the carpet. At a signal from the Captain, its screw was
shipped, and its blades raised vertically; the Nautilus shot into the
air like a balloon, rising with stunning rapidity, and cutting the mass of
waters with a sonorous agitation. Nothing was visible; and in four minutes it
had shot through the four leagues which separated it from the ocean, and, after
emerging like a flying-fish, fell, making the waves rebound to an enormous
height.

CHAPTER XII
CACHALOTS AND WHALES

During the nights of the 13th and 14th of March, the Nautilus returned
to its southerly course. I fancied that, when on a level with Cape Horn, he
would turn the helm westward, in order to beat the Pacific seas, and so
complete the tour of the world. He did nothing of the kind, but continued on
his way to the southern regions. Where was he going to? To the pole? It was
madness! I began to think that the Captain’s temerity justified Ned Land’s
fears. For some time past the Canadian had not spoken to me of his projects of
flight; he was less communicative, almost silent. I could see that this
lengthened imprisonment was weighing upon him, and I felt that rage was burning
within him. When he met the Captain, his eyes lit up with suppressed anger; and
I feared that his natural violence would lead him into some extreme. That day,
the 14th of March, Conseil and he came to me in my room. I inquired the cause
of their visit.

“A simple question to ask you, sir,” replied the Canadian.

“Speak, Ned.”

“How many men are there on board the Nautilus, do you think?”

“I cannot tell, my friend.”

“I should say that its working does not require a large crew.”

“Certainly, under existing conditions, ten men, at the most, ought to be
enough.”

“Well, why should there be any more?”

“Why?” I replied, looking fixedly at Ned Land, whose meaning was easy to guess.
“Because,” I added, “if my surmises are correct, and if I have well understood
the Captain’s existence, the Nautilus is not only a vessel: it is also a
place of refuge for those who, like its commander, have broken every tie upon
earth.”

“Perhaps so,” said Conseil; “but, in any case, the Nautilus can only
contain a certain number of men. Could not you, sir, estimate their maximum?”

“How, Conseil?”

“By calculation; given the size of the vessel, which you know, sir, and
consequently the quantity of air it contains, knowing also how much each man
expends at a breath, and comparing these results with the fact that the
Nautilus is obliged to go to the surface every twenty-four hours.”

Conseil had not finished the sentence before I saw what he was driving at.

“I understand,” said I; “but that calculation, though simple enough, can give
but a very uncertain result.”

“Never mind,” said Ned Land urgently.

“Here it is, then,” said I. “In one hour each man consumes the oxygen contained
in twenty gallons of air; and in twenty-four, that contained in 480 gallons. We
must, therefore find how many times 480 gallons of air the Nautilus
contains.”

“Just so,” said Conseil.

“Or,” I continued, “the size of the Nautilus being 1,500 tons; and one
ton holding 200 gallons, it contains 300,000 gallons of air, which, divided by
480, gives a quotient of 625. Which means to say, strictly speaking, that the
air contained in the Nautilus would suffice for 625 men for twenty-four
hours.”

“Six hundred and twenty-five!” repeated Ned.

“But remember that all of us, passengers, sailors, and officers included, would
not form a tenth part of that number.”

“Still too many for three men,” murmured Conseil.

The Canadian shook his head, passed his hand across his forehead, and left the
room without answering.

“Will you allow me to make one observation, sir?” said Conseil. “Poor Ned is
longing for everything that he can not have. His past life is always present to
him; everything that we are forbidden he regrets. His head is full of old
recollections. And we must understand him. What has he to do here? Nothing; he
is not learned like you, sir; and has not the same taste for the beauties of
the sea that we have. He would risk everything to be able to go once more into
a tavern in his own country.”

Certainly the monotony on board must seem intolerable to the Canadian,
accustomed as he was to a life of liberty and activity. Events were rare which
could rouse him to any show of spirit; but that day an event did happen which
recalled the bright days of the harpooner. About eleven in the morning, being
on the surface of the ocean, the Nautilus fell in with a troop of
whales—an encounter which did not astonish me, knowing that these creatures,
hunted to death, had taken refuge in high latitudes.

We were seated on the platform, with a quiet sea. The month of October in those
latitudes gave us some lovely autumnal days. It was the Canadian—he could not
be mistaken—who signalled a whale on the eastern horizon. Looking attentively,
one might see its black back rise and fall with the waves five miles from the
Nautilus.

“Ah!” exclaimed Ned Land, “if I was on board a whaler, now such a meeting would
give me pleasure. It is one of large size. See with what strength its
blow-holes throw up columns of air an steam! Confound it, why am I bound to
these steel plates?”

“What, Ned,” said I, “you have not forgotten your old ideas of fishing?”

“Can a whale-fisher ever forget his old trade, sir? Can he ever tire of the
emotions caused by such a chase?”

“You have never fished in these seas, Ned?”

“Never, sir; in the northern only, and as much in Behring as in Davis Straits.”

“Then the southern whale is still unknown to you. It is the Greenland whale you
have hunted up to this time, and that would not risk passing through the warm
waters of the equator. Whales are localised, according to their kinds, in
certain seas which they never leave. And if one of these creatures went from
Behring to Davis Straits, it must be simply because there is a passage from one
sea to the other, either on the American or the Asiatic side.”

“In that case, as I have never fished in these seas, I do not know the kind of
whale frequenting them!”

“I have told you, Ned.”

“A greater reason for making their acquaintance,” said Conseil.

“Look! look!” exclaimed the Canadian, “they approach: they aggravate me; they
know that I cannot get at them!”

Ned stamped his feet. His hand trembled, as he grasped an imaginary harpoon.

“Are these cetaceans as large as those of the northern seas?” asked he.

“Very nearly, Ned.”

“Because I have seen large whales, sir, whales measuring a hundred feet. I have
even been told that those of Hullamoch and Umgallick, of the Aleutian Islands,
are sometimes a hundred and fifty feet long.”

“That seems to me exaggeration. These creatures are only balaeaopterons,
provided with dorsal fins; and, like the cachalots, are generally much smaller
than the Greenland whale.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the Canadian, whose eyes had never left the ocean, “they are
coming nearer; they are in the same water as the Nautilus.”

Then, returning to the conversation, he said:

“You spoke of the cachalot as a small creature. I have heard of gigantic ones.
They are intelligent cetacea. It is said of some that they cover themselves
with seaweed and fucus, and then are taken for islands. People encamp upon
them, and settle there; lights a fire——”

“And build houses,” said Conseil.

“Yes, joker,” said Ned Land. “And one fine day the creature plunges, carrying
with it all the inhabitants to the bottom of the sea.”

“Something like the travels of Sinbad the Sailor,” I replied, laughing.

“Ah!” suddenly exclaimed Ned Land, “it is not one whale; there are ten—there
are twenty—it is a whole troop! And I not able to do anything! hands and feet
tied!”

“But, friend Ned,” said Conseil, “why do you not ask Captain Nemo’s permission
to chase them?”

Conseil had not finished his sentence when Ned Land had lowered himself through
the panel to seek the Captain. A few minutes afterwards the two appeared
together on the platform.

Captain Nemo watched the troop of cetacea playing on the waters about a mile
from the Nautilus.

“They are southern whales,” said he; “there goes the fortune of a whole fleet
of whalers.”

“Well, sir,” asked the Canadian, “can I not chase them, if only to remind me of
my old trade of harpooner?”

“And to what purpose?” replied Captain Nemo; “only to destroy! We have nothing
to do with the whale-oil on board.”

“But, sir,” continued the Canadian, “in the Red Sea you allowed us to follow
the dugong.”

“Then it was to procure fresh meat for my crew. Here it would be killing for
killing’s sake. I know that is a privilege reserved for man, but I do not
approve of such murderous pastime. In destroying the southern whale (like the
Greenland whale, an inoffensive creature), your traders do a culpable action,
Master Land. They have already depopulated the whole of Baffin’s Bay, and are
annihilating a class of useful animals. Leave the unfortunate cetacea alone.
They have plenty of natural enemies—cachalots, swordfish, and sawfish—without
you troubling them.”

The Captain was right. The barbarous and inconsiderate greed of these fishermen
will one day cause the disappearance of the last whale in the ocean. Ned Land
whistled “Yankee-doodle” between his teeth, thrust his hands into his pockets,
and turned his back upon us. But Captain Nemo watched the troop of cetacea,
and, addressing me, said:

“I was right in saying that whales had natural enemies enough, without counting
man. These will have plenty to do before long. Do you see, M. Aronnax, about
eight miles to leeward, those blackish moving points?”

“Yes, Captain,” I replied.

“Those are cachalots—terrible animals, which I have met in troops of two or
three hundred. As to those, they are cruel, mischievous creatures; they would
be right in exterminating them.”

The Canadian turned quickly at the last words.

“Well, Captain,” said he, “it is still time, in the interest of the whales.”

“It is useless to expose one’s self, Professor. The Nautilus will
disperse them. It is armed with a steel spur as good as Master Land’s harpoon,
I imagine.”

The Canadian did not put himself out enough to shrug his shoulders. Attack
cetacea with blows of a spur! Who had ever heard of such a thing?

“Wait, M. Aronnax,” said Captain Nemo. “We will show you something you have
never yet seen. We have no pity for these ferocious creatures. They are nothing
but mouth and teeth.”

Mouth and teeth! No one could better describe the macrocephalous cachalot,
which is sometimes more than seventy-five feet long. Its enormous head occupies
one-third of its entire body. Better armed than the whale, whose upper jaw is
furnished only with whalebone, it is supplied with twenty-five large tusks,
about eight inches long, cylindrical and conical at the top, each weighing two
pounds. It is in the upper part of this enormous head, in great cavities
divided by cartilages, that is to be found from six to eight hundred pounds of
that precious oil called spermaceti. The cachalot is a disagreeable creature,
more tadpole than fish, according to Fredol’s description. It is badly formed,
the whole of its left side being (if we may say it), a “failure,” and being
only able to see with its right eye. But the formidable troop was nearing us.
They had seen the whales and were preparing to attack them. One could judge
beforehand that the cachalots would be victorious, not only because they were
better built for attack than their inoffensive adversaries, but also because
they could remain longer under water without coming to the surface. There was
only just time to go to the help of the whales. The Nautilus went under
water. Conseil, Ned Land, and I took our places before the window in the
saloon, and Captain Nemo joined the pilot in his cage to work his apparatus as
an engine of destruction. Soon I felt the beatings of the screw quicken, and
our speed increased. The battle between the cachalots and the whales had
already begun when the Nautilus arrived. They did not at first show any
fear at the sight of this new monster joining in the conflict. But they soon
had to guard against its blows. What a battle! The Nautilus was nothing
but a formidable harpoon, brandished by the hand of its Captain. It hurled
itself against the fleshy mass, passing through from one part to the other,
leaving behind it two quivering halves of the animal. It could not feel the
formidable blows from their tails upon its sides, nor the shock which it
produced itself, much more. One cachalot killed, it ran at the next, tacked on
the spot that it might not miss its prey, going forwards and backwards,
answering to its helm, plunging when the cetacean dived into the deep waters,
coming up with it when it returned to the surface, striking it front or
sideways, cutting or tearing in all directions and at any pace, piercing it
with its terrible spur. What carnage! What a noise on the surface of the waves!
What sharp hissing, and what snorting peculiar to these enraged animals! In the
midst of these waters, generally so peaceful, their tails made perfect billows.
For one hour this wholesale massacre continued, from which the cachalots could
not escape. Several times ten or twelve united tried to crush the
Nautilus by their weight. From the window we could see their enormous
mouths, studded with tusks, and their formidable eyes. Ned Land could not
contain himself; he threatened and swore at them. We could feel them clinging
to our vessel like dogs worrying a wild boar in a copse. But the
Nautilus, working its screw, carried them here and there, or to the
upper levels of the ocean, without caring for their enormous weight, nor the
powerful strain on the vessel. At length the mass of cachalots broke up, the
waves became quiet, and I felt that we were rising to the surface. The panel
opened, and we hurried on to the platform. The sea was covered with mutilated
bodies. A formidable explosion could not have divided and torn this fleshy mass
with more violence. We were floating amid gigantic bodies, bluish on the back
and white underneath, covered with enormous protuberances. Some terrified
cachalots were flying towards the horizon. The waves were dyed red for several
miles, and the Nautilus floated in a sea of blood: Captain Nemo joined
us.

“Well, Master Land?” said he.

“Well, sir,” replied the Canadian, whose enthusiasm had somewhat calmed; “it is
a terrible spectacle, certainly. But I am not a butcher. I am a hunter, and I
call this a butchery.”

“It is a massacre of mischievous creatures,” replied the Captain; “and the
Nautilus is not a butcher’s knife.”

“I like my harpoon better,” said the Canadian.

“Every one to his own,” answered the Captain, looking fixedly at Ned Land.

I feared he would commit some act of violence, which would end in sad
consequences. But his anger was turned by the sight of a whale which the
Nautilus had just come up with. The creature had not quite escaped from
the cachalot’s teeth. I recognised the southern whale by its flat head, which
is entirely black. Anatomically, it is distinguished from the white whale and
the North Cape whale by the seven cervical vertebrae, and it has two more ribs
than its congeners. The unfortunate cetacean was lying on its side, riddled
with holes from the bites, and quite dead. From its mutilated fin still hung a
young whale which it could not save from the massacre. Its open mouth let the
water flow in and out, murmuring like the waves breaking on the shore. Captain
Nemo steered close to the corpse of the creature. Two of his men mounted its
side, and I saw, not without surprise, that they were drawing from its breasts
all the milk which they contained, that is to say, about two or three tons. The
Captain offered me a cup of the milk, which was still warm. I could not help
showing my repugnance to the drink; but he assured me that it was excellent,
and not to be distinguished from cow’s milk. I tasted it, and was of his
opinion. It was a useful reserve to us, for in the shape of salt butter or
cheese it would form an agreeable variety from our ordinary food. From that day
I noticed with uneasiness that Ned Land’s ill-will towards Captain Nemo
increased, and I resolved to watch the Canadian’s gestures closely.

CHAPTER XIII
THE ICEBERG

The Nautilus was steadily pursuing its southerly course, following the
fiftieth meridian with considerable speed. Did he wish to reach the pole? I did
not think so, for every attempt to reach that point had hitherto failed. Again,
the season was far advanced, for in the Antarctic regions the 13th of March
corresponds with the 13th of September of northern regions, which begin at the
equinoctial season. On the 14th of March I saw floating ice in latitude 55°,
merely pale bits of debris from twenty to twenty-five feet long, forming banks
over which the sea curled. The Nautilus remained on the surface of the
ocean. Ned Land, who had fished in the Arctic Seas, was familiar with its
icebergs; but Conseil and I admired them for the first time. In the atmosphere
towards the southern horizon stretched a white dazzling band. English whalers
have given it the name of “ice blink.” However thick the clouds may be, it is
always visible, and announces the presence of an ice pack or bank. Accordingly,
larger blocks soon appeared, whose brilliancy changed with the caprices of the
fog. Some of these masses showed green veins, as if long undulating lines had
been traced with sulphate of copper; others resembled enormous amethysts with
the light shining through them. Some reflected the light of day upon a thousand
crystal facets. Others shaded with vivid calcareous reflections resembled a
perfect town of marble. The more we neared the south the more these floating
islands increased both in number and importance.

At 60° lat. every pass had disappeared. But, seeking carefully, Captain Nemo
soon found a narrow opening, through which he boldly slipped, knowing, however,
that it would close behind him. Thus, guided by this clever hand, the
Nautilus passed through all the ice with a precision which quite charmed
Conseil; icebergs or mountains, ice-fields or smooth plains, seeming to have no
limits, drift-ice or floating ice-packs, plains broken up, called palchs when
they are circular, and streams when they are made up of long strips. The
temperature was very low; the thermometer exposed to the air marked 2 deg. or
3° below zero, but we were warmly clad with fur, at the expense of the sea-bear
and seal. The interior of the Nautilus, warmed regularly by its electric
apparatus, defied the most intense cold. Besides, it would only have been
necessary to go some yards beneath the waves to find a more bearable
temperature. Two months earlier we should have had perpetual daylight in these
latitudes; but already we had had three or four hours of night, and by and by
there would be six months of darkness in these circumpolar regions. On the 15th
of March we were in the latitude of New Shetland and South Orkney. The Captain
told me that formerly numerous tribes of seals inhabited them; but that English
and American whalers, in their rage for destruction, massacred both old and
young; thus, where there was once life and animation, they had left silence and
death.

About eight o’clock on the morning of the 16th of March the Nautilus,
following the fifty-fifth meridian, cut the Antarctic polar circle. Ice
surrounded us on all sides, and closed the horizon. But Captain Nemo went from
one opening to another, still going higher. I cannot express my astonishment at
the beauties of these new regions. The ice took most surprising forms. Here the
grouping formed an oriental town, with innumerable mosques and minarets; there
a fallen city thrown to the earth, as it were, by some convulsion of nature.
The whole aspect was constantly changed by the oblique rays of the sun, or lost
in the greyish fog amidst hurricanes of snow. Detonations and falls were heard
on all sides, great overthrows of icebergs, which altered the whole landscape
like a diorama. Often seeing no exit, I thought we were definitely prisoners;
but, instinct guiding him at the slightest indication, Captain Nemo would
discover a new pass. He was never mistaken when he saw the thin threads of
bluish water trickling along the ice-fields; and I had no doubt that he had
already ventured into the midst of these Antarctic seas before. On the 16th of
March, however, the ice-fields absolutely blocked our road. It was not the
iceberg itself, as yet, but vast fields cemented by the cold. But this obstacle
could not stop Captain Nemo: he hurled himself against it with frightful
violence. The Nautilus entered the brittle mass like a wedge, and split
it with frightful crackings. It was the battering ram of the ancients hurled by
infinite strength. The ice, thrown high in the air, fell like hail around us.
By its own power of impulsion our apparatus made a canal for itself; some times
carried away by its own impetus, it lodged on the ice-field, crushing it with
its weight, and sometimes buried beneath it, dividing it by a simple pitching
movement, producing large rents in it. Violent gales assailed us at this time,
accompanied by thick fogs, through which, from one end of the platform to the
other, we could see nothing. The wind blew sharply from all parts of the
compass, and the snow lay in such hard heaps that we had to break it with blows
of a pickaxe. The temperature was always at 5 deg. below zero; every outward
part of the Nautilus was covered with ice. A rigged vessel would have
been entangled in the blocked up gorges. A vessel without sails, with
electricity for its motive power, and wanting no coal, could alone brave such
high latitudes. At length, on the 18th of March, after many useless assaults,
the Nautilus was positively blocked. It was no longer either streams,
packs, or ice-fields, but an interminable and immovable barrier, formed by
mountains soldered together.

“An iceberg!” said the Canadian to me.

I knew that to Ned Land, as well as to all other navigators who had preceded
us, this was an inevitable obstacle. The sun appearing for an instant at noon,
Captain Nemo took an observation as near as possible, which gave our situation
at 51° 30′ long. and 67° 39′ of S. lat. We had advanced one
degree more in this Antarctic region. Of the liquid surface of the sea there
was no longer a glimpse. Under the spur of the Nautilus lay stretched a
vast plain, entangled with confused blocks. Here and there sharp points and
slender needles rising to a height of 200 feet; further on a steep shore, hewn
as it were with an axe and clothed with greyish tints; huge mirrors, reflecting
a few rays of sunshine, half drowned in the fog. And over this desolate face of
nature a stern silence reigned, scarcely broken by the flapping of the wings of
petrels and puffins. Everything was frozen—even the noise. The Nautilus
was then obliged to stop in its adventurous course amid these fields of ice. In
spite of our efforts, in spite of the powerful means employed to break up the
ice, the Nautilus remained immovable. Generally, when we can proceed no
further, we have return still open to us; but here return was as impossible as
advance, for every pass had closed behind us; and for the few moments when we
were stationary, we were likely to be entirely blocked, which did indeed happen
about two o’clock in the afternoon, the fresh ice forming around its sides with
astonishing rapidity. I was obliged to admit that Captain Nemo was more than
imprudent. I was on the platform at that moment. The Captain had been observing
our situation for some time past, when he said to me:

“Well, sir, what do you think of this?”

“I think that we are caught, Captain.”

The Nautilus was blocked up

“So, M. Aronnax, you really think that the Nautilus cannot disengage
itself?”

“With difficulty, Captain; for the season is already too far advanced for you
to reckon on the breaking of the ice.”

“Ah! sir,” said Captain Nemo, in an ironical tone, “you will always be the
same. You see nothing but difficulties and obstacles. I affirm that not only
can the Nautilus disengage itself, but also that it can go further
still.”

“Further to the South?” I asked, looking at the Captain.

“Yes, sir; it shall go to the pole.”

“To the pole!” I exclaimed, unable to repress a gesture of incredulity.

“Yes,” replied the Captain, coldly, “to the Antarctic pole—to that unknown
point from whence springs every meridian of the globe. You know whether I can
do as I please with the Nautilus!”

Yes, I knew that. I knew that this man was bold, even to rashness. But to
conquer those obstacles which bristled round the South Pole, rendering it more
inaccessible than the North, which had not yet been reached by the boldest
navigators—was it not a mad enterprise, one which only a maniac would have
conceived? It then came into my head to ask Captain Nemo if he had ever
discovered that pole which had never yet been trodden by a human creature?

“No, sir,” he replied; “but we will discover it together. Where others have
failed, I will not fail. I have never yet led my Nautilus so far into
southern seas; but, I repeat, it shall go further yet.”

“I can well believe you, Captain,” said I, in a slightly ironical tone. “I
believe you! Let us go ahead! There are no obstacles for us! Let us smash this
iceberg! Let us blow it up; and, if it resists, let us give the Nautilus
wings to fly over it!”

“Over it, sir!” said Captain Nemo, quietly; “no, not over it, but under it!”

“Under it!” I exclaimed, a sudden idea of the Captain’s projects flashing upon
my mind. I understood; the wonderful qualities of the Nautilus were
going to serve us in this superhuman enterprise.

“I see we are beginning to understand one another, sir,” said the Captain, half
smiling. “You begin to see the possibility—I should say the success—of this
attempt. That which is impossible for an ordinary vessel is easy to the
Nautilus. If a continent lies before the pole, it must stop before the
continent; but if, on the contrary, the pole is washed by open sea, it will go
even to the pole.”

“Certainly,” said I, carried away by the Captain’s reasoning; “if the surface
of the sea is solidified by the ice, the lower depths are free by the
Providential law which has placed the maximum of density of the waters of the
ocean one degree higher than freezing-point; and, if I am not mistaken, the
portion of this iceberg which is above the water is as one to four to that
which is below.”

“Very nearly, sir; for one foot of iceberg above the sea there are three below
it. If these ice mountains are not more than 300 feet above the surface, they
are not more than 900 beneath. And what are 900 feet to the Nautilus?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“It could even seek at greater depths that uniform temperature of sea-water,
and there brave with impunity the thirty or forty degrees of surface cold.”

“Just so, sir—just so,” I replied, getting animated.

“The only difficulty,” continued Captain Nemo, “is that of remaining several
days without renewing our provision of air.”

“Is that all? The Nautilus has vast reservoirs; we can fill them, and
they will supply us with all the oxygen we want.”

“Well thought of, M. Aronnax,” replied the Captain, smiling. “But, not wishing
you to accuse me of rashness, I will first give you all my objections.”

“Have you any more to make?”

“Only one. It is possible, if the sea exists at the South Pole, that it may be
covered; and, consequently, we shall be unable to come to the surface.”

“Good, sir! but do you forget that the Nautilus is armed with a powerful
spur, and could we not send it diagonally against these fields of ice, which
would open at the shocks.”

“Ah! sir, you are full of ideas to-day.”

“Besides, Captain,” I added, enthusiastically, “why should we not find the sea
open at the South Pole as well as at the North? The frozen poles of the earth
do not coincide, either in the southern or in the northern regions; and, until
it is proved to the contrary, we may suppose either a continent or an ocean
free from ice at these two points of the globe.”

“I think so too, M. Aronnax,” replied Captain Nemo. “I only wish you to observe
that, after having made so many objections to my project, you are now crushing
me with arguments in its favour!”

The preparations for this audacious attempt now began. The powerful pumps of
the Nautilus were working air into the reservoirs and storing it at high
pressure. About four o’clock, Captain Nemo announced the closing of the panels
on the platform. I threw one last look at the massive iceberg which we were
going to cross. The weather was clear, the atmosphere pure enough, the cold
very great, being 12° below zero; but, the wind having gone down, this
temperature was not so unbearable. About ten men mounted the sides of the
Nautilus, armed with pickaxes to break the ice around the vessel, which
was soon free. The operation was quickly performed, for the fresh ice was still
very thin. We all went below. The usual reservoirs were filled with the
newly-liberated water, and the Nautilus soon descended. I had taken my
place with Conseil in the saloon; through the open window we could see the
lower beds of the Southern Ocean. The thermometer went up, the needle of the
compass deviated on the dial. At about 900 feet, as Captain Nemo had foreseen,
we were floating beneath the undulating bottom of the iceberg. But the
Nautilus went lower still—it went to the depth of four hundred fathoms.
The temperature of the water at the surface showed twelve degrees, it was now
only ten; we had gained two. I need not say the temperature of the
Nautilus was raised by its heating apparatus to a much higher degree;
every manœuvre was accomplished with wonderful precision.

“We shall pass it, if you please, sir,” said Conseil.

“I believe we shall,” I said, in a tone of firm conviction.

In this open sea, the Nautilus had taken its course direct to the pole,
without leaving the fifty-second meridian. From 67° 30′ to 90 deg.,
twenty-two degrees and a half of latitude remained to travel; that is, about
five hundred leagues. The Nautilus kept up a mean speed of twenty-six
miles an hour—the speed of an express train. If that was kept up, in forty
hours we should reach the pole.

For a part of the night the novelty of the situation kept us at the window. The
sea was lit with the electric lantern; but it was deserted; fishes did not
sojourn in these imprisoned waters; they only found there a passage to take
them from the Antarctic Ocean to the open polar sea. Our pace was rapid; we
could feel it by the quivering of the long steel body. About two in the morning
I took some hours’ repose, and Conseil did the same. In crossing the waist I
did not meet Captain Nemo: I supposed him to be in the pilot’s cage. The next
morning, the 19th of March, I took my post once more in the saloon. The
electric log told me that the speed of the Nautilus had been slackened.
It was then going towards the surface; but prudently emptying its reservoirs
very slowly. My heart beat fast. Were we going to emerge and regain the open
polar atmosphere? No! A shock told me that the Nautilus had struck the
bottom of the iceberg, still very thick, judging from the deadened sound. We
had in deed “struck,” to use a sea expression, but in an inverse sense, and at
a thousand feet deep. This would give three thousand feet of ice above us; one
thousand being above the water-mark. The iceberg was then higher than at its
borders—not a very reassuring fact. Several times that day the Nautilus
tried again, and every time it struck the wall which lay like a ceiling above
it. Sometimes it met with but 900 yards, only 200 of which rose above the
surface. It was twice the height it was when the Nautilus had gone under
the waves. I carefully noted the different depths, and thus obtained a
submarine profile of the chain as it was developed under the water. That night
no change had taken place in our situation. Still ice between four and five
hundred yards in depth! It was evidently diminishing, but, still, what a
thickness between us and the surface of the ocean! It was then eight. According
to the daily custom on board the Nautilus, its air should have been
renewed four hours ago; but I did not suffer much, although Captain Nemo had
not yet made any demand upon his reserve of oxygen. My sleep was painful that
night; hope and fear besieged me by turns: I rose several times. The groping of
the Nautilus continued. About three in the morning, I noticed that the
lower surface of the iceberg was only about fifty feet deep. One hundred and
fifty feet now separated us from the surface of the waters. The iceberg was by
degrees becoming an ice-field, the mountain a plain. My eyes never left the
manometer. We were still rising diagonally to the surface, which sparkled under
the electric rays. The iceberg was stretching both above and beneath into
lengthening slopes; mile after mile it was getting thinner. At length, at six
in the morning of that memorable day, the 19th of March, the door of the saloon
opened, and Captain Nemo appeared.

“The sea is open!!” was all he said.

CHAPTER XIV
THE SOUTH POLE

I rushed on to the platform. Yes! the open sea, with but a few scattered pieces
of ice and moving icebergs—a long stretch of sea; a world of birds in the air,
and myriads of fishes under those waters, which varied from intense blue to
olive green, according to the bottom. The thermometer marked 3° C. above zero.
It was comparatively spring, shut up as we were behind this iceberg, whose
lengthened mass was dimly seen on our northern horizon.

“Are we at the pole?” I asked the Captain, with a beating heart.

“I do not know,” he replied. “At noon I will take our bearings.”

“But will the sun show himself through this fog?” said I, looking at the leaden
sky.

“However little it shows, it will be enough,” replied the Captain.

About ten miles south a solitary island rose to a height of one hundred and
four yards. We made for it, but carefully, for the sea might be strewn with
banks. One hour afterwards we had reached it, two hours later we had made the
round of it. It measured four or five miles in circumference. A narrow canal
separated it from a considerable stretch of land, perhaps a continent, for we
could not see its limits. The existence of this land seemed to give some colour
to Maury’s theory. The ingenious American has remarked that, between the South
Pole and the sixtieth parallel, the sea is covered with floating ice of
enormous size, which is never met with in the North Atlantic. From this fact he
has drawn the conclusion that the Antarctic Circle encloses considerable
continents, as icebergs cannot form in open sea, but only on the coasts.
According to these calculations, the mass of ice surrounding the southern pole
forms a vast cap, the circumference of which must be, at least, 2,500 miles.
But the Nautilus, for fear of running aground, had stopped about three
cable-lengths from a strand over which reared a superb heap of rocks. The boat
was launched; the Captain, two of his men, bearing instruments, Conseil, and
myself were in it. It was ten in the morning. I had not seen Ned Land.
Doubtless the Canadian did not wish to admit the presence of the South Pole. A
few strokes of the oar brought us to the sand, where we ran ashore. Conseil was
going to jump on to the land, when I held him back.

“Sir,” said I to Captain Nemo, “to you belongs the honour of first setting foot
on this land.”

“Yes, sir,” said the Captain, “and if I do not hesitate to tread this South
Pole, it is because, up to this time, no human being has left a trace there.”

Saying this, he jumped lightly on to the sand. His heart beat with emotion. He
climbed a rock, sloping to a little promontory, and there, with his arms
crossed, mute and motionless, and with an eager look, he seemed to take
possession of these southern regions. After five minutes passed in this
ecstasy, he turned to us.

“When you like, sir.”

I landed, followed by Conseil, leaving the two men in the boat. For a long way
the soil was composed of a reddish sandy stone, something like crushed brick,
scoriae, streams of lava, and pumice-stones. One could not mistake its volcanic
origin. In some parts, slight curls of smoke emitted a sulphurous smell,
proving that the internal fires had lost nothing of their expansive powers,
though, having climbed a high acclivity, I could see no volcano for a radius of
several miles. We know that in those Antarctic countries, James Ross found two
craters, the Erebus and Terror, in full activity, on the 167th meridian,
latitude 77° 32′. The vegetation of this desolate continent seemed to me
much restricted. Some lichens lay upon the black rocks; some microscopic
plants, rudimentary diatomas, a kind of cells placed between two quartz shells;
long purple and scarlet weed, supported on little swimming bladders, which the
breaking of the waves brought to the shore. These constituted the meagre flora
of this region. The shore was strewn with molluscs, little mussels, and
limpets. I also saw myriads of northern clios, one-and-a-quarter inches long,
of which a whale would swallow a whole world at a mouthful; and some perfect
sea-butterflies, animating the waters on the skirts of the shore.

There appeared on the high bottoms some coral shrubs, of the kind which,
according to James Ross, live in the Antarctic seas to the depth of more than
1,000 yards. Then there were little kingfishers and starfish studding the soil.
But where life abounded most was in the air. There thousands of birds fluttered
and flew of all kinds, deafening us with their cries; others crowded the rock,
looking at us as we passed by without fear, and pressing familiarly close by
our feet. There were penguins, so agile in the water, heavy and awkward as they
are on the ground; they were uttering harsh cries, a large assembly, sober in
gesture, but extravagant in clamour. Albatrosses passed in the air, the expanse
of their wings being at least four yards and a half, and justly called the
vultures of the ocean; some gigantic petrels, and some damiers, a kind of small
duck, the underpart of whose body is black and white; then there were a whole
series of petrels, some whitish, with brown-bordered wings, others blue,
peculiar to the Antarctic seas, and so oily, as I told Conseil, that the
inhabitants of the Ferroe Islands had nothing to do before lighting them but to
put a wick in.

“A little more,” said Conseil, “and they would be perfect lamps! After that, we
cannot expect Nature to have previously furnished them with wicks!”

About half a mile farther on the soil was riddled with ruffs’ nests, a sort of
laying-ground, out of which many birds were issuing. Captain Nemo had some
hundreds hunted. They uttered a cry like the braying of an ass, were about the
size of a goose, slate-colour on the body, white beneath, with a yellow line
round their throats; they allowed themselves to be killed with a stone, never
trying to escape. But the fog did not lift, and at eleven the sun had not yet
shown itself. Its absence made me uneasy. Without it no observations were
possible. How, then, could we decide whether we had reached the pole? When I
rejoined Captain Nemo, I found him leaning on a piece of rock, silently
watching the sky. He seemed impatient and vexed. But what was to be done? This
rash and powerful man could not command the sun as he did the sea. Noon arrived
without the orb of day showing itself for an instant. We could not even tell
its position behind the curtain of fog; and soon the fog turned to snow.

“Till to-morrow,” said the Captain, quietly, and we returned to the
Nautilus amid these atmospheric disturbances.

The tempest of snow continued till the next day. It was impossible to remain on
the platform. From the saloon, where I was taking notes of incidents happening
during this excursion to the polar continent, I could hear the cries of petrels
and albatrosses sporting in the midst of this violent storm. The
Nautilus did not remain motionless, but skirted the coast, advancing ten
miles more to the south in the half-light left by the sun as it skirted the
edge of the horizon. The next day, the 20th of March, the snow had ceased. The
cold was a little greater, the thermometer showing 2° below zero. The fog was
rising, and I hoped that that day our observations might be taken. Captain Nemo
not having yet appeared, the boat took Conseil and myself to land. The soil was
still of the same volcanic nature; everywhere were traces of lava, scoriae, and
basalt; but the crater which had vomited them I could not see. Here, as lower
down, this continent was alive with myriads of birds. But their rule was now
divided with large troops of sea-mammals, looking at us with their soft eyes.
There were several kinds of seals, some stretched on the earth, some on flakes
of ice, many going in and out of the sea. They did not flee at our approach,
never having had anything to do with man; and I reckoned that there were
provisions there for hundreds of vessels.

“Sir,” said Conseil, “will you tell me the names of these creatures?”

“They are seals and morses.”

It was now eight in the morning. Four hours remained to us before the sun could
be observed with advantage. I directed our steps towards a vast bay cut in the
steep granite shore. There, I can aver that earth and ice were lost to sight by
the numbers of sea-mammals covering them, and I involuntarily sought for old
Proteus, the mythological shepherd who watched these immense flocks of Neptune.
There were more seals than anything else, forming distinct groups, male and
female, the father watching over his family, the mother suckling her little
ones, some already strong enough to go a few steps. When they wished to change
their place, they took little jumps, made by the contraction of their bodies,
and helped awkwardly enough by their imperfect fin, which, as with the
lamantin, their cousins, forms a perfect forearm. I should say that, in the
water, which is their element—the spine of these creatures is flexible; with
smooth and close skin and webbed feet—they swim admirably. In resting on the
earth they take the most graceful attitudes. Thus the ancients, observing their
soft and expressive looks, which cannot be surpassed by the most beautiful look
a woman can give, their clear voluptuous eyes, their charming positions, and
the poetry of their manners, metamorphosed them, the male into a triton and the
female into a mermaid. I made Conseil notice the considerable development of
the lobes of the brain in these interesting cetaceans. No mammal, except man,
has such a quantity of brain matter; they are also capable of receiving a
certain amount of education, are easily domesticated, and I think, with other
naturalists, that if properly taught they would be of great service as
fishing-dogs. The greater part of them slept on the rocks or on the sand.
Amongst these seals, properly so called, which have no external ears (in which
they differ from the otter, whose ears are prominent), I noticed several
varieties of seals about three yards long, with a white coat, bulldog heads,
armed with teeth in both jaws, four incisors at the top and four at the bottom,
and two large canine teeth in the shape of a fleur-de-lis. Amongst them glided
sea-elephants, a kind of seal, with short, flexible trunks. The giants of this
species measured twenty feet round and ten yards and a half in length; but they
did not move as we approached.

“These creatures are not dangerous?” asked Conseil.

“No; not unless you attack them. When they have to defend their young their
rage is terrible, and it is not uncommon for them to break the fishing-boats to
pieces.”

“They are quite right,” said Conseil.

“I do not say they are not.”

Two miles farther on we were stopped by the promontory which shelters the bay
from the southerly winds. Beyond it we heard loud bellowings such as a troop of
ruminants would produce.

“Good!” said Conseil; “a concert of bulls!”

“No; a concert of morses.”

“They are fighting!”

“They are either fighting or playing.”

We now began to climb the blackish rocks, amid unforeseen stumbles, and over
stones which the ice made slippery. More than once I rolled over at the expense
of my loins. Conseil, more prudent or more steady, did not stumble, and helped
me up, saying: