🌊📖 Vingt Mille Lieues Sous Les Mers — Partie 2 | Jules Verne 🎧✨

Plongez dans la deuxième partie de *Vingt Mille Lieues Sous Les Mers* de Jules Verne 🌊, un chef-d’œuvre de la littérature d’aventure qui continue de fasciner des générations entières. Retrouvez le légendaire capitaine Nemo et son incroyable sous-marin, le Nautilus, alors qu’ils poursuivent leur voyage extraordinaire à travers les océans du globe. 🐠⚓

👉 Dans cette suite captivante, vous découvrirez :
– Des mondes sous-marins mystérieux et envoûtants 🌌
– Des créatures marines impressionnantes 🦑
– Des explorations riches en suspense et découvertes scientifiques 🔬
– Les secrets du capitaine Nemo et de son univers fascinant 🧭

Ce récit est non seulement une aventure maritime, mais aussi une réflexion profonde sur la science, la liberté et l’humanité. Écouter ce roman en version audio, c’est s’offrir un véritable voyage imaginaire au cœur des océans, avec toute la poésie et la puissance narrative de Jules Verne. 📚✨

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Laissez-vous emporter par la magie des mots et vivez l’exploration comme si vous y étiez ! 🌍💫

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**Navigate by Chapters or Titles:**
00:00:34 Chapter 1.
00:21:36 Chapter 2.
00:39:44 Chapter 3.
01:02:17 Chapter 4.
01:20:48 Chapter 5.
01:37:40 Chapter 6.
01:58:24 Chapter 7.
02:19:10 Chapter 8.
02:39:41 Chapter 9.
03:00:02 Chapter 10.
03:21:20 Chapter 11.
03:40:03 Chapter 12.
04:01:08 Chapter 13.
04:24:12 Chapter 14.
04:50:29 Chapter 15.
05:05:20 Chapter 16.
05:25:04 Chapter 17.
05:44:57 Chapter 18.
06:05:17 Chapter 19.
06:27:11 Chapter 20.
06:43:32 Chapter 21.
07:01:07 Chapter 22.
07:14:54 Chapter 23.

In this second part of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne plunges us even deeper into the fascinating world of the Nautilus and its enigmatic Captain Nemo. After the extraordinary discoveries of the first volume, the explorers on board continue their journey across unknown oceans, confronting natural wonders, prodigious marine creatures, and unfathomable mysteries. This story blends science, adventure, and poetry, transporting the reader to a world where curiosity and imagination know no bounds. Prepare for a total immersion in the maritime depths. Chapter 1. THE INDIAN OCEAN. Here begins the second part of this journey under the sea. The first ended with this moving scene of the coral cemetery, which left a deep impression on my mind. So, in the heart of this immense sea, Captain Nemo’s life unfolded entirely, and even his grave had been prepared in the most impenetrable of its abysses. There, not one of the ocean’s monsters would come to disturb the last sleep of these guests of the Nautilus, of these friends, riveted to one another, in death as well as in life ! “No man, either!” the captain had added. Always that same fierce, implacable distrust of human societies ! As for me, I was no longer content with the hypotheses that satisfied Conseil. This worthy fellow persisted in seeing in the commander of the Nautilus nothing more than one of those misunderstood scientists who return contempt to humanity for indifference. He was still, for him, a misunderstood genius who, tired of the disappointments of earth, had had to take refuge in this inaccessible environment where his instincts were freely exercised. But, in my opinion, this hypothesis only explained one of Captain Nemo’s ideologies. Indeed, the mystery of that last night during which we had been chained in prison and sleep, the precaution so violently taken by the captain to tear from my eyes the telescope ready to scan the horizon, the mortal wound of this man due to an inexplicable shock of the Nautilus, all this pushed me into a new direction. No! Captain Nemo was not content to flee from men! His formidable apparatus served not only his instincts for freedom, but perhaps also the interests of I know not what terrible reprisals. At this moment, nothing is evident to me, I still glimpse only glimmers in this darkness, and I must limit myself to writing, so to speak, under the dictation of events. Besides, nothing binds us to Captain Nemo. He knows that escaping from the Nautilus is impossible. We are not even prisoners on parole. No commitment of honor binds us. We are only captives, only prisoners disguised under the name of hosts by a semblance of courtesy. However, Ned Land has not given up hope of regaining his freedom. He is certain that he will take advantage of the first opportunity that chance offers him. I will do as he does, no doubt. And yet, it will not be without a kind of regret that I will take away what the captain’s generosity has allowed us to penetrate of the mysteries of the Nautilus! For after all, should we hate this man or admire him? Is he a victim or an executioner? And then, to be frank, I would like… before abandoning him forever, I would like to have completed this underwater tour of the world whose beginnings are so magnificent. I would like to have observed the complete series of wonders piled up under the seas of the globe. I would like to have seen what no man has yet seen, even if I should have to pay with my life for this insatiable need to learn! What have I discovered so far? Nothing, or almost nothing, since we have only traveled six thousand leagues across the Pacific! Yet I know very well that the Nautilus is approaching inhabited lands , and that, if some chance of salvation is offered to us, it would be cruel to sacrifice my companions to my passion for the unknown. will have to follow them, perhaps even guide them. But will this opportunity ever present itself? Man, deprived by the force of his free will, desires this opportunity, but the scholar, the curious, dreads it. That day, January 21, 1868, at noon, the second came to take the height of the sun. I climbed onto the platform, lit a cigar, and followed the operation. It seemed obvious to me that this man did not understand French, for several times I made comments aloud that should have drawn some involuntary sign of attention from him, if he had understood them, but he remained impassive and silent. While he was observing with the sextant, one of the sailors of the Nautilus, this vigorous man who had accompanied us during our first underwater excursion to Crespo Island, came to clean the windows of the lantern. I then examined the installation of this device, whose power was increased a hundredfold by lenticular rings arranged like those of lighthouses , and which kept its light in the useful plane. The electric lamp was designed in such a way as to give all its illuminating power. Its light, in fact, was produced in a vacuum, which ensured both its regularity and its intensity. This vacuum also saved the graphite tips between which the luminous arc develops . A significant saving for Captain Nemo, who would not have been able to replace them easily. But, under these conditions, their wear was almost imperceptible. When the Nautilus prepared to resume its underwater journey, I went back down to the lounge. The panels closed, and the course was given directly to the west. We were then ploughing the waves of the Indian Ocean, a vast liquid plain with a capacity of 550 million hectares, and whose waters are so transparent that they make anyone who leans over their surface dizzy. The Nautilus generally floated there between 100 and 200 meters deep. This was the case for several days. To anyone other than me, seized by an immense love of the sea, the hours would undoubtedly have seemed long and monotonous; but these daily walks on the platform where I immersed myself in the invigorating air of the Ocean, the spectacle of these rich waters through the windows of the living room, the reading of books in the library, the writing of my memoirs, occupied all my time and did not leave me a moment of weariness or boredom. Our health was maintained in a very satisfactory state. The regime on board suited us perfectly, and for my part, I would have gladly done without the variations that Ned Land, in a spirit of protest, was trying to introduce. Moreover, in this constant temperature, there was not even a cold to fear. Moreover, this madreporary Dendrophyllée, known in Provence under the name of ” Sea Fennel”, and of which there was a certain reserve on board, would have provided with the melting flesh of its polyps an excellent paste against coughs. For a few days, we saw a large quantity of aquatic birds, web-footed birds, gulls or seagulls. Some were skillfully killed, and, prepared in a certain way, they provided a very acceptable waterfowl. Among the large sailing ships, carried long distances from all lands, and which rest on the waves from the fatigues of flight, I saw magnificent albatrosses with a discordant cry like the braying of a donkey, birds which belong to the family of longipennes. The family of totipalmes was represented by swift frigatebirds which nimbly fished for fish from the surface, and by numerous tropicbirds or tropicbirds, among others, this red-tailed tropicbird, as big as a pigeon, and whose white plumage is shaded with pink tones which highlight the black tint of the wings.
The nets of the Nautilus brought back several kinds of sea turtles, of the hawksbill genus, with a rounded back, and whose scale is highly prized. These reptiles, which dive easily, can stay underwater for a long time by closing the fleshy valve located at the orifice external part of their nasal canal. Some of these hawksbills, when caught, were still sleeping in their shells, sheltered from marine animals. The flesh of these turtles was generally mediocre, but their eggs were an excellent treat. As for the fish, they always provoked our admiration, when we surprised through the open panels the secrets of their aquatic life. I noticed several species that I had not been able to observe until then. I will mainly cite ostracions particular to the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and that part of the Ocean which bathes the coasts of equinoctial America. These fish, like turtles, armadillos, sea urchins, crustaceans, are protected by a cuirass which is neither Cretaceous nor stony, but truly bony. Sometimes it takes the form of a triangular solid, sometimes the form of a quadrangular solid. Among the triangular ones, I noted some half a decimeter long, with healthy flesh and an exquisite taste, brown at the tail, yellow at the fins, and whose acclimatization I recommend even in fresh waters, to which, moreover, a certain number of sea fish easily become accustomed. I will also mention quadrangular ostracions, surmounted on the back by four large tubercles: ostracions speckled with white dots under the lower part of the body, which can be tamed like birds; trigones, provided with stingers formed by the extension of their bony crust, and whose singular grunting has earned them the nickname of “sea pigs”; then dromedaries with large cone-shaped humps, whose flesh is hard and tough. I also note in the daily notes kept by Master Conseil certain fish of the genus Tetrodons, peculiar to these seas, spenglerians with a red back and a white chest, which are distinguished by three longitudinal rows of filaments, and electric fish, seven inches long, adorned with the most vivid colors. Then, as samples of other genera, ovoids similar to an egg of a black-brown color, furrowed with white bands and without a tail; Diodons, true porcupines of the sea, equipped with stingers and able to inflate themselves in such a way as to form a ball bristling with darts; seahorses common to all oceans; flying Pegasi, with elongated snouts, whose pectoral fins, very extended and arranged in the form of wings, allow them, if not to fly, at least to soar into the air; spatulate pigeons, whose tail is covered with numerous scaly rings; long-jawed macrognaths , excellent fish, twenty-five centimeters long and shining in the most pleasant colors; livid calliomores, whose heads are rough; myriads of jumping blennies, striped with black, with long pectoral fins, gliding over the surface of the water with prodigious velocity; delicious velifers, which can hoist their fins like so many sails deployed in favorable currents; splendid kurtes, on which nature has lavished yellow, celestial blue, silver and gold; caddisflies, whose wings are formed of filaments; cottes, always stained with silt, which produce a certain rustling sound; trygles, whose liver is considered poisonous; bodians, which wear a mobile blinker over their eyes; finally, bellows, with long and tubular snouts, true flycatchers of the Ocean, armed with a gun that neither Chassepot nor Remington anticipated, and which kill insects by hitting them with a simple drop of water. In the eighty-ninth genus of fish classified by Lacépède, which belongs to the second subclass of bony fish, characterized by an operculum and a bronchial membrane, I noticed the scorpionfish, whose head is furnished with stingers and which has only one dorsal fin; these animals are covered with or deprived of small scales, according to the subgenus to which they belong. The second subgenus gave us samples of dydactyls three to four decimeters long, striped with yellow, but whose head is of a fantastic appearance. As for the first subgenus, it provided several specimens of this bizarre fish rightly nicknamed “sea toad”, a fish with a large head, sometimes hollowed out with deep sinuses, sometimes swollen with protuberances; bristling with spines and dotted with tubercles, it has irregular and hideous horns; its body and tail are covered with calluses; its spines cause dangerous wounds ; it is repulsive and horrible. From January 21 to 23, the Nautilus traveled at a rate of two hundred and fifty leagues per twenty-four hours, or five hundred and forty miles, or twenty-two miles per hour. If we recognized the various varieties of fish in passing, it was because they, attracted by the electric flash, tried to accompany us; most of them, outdistanced by this speed, soon remained behind; a few, however, managed to stay for a certain time in the waters of the Nautilus. On the morning of the 24th, at 12°5′ south latitude and 94°33′ longitude, we came across Keeling Island, a madreporic uplift planted with magnificent coconuts, which was visited by Mr. Darwin and Captain Fitz-Roy. The Nautilus extended the shores of this deserted island a short distance . Its dredges brought back numerous samples of polyps and echinoderms, and curious tests of the mollusk branch. Some precious products of the dolphin species increased Captain Nemo’s treasures, to which I added a starfish, a kind of parasitic polypary often attached to a shell. Soon Keeling Island disappeared below the horizon, and the route was set to the northwest towards the tip of the Indian peninsula. “Civilized lands,” Ned Land told me that day. “That will be better than those islands of Papua, where you find more savages than deer! On this Indian land, Professor, there are roads, railways, English, French, and Hindu towns. You wouldn’t go five miles without meeting a compatriot. Eh! Hasn’t the time come to burn Captain Nemo’s courtesy?” “No. Ned, no,” I replied in a very determined tone. “Let’s let it go, as you sailors say. The Nautilus is approaching the inhabited continents.” He’s coming back to Europe, let him take us there. Once we arrive in our seas, we’ll see what prudence advises us to attempt. Besides, I don’t suppose Captain Nemo will allow us to go hunting on the coasts of Malabar or Coromandel as in the forests of New Guinea. “Well! Sir, can’t we do without his permission?” I didn’t reply to the Canadian. I didn’t want to argue. Basically, I was determined to exhaust to the end the twists of fate that had thrown me aboard the Nautilus. From Keeling Island, our progress generally slowed. It was also more capricious and often took us to great depths. We made several use of the inclined planes that internal levers could place obliquely to the waterline . We went thus up to two and three kilometers, but without ever having checked the great depths of this Indian sea that probes of thirteen thousand meters have not been able to reach. As for the temperature of the lower layers, the thermometer always invariably indicated four degrees above zero. I observed only that, in the upper layers, the water was always colder on the shallows than in the open sea. On January 25, the ocean being absolutely deserted, the Nautilus spent the day on its surface, beating the waves with its powerful propeller and making them spurt to a great height. How, in these conditions, could one not have taken it for a gigantic cetacean? I spent the three quarters of this day on the platform. I looked at the sea. Nothing on the horizon, except, around four o’clock in the evening, a long steamer running westward on the opposite side. Its masts were visible for a moment, but it could not see the Nautilus, too low on the water. I thought that this steamer belonged to the Peninsular and Oriental Line which provides service from the island of Ceyland to Sydney, touching at King George Point and Melbourne. At five o’clock in the evening, before that swift twilight which links day to night in tropical zones, Conseil and I were amazed by a curious spectacle. He is a charming animal whose encounter, according to the ancients, foreshadowed happy chances. Aristotle, Athenaeus, Pliny, Oppian, had studied his tastes and exhausted in his regard all the poetics of the scholars of Greece and Italy. They called it Nautilus and Pompylius. But modern science has not ratified their name, and this mollusk is now known under the name Argonaute. Anyone who had consulted Conseil would have learned from this brave fellow that the phylum of mollusks is divided into five classes; that the first class, that of cephalopods, whose subjects are sometimes naked, sometimes testaceous, includes two families, those of the dibranchials and the tetrabranchials, which are distinguished by the number of their branches; that the family of the dibranchials contains three genera, the argonaut, the squid and the cuttlefish, and that the family of the tetrabranchials contains only one, the nautilus. If, after this nomenclature, a rebellious spirit had confused the argonaut, which is acetabuliferous, that is to say, bears suckers, with the nautilus, which is tentaculiferous, that is to say, bears tentacles, he would have been without excuse. Now, it was a troop of these argonauts which was then traveling on the surface of the Ocean. We could count several hundred of them. They belonged to the species of tuberculate argonauts which is specific to the seas of India. These graceful mollusks moved backwards by means of their locomotory tube, expelling through this tube the water which they had sucked up. Of their eight tentacles, six, elongated and thinned, floated on the water, while the other two, rounded like palms, stretched out in the wind like a light sail. I could clearly see their spiral, undulating shell , which Cuvier rightly compares to an elegant rowboat. A real boat indeed. It transports the animal that secreted it, without the animal adhering to it. “The Argonaut is free to leave its shell,” I said to Conseil, “but it never leaves it. ” “That’s what Captain Nemo does,” Conseil judiciously replied. “That’s why he would have done better to call his ship the Argonaute. For about an hour.” The Nautilus floated in the middle of this troop of mollusks. Then, I don’t know what terror suddenly seized them. As if at a signal, all the sails were suddenly lowered; arms folded, bodies contracted. The shells, turning over, changed their center of gravity, and the entire flotilla disappeared beneath the waves. It was instantaneous, and never did ships in a squadron maneuver with more unity. At that moment, night fell suddenly, and the waves, barely lifted by the breeze, lay peacefully beneath the precincts of the Nautilus. The next day, January 26, we crossed the Equator on the eighty-second meridian, and we entered the northern hemisphere. During that day, a formidable troop of sharks formed a procession for us. Terrible animals that swarm in these seas and make them very dangerous. They were Philipps sharks with brown backs and whitish bellies armed with eleven rows of teeth, eyed sharks whose necks are marked with a large black spot circled in white that resembles an eye, and Isabelline sharks with rounded snouts dotted with dark spots. Often, these powerful animals rushed against the living room window with a disquieting violence. Ned Land could no longer control himself. He wanted to rise to the surface of the waves and harpoon these monsters, especially certain emissoles sharks whose mouths are paved with teeth arranged like a mosaic, and large tiger sharks, five meters long, which provoked him with particular insistence. But soon the Nautilus, increasing its speed, easily left the fastest of these sharks behind. On January 27, at the opening of the vast Bay of Bengal, we encountered several times, a sinister spectacle! corpses floating on the surface of the waves. They were the dead from the Indian cities, carried by the Ganges to the open sea, and which the vultures, the only burying sharks in the country, had not finished devouring. But there was no shortage of sharks to help them in their funereal task. Around seven o’clock in the evening, the half-submerged Nautilus sailed in the middle of a sea of ​​milk. As far as the eye could see, the ocean seemed to be lactified. Was this the effect of the lunar rays? No, for the moon, barely two days old, was still lost below the horizon in the rays of the sun. The whole sky, although lit by the sidereal radiation, seemed black in contrast with the whiteness of the waters.
Conseil could not believe his eyes, and he questioned me about the causes of this singular phenomenon. Fortunately, I was able to answer him. “It is what is called a sea of ​​milk,” I told him, “a vast expanse of white waves which is frequently seen on the coasts of Ambon and in these parts. ” “But,” Conseil asked, “can the gentleman tell me what cause produces such an effect, for this water has not changed into milk, I suppose?” “No, my boy, and this whiteness that surprises you is only due to the presence of myriads of infusorian creatures, a sort of small luminous worms, gelatinous and colorless in appearance, the thickness of a hair, and whose length does not exceed a fifth of a millimeter. Some of these creatures adhere to each other for the space of several leagues. ” “Several leagues!” cried Conseil. “Yes, my boy, and do not try to calculate the number of these infusoria! You would not succeed, for, if I am not mistaken, certain navigators have floated on these seas of milk for more than forty miles.” I do not know if Conseil took my recommendation into account, but he seemed to be immersed in deep reflection, no doubt seeking to estimate how many fifths of millimeters are contained in forty square miles. As for me, I continued to observe the phenomenon. For several hours, the Nautilus sliced ​​through these whitish waves with its spur, and I noticed that it glided noiselessly over this soapy water, as if it were floating in the eddies of foam that the currents and counter-currents of the bays sometimes left between them. Around midnight, the sea suddenly resumed its usual color, but behind us, right to the edge of the horizon. The sky, reflecting the whiteness of the waves, seemed for a long time impregnated with the faint glimmers of an aurora borealis. Chapter 2. A NEW PROPOSAL FROM CAPTAIN NEMO On February 28, when the Nautilus returned to the surface of the sea at noon, at 9°4′ north latitude, it was in sight of land that remained eight miles to the west. I first observed a cluster of mountains, about two thousand feet high, whose shapes were very capriciously modeled. Having completed the survey, I returned to the living room, and when the bearing had been transferred to the map, I recognized that we were in the presence of the island of Ceylon, that pearl which hangs from the lower lobe of the Indian peninsula. I went to look in the library for some book relating to this island, one of the most fertile on the globe. I found precisely a volume by Sirr HC, esq., entitled _Ceylon and the Cingalese_. Back in the living room, I first noted the bearings of Ceyland, to which antiquity had lavished so many different names. Its location was between 5°55′ and 9°49′ north latitude, and between 79°42′ and 82°4′ longitude east of the Greenwich meridian; its length, 275 miles; its maximum width, 150 miles; its circumference, 900 miles; its surface area, 24,448 miles, that is to say, a little less than that of Ireland. Captain Nemo and his second in command appeared at this moment. The captain glanced at the map. Then, turning to me: “The island of Ceylon,” he said, “a land famous for its pearl fisheries. Would it be agreeable to you, Mr. Aronnax, to visit one of its fisheries? ” “Without a doubt, Captain. ” “Good.” It will be easy. Only, if we see the fisheries, we won’t see the fishermen. The annual harvest hasn’t started yet. No matter. I’m going to give the order to head for the Gulf of Manaar, where we’ll arrive during the night.” The captain said a few words to his second, who immediately left. Soon the Nautilus reentered its liquid element, and the pressure gauge indicated that it was at a depth of thirty feet. With the map in front of me, I then looked for this Gulf of Manaar. I found it by the ninth parallel, on the northwest coast of Ceylon. It was formed by a line extending from the small island of Manaar. To reach it, it was necessary to go up the entire western shore of Ceylon. “Professor,” Captain Nemo then told me, ” pearls are fished for in the Bay of Bengal, in the Indian Ocean, in the seas of China and Japan, in the seas of South America, in the Gulf of Panama, in the Gulf of California; but it is in Ceylon that this fishing obtains the finest results. We are arriving a little early, no doubt. The fishermen only gather during the month of March at the Gulf of Manaar, and there, for thirty days, their three hundred boats devote themselves to this lucrative exploitation of the treasures of the sea. Each boat is manned by ten oarsmen and ten fishermen. These, divided into two groups, dive alternately and descend to a depth of twelve meters by means of a heavy stone which they grasp between their feet and which a rope attaches to the boat. “So,” I said, “it is always this primitive method which is still in use?” “Always,” Captain Nemo replied, “although these fisheries belong to the most industrious people on the planet, the English, to whom the Treaty of Amiens ceded them in 1802. ” “It seems to me, however, that the diving suit, such as you use it, would be of great service in such an operation. ” “Yes, because these poor fishermen cannot remain underwater for long . The Englishman Perceval, in his voyage to Ceylon, does speak of a Kaffir who remained five minutes without surfacing, but the fact seems unbelievable to me. I know that some divers go as long as fifty-seven seconds, and very skilled ones as long as eighty-seven; however, they are rare, and, when they return to the ship, these unfortunates expel water tinged with blood from their noses and ears.” I believe that the average time that fishermen can endure is thirty seconds, during which they hasten to pile into a small net all the pearl oysters they pull out; but, generally, these fishermen do not live to old age; their sight weakens; ulcers appear in their eyes; sores form on their bodies, and often they even suffer from apoplexy at the bottom of the sea. “Yes,” I said, “it is a sad trade, and one that serves only the satisfaction of a few whims. But tell me, captain, what quantity of oysters can a boat catch in a day? ” “About forty to fifty thousand.” It is even said that in 1814, the English government having fished for its own account, its divers, in twenty days of work, brought back seventy-six million oysters. “At least,” I asked, “are these fishermen sufficiently paid? ” “Barely, Professor. In Panama, they earn only a dollar a week. Most often, they have a sol for an oyster that contains a pearl, and how many do they bring back that don’t contain one ! ” “A sol for these poor people who enrich their masters! It’s odious. ” “So, Professor,” Captain Nemo told me, ” you and your companions will visit the Manaar Bank, and if by chance some hasty fisherman is already there, well, we will see him at work. ” “It’s agreed, Captain. ” “By the way, Mr. Aronnax, aren’t you afraid of sharks? ” “Sharks?” I cried. This question seemed to me, to say the least, very idle. “Well?” Captain Nemo continued. “I’ll admit, Captain, that I’m not yet very familiar with this kind of fish. ” “We’re used to it,” replied Captain Nemo, “and in time, you’ll get used to it. Besides, we’ll be armed, and on the way, we might be able to hunt some sharks. It’s an interesting hunt. So, see you tomorrow, Professor, and early in the morning.” Having said this in a casual tone, Captain Nemo left the room. If you were invited to hunt bears in the mountains of Switzerland, you would say, “Very well! Tomorrow we’ll go bear hunting.” If you were invited to hunt lions in the plains of the Atlas, or tigers in the jungles of India, you would say, “Ah! ah! It seems we’re going to hunt tigers or lions!” But if you were invited to hunt sharks in their natural habitat, you might ask them to think twice before accepting the invitation. As for me, I ran my hand over my forehead, where a few drops of cold sweat were beading. “Let’s think,” I said to myself, “and take our time. Hunting otters in the underwater forests, as we did in the forests of Crespo Island, is fine. But roaming the depths of the sea, when you ‘re almost certain to encounter sharks, is something else! I know very well that in certain countries, in the Andamenes Islands in particular, blacks don’t hesitate to attack sharks, a dagger in one hand and a shoelace in the other, but I also know that many of those who confront these formidable animals don’t come back alive! Besides, I’m not a black man, and even if I were a black man, I think that, in this case, a slight hesitation on my part wouldn’t be out of place. ” And there I was, dreaming of sharks, thinking of those vast jaws armed with multiple rows of teeth, capable of cutting a man in two. I already felt a certain pain around my back. Then, I could not digest the bluntness with which the captain had made this deplorable invitation! Wouldn’t one have said that it was a question of going to hunt some harmless fox in the woods? “Good!” I thought, “Conseil will never want to come, and that will exempt me from accompanying the captain.” As for Ned Land, I confess that I did not feel so sure of his wisdom. A peril, however great, always had an attraction for his pugnacious nature. I resumed my reading of Sirr’s book, but I leafed through it mechanically. I saw, between the lines, jaws formidably open. At that moment, Conseil and the Canadian entered, looking calm and even joyful. They did not know what awaited them. “My goodness, sir,” Ned Land told me, “your Captain Nemo, may the devil take him! – has just made us a very kind offer. ” “Ah!” I said, “you know… ” “With all due respect to sir,” Conseil replied, “the commander of the Nautilus has invited us to visit the magnificent fisheries of Ceyland tomorrow, accompanied by sir . He did so in excellent terms.” and behaved like a true gentleman. “He didn’t tell you anything more? ” “Nothing, sir,” replied the Canadian, “except that he had told you about this little walk. ” “Indeed,” I said. “And he didn’t give you any details about… ” “None, Mr. Naturalist. You will accompany us, won’t you ? ” “I… no doubt! I see you’re taking a liking to it, Master Land. ” “Yes! It’s curious, very curious. ” “Dangerous perhaps!” I added in an insinuating tone. “Dangerous,” replied Ned Land, “a simple excursion to an oyster bed!” Captain Nemo had definitely deemed it useless to arouse the idea of ​​sharks in the minds of my companions. I looked at them with a troubled eye, as if they were already missing some limb. Should I warn them? Yes, no doubt, but I didn’t quite know how to go about it. “Sir,” Conseil said to me, “will the gentleman give us some details about pearl fishing? ” “About the fishing itself,” I asked, “or about the incidents which… ” “About the fishing,” replied the Canadian. “Before entering upon the subject, it is good to know it. ” “Well then! Sit down, my friends, and I will teach you everything that the Englishman Sirr has just taught me.” Ned and Conseil sat down on a sofa, and first the Canadian said to me: “Sir, what is a pearl? ” “My good Ned,” I replied, “for the poet, the pearl is a tear from the sea; for Orientals, it is a drop of solidified dew; for ladies, it is an oblong jewel, of a hyaline luster, of a pearly material, which they wear on the finger, the neck, or the ear ; For the chemist, it is a mixture of phosphate and carbonate of lime with a little gelatin, and finally, for naturalists, it is a simple unhealthy secretion of the organ that produces mother-of-pearl in certain bivalves. — Branch of Molluscs, said Conseil, class of Acephala, order of Testacea. — Precisely, learned Conseil. Now, among these testaceans, the iris ear-of-the-sea, the turbots, the tridacnas, the pinnae, in a word all those that secrete mother-of-pearl, that is to say this blue, bluish, violet or white substance, which lines the inside of their valves, are capable of producing pearls. — Mussels too? asked the Canadian. — Yes! The mussels of certain waterways of Scotland, Wales , Ireland, Saxony, Bohemia, France. — Good! We will pay attention to it from now on, replied the Canadian. “But,” I continued, “the mollusk par excellence that distils the pearl is the pearl oyster, the _meleagrina-Margaritifera_ the precious pintadine. The pearl is only a nacreous concretion which is arranged in a globular form. Either it adheres to the shell of the oyster, or it is encrusted in the folds of the animal. On the valves, the pearl is adherent; on the flesh, it is free. But it always has for its nucleus a small hard body, either a sterile ovule or a grain of sand, around which the nacreous matter is deposited over several years, successively and in thin and concentric layers. ” “Are several pearls found in the same oyster?” asked Conseil. “Yes, my boy. There are certain pintadines which form a veritable jewel case.” There has even been an oyster mentioned, but I dare to doubt it, which contained no less than one hundred and fifty sharks. “One hundred and fifty sharks!” cried Ned Land. “Did I say sharks?” I exclaimed quickly. “I mean one hundred and fifty pearls. Sharks would make no sense. ” “Indeed,” said Conseil. “But will the gentleman now tell us by what means these pearls are extracted? ” “There are several ways, and often, when the pearls adhere to the valves, the fishermen even pull them out with pliers. But, most commonly, the guinea fowl are stretched out on mats of esparto grass that cover the shore. They die in the open air, and after ten days, they are in a satisfactory state of putrefaction. They are then plunged into vast reservoirs of sea water , then opened and washed. It is at this moment that the double work of the roguers begins. First, they separate the mother-of-pearl plates known in the trade as _silver frank_, _white bastard_ and _black bastard_, which are delivered in crates of 125 to 150 kilograms. Then, they remove the parenchyma of the oyster, boil it, and sieve it in order to extract even the smallest pearls. “The price of these pearls varies according to their size?” asked Conseil. “Not only according to their size,” I replied, “but also according to their shape, according to their _water_, that is to say, their color, and according to their _orient_, that is to say, that shimmering and variegated brilliance which makes them so charming to the eye. The most beautiful pearls are called virgin pearls or paragons; they are formed singly in the tissue of the mollusk; they are white, often opaque, but sometimes of an opaline transparency, and most commonly spherical or pear-shaped. Spherical, they form bracelets; pear-shaped, pendants, and, being the most precious, they are sold by the piece. The other pearls adhere to the shell of the oyster, and, more irregular, they are sold by weight. Finally, in a lower order are classified the small pearls, known under the name of seeds; they are sold by the measure and are used more particularly for embroidering church ornaments. “But this work, which consists of separating the pearls according to their size, must be long and difficult,” said the Canadian. “No, my friend. This work is done by means of eleven sieves or screens pierced with a variable number of holes. The pearls that remain in the sieves, which have from twenty to eighty holes, are of the first order. Those that do not escape from the sieves pierced with one hundred to eight hundred holes are of the second order. Finally, the pearls for which sieves pierced with nine hundred to one thousand holes are used form the seed. ” “It’s ingenious,” said Conseil, “and I see that the division, the classification of the pearls, is carried out mechanically. And can the gentleman tell us what the exploitation of the pearl oyster beds brings in? ” “According to Sirr’s book,” I replied, “the fisheries of Ceylon are leased annually for the sum of three million sharks. ” “Francs!” Conseil continued. “Yes, francs! Three million francs,” I said. “But I believe that these fisheries no longer bring in what they once did. It is the same with the American fisheries, which, under the reign of Charles V, produced four million francs, now reduced to two-thirds. In short, the general yield from pearl mining can be estimated at nine million francs. ” “But,” Conseil asked, “are there not some famous pearls that have been valued at a very high price? ” “Yes, my boy. It is said that Caesar offered Servillia a pearl valued at one hundred and twenty thousand francs of our currency. ” “I even heard,” said the Canadian, “that a certain ancient lady drank pearls in her vinegar. ” “Cleopatra,” Conseil retorted. “It must have been bad,” added Ned Land. “Detestable, friend Ned,” Conseil replied; “but a small glass of vinegar that costs fifteen hundred thousand francs is a pretty price.” “I regret not having married this lady,” said the Canadian, waving his arm in a rather unreassuring manner. “Ned Land, Cleopatra’s husband!” exclaimed Conseil. “But I had to get married, Conseil,” replied the Canadian seriously, ” and it’s not my fault if the affair didn’t work out. I even bought a pearl necklace for Kat Tender, my fiancée, who, by the way, married another. Well, this necklace didn’t cost me more than a dollar and a half, and yet—Mr. Professor, believe me, the pearls that composed it would not have passed through the twenty-hole sieve. —My good Ned, I replied laughing, they were artificial pearls, simple globules of glass coated on the inside with oriental essence. —So little as nothing! It is nothing other than the silvery substance of the scale of the bleak, collected in water and preserved in ammonia. It has no value. —Perhaps that is why Kat Tender married another, replied Master Land philosophically. —But, I said, to return to pearls of great value, I do not believe that any sovereign has ever possessed one superior to Captain Nemo’s. —This one, said Conseil, showing the magnificent jewel locked away in its glass case. “Certainly, I’m not mistaken in assigning it a value of two million… ” “Francs!” Conseil said briskly. “Yes,” I said, “two million francs, and, no doubt, it will have cost the captain nothing but the trouble of picking it up. ” “Hey!” cried Ned Land, “who says that tomorrow, during our trip, we won’t meet its equal! ” “Bah!” Conseil said. “And why not? ” “What good would millions do us on board the Nautilus? ” “On board, no,” said Ned Land, “but… elsewhere. ” “Oh! elsewhere!” Conseil said, shaking his head. “In fact,” I said, “Master Land is right. And if we ever bring back to Europe or America a pearl worth a few million, that at least will give great authenticity, and, at the same time, great value to the story of our adventures. ” “I believe so,” said the Canadian. “But,” Conseil said, who always returned to the instructive side of things, “is this pearl fishing dangerous?” “No,” I replied quickly, “especially if you take certain precautions. ” “What’s the risk in this line of work?” said Ned Land. “Swallow a few mouthfuls of seawater! ” “As you say, Ned. By the way,” I said, trying to adopt Captain Nemo’s casual tone, “are you afraid of sharks, brave Ned? ” “I am,” replied the Canadian, “a professional harpooner! It’s my job to make fun of them! ” “It’s not a matter,” I said, “of fishing them with a swivel, hoisting them onto the deck of a ship, cutting off their tails with an axe, opening their stomachs, tearing out their hearts, and throwing them into the sea! ” “So, it’s a matter of…? ” “Yes, precisely. ” “In the water? ” “In the water. ” “Well, with a good harpoon! You know, sir, those sharks are pretty badly made creatures.” They have to turn over onto their stomachs to snap you up, and, meanwhile…’ Ned Land had a way of pronouncing the word ‘snatch’ that sent shivers down the spine. ‘Well, and you, Conseil, what do you think of these sharks? ‘ ‘I,’ said Conseil, ‘will be frank with monsieur. ‘ ‘Good,’ I thought. ‘If monsieur faces the sharks,’ said Conseil, ‘I don’t see why his faithful servant shouldn’t face them with him!’ Chapter 3. A PEARL OF TEN MILLION Night came. I went to bed. I slept rather badly. Sharks played an important role in my dreams, and I found this etymology, which derives the word shark from the word ‘requiem’, both very true and very unjust. The next day, at four o’clock in the morning, I was awakened by the steward whom Captain Nemo had specially placed at my service. I got up quickly, dressed, and went into the living room. Captain Nemo was waiting for me there. “Monsieur Aronnax,” he said, “are you ready to leave? ” “I am ready. ” “Please follow me. ” “And my companions, Captain? ” “They have been warned and are waiting for us.” “Aren’t we going to put on our diving suits?” I asked. “Not yet. I haven’t let the Nautilus get too close to this coast, and we’re quite far from the Manaar Bank; but I’ve had the boat ready that will take us to the precise landing point and save us a fairly long journey. It’s carrying our diving gear , which we’ll put on when this underwater exploration begins.” Captain Nemo led me to the central staircase, the steps of which led to the platform. Ned and Conseil were there, delighted by the “fun” that was being prepared. Five sailors from the Nautilus, their oars manned, were waiting for us in the boat that had been rigged against the side. The night was still dark. Patches of cloud covered the sky and allowed only a few stars to be seen. I looked towards the land, but I saw only a blurred line that closed three-quarters of the horizon from southwest to northwest. The Nautilus, having sailed up the western coast of Ceylon during the night, was to the west of the bay, or rather of the gulf formed by this land and the island of Manaar. There, beneath the dark waters, stretched the shoal of guinea fowl, an inexhaustible field of pearls whose length exceeded twenty miles. Captain Nemo, Conseil, Ned Land, and I took our places at the stern of the boat. The skipper of the boat took the helm; his four companions put pressure on their oars; the line was released , and we overran. The boat headed south. Its swimmers were in no hurry. I observed that their oar strokes, vigorously engaged underwater, followed each other only every ten seconds, following the method generally used in navies. While the boat was running on its course, the liquid droplets crackled against the black bottom of the waves like smears of molten lead. A small swell, coming from the open sea, gave the boat a slight roll, and a few crests of waves lapped at its bow. We were silent. What was Captain Nemo thinking about? Perhaps this land he was approaching, and which he found too close to him, contrary to the opinion of the Canadian, to whom it still seemed too far away. As for Conseil, he was there simply as a curious onlooker. Around five thirty, the first tints of the horizon more clearly revealed the upper line of the coast. Fairly flat in the east, it swelled a little towards the south. Five miles still separated it, and its shore merged with the misty waters. Between it and us, the sea was deserted. Not a boat, not a diver. Profound solitude at this meeting place for pearl fishermen. As Captain Nemo had pointed out to me, we were arriving in these parts a month too early. At six o’clock, day broke suddenly, with that rapidity peculiar to tropical regions, which know neither dawn nor dusk. The sun’s rays pierced the curtain of clouds piled on the eastern horizon, and the radiant star rose rapidly. I saw land distinctly, with a few trees scattered here and there. The boat advanced towards the island of Manaar, which rounded off in the south. Captain Nemo had risen from his bench and was observing the sea. At a sign from him, the anchor was dropped, and the chain barely ran, for the bottom was no more than a meter away, and at this point it formed one of the highest points of the guinea fowl bank. The boat immediately swerved under the pressure of the ebb tide which carried out to sea. “Here we are, Mr. Aronnax,” Captain Nemo then said. ” You see this narrow bay. It is here that in a month the numerous fishing boats of the exploiters will gather, and it is these waters that their divers will boldly search. This bay is fortunately arranged for this kind of fishing. It is sheltered from the strongest winds, and the sea is never very rough there, a very favorable circumstance for the divers’ work. We will now put on our diving suits and begin our trip.” I said nothing, and while watching these suspicious waves, helped by the sailors of the boat, I began to put on my heavy sea clothes. Captain Nemo and my two companions were also getting dressed. None of the men from the Nautilus were to accompany us on this new excursion. Soon we were trapped up to our necks in the rubber suit, and straps fixed the air apparatus to our backs . As for the Ruhmkorff apparatus, there was no question of it. Before introducing my head into its copper capsule, I made this observation to the captain. “These apparatuses would be useless to us,” the captain replied. “We will not go to great depths, and the sun’s rays will be enough to light our way. Besides, it is not prudent to carry an electric lantern under these waters.” Its brilliance might unexpectedly attract some dangerous inhabitant of these waters.” While Captain Nemo spoke these words, I turned towards Conseil and Ned Land. But these two friends had already buried their heads in the metal cap, and they could neither hear nor reply. One last question remained for me to ask Captain Nemo: “And our weapons,” I asked him, “our guns? ” “Guns! What’s the use? Don’t your mountaineers attack bears with daggers in hand, and isn’t steel safer than lead? Here’s a solid blade. Put it on your belt and let’s go.” I looked at my companions. They were armed like us, and, what’s more, Ned Land was brandishing an enormous harpoon that he had placed in the boat before leaving the Nautilus. Then, following the captain’s example, I let the heavy copper sphere be placed on my head, and our air tanks were immediately activated. A moment later, the sailors from the boat disembarked us one after the other, and, in a meter and a half of water, we set foot on level sand. Captain Nemo signaled to us with his hand. We followed him, and by a gentle slope we disappeared beneath the waves. There, the ideas that obsessed my brain abandoned me. I became surprisingly calm again. The ease of my movements increased my confidence, and the strangeness of the spectacle captivated my imagination. The sun was already sending a sufficient brightness under the water. The smallest objects remained perceptible. After ten minutes of walking, we were in five meters of water, and the ground became almost flat. Following our steps, like flocks of snipe in a marsh, flocks of curious fish of the genus Monoptera rose up, whose specimens have no other fin than that of the tail. I recognized the Javanese, a veritable snake eight decimeters long, with a livid belly, which could easily be confused with the conger eel if it were not for the golden lines on its flanks. In the genus of stromataea, whose body is very compressed and oval, I observed brightly colored parus bearing their dorsal fin like a scythe, edible fish which, dried and marinated, form an excellent dish known under the name of _karawade_ then tranquebars, belonging to the genus of apsiphoroids, whose body is covered with a scaly armor with eight longitudinal sides. However, the gradual rise of the sun illuminated the mass of water more and more . The ground changed little by little. The fine sand was succeeded by a veritable causeway of rounded rocks, covered with a carpet of mollusks and zoophytes. Among the samples of these two branches, I noticed placenes with thin and unequal valves, a kind of ostraca peculiar to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, orange lucines with orbicular shells, subulate augers, some of these Persian purples which provided the Nautilus with an admirable dye, horned rocks, fifteen centimeters, which rose up under the waves like hands ready to seize you, cornigerous turbinelles, all bristling with thorns, lingula hyantes, anatines, edible shellfish which supply the markets of Hindustan, panopyre pelagies, slightly luminous, and finally admirable flabelliform oculines, magnificent fans which form one of the richest arborizations of these seas. In the middle of these living plants and under the cradles of hydrophytes ran awkward legions of articulates, particularly raninas dentata, whose carapace represents a slightly rounded triangle, birgues special to these waters, horrible parthenopes, whose appearance repelled the eyes. An animal no less hideous which I encountered several times was this enormous crab observed by Mr. Darwin, to which nature has given the instinct and the strength necessary to feed on coconuts; he climbs the trees on the shore, he drops the nut which splits in its fall, and he opens it with his powerful pincers. Here, under these clear waves, this crab ran with unparalleled agility, while frank cheloneas, of the species which frequents the coasts of Malabar, moved slowly between the shaken rocks. Around seven o’clock, we finally surveyed the bed of pintadines, on which pearl oysters reproduce by the millions. These precious mollusks adhered to the rocks and were strongly attached to them by this brown-colored byssus which does not allow them to move. In what way these oysters are inferior to the mussels themselves to which nature has not denied all faculty of locomotion. The pintadine _meleagrina_, the mother pearl, whose valves are almost equal, is presented in the form of a rounded shell, with thick walls, very rough on the outside. Some of these shells were flaky and furrowed with greenish bands radiating from their tops. They belonged to young oysters. The others, with a rough, black surface, ten years old or more, measured up to fifteen centimeters in width. Captain Nemo pointed out to me this prodigious pile of guinea fowl, and I understood that this mine was truly inexhaustible, for the creative force of nature prevails over the destructive instinct of man. Ned Land, faithful to this instinct, hurried to fill a net he carried at his side with the most beautiful mollusks . But we could not stop. We had to follow the captain, who seemed to be heading along paths known only to him. The ground rose noticeably, and sometimes my arm, which I raised, exceeded the surface of the sea. Then the level of the bank lowered capriciously. Often we circled tall, tapering rocks into pyramidions. In their dark crevices, large crustaceans, pointed on their tall legs like war machines, stared at us with their fixed eyes, and beneath our feet crawled myrians, wisteria, aricia, and annelids, their antennae and tentacled cyrrhae extending immeasurably. At that moment, a vast cave opened up before our feet, dug in a picturesque pile of rocks carpeted with all the high-slats of underwater flora. At first, this cave seemed profoundly dark. The sun’s rays seemed to be extinguished there by successive degradations. Its vague transparency was nothing more than drowned light. Captain Nemo entered it. We after him. My eyes soon became accustomed to this relative darkness. I distinguished the capriciously convoluted falls of the vault supported by natural pillars , broadly seated on their granite base, like the heavy columns of Tuscan architecture. Why was our incomprehensible guide leading us to the bottom of this underwater crypt? I was going to find out before long. After descending a rather steep slope, our feet touched the bottom of a sort of circular well. There, Captain Nemo stopped, and With his hand he indicated an object that I had not yet seen. It was an oyster of extraordinary dimensions, a gigantic tridacna, a clam that would have contained a lake of holy water, a basin whose width exceeded two meters, and consequently larger than the one that decorated the salon of the Nautilus. I approached this phenomenal mollusk. By its byssus it adhered to a granite table, and there it developed in isolation in the calm waters of the cave. I estimated the weight of this tridacna at three hundred kilograms. Now, such an oyster contains fifteen kilos of flesh, and it would take the stomach of a Gargantua to absorb a few dozen of them. Captain Nemo was obviously aware of the existence of this bivalve. It was not the first time he had visited it, and I thought that by taking us to this place he only wanted to show us a natural curiosity. I was mistaken. Captain Nemo had a particular interest in observing the current state of this tridacna. The mollusk’s two valves were half-open. The captain approached and inserted his dagger between the shells to prevent them from closing; then, with his hand, he lifted the membranous tunic, fringed at its edges, which formed the animal’s mantle. There, between the foliaceous folds, I saw a free pearl whose size equaled that of a coconut. Its globular shape, its perfect limpidity, its admirable orient made it a jewel of inestimable value. Carried away by curiosity, I stretched out my hand to grasp it, to weigh it, to feel it! But the captain stopped me, made a negative sign, and, withdrawing his dagger with a quick movement, he allowed the two valves to suddenly close. I then understood Captain Nemo’s plan. By leaving this pearl buried under the mantle of the tridacna, he allowed it to grow imperceptibly. With each year the secretion of the mollusk added new concentric layers. Only the captain knew the cave where this admirable fruit of nature “ripened”; only he raised it, so to speak, in order to transport it one day to his precious museum. Perhaps even, following the example of the Chinese and the Indians, he had determined the production of this pearl by introducing under the folds of the mollusk some piece of glass and metal, which had gradually become covered with the nacreous material. In any case, comparing this pearl to those I already knew, to those that shone in the captain’s collection, I estimated its value at at least ten million francs. A superb natural curiosity and not a luxury jewel, for I do not know what female ears could have endured it. The visit to the opulent tridacna was over. Captain Nemo left the cave, and we climbed back up onto the shoal of guinea fowl, in the middle of these clear waters, not yet disturbed by the work of the divers. We walked alone, like true strollers, each one stopping or moving away as the fancy took him. For my part, I no longer had any concern for the dangers that my imagination had so ridiculously exaggerated. The shoal was getting noticeably closer to the surface of the sea, and soon in a meter of water my head was above ocean level. Conseil joined me, and pressing his large capsule against mine, he gave me a friendly greeting with his eyes. But this elevated plateau measured only a few fathoms, and soon we were back in our element. I believe I now have the right to describe it as such. Ten minutes later, Captain Nemo suddenly stopped. I thought he was halting to retrace his steps. No. With a gesture, he ordered us to huddle beside him at the bottom of a wide crevice. His hand moved toward a point in the liquid mass, and I watched closely. Five meters away from me, a shadow appeared and lowered itself to the ground. The disturbing idea of ​​sharks crossed my mind. But I was mistaken, and, once again, we were not dealing with the monsters of the Ocean. It was a man, a living man, an Indian, a black man, a fisherman, a poor devil, no doubt, who came to glean before the harvest. I could see the bottom of his canoe anchored a few feet above his head. He dived and came up successively. A stone cut into a sugar loaf, which he gripped with his foot, while a rope attached it to his boat, served to descend more quickly to the bottom of the sea. This was all his equipment. Arriving at the ground, at a depth of about five meters, he threw himself on his knees and filled his bag with guinea fowls picked up at random. Then he came up, emptied his bag, brought back his stone, and began his operation again, which lasted only thirty seconds. This diver did not see us. The shadow of the rock hid us from his view. And besides, how could this poor Indian ever have supposed that men, beings like himself, were there, under the water, spying on his movements, not missing any detail of his catch! Several times, he came up like this and dived again. He brought back no more than a dozen guinea fowls on each dive, because they had to be torn from the bed to which they clung by their robust byssus. And how many of these oysters were deprived of these pearls for which he risked his life! I observed him with profound attention. His maneuver was carried out regularly, and for half an hour, no danger seemed to threaten him. I was thus familiarizing myself with the spectacle of this interesting catch , when, all of a sudden, at a moment when the Indian was kneeling on the ground, I saw him make a gesture of fright? get up and take a run to rise to the surface of the waves. I understood his terror. A gigantic shadow appeared above the unfortunate diver. It was a large shark advancing diagonally, its eyes blazing, its jaws open! I was speechless with horror, unable to move. The voracious animal, with a vigorous stroke of its fin, rushed towards the Indian, who threw himself aside and avoided the shark’s bite, but not the thrashing of its tail, for this tail, striking him in the chest, stretched him out on the ground. This scene had lasted barely a few seconds. The shark returned, and, turning onto its back, it was preparing to cut the Indian in two, when I felt Captain Nemo, posted near me, suddenly stand up. Then, his dagger in his hand, he walked straight towards the monster, ready to fight him hand to hand. The shark, just as it was about to snatch the unfortunate fisherman, saw its new adversary, and, turning back onto its stomach, it quickly headed towards it. I can still see Captain Nemo’s pose. Curled up, he waited with admirable composure for the formidable shark, and when it rushed at him, the captain, throwing himself aside with prodigious agility, avoided the impact and plunged his dagger into its belly. But all was not said and done. A terrible fight began. The shark roared, so to speak. Blood flowed in torrents from its wounds. The sea turned red, and through this opaque liquid, I saw nothing more. Nothing more, until the moment when, in a clearing, I saw the audacious captain, clinging to one of the animal’s fins, fighting hand to hand with the monster, plowing his enemy’s belly with dagger thrusts , without however being able to deliver the final blow, that is to say, to hit him right in the heart. The shark, struggling, agitated the mass of water furiously, and their eddies threatened to knock me over. I would have liked to run to the captain’s aid. But, frozen by horror, I could not move. I watched, my eyes haggard. I saw the phases of the struggle change. The captain fell to the ground, knocked down by the enormous mass that weighed on him. Then, the shark’s jaws opened disproportionately like factory shears, and it would have been the end of the captain if, quick as thought, his harpoon in hand, Ned Land, rushing towards the shark, had not struck it with its terrible point. The waves were soaked with a mass of blood. They agitated under the movements of the shark which beat them with an indescribable fury. Ned Land had not missed his target. It was the death rattle of the monster. Struck in the heart, he struggled in terrible spasms, the repercussions of which knocked Conseil down. However, Ned Land had freed the captain. The latter, recovered without injury, went straight to the Indian, quickly cut the rope that tied him to his stone, took him in his arms and, with a vigorous kick of his heel, he rose to the surface of the sea. The three of us followed him, and in a few moments, miraculously saved, we reached the fisherman’s boat. Captain Nemo’s first care was to bring this unfortunate man back to life. I didn’t know if he would succeed. I hoped so, because the immersion of this poor devil had not been long. But the blow of the shark’s tail could have killed him. Fortunately, under the vigorous friction of Conseil and the captain, I saw, little by little, the drowned man regain consciousness. He opened his eyes. How surprised I was, his terror even, to see the four large copper heads bending over him! And above all, what must he have thought when Captain Nemo, taking a bag of pearls from a pocket of his clothing, placed it in his hand ? This magnificent alms from the man of the waters to the poor Indian of Ceylon was accepted by the latter with a trembling hand. His frightened eyes indicated, moreover, that he did not know to which superhuman beings he owed both his fortune and his life. At a sign from the captain, we returned to the school of guinea fowl, and, following the route already traveled, after a half-hour’s walk we came across the anchor that attached the Nautilus’s boat to the ground. Once embarked, each of us, with the help of the sailors, got rid of our heavy copper shell. Captain Nemo’s first words were for the Canadian. “Thank you, Master Land,” he said to him. “That’s payback, Captain,” replied Ned Land. “I owed you that.” »
A faint smile slid across the captain’s lips, and that was all. “To the Nautilus,” he said. The boat flew over the waves. A few minutes later, we came across the floating corpse of the shark. By the black color marking the tips of its fins, I recognized the terrible melanoptera of the Indian Ocean, of the species of sharks proper. It was over twenty-five feet long; its enormous mouth occupied a third of its body. It was an adult, which was evident from the six rows of teeth, arranged in isosceles triangles on the upper jaw. Conseil looked at it with a purely scientific interest, and I am sure that he placed it, not without reason, in the class of cartilaginous. Order of chondropterygians with fixed gills, family of selachians, genus of sharks. While I was contemplating this inert mass, a dozen of these voracious melanoptera suddenly appeared around the boat; but, without paying any attention to us, they threw themselves on the corpse and fought over its shreds. At eight thirty, we were back on board the Nautilus. There, I began to reflect on the incidents of our excursion to the Manaar Sands. Two observations inevitably emerged. One, concerning the unparalleled audacity of Captain Nemo, the other on his devotion to a human being, one of the representatives of this race from whom he was fleeing under the sea. Whatever he said, this strange man had not yet succeeded in killing his whole heart. When I made this observation to him, he answered me in a tone slightly moved: “This Indian, Professor, is an inhabitant of the land of the oppressed, and I am still, and until my last breath, I will be from that country!” Chapter 4. THE RED SEA During the day of January 29, the island of Ceylon disappeared below the horizon, and the Nautilus, with a speed of twenty miles per hour, slipped into this labyrinth of channels which separate the Maldives from the Laccadives. It even included Kittan Island, a land of madreporic origin, discovered by Vasco da Gama in 1499, and one of the nineteen principal islands of this archipelago of Laccadives, located between 10° and 14°30′ north latitude, and 69° and 50°72′ east longitude. We had then traveled sixteen thousand two hundred and twenty miles, or seven thousand five hundred leagues, from our starting point in the Seas of Japan. The next day, January 30, when the Nautilus resurfaced , it no longer had any land in sight. It was heading north-northwest, heading towards the Sea of ​​Oman, carved out between Arabia and the Indian peninsula, which serves as the outlet to the Persian Gulf. It was obviously a dead end, with no possible way out. Where was Captain Nemo taking us? I couldn’t have said. This didn’t satisfy the Canadian, who, that day, asked me where we were going. “We are going, Master Ned, where the captain’s fancy takes us. ” “That fancy,” replied the Canadian, “can’t take us far. The Persian Gulf has no outlet, and if we enter it, we’ll soon be retracing our steps. ” “Well!” we will return, Master Land, and if after the Persian Gulf, the Nautilus wants to visit the Red Sea, the Strait of Babel-Mandeb is always there to give it passage. “I won’t tell you, sir,” replied Ned Land, “that the Red Sea is no less closed than the Gulf, since the Isthmus of Suez has not yet been pierced, and, even if it were, a mysterious boat like ours would not venture into its canals cut by locks. Therefore, the Red Sea is not yet the route that will bring us back to Europe. ” “So, I didn’t say that we would return to Europe. ” “What do you suppose then? ” “I suppose that after having visited these curious waters of Arabia and Egypt, the Nautilus will go back down the Indian Ocean, perhaps through the Mozambique Channel, perhaps off the Mascarenes, so as to reach the Cape of Good Hope.” And once at the Cape of Good Hope? asked the Canadian with particular insistence. “Well, we will enter this Atlantic that we do not yet know. Oh, my friend Ned, are you getting tired of this voyage under the sea? Are you getting jaded by the constantly varied spectacle of underwater wonders? For my part, I will see with extreme disappointment the end of this voyage that so few men have been given to make.” But it was only a vision, and the Nautilus soon sank beneath the dark waves of these waters. The Red Sea, a famous lake in biblical traditions, which rains scarcely refresh, which no major river irrigates, which excessive evaporation constantly pumps up and which loses a liquid layer a meter and a half high each year! A singular gulf, which, closed and in the conditions of a lake, would perhaps be entirely dried up ; inferior in this to its neighbors the Caspian or the Asphaltite, whose level has only fallen to the point where their evaporation has precisely equaled the sum of the waters received in their bosom. There, between two waters of crystal limpidity , through the open panels, it allowed us to contemplate admirable bushes of brilliant corals, and vast sections of rocks covered with a splendid green fur of algae and fucus. What an indescribable spectacle, and what a variety of sites and landscapes to the leveling of these reefs and volcanic islets that border the Libyan coast! But where these arborizations appeared in all their beauty, it was towards the eastern shores that the Nautilus was quick to reach. It was on the coasts of Tehama, because then not only did these displays of zoophytes flourish below sea level, but they also formed picturesque interlacings that unfolded ten fathoms above; these more capricious, but less colorful than those whose humid vitality of the waters maintained the freshness. Its animality is not in doubt, and one cannot even adopt the opinion of the ancients who regarded it as an intermediate being between the plant and the animal. I must say, however, that naturalists are not in agreement on the mode of organization of the sponge. For some, it is a polyp, and for others such as Mr. Milne Edwards, it is an isolated and unique individual. This substance disappears after the death of the polyp, and putrefies, releasing ammonia. All that remains then are these horny or gelatinous fibers of which the domestic sponge is composed, which takes on a reddish tint, and which is used for various purposes, according to its degree of elasticity, permeability or resistance to maceration. These polyps adhered to rocks, mollusk shells and even hydrophyte stems. They filled the smallest crevices, some spreading out, others standing up or hanging like coralligenous growths. I learned from Conseil that these sponges were caught in two ways, either by dredging or by hand. This last method, which requires the use of divers, is preferable, because by respecting the tissue of the polypary, it leaves it with a much higher value. The other zoophytes which swarmed near the sponges consisted mainly of jellyfish of a very elegant species; the mollusks were represented by varieties of squid, which, according to d’Orbigny, are special to the Red Sea, and the reptiles by turtles _virgata_, belonging to the genus of cheloneas, which provided our table with a healthy and delicate dish. As for the fish, they were numerous and often remarkable. Here are the ones that the Nautilus’s nets brought on board most frequently : rays, among which were the oval-shaped, brick-colored limes, with bodies dotted with uneven blue spots and recognizable by their double serrated stingers, silver-backed arnacks, dotted-tailed stingrays, and bockats, vast coats two meters long that undulated between the waters, aodons, absolutely devoid of teeth, a kind of cartilaginous fish that resembles a shark, ostracion-dromedaries whose hump ends in a curved stinger, a foot and a half long, ophidians, true moray eels with a silvery tail, a bluish back, and brown pectoral fins edged with a gray border, fiatoles, a species of butterfish, striped with narrow gold stripes and adorned with the three colors of France, garamits, four decimeters long, superb caranx, decorated with seven transverse bands of a beautiful black, blue and yellow fins, and gold and silver scales, centropods, yellow-headed auriflamme mulles, scares, wrasses, triggerfish, gobies, etc., and a thousand other fish common to the oceans we had already crossed. On February 9, the Nautilus was floating in this widest part of the Red Sea, which is between Suakin on the west coast and Quonfodah on the east coast, over a diameter of one hundred and ninety miles. That day at noon, after the point, Captain Nemo climbed onto the platform where I was. I promised myself not to let him go back down without having at least sensed his future plans. He came to me as soon as he saw me, graciously offered me a cigar and said to me: “Well! Professor, do you like this Red Sea? Have you sufficiently observed the marvels it covers, its fish and zoophytes, its beds of sponges and its coral forests? Have you glimpsed the cities thrown on its banks? ” “Yes, Captain Nemo,” I replied, “and the Nautilus has lent itself marvelously to all this study. Ah! it is an intelligent boat! ” “Yes, sir, intelligent, audacious and invulnerable! It fears neither the terrible storms of the Red Sea, nor its currents, nor its reefs. ” “Indeed,” I said, “this sea is cited among the worst, and if I am not mistaken, in the time of the Ancients, its reputation was detestable. ” “Detestable, Mr. Aronnax.” Greek and Latin historians do not speak of it favorably, and Strabo says that it is particularly harsh at the time of the Etesian winds and the rainy season. The Arab Edrisi, who describes it under the name of the Gulf of Colzoum, relates that ships perished in great numbers on its sandbanks, and that no one ventured to sail there at night. It is, he claims, a sea subject to terrible hurricanes, dotted with inhospitable islands, and ” which offers nothing good” either in its depths or on its surface. Indeed , such is the opinion found in Arrian, Agatharchides, and Artemidorus. “It is clear,” I replied, “that these historians did not sail aboard the Nautilus. ” “Indeed,” replied the captain, smiling, “and in this respect, the moderns are no more advanced than the ancients.” It took many centuries to discover the mechanical power of steam! Who knows if in a hundred years we will see a second Nautilus! Progress is slow, Mr. Aronnax. “It’s true,” I replied, “your ship is a century ahead of its time, perhaps several. What a shame that such a secret should die with its inventor!” Captain Nemo did not answer me. After a few minutes of silence, “You were speaking to me,” he said, “of the opinion of ancient historians on the dangers of navigating the Red Sea? ” “That’s true,” I replied, “but weren’t their fears exaggerated? ” “Yes and no, Mr. Aronnax,” Captain Nemo replied, appearing to me to have a thorough understanding of “his Red Sea.” What is no longer dangerous for a modern, well-rigged, solidly built ship, master of its direction thanks to obedient steam, offered perils of all kinds to the vessels of the ancients. We must imagine those first navigators venturing out on boats made of planks sewn with palm tree ropes, caulked with crushed resin and coated with dogfish fat. They did not even have instruments to take their direction, and they sailed by dead reckoning in the midst of currents they barely knew. Under these conditions, shipwrecks were and must have been numerous. But in our time, the steamers that ply between Suez and the South Seas no longer have anything to fear from the wrath of this gulf, despite the adverse monsoons. Their captains and passengers do not prepare for departure with propitiatory sacrifices, and, on their return, they no longer go, adorned with garlands and golden bands, to thank the gods in the nearby temple. “I agree,” I said, “and steam seems to me to have killed gratitude in the hearts of sailors.” But Captain, since you seem to have specially studied this sea, can you tell me the origin of its name? — There are, Mr. Aronnax, many explanations on this subject. Would you like to know the opinion of a chronicler of the 14th century? — Willingly. — This fanciful claims that its name was given to it after the passage of the Israelites, when the Pharaoh perished in the waves which closed at the voice of Moses: As a sign of this marvel, The sea became red and vermilion. No one then knew how to name it anything but the red sea. “A poet’s explanation, Captain Nemo,” I replied, “but I can’t be satisfied with that. I will therefore ask your personal opinion. ” “Here it is. In my opinion, Mr. Aronnax, we must see in this name of Red Sea a translation of the Hebrew word “Edrom,” and if the ancients gave it this name, it was because of the particular coloring of its waters. “Until now, however, I have only seen clear waves without any particular color. ” “No doubt, but as you advance toward the bottom of the gulf, you will notice this singular appearance. I remember seeing the bay of Tor entirely red, like a lake of blood. ” “And this color, you attribute it to the presence of a microscopic algae ? ” “Yes.” It is a purple mucilaginous substance produced by those puny seedlings known as _trichodesmia_, of which it takes forty thousand to occupy the space of one square millimeter. Perhaps you will encounter some when we are at Tor. — So, Captain Nemo, this is not the first time you have traveled the Red Sea aboard the _Nautilus_? — No, sir. — So, since you were speaking earlier of the passage of the Israelites and the catastrophe of the Egyptians, I would ask you if you have recognized traces of this great historical event under the waters? — No, Professor, and for an excellent reason. — What is it? — It is that the very place where Moses passed with all his people is so silted up now that the camels can barely bathe their legs there. You understand that my _Nautilus_ would not have enough water for it. — And this place?… I asked. “This place is located a little above Suez, in that arm which once formed a deep estuary, when the Red Sea extended to the Bitter Lakes. Now, whether this passage is miraculous or not, the Israelites nevertheless passed through there to reach the Promised Land, and Pharaoh’s army perished precisely in this spot. I therefore think that excavations carried out in the middle of these sands would uncover a large quantity of weapons and instruments of Egyptian origin. ” “That is obvious,” I replied, “and we must hope for the archaeologists that these excavations will be carried out sooner or later, when new cities are established on this isthmus, after the digging of the Suez Canal. A canal quite useless for a ship such as the Nautilus! ” “No doubt, but useful to the whole world,” said Captain Nemo. The ancients had well understood the usefulness for their commercial affairs of establishing a communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean; but they did not think of digging a direct canal, and they took the Nile as an intermediary. Very probably, the canal which joined the Nile to the Red Sea was begun under Sesostris, if we are to believe tradition. What is certain is that, 615 years before Jesus Christ, Necos undertook the work of a canal fed by the waters of the Nile, across the plain of Egypt which faces Arabia. This canal could be ascended in four days, and its width was such that two triremes could pass abreast. It was continued by Darius, son of Hytaspes, and probably completed by Ptolemy II. Strabo saw it used for navigation; but the slight slope of its slope between its starting point, near Bubaste, and the Red Sea, made it navigable only for a few months of the year. This canal was used for trade until the century of the Antonines; abandoned, silted up, then rebuilt by the orders of Caliph Omar, it was definitively filled in 761 or 762 by Caliph Al-Mansor, who wanted to prevent food from reaching Mohammed-ben-Abdoallah, who had rebelled against him. During the Egyptian expedition, your general Bonaparte found traces of these works in the Suez desert, and, surprised by the tide, he almost perished a few hours before reaching Hadjaroth, the very place where Moses had camped 3,300 years before him.
– Well, Captain, what the ancients had not dared to undertake, this junction between the two seas which will shorten the route from Cadiz to the Indies by 9,000 kilometers, Mr. de Lesseps has done it, and before long, he will have changed Africa into an immense island. – Yes, Mr. Aronnax, and you have the right to be proud of your compatriot. He is a man who honors a nation more than the greatest captains! He began like so many others with troubles and rejections, but he triumphed, for he has the genius of will. And it is sad to think that this work, which should have been an international work, which would have been enough to illustrate a reign, will have succeeded only by the energy of a single man. So, honor to Mr. de Lesseps! “Yes, honor to this great citizen,” I replied, quite surprised by the tone in which Captain Nemo had just spoken. “Unfortunately,” he continued, “I cannot take you through this Suez Canal, but you will be able to see the long jetties of Port Said the day after tomorrow, when we are in the Mediterranean. ” “In the Mediterranean!” I cried. “Yes, Professor. Does that surprise you? ” “What surprises me is to think that we will be there the day after tomorrow. ” “Really? ” “Yes, Captain, although I must have become accustomed to not being surprised by anything since I have been on board you! ” “But what is this surprise about? ” “About the frightful speed that you will be forced to give the Nautilus if it is to find itself the day after tomorrow in the middle of the Mediterranean, having circumnavigated Africa and rounded the Cape of Good Hope!” “And who told you it would circumnavigate Africa, Professor ? Who told you it would round the Cape of Good Hope! ” “However, unless the Nautilus sails on dry land and passes over the isthmus… ” “Or underneath, Mr. Aronnax. ” “Underneath? ” “No doubt,” Captain Nemo replied calmly. ” Nature has long since done under this strip of land what men are doing today on its surface. ” “What! There would be a passage! ” “Yes, an underground passage that I have named the Arabian Tunnel. It starts below Suez and ends in the Gulf of Pelusium. ” “But this isthmus is composed only of shifting sands? ” “Up to a certain depth. But only fifty meters down do you encounter an unshakable bedrock. ” “And it was by chance that you discovered this passage?” I asked, more and more surprised. — Chance and reasoning, Professor, and even reasoning more than chance. — Captain, I am listening to you, but my ear resists what it hears. — Ah sir! _Aures habent et non audient_ is of all time. Not only does this passage exist, but I have taken advantage of it several times. Without that, I would not have ventured today into this dead end of the Red Sea. — Is it indiscreet to ask you how you discovered this tunnel? — Sir, the captain replied, there can be nothing secret between people who must never leave each other. I did not pick up on the insinuation and waited for Captain Nemo’s story . “Professor,” he said to me, “it is a simple naturalist’s reasoning that led me to discover this passage that I alone know. I had noticed that in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean there were a certain number of fish of absolutely identical species, ophidians, fiatoles, wrasse, persegues, joels, flying fish. Certain of this fact I wondered if there was not a communication between the two seas. If it existed, the underground current must necessarily go from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean by the sole effect of the difference in levels. I therefore caught a large number of fish around Suez. I put a copper ring on their tails, and I threw them back into the sea. A few months later, on the coasts of Syria, I took back some samples of my fish adorned with their indicator ring. The communication between the two was thus demonstrated to me. I looked for it with my Nautilus, I discovered it, I ventured there, and before long, Professor, you too will have crossed my Arabian tunnel! » Chapter 5. ARABIAN TUNNEL. That very day, I reported to Conseil and Ned Land the part of this conversation which directly interested them. When I told them that, in two days, we would be in the middle of the waters of the Mediterranean, Conseil clapped his hands, but the Canadian shrugged his shoulders. « An underwater tunnel! he cried, a communication between the two seas! Who has ever heard of that? “Friend Ned,” Conseil replied, “had you ever heard of the Nautilus? No! Yet it exists. So, don’t shrug your shoulders so lightly, and don’t dismiss things under the pretext that you have never heard of it. ” “We shall see!” Ned Land retorted, shaking his head. “After all, I ask nothing better than to believe in his passage, this captain, and grant that he will, indeed, lead us into the Mediterranean.” That same evening, at 21°30′ north latitude, the Nautilus, floating on the surface of the sea, approached the Arabian coast. I saw Jeddah, an important trading post for Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and India. I could quite clearly distinguish all of its buildings, the ships moored along the quays, and those whose draft forced them to anchor in the harbor. The sun, quite low on the horizon, struck the town’s houses directly and highlighted their whiteness. Outside, a few wooden or reed huts indicated the district inhabited by the Bedouins. Soon Jeddah faded into the evening shadows, and the Nautilus reentered the slightly phosphorescent waters. The next day, February 10, several ships appeared, racing alongside us. The Nautilus resumed its underwater navigation; but at noon, at the moment of the point, the sea being deserted, it rose to its waterline. Accompanied by Ned and Conseil, I came and sat down on the platform. The coast to the east appeared as a mass barely blurred in a humid fog. Leaning on the sides of the canoe, we were chatting about this and that, when Ned Land, stretching his hand out toward a point in the sea, said to me: “Do you see anything there, Professor? ” “No, Ned,” I replied, “but I don’t have your eyes, you know that. ” “Look carefully,” Ned continued, “there, off to starboard, about at the level of the lantern! Don’t you see a mass that seems to be moving? ” “Indeed,” I said, “after careful observation, I see something like a long blackish body on the surface of the water. ” “Another Nautilus?” Conseil said. “No,” the Canadian replied, “but I’m very mistaken, or it’s some marine animal. ” “Are there whales in the Red Sea?” Conseil asked. “Yes, my boy,” I replied, “we sometimes come across them. ” “It’s not a whale,” Ned Land continued, keeping his eyes on the object he had just noticed. The whales and I are old acquaintances, and I wouldn’t be mistaken by their speed. “Let’s wait,” said Conseil. “The Nautilus is heading in that direction, and before long we’ll know what to expect.” Indeed, this blackish object was soon only a mile from us. It looked like a large reef stranded in the open sea. What was it? I couldn’t yet say. “Ah! It’s walking! It’s diving!” cried Ned Land. “A thousand devils! What Perhaps this animal? It doesn’t have a forked tail like whales or sperm whales, and its fins look like truncated limbs. “But then…” I said. “Well,” the Canadian continued, “there it is on its back, and it raises its breasts in the air! ” “It’s a mermaid,” Conseil cried, “a real mermaid, with all due respect to the gentleman. ”
This name of mermaid put me on the right track, and I understood that this animal belonged to that order of marine beings, from which the fable has made the mermaids, half women and half fish. “No,” I said to Conseil, “it’s not a mermaid, but a curious being of which there are barely a few specimens left in the Red Sea. It’s a dugong. ” “Order of Syrenians, group of Pisciformes, subclass of Monodelphians, class of Mammals, branch of Vertebrates,” Conseil replied. And when Conseil had spoken thus, there was nothing more to say. Meanwhile, Ned Land was still watching. His eyes shone with lust at the sight of this animal. His hand seemed ready to harpoon it. It was as if he were waiting for the moment to throw himself into the sea to attack it in its element. “Oh! sir,” he said to me in a voice trembling with emotion, “I have never killed one of those.” All the harpooner was in that word. At that moment, Captain Nemo appeared on the platform. He saw the dugong. He understood the Canadian’s attitude, and addressing him directly: “If you were holding a harpoon, Master Land, wouldn’t it burn your hand? ” “As you say, sir. ” “And wouldn’t you mind returning to your fishing trade for one day, and adding this cetacean to the list of those you have already struck? ” “That wouldn’t displease me.” “Well, you can try. ” “Thank you, sir,” replied Ned Land, his eyes flaming. “Only,” continued the captain, “I urge you not to miss this animal, and it’s in your own interest. ” “Is this dugong dangerous to attack?” I asked, despite the Canadian’s shrug. “Yes, sometimes,” replied the captain. “This animal returns to its assailants and capsizes their boat. But for Master Land, this danger is not to be feared. His eye is quick, his arm is sure. If I advise him not to miss this dugong, it is because it is considered fine game, and I know that Master Land does not dislike good cuts. ” “Ah!” said the Canadian, “this animal also allows itself the luxury of being good to eat? ” “Yes, Master Land. Its flesh, real meat, is extremely esteemed, and it is reserved throughout Malaysia for the tables of princes.” So this excellent animal is hunted so fiercely that, like its congener, the manatee, it is becoming increasingly rare. “Then, Captain,” Conseil said seriously, “if by chance this one were the last of its race, would it not be advisable to spare it in the interest of science? ” “Perhaps,” replied the Canadian; “but, in the interest of cooking, it is better to give it chase. ” “Do so, Master Land,” replied Captain Nemo. At that moment, seven men of the crew, silent and impassive as always, climbed onto the platform. One carried a harpoon and a line similar to those used by whale fishermen. The boat was undecked, torn from its socket, and launched into the sea. Six oarsmen took their places on their benches and the skipper took the helm. Ned, Conseil, and I sat at the stern. “Aren’t you coming, Captain?” I asked. — No, sir, but I wish you a good hunt. The canoe overflowed, and, lifted by its six oars, it headed quickly towards the dugong, which was then floating two miles from the Nautilus. Having arrived a few cables’ length from the cetacean, it slowed down its pace, and the The oars plunged noiselessly into the calm waters. Ned Land, harpoon in hand, went to stand at the front of the canoe. The harpoon used to strike the whale is usually attached to a very long rope that quickly unwinds when the wounded animal drags it with it. But here the rope was no more than ten fathoms long, and its end was only attached to a small barrel which, as it floated, was supposed to indicate the dugong’s movement underwater . I stood up and clearly observed the Canadian’s adversary. This dugong, which also bears the name of halicore, looked very much like the manatee. Its oblong body ended in a very elongated caudal fin and its lateral fins in real fingers. Its difference from the manatee consisted in that its upper jaw was armed with two long, pointed teeth, which formed diverging tusks on each side. This dugong, which Ned Land was preparing to attack, was of colossal dimensions , and its length exceeded at least seven meters. It did not move and seemed to be sleeping on the surface of the waves, a circumstance which made its capture easier. The canoe cautiously approached to within three fathoms of the animal. The oars remained suspended on their rowlocks. I half rose. Ned Land, his body slightly thrown back, brandished his harpoon with a practiced hand. Suddenly, a whistle was heard, and the dugong disappeared. The harpoon, thrown with force, had probably only struck the water. “A thousand devils!” cried the furious Canadian, “I missed it! “No,” I said, “the animal is wounded, here is its blood, but your tool did not remain in its body. ” “My harpoon! My harpoon!” shouted Ned Land. The sailors resumed swimming, and the skipper steered the boat toward the floating barrel. With the harpoon fished out, the boat began pursuing the animal. It came back to the surface of the sea from time to time to breathe. Its wound had not weakened it, for it sped off with extreme speed. The boat, maneuvered by strong arms, flew on its trail. Several times it approached within a few fathoms, and the Canadian stood ready to strike; but the dugong eluded it with a sudden dive, and it was impossible to hit it. One can imagine the anger that excited the impatient Ned Land. He hurled the most energetic curses in the English language at the unfortunate animal. For my part, I was still only annoyed at seeing the dugong foil all our ruses. We pursued it relentlessly for an hour, and I was beginning to believe that it would be very difficult to capture it, when this animal was seized by an unfortunate idea of ​​revenge which it had to repent. It returned to the canoe to attack it in turn. This maneuver did not escape the Canadian. “Watch out!” he said. The skipper uttered a few words in his strange language, and no doubt warned his men to be on their guard. The dugong, having arrived at twenty feet from the canoe, stopped, suddenly sniffed the air with its vast nostrils pierced not at the end, but at the upper part of its snout. Then, taking a run, it rushed towards us. The canoe could not avoid its collision; half overturned, it took on one or two tons of water which had to be emptied; but, thanks to the skill of the skipper, having approached at an angle and not head-on, it did not capsize. Ned Land, clinging to the bow, was spearing the gigantic animal with his harpoon, which, with its teeth embedded in the gunwale, was lifting the boat out of the water like a lion made from a deer. We were thrown on top of each other, and I don’t know how the adventure would have ended if the Canadian, still determined against the beast, had not finally struck it in the heart. I heard the grinding of teeth on the metal, and the dugong disappeared, dragging the harpoon with it. But soon the barrel returned to the surface, and a few moments later, the body of the animal appeared, turned on its back. The boat reached it, took it in tow, and headed towards the Nautilus. It was necessary to use very powerful tackle to hoist the dugong onto the platform. It weighed five thousand kilograms. It was butchered before the eyes of the Canadian, who insisted on following every detail of the operation. That same day, the steward served me for dinner a few slices of this flesh skillfully prepared by the ship’s cook. I found it excellent, and even superior to that of veal, if not beef. The next day, February 11, the galley of the Nautilus was further enriched with delicate game. A covey of sea swallows swooped down on the Nautilus. It was a species of sterna nilotica, peculiar to Egypt, with a black beak, a gray and dotted head, an eye surrounded by white dots, a grayish back, wings, and tail, a white belly and throat, and red legs. We also caught a few dozen Nile ducks, wild birds of high taste, whose neck and top of the head are white and spotted with black. The speed of the Nautilus was then moderate. It advanced by loitering, so to speak. I observed that the water of the Red Sea became less and less salty as we approached Suez. Around five o’clock in the evening, we rounded Cape Ras-Mohammed to the north. This cape forms the extremity of Arabia Petraea, between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Acabah. The Nautilus entered the Strait of Jubal, which leads to the Gulf of Suez. I distinctly saw a high mountain, dominating Ras-Mohammed between the two gulfs. It was Mount Oreb, that Sinai, at the summit of which Moses saw God face to face, and which the mind constantly imagines crowned with lightning. At six o’clock, the Nautilus, sometimes floating, sometimes submerged, passed off Tor, sitting at the bottom of a bay whose waters appeared tinged with red, an observation already made by Captain Nemo. Then night fell, amidst a heavy silence occasionally broken by the cry of the pelican and a few night birds, the sound of the surf stirred by the rocks, or the distant moan of a steamer beating the waters of the gulf with its sonorous blades. From eight to nine o’clock, the Nautilus remained a few meters underwater . According to my calculations, we must have been very close to Suez. Through the hatches of the lounge, I could see rocky bottoms brightly lit by our electric light. It seemed to me that the strait was getting narrower and narrower. At a quarter past nine, the boat having returned to the surface, I climbed onto the platform. Very impatient to get through Captain Nemo’s tunnel, I could not stay still, and I tried to breathe the fresh night air. Soon, in the darkness, I saw a pale light, half discolored by the mist, shining a mile away from us. “A floating lighthouse,” someone said near me. I turned around and recognized the captain. “It’s the Suez floating lighthouse,” he continued. “We will soon reach the mouth of the tunnel. ” “The entrance must not be easy? ” “No, sir. So I usually stay in the helmsman’s cage to direct the maneuver myself.” And now, if you wish to go down, Mr. Aronnax, the Nautilus will sink beneath the waves, and will not return to the surface until it has passed through the Arabian Tunnel.” I followed Captain Nemo. The hatch closed, the water tanks filled, and the craft submerged about ten meters. Just as I was about to return to my room, the captain stopped me. “Professor,” he said, “would you like to accompany me to the pilot’s cage? ” “I didn’t dare ask you,” I replied. — Come on. You’ll see everything there is to see of this navigation, both subterranean and underwater. Captain Nemo led me to the central staircase. Halfway up the ramp, he opened a door, followed the upper gangways, and arrived in the pilot’s cage, which, as we know, stood at the end of the platform. It was a cabin measuring six feet on each side, roughly similar to those occupied by the helmsmen of Mississippi or Hudson steamboats. In the middle was a vertically arranged wheel, meshed with the rudder lines that ran to the stern of the Nautilus. Four lenticular glass portholes , hollowed out in the cabin walls, allowed the helmsman to look in all directions. This cabin was dark; But soon my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and I saw the pilot, a vigorous man, whose hands rested on the rims of the wheel. Outside, the sea appeared brightly lit by the lantern that shone behind the cabin, at the other end of the platform. “Now,” said Captain Nemo, “let’s look for our passage.” Electric wires connected the helmsman’s cage with the engine room, and from there, the captain could simultaneously communicate to his Nautilus the direction and movement. He pressed a metal button , and immediately the speed of the propeller was greatly reduced. I gazed in silence at the high, very steep wall that we were skirting at that moment, the unshakeable base of the sandy massif of the coast. We followed it like this for an hour, only a few meters away . Captain Nemo never took his eyes off the compass suspended in the cabin with its two concentric circles. With a simple gesture, the helmsman constantly altered the direction of the Nautilus. I had positioned myself at the port porthole, and I could see magnificent coral substructures, zoophytes, algae, and crustaceans waving their enormous legs, which extended out of the crevices of the rock. At ten fifteen, Captain Nemo himself took the helm. A wide, dark, deep gallery opened before us. The Nautilus plunged boldly into it. An unusual rustling sound was heard on its sides. It was the waters of the Red Sea, which the slope of the tunnel was hurling toward the Mediterranean. The Nautilus followed the torrent, swift as an arrow, despite the efforts of its engine, which, to resist, was beating the waves with a counter-propeller. On the narrow walls of the passage, I saw nothing but dazzling streaks , straight lines, furrows of fire traced by speed under the glare of electricity. My heart was pounding, and I pressed it with my hand. At 10:35, Captain Nemo left the rudder wheel and, turning to me, said, “The Mediterranean.” In less than twenty minutes, the Nautilus, carried by this torrent, had just crossed the Isthmus of Suez. Chapter 6. THE GREEK ARCHIPELAGO. The next day, February 12, at daybreak, the Nautilus rose to the surface of the waves. I rushed onto the platform. Three miles to the south, the vague silhouette of Pelusium was outlined. A torrent had carried us from one sea to the other. But this tunnel, easy to descend, must have been impassable to ascend. Around seven o’clock, Ned and Conseil joined me. These two inseparable companions had slept peacefully, without any other concern for the exploits of the Nautilus. “Well, Mr. Naturalist,” asked the Canadian in a slightly mocking tone, “and this Mediterranean? ” “We’re floating on its surface, friend Ned. ” “Huh!” said Conseil, “this very night?” “Yes, this very night, in a few minutes, we crossed this impassable isthmus. ” “I don’t believe it,” replied the Canadian. “And you’re wrong, Master Land,” I continued. “This low coast that curves toward the south is the Egyptian coast. ” “To others, sir,” replied the stubborn Canadian. “But since the gentleman says so,” Conseil told him, “you must believe him. ” “Besides, Ned, Captain Nemo showed me his tunnel, and I was near him, in the helmsman’s cage, while he himself steered the Nautilus through this narrow passage. ” “Do you hear, Ned?” Conseil said. “And you, who have such good eyesight,” I added, “you can, Ned, see the jetties of Port Said stretching out into the sea.” The Canadian looked attentively. “Indeed,” he said, “you’re right, Professor, and your captain is a master man. We are in the Mediterranean. Good.” Let us talk, then, please, about our little affairs, but in such a way that no one can hear us.” I saw clearly where the Canadian was going with this. In any case, I thought it best to talk, since he wanted to, and the three of us went to sit near the lantern, where we were less exposed to the damp spray from the waves. “Now, Ned, we are listening to you,” I said. “What do you have to tell us? ” “What I have to tell you is very simple,” replied the Canadian. ” We are in Europe, and before Captain Nemo’s whims drag us to the bottom of the polar seas or bring us back to Oceania, I ask to leave the Nautilus.” I will admit that this discussion with the Canadian still embarrassed me. I did not want to hinder my companions’ freedom in any way , and yet I felt no desire to leave Captain Nemo. Thanks to him, thanks to his apparatus, I completed my underwater studies every day, and I rewrote my book of the seabed in the very midst of its element. Would I ever find such an opportunity to observe the wonders of the Ocean again? No, certainly not! I could not therefore come to terms with the idea of ​​abandoning the Nautilus before our cycle of investigations was completed. “Friend Ned,” I said, “answer me frankly. Are you bored on board? Do you regret that destiny has thrown you into the hands of Captain Nemo?” The Canadian remained for a few moments without replying. Then, crossing his arms: “Frankly,” he said, “I do not regret this voyage under the sea. I will be happy to have made it; but to have made it, it must end. That is my feeling. ” “It will end, Ned. ” “Where and when? ” “Where? I have no idea. When?” I cannot say, or rather I suppose that it will end when these seas have nothing more to teach us. Everything that has a beginning must necessarily end in this world. “I think like you, sir,” Conseil replied, “and it is quite possible that after having traveled all the seas of the globe, Captain Nemo will give us all three a good thrashing. ” “A good thrashing!” cried the Canadian. “A thrashing, do you mean? ” “Let’s not exaggerate, Master Land,” I continued. ” We have nothing to fear from the captain, but I don’t share Conseil’s ideas either . We are masters of the secrets of the Nautilus, and I don’t hope that its commander, in order to give us back our freedom, will resign himself to seeing them sail the world with us. ” “But then, what do you hope for?” asked the Canadian. “That circumstances will arise from which we can, from which we must take advantage, just as much in six months as now. ” “Yeah!” said Ned Land. And where will we be in six months, please , Mr. Naturalist? “Perhaps here, perhaps in China. As you know, the Nautilus is a fast traveler. It crosses oceans like a swallow crosses the air, or an express train crosses continents. It has no fear of busy seas. Who’s to say it won’t reach the coasts of France, England, or America, to which an escape could be attempted as advantageously as here? “Monsieur Aronnax,” replied the Canadian, “your arguments are fundamentally flawed . You speak in the future: ‘We will be there! We will be here!’ I speak in the present: ‘We are here, and we must take advantage of it.'” I was pressed closely by Ned Land’s logic, and I felt beaten on this ground. I no longer knew what arguments to put forward in my favor. “Sir,” Ned continued, “let us suppose, by some impossibility, that Captain Nemo offers you freedom today. Will you accept? ” “I don’t know,” I replied. “And if he adds that this offer he makes you today, he will not renew it later, will you accept?” I did not reply. “And what does friend Conseil think?” asked Ned Land. “Friend Conseil,” replied this worthy fellow calmly, “friend Conseil has nothing to say.” He is absolutely disinterested in the matter. Like his master, like his comrade Ned, he is single. Neither wife, nor parents, nor children await him in the country. He is in the service of monsieur, he thinks like monsieur, he speaks like monsieur, and, to his great regret, he cannot be counted on to form a majority. Only two people are present: monsieur on one side, Ned Land on the other. That said, friend Conseil is listening, and he is ready to score points.” I could not help smiling, seeing Conseil so completely annihilate his personality. Deep down, the Canadian must have been delighted not to have him against him. “Then, monsieur,” said Ned Land, “since Conseil does not exist, let us discuss only between the two of us. I have spoken, you have heard me. What do you have to say?” It was obviously necessary to conclude, and evasions repelled me. “Friend Ned,” I said, “here is my answer.” You are right against me, and my arguments cannot stand up to yours. We must not count on Captain Nemo’s goodwill. The most common prudence forbids him from setting us free. On the other hand, prudence dictates that we take advantage of the first opportunity to leave the Nautilus. — Well, Mr. Aronnax, that is wisely said. — Only, I said, one observation, just one. The opportunity must be serious. Our first attempt at escape must succeed; for if it fails, we will not find the opportunity to repeat it, and Captain Nemo will not forgive us. — All that is true, replied the Canadian. But your observation applies to any attempt at escape, whether it takes place in two years or in two days. Therefore, the question is always this: if a favorable opportunity presents itself, we must seize it. — All right. And now, you will tell me. Ned, what do you mean by a favorable opportunity? — It would be the one that, on a dark night, would bring the Nautilus to a short distance from a European coast. andeuro;andrdquo; And you would try to save yourself by swimming? Yes, if we were close enough to a shore, and if the ship were floating on the surface. No, if we were far away, and if the ship were sailing underwater. — And in that case? — In that case, I would try to seize the boat. I know how it is maneuvered. We would go inside, and with the bolts removed, we would rise to the surface, without even the helmsman, positioned at the bow, noticing our escape. — Good, Ned. Watch for this opportunity; but don’t forget that a — I will not forget it, sir. — And now, Ned, would you like to know my full thoughts on your — Willingly, Mr. Aronnax. — Well, I think — I don’t say I hope — I think that this favorable opportunity will not present itself. — Why is that?
— Because Captain Nemo cannot conceal from himself that we have not not given up hope of recovering our freedom, and that he will be on his guard, especially at sea and within sight of the European coasts. “I agree with the gentleman,” said Conseil. “We shall see,” replied Ned Land, shaking his head with a determined air.
“And now, Ned Land,” I added, “let’s leave it at that. Not another word about all this. The day you are ready, you will let us know and we will follow you. I leave it entirely to you.” This conversation, which was later to have such serious consequences, ended thus. I must say now that the facts seemed to confirm my predictions, to the great despair of the Canadian. Ned, what do you mean by a favorable opportunity? “It would be one which, on a dark night, would bring the Nautilus to a short distance from a European coast. andeuro;andrdquo; And you would try to save yourself by swimming? Yes, if we were close enough to a shore, and if the ship were floating on the surface. No, if we were far away, and if the ship were sailing underwater. — And in that case? — In that case, I would try to seize the boat. I know how it is maneuvered. We would get inside, and with the bolts removed, we would come back to the surface, without even the helmsman, placed at the bow, noticing our escape. — Good, Ned. Watch for this opportunity; but don’t forget that failure would ruin us.
— I will not forget it, sir. — And now, Ned, would you like to know my full thoughts on your — Willingly, Mr. Aronnax. — Well, I think — I don’t say I hope — I think that this favorable opportunity will not present itself. — Why is that? “Because Captain Nemo cannot hide from himself that we have not given up hope of regaining our freedom, and that he will be on his guard, especially at sea and within sight of the European coasts. ” “I agree with the gentleman,” said Conseil. “We shall see,” replied Ned Land, shaking his head with a determined air. “And now, Ned Land,” I added, “let’s leave it at that. Not another word about all this. The day you are ready, you will warn us and we will follow you. I leave it entirely to you.” This conversation, which was later to have such serious consequences, ended thus. I must say now that the facts seemed to confirm my predictions, much to the Canadian’s despair. Was Captain Nemo wary of us in these busy seas, or did he simply want to hide from the sight of the numerous ships of all nations that crisscross the Mediterranean? I don’t know, but it mostly stayed between two waters and off the coast. Either the Nautilus emerged, letting only the helmsman’s cage pass, or it went to great depths, because between the Greek archipelago and Asia Minor we didn’t find the bottom for 2,000 meters. Also, I only learned about the island of Carpathos, one of the Sporades, from this verse of Virgil that Captain Nemo quoted to me, placing his finger on a point on the planisphere: Est in Carpathio Neptuni gurgite vates Coeruleus Proteus… It was, in fact, the ancient abode of Proteus, the old shepherd of Neptune’s flocks, now the island of Scarpanto, located between Rhodes and Crete. I only saw its granite foundations through the living room window. The next day, February 14, I decided to spend a few hours studying the fish of the Archipelago; but for some reason, the hatches remained hermetically closed. As I took the Nautilus’s direction, I noticed that it was heading towards Candia, the former island of Crete. At the time I embarked on the Abraham Lincoln, this entire island had just rebelled against Turkish despotism. But what had become of this insurrection since that time, I I was completely unaware of it, and it was not Captain Nemo, deprived of all communication with the land, who could have told me. I therefore made no allusion to this event when, in the evening, I found myself alone with him in the living room. Moreover, he seemed taciturn to me, preoccupied. Then, contrary to his usual habits, he ordered the two panels of the living room to be opened, and, going from one to the other, he attentively observed the mass of water. For what purpose? I could not guess, and, for my part, I spent my time studying the fish that passed before my eyes. Among others, I noticed these aphysa gobies, mentioned by Aristotle and commonly known under the name of “sea loaches”, which are particularly found in the salt waters surrounding the Nile delta. Near them were unfurling semi-phosphorescent sea porgy, a kind of spare that the Egyptians ranked among the sacred animals, and whose arrival in the waters of the Reuve, whose fertile overflow they announced, was celebrated by religious ceremonies. I also noted three-decimeter-long cheilines, bony fish with transparent scales, whose livid color is mixed with red spots; they are great eaters of marine plants, which gives them an exquisite taste; also these cheilines were much sought after by the gourmets of ancient Rome, and their entrails, prepared with moray eel milk, peacock brains, and phoenicopteran tongues, made up this divine dish that delighted Vitellius. Another inhabitant of these seas attracted my attention and brought back to my mind all the memories of antiquity. It was the remora that travels attached to the belly of sharks; According to the ancients, this small fish, clinging to the hull of a ship, could stop it in its tracks, and one of them, holding back Antony’s ship during the Battle of Actium, thus facilitated Augustus’ victory. On what do the destinies of nations depend! I also observed admirable anthias which belong to the order of snappers, fish sacred to the Greeks who attributed to them the power to drive away sea monsters from the waters they frequented; their name means, _flower_, and they justified it by their shimmering colors, their shades included in the range of red from the paleness of pink to the brilliance of ruby, and the fleeting reflections which shimmered their dorsal fin. My eyes could not detach themselves from these marvels of the sea, when they were suddenly struck by an unexpected apparition. In the middle of the waters, a man appeared, a diver carrying a leather purse at his belt . It wasn’t a body abandoned to the waves. It was a living man swimming vigorously, sometimes disappearing to breathe at the surface and then diving back down again. I turned to Captain Nemo and, in a moved voice, “A man! A shipwrecked man!” I cried. “We must save him at all costs! ” The captain didn’t answer me and came to lean against the window. The man had come closer and, his face pressed against the panel, was looking at us. To my profound astonishment, Captain Nemo made a sign to him. The diver waved back, immediately returned to the surface of the sea, and never appeared again. “Don’t worry,” the captain told me. “It’s Nicolas, from Cape Matapan, nicknamed the Pesce. He’s well known throughout the Cyclades. A daring diver!” Water is his element, and he lives there more than on land, constantly going from one island to another and even as far as Crete. “Do you know him, Captain? ” “Why not, Mr. Aronnax?” Having said this, Captain Nemo went towards a piece of furniture placed near the left panel of the living room. Near this piece of furniture, I saw a chest with an iron ring, the lid of which bore on a copper plate the cipher of the Nautilus, with its motto Mobilis in mobile. At that moment, the captain, oblivious to my presence, opened the cabinet, a sort of safe that contained a large number of ingots. They were gold ingots. Where did this precious metal come from, representing an enormous sum? Where did the captain collect this gold, and what was he going to do with it? I didn’t say a word. I watched. Captain Nemo took these ingots one by one and methodically placed them in the chest, which he filled entirely. I estimated that it then contained more than a thousand kilograms of gold, that is to say, nearly five million francs. The chest was securely closed, and the captain wrote on its lid an address in characters that must have belonged to modern Greek. This done, Captain Nemo pressed a button whose wire corresponded to the crew’s station. Four men appeared, and with some difficulty they pushed the chest out of the lounge. Then I heard them hoisting it up the iron staircase with pulleys. At that moment, Captain Nemo turned to me: “And you were saying, Professor?” he asked me. “I wasn’t saying anything, Captain. ” “Then, sir, you’ll allow me to wish you goodnight.” And with that, Captain Nemo left the living room. I returned to my room, understandably very intrigued. I tried in vain to sleep. I was looking for a connection between the appearance of this diver and this chest filled with gold. Soon, I felt, by certain rolling and pitching movements, that the Nautilus, leaving the lower layers, was returning to the surface of the water. Then I heard the sound of footsteps on the platform. I understood that the boat was being untied and launched into the sea. It struck the sides of the Nautilus for a moment, and all noise ceased. Two hours later, the same noise, the same comings and goings occurred again. The boat, hoisted aboard, was readjusted in its socket, and the Nautilus plunged back beneath the waves. Thus, these millions had been transported to their address. To which point on the continent? Who was Captain Nemo’s correspondent? The next day, I told Conseil and the Canadian about the events of that night, which excited my curiosity to the highest degree. My companions were no less surprised than I was. “But where does he get these millions?” asked Ned Land. To that, there was no possible answer. I went to the lounge after breakfast and set to work. Until five o’clock in the evening, I wrote up my notes. At that moment—should I attribute it to a personal disposition—I felt extremely hot, and I had to take off my byssus garment. This effect was incomprehensible, because we were not in high latitudes, and besides, the Nautilus, submerged, should not have experienced any rise in temperature. I looked at the pressure gauge. It marked a depth of sixty feet, which atmospheric heat could not have reached. I continued my work, but the temperature rose to the point of becoming intolerable. “Could there be a fire on board?” I wondered. I was about to leave the lounge when Captain Nemo entered. He approached the thermometer, consulted it, and turning to me: “Forty-two degrees,” he said. “I can see that, Captain,” I replied, “and if this heat increases a little, we will not be able to bear it. ” “Oh! Professor, this heat will only increase if we want it to. ” “So you can moderate it as you wish? ” “No, but I can move away from the source that produces it. ” “So it is external?” “No doubt. We are floating in a current of boiling water. ” “Is it possible?” I cried. “Look.” The hatches opened, and I saw the sea completely white around the Nautilus. A smoke of sulphurous vapors unfolded in the midst of the waves, which were boiling like water in a boiler. I pressed my I put my hand on one of the windows, but the heat was so great that I had to remove it. “Where are we?” I asked. “Near the island of Santorini, Professor,” the captain replied, “and precisely in this channel which separates Nea Kamenni from Palea Kamenni. I wanted to give you the curious spectacle of an underwater eruption. I thought,” I said, “that the formation of these new islands was complete. ” “Nothing is ever complete in volcanic waters,” Captain Nemo replied, “and the globe is always being worked on by subterranean fires . Already, in the year nineteen of our era, according to Cassiodorus and Pliny, a new island, Theia the divine, appeared in the very place where these islets had recently formed. Then it sank beneath the waves, only to reappear in the year sixty-nine and sink once more. From that time until the present day, the Plutonian work has been suspended. But, on February 3, 1866, a new islet, which was named George’s Islet , emerged in the midst of the sulfurous vapors, near Nea Kamenni, and was welded there on the 6th of the same month. Seven days later, on February 13, the islet of Aphroessa appeared, leaving between it and Nea Kamenni a ten-meter channel. I was in these seas when the phenomenon occurred, and I was able to observe all its phases. The islet of Aphroessa, rounded in shape, measured three hundred feet in diameter and thirty feet in height. It was composed of black and vitreous lava, mixed with feldspathic fragments. Finally, on March 10, a smaller islet, called Reka, appeared near Nea Kamenni, and since then, these three islets, welded together, form only one and the same island. — And the channel where we are at this moment? I asked. “Here it is,” Captain Nemo replied, showing me a map of the Archipelago. “You see that I have carried the new islets there. ” “But will this channel fill up one day? ” “It is likely, Mr. Aronnax, because since 1866, eight small islets of lava have appeared opposite the port of Saint-Nicolas de Paléa-Kamenni. It is therefore obvious that Nea and Paléa will unite in the near future . If, in the middle of the Pacific, it is infusoria that form the continents, here, it is eruptive phenomena. See, sir, see the work that is being accomplished beneath these waves.” I returned to the window. The Nautilus was no longer working. The heat was becoming intolerable. From being white, the sea was turning red, a coloring due to the presence of an iron salt. Despite the airtight closure of the lounge, an unbearable sulfurous odor emanated , and I saw scarlet flames whose liveliness killed the brilliance of the electricity. I was sweating, I was suffocating, I was going to cook. Yes, in truth, I felt myself cooking! “We can’t stay in this boiling water any longer,” I said to the captain. “No, that wouldn’t be prudent,” replied the impassive Nemo. An order was given. The Nautilus veered and moved away from this furnace that it could not brave with impunity. A quarter of an hour later , we were breathing on the surface of the waves. The thought came to me then that if Ned Land had chosen these waters to effect our escape, we would not have emerged alive from this sea of ​​fire. The next day, February 16, we left this basin which, between Rhodes and Alexandria, has depths of three thousand meters, and the Nautilus, passing off Cerigo, left the Greek archipelago, after having rounded Cape Matapan. Chapter 7. 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, maritime pines, fragrant with the scent of myrtles, framed by rugged mountains, saturated with a pure and transparent air, but incessantly worked by the fires of the earth, is a veritable world. It is there, on its shores and on its waters, says Michelet, that man re-immerses himself in one of the most powerful climates on the globe. But as beautiful as it is, I was only able to take a quick glimpse of this basin, whose surface area covers two million square kilometers. Even Captain Nemo’s personal knowledge failed me, for the enigmatic character did not appear once during this high-speed crossing. I estimate the distance that the Nautilus traveled under the waves of this sea at about six hundred leagues, and it completed this journey in two twenty-four hours. Having left the Greek waters on the morning of February 16th, on the 18th, at sunrise, we had crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. It was obvious to me that this Mediterranean, confined in the middle of these lands he wanted to flee, displeased Captain Nemo. Its waves and breezes brought back too many memories, if not too many regrets. Here he no longer had the freedom of pace, the independence of maneuvers that the oceans allowed him, and his Nautilus felt cramped between these close shores of Africa and Europe. So, our speed was twenty-five miles per hour, or twelve leagues of four kilometers. It goes without saying that Ned Land, to his great annoyance, had to abandon his plans to escape. He could not use the boat, which was moving at a rate of twelve to thirteen meters per second. Leaving the Nautilus in these conditions would have been like jumping from a train moving at that speed, an imprudent maneuver if ever there was one. Besides, our craft only surfaced at night , in order to renew its air supply, and it steered solely according to the indications of the compass and the bearings of the log. I therefore saw of the interior of this Mediterranean only what the traveler on an express train sees of the landscape that flees before his eyes, that is to say, the distant horizons, and not the foregrounds that pass like a flash. However, Conseil and I were able to observe some of these Mediterranean fish, which the power of their fins kept for a few moments in the waters of the Nautilus. We remained on the lookout in front of the windows of the lounge, and our notes allow me to reconstruct in a few words the ichthyology of this sea. Of the various fish that inhabit it, I saw some, glimpsed others, without mentioning those that the speed of the Nautilus hid from my sight. May I therefore be permitted to classify them according to this fanciful classification. It will better convey my rapid observations. Amidst the mass of waters brightly lit by the electric sheets, meandered a few of those meter-long lampreys , which are common to almost all climates. Oxyrhinus, a kind of ray, five feet wide, with white bellies and ash-gray, spotted backs, developed like vast shawls carried by the currents. Other rays passed so quickly that I could not tell whether they deserved the name eagles given to them by the Greeks, or those qualifications of rat, toad, and bat, with which modern fishermen have saddled them. Tope sharks, twelve feet long and particularly feared by divers, competed with each other for speed. Sea thresher sharks, eight feet long and gifted with an extremely keen sense of smell, appeared like large bluish shadows. Sea breams, of the spare genus, some of which measured up to thirteen decimeters, appeared in their silver and azure clothing surrounded by bands, which contrasted with the dark tone of their fins, fish sacred to Venus, and whose eye is set in a golden eyebrow; a precious species, friend of all waters, fresh or salt, inhabiting rivers, lakes and oceans, living in all climates, tolerating all temperatures, and whose race, which goes back to the geological eras of the earth, has preserved all its beauty of the first days. Magnificent sturgeons, nine to ten meters long, animals of great walking, struck with a powerful tail the glass of the panels, showing their bluish backs with small brown spots : they resemble sharks whose strength they do not equal, and are found in all the seas; in spring, they like to go up the great rivers, to fight against the currents of the Volga, the Danube, the Po, the Rhine, the Loire, the Oder, and feed on herring, mackerel, salmon and gades; although they belong to the class of cartilaginous, they are delicate; they are eaten fresh, dried, marinated or salted, and, in the past, they were triumphantly carried to the table of the Lucullus. But of these various inhabitants of the Mediterranean, those that I was able to observe most usefully, when the Nautilus approached the surface, belonged to the sixty-third genus of bony fish. They were tuna-scubadivers, with blue-black backs, silver-clad bellies, and whose dorsal rays cast golden gleams. They have a reputation for following the course of ships, seeking cool shade under the fires of the tropical sky, and they did not deny it by accompanying the Nautilus as they once accompanied Lapérouse’s vessels . For long hours, they battled for speed with our craft. I could not tire of admiring these animals truly built for racing, their small heads, their smooth, spindle-shaped bodies, some of which exceeded three meters, their pectoral fins endowed with remarkable vigor, and their forked tails. They swam in a triangle, like certain flocks of birds whose speed they equaled, which led the ancients to say that geometry and strategy were familiar to them. And yet they do not escape the pursuit of the Provençals, who esteem them as the inhabitants of the Propontis and Italy esteemed them, and it is blindly, without thinking, that these precious animals will throw themselves and perish by the thousands in the Marseilles traps. I will cite, for the record only, those Mediterranean fish that Conseil or I only glimpsed. They were whitish gymontes-fierasfers that passed like elusive vapors, conger morays, serpents three to four meters long adorned with green, blue and yellow, hake-gades, three feet long, whose liver formed a delicate morsel, tapeworms that floated like fine seaweed, trygles that poets call lyrefish and sailors whistlerfish, and whose snouts are adorned with two triangular and serrated blades that represent the instrument of old Homer, swallow-trigles, swimming with the speed of the bird from which they took their name, red-headed merons, whose dorsal fin is adorned with filaments, shad decorated with black, gray, brown, blue, yellow, green spots, which are sensitive to the silvery voice of bells, and splendid turbots, these pheasants of the sea, a sort of diamond-shaped fish with yellowish fins, dotted with brown, and whose upper side, the left side, is generally marbled with brown and yellow, finally troops of admirable red mullets, true birds of paradise of the Ocean, for which the Romans paid up to ten thousand sesterces each , and which they killed on their table, to follow with a cruel eye their changes of color from the cinnabar red of life to the pale white of death. And if I could not observe any miralets, triggerfish, pufferfish, seahorses , gill squid, blennies, mullets, wrasses, smelts , flying fish, anchovies, pagels, bogues, orphes, nor all these principal representatives of the order of pleuronectes, the dabs, the flounders, the plaices, the soles, the plaices, common to the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, it is necessary to blame the dizzying speed which carried the Nautilus across these opulent waters. As for marine mammals, I believe I recognized, while passing through the open waters of the Adriatic, two or three sperm whales, equipped with a dorsal fin of the genus physetera, some dolphins of the genus pilot whales, specific to the Mediterranean and whose front part of the head is striped with small light lines, and also a dozen seals with white bellies and black fur, known under the name of monks and which absolutely look like Dominicans, three meters long. For his part, Conseil believes he saw a turtle six feet wide, adorned with three protruding longitudinally directed ridges. I regretted not having seen this reptile, because, from the description that Conseil gave me, I thought I recognized the leatherback whale which is a rather rare species. I noticed, for my part, only a few squid with elongated shells. As for the zoophytes, I was able to admire, for a few moments, a wonderful orange galeolarium that clung to the window of the port hatch; it was a long, thin filament, growing in endless branches and ending in the finest lace that Arachne’s rivals had ever spun. I was unfortunately unable to catch this admirable specimen, and no other Mediterranean zoophyte would undoubtedly have presented itself to my gaze, if the Nautilus had not, on the evening of the 16th, slowed down considerably. Here are the circumstances. We were then passing between Sicily and the coast of Tunis. In this narrow space between Cape Bon and the Strait of Messina, the seabed rises almost suddenly. There a veritable ridge has formed on which only seventeen meters of water remain, while on each side the depth is one hundred and seventy meters. The Nautilus therefore had to maneuver carefully so as not to collide with this underwater barrier. I showed Conseil the location of this long reef on the map of the Mediterranean. “But, with all due respect to the gentleman,” Conseil observed, “it’s like a real isthmus that joins Europe to Africa. ” “Yes, my boy,” I replied, “it completely blocks the Strait of Libya, and Smith’s soundings have proven that the continents were once joined between Cape Boco and Cape Furina. ” “I readily believe it,” Conseil said. “I will add,” I continued, “that a similar barrier exists between Gibraltar and Ceuta, which, in geological times, completely closed off the Mediterranean. ” “Well!” Conseil said, “what if some volcanic upheaval one day raised these two barriers above the waves! ” “That’s hardly likely, Conseil.” — Finally, if I may finish, sir, if this phenomenon were to occur, it would be unfortunate for Monsieur de Lesseps, who is taking so much trouble to pierce his isthmus! — I agree, but, I repeat, Conseil, this phenomenon will not occur. The violence of the subterranean forces is always diminishing. Volcanoes, so numerous in the early days of the world, are gradually dying out, internal heat is weakening, the temperature of the lower layers of the globe is dropping by an appreciable amount per century, and to the detriment of our globe, for this heat is its life. — However, the sun… — The sun is insufficient, Conseil. Can it restore heat to a corpse? — No, as far as I know. — Well, my friend, the earth will one day be this cold corpse. It will become uninhabitable and will be uninhabited like the moon, which has long since lost its vital heat. — In how many centuries? asked Conseil. — In a few hundred thousand years, my boy. “Then,” Conseil replied, “we have time to complete our journey, if Ned Land doesn’t get involved!” And Conseil, reassured, went back to studying the shoal that the Nautilus was skimming closely at a moderate speed. There, under a rocky and volcanic soil, a whole flora flourished. living, sponges, sea cucumbers, hyaline cydippes adorned with reddish cyrrhes and which emitted a slight phosphorescence, beroës, commonly known under the name of sea cucumbers and bathed in the shimmering of a solar spectrum, walking comatulas, a meter wide, and whose purple reddened the waters, arborescent euryales of the greatest beauty, pavonaceae with long stems, a large number of edible sea urchins of varied species, and green actinia with a grayish trunk, a brown disc, which were lost in their olive hair of tentacles. Conseil had been particularly concerned with observing the mollusks and articulates, and although the nomenclature is a little dry, I do not want to do this good fellow an injustice by omitting his personal observations. In the mollusc branch, he cites numerous pectiniform scallops, donkey-foot spondyls that piled up on top of each other, triangular donaces, tridentate hyalles, with yellow fins and transparent shells, orange pleurobranchs , eggs dotted or strewn with greenish dots, aplysia also known as sea hares, dolabellas, fleshy acers, umbrellas special to the Mediterranean, sea ears whose shell produces a highly sought-after mother-of-pearl, flame scallops, anomies that the people of Languedoc, it is said, prefer to oysters, clovis so dear to the people of Marseille, double clams, white and fat, some of those clams that abound on the coasts of North America and of which there is such a considerable flow in New York, opercular combs of various colors, lithodonces embedded in their holes and whose peppery taste I strongly enjoyed, furrowed venericardia whose shell with a domed top presented protruding ribs, cynthia bristling with scarlet tubercles, carniaria with curved tips and similar to light gondolas, crowned feroles, atlantes with spiraliform shells, gray thetys, spotted with white and covered with their fringed mantilla, aeolids similar to small slugs, cavolines crawling on their backs, auriculas and among others the forget-me-not auricula, with an oval shell, tawny scalarii, littorines, janthuras, cinerarias, petricoles, lamellars, cabochons, pandoras, etc. As for the articulates, Conseil has, in his notes, very rightly divided them into six classes, three of which belong to the marine world. These are the classes of crustaceans, cirrhopods and annelids. Crustaceans are subdivided into nine orders, and the first of these orders includes the decapods, that is to say, animals whose head and thorax are most generally fused together, whose mouthparts are composed of several pairs of limbs, and which have four, five or six pairs of thoracic or ambulatory legs. Conseil had followed the method of our master Milne Edwards, who makes three sections of the decapods: the brachyurans, the macrourans and the anomurans. These names are slightly barbaric, but they are accurate and precise. Among the macrouras, Conseil cites amathias whose forehead is armed with two large diverging points, the inachus scorpion, which — I don’t know why — symbolized wisdom among the Greeks, lambres-masséna, lambres-spinimanes, probably lost on this shoal, because they usually live at great depths, xhantes, pilumnes, rhomboldes, granular calappiens — very easy to digest, Conseil observes — edentate corystes, ebalia, cymopolias, woolly dorripes, etc. Among the macroura, subdivided into five families, the cuirasseds, the burrowers, the astacians, the salicoques and the ochizopods, he cites common lobsters, whose flesh is so esteemed in the females, scyllares-bears or sea cicadas, riverine gebia, and all sorts of edible species, but he says nothing about the subdivision of astacians which includes lobsters, because lobsters are the only lobsters in the Mediterranean. Finally, among the anomura, he saw common drocines, sheltered behind this abandoned shell which they seize, homoles with spiny fronts, hermit crabs, porcellanes , etc. There Conseil’s work ended. He had not had time to complete the class of crustaceans by examining stomapoda, amphipoda, homopoda, isopoda, trilobites, branchiapoda, ostracods and entomostraca. And to complete the study of marine articulates, he should have cited the class of cyrrhopoda which includes cyclops, argulas, and the class of annelids which he would not have failed to divide into tube-like and dorsibranchs. But the Nautilus, having passed the shallows of the Libyan Strait, resumed its accustomed speed in the deeper waters. From then on, there were no more mollusks, no more articulates, no more zoophytes. Barely a few large fish that passed like shadows.
During the night of February 16-17, we had entered this second Mediterranean basin, whose greatest depths are found at 3,000 meters. The Nautilus, driven by its propeller, sliding on its inclined planes, sank to the lowest layers of the sea. There, in the absence of natural wonders, the mass of water offered my gaze many moving and terrible scenes. Indeed, we were then crossing this entire part of the Mediterranean so fertile in disasters. From the Algerian coast to the shores of Provence, how many ships have been wrecked, how many buildings have disappeared! The Mediterranean is only a lake, compared to the vast liquid plains of the Pacific, but it is a capricious lake, with changing waves, today propitious and caressing for the frail tartane which seems to float between the double overseas of waters and sky, tomorrow, tormented rager, torn apart by the winds, breaking the strongest ships with its short waves which strike them with rapid blows. Thus, in this rapid walk through the deep layers, how many wrecks I saw lying on the ground, some already caked with coral, others covered only with a layer of rust, anchors, cannons, cannonballs, iron fittings, propeller branches, pieces of machinery, broken cylinders, smashed boilers, then hulls floating between two waters, some upright, others overturned. Of these shipwrecked ships, some had perished by collision, others by hitting some granite reef. I saw some that had sunk sheer, their masts straight, their rigging stiffened by the water. They looked as if they were at anchor in an immense fairground, waiting for the moment of departure. When the Nautilus passed between them and enveloped them in its electric sheets, it seemed as if these ships were going to salute it with their flags and send it their order numbers ! But no, nothing but silence and death on this field of catastrophes! I observed that the Mediterranean depths were more cluttered with these sinister wrecks as the Nautilus approached the Strait of Gibraltar. The coasts of Africa and Europe then narrow, and in this narrow space, encounters are frequent. I saw there numerous iron hulls, fantastic ruins of steamers, some lying, others standing, like formidable animals. One of these boats with open sides, its funnel curved, its wheels of which only the mounting remained, its rudder separated from the sternpost and still held by an iron chain, its transom eaten away by sea salts, presented a terrible aspect! How many lives shattered in its shipwreck! How many victims dragged beneath the waves! Had some sailor on board survived to tell of this terrible disaster, or did the waves still keep the secret of this sinister? I don’t know why, but it occurred to me that this boat buried under the sea could be the Atlas, which had disappeared without trace for about twenty years, and which had never been heard of! Ah! What a sinister story it would be to tell, that of these Mediterranean depths, of this vast ossuary, where so much wealth was lost, where so many victims met their deaths! Meanwhile, the Nautilus, indifferent and swift, was racing at full throttle amidst these ruins. On February 18, around three o’clock in the morning, it appeared at the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. There, two currents exist: an upper current, long recognized, which brings the waters of the Ocean into the Mediterranean basin ; then a lower counter-current, whose existence has now been demonstrated by reasoning . Indeed, the sum of the waters of the Mediterranean, constantly increased by the waves of the Atlantic and by the rivers that flow into it, should raise the level of this sea every year, because its evaporation is insufficient to restore the balance. However, this is not the case, and it was naturally necessary to admit the existence of a lower current which, through the Strait of Gibraltar, pours the overflow of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic basin. This is indeed true. It was this counter-current that the Nautilus took advantage of. It advanced rapidly through the narrow channel. For a moment I was able to glimpse the admirable ruins of the buried temple of Hercules, according to Pliny and Avienus, with the low island that supported it, and a few minutes later we were floating on the waves of the Atlantic. Chapter 8. THE BAY OF VIGO The Atlantic! A vast expanse of water whose surface area covers twenty-five million square miles, nine thousand miles long and an average width of two thousand seven hundred. An important sea almost unknown to the ancients, except perhaps to the Carthaginians, those Dutch of antiquity, who in their commercial peregrinations followed the west coasts of Europe and Africa! An ocean whose shores with parallel sinuosities embrace an immense perimeter, watered by the greatest rivers in the world, the Saint Lawrence, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Plata, the Orinoco, the Niger, the Senegal, the Elbe, the Loire, the Rhine, which bring it the waters of the most civilized countries and the wildest regions! A magnificent plain, incessantly furrowed by the ships of all nations, sheltered under all the flags of the world, and which ends in these two terrible points, feared by navigators, Cape Horn and the Cape of Storms! The Nautilus was breaking the waters with the edge of its spur, having covered nearly ten thousand leagues in three and a half months, a distance longer than one of the great circles of the Earth. Where were we going now, and what did the future hold for us? The Nautilus, having left the Strait of Gibraltar, had put out to sea. It returned to the surface of the waves, and our daily walks on the platform were thus restored to us. I immediately boarded it, accompanied by Ned Land and Conseil. At a distance of twelve miles, Cape Saint Vincent, which forms the southwest tip of the Hispanic Peninsula, vaguely appeared. There was a fairly strong gale from the south. The sea was rough and choppy. It gave the Nautilus violent rolling jolts. It was almost impossible to stay on the platform, which was constantly being battered by enormous waves. So we went back down after inhaling a few breaths of air. I returned to my room. Conseil returned to his cabin, but the Canadian, looking rather preoccupied, followed me. Our rapid passage across the Mediterranean had not allowed him to carry out his plans, and he did little to conceal his disappointment. When the door of my room was closed, he sat down and looked at me silently. “Friend Ned,” I said to him, “I understand you, but you have nothing to reproach. In the conditions in which the Nautilus was sailing, to think of leaving it would have been madness!” Ned Land said nothing. His tight lips, his furrowed brows, indicated in him the violent obsession of a fixed idea. “Come now,” I continued, “nothing is hopeless yet. We are going up the coast of Portugal. Not far away are France, England, where we could easily find refuge. Ah! if the Nautilus, having left the Strait of Gibraltar, had set a course south, if it had taken us towards these regions where continents are lacking, I would share your worries. But, as we know now, Captain Nemo does not flee the civilized seas, and in a few days, I believe you will be able to act with some security.” Ned Land looked at me even more fixedly, and finally opening his lips: “It’s for this evening,” he said. I sat up suddenly. I was, I admit, ill-prepared for this communication. I would have liked to reply to the Canadian, but the words did not come to me. “We had agreed to wait for a circumstance,” Ned Land continued. ” I have the circumstance. Tonight, we will be only a few miles from the Spanish coast. The night is dark. The wind is blowing from the open sea. I have your word, Mr. Aronnax, and I am counting on you.” As I remained silent, the Canadian stood up and, approaching me, said:
“Tonight, at nine o’clock,” he said. “I have warned Conseil. At that time, Captain Nemo will be locked in his room and probably in bed. Neither the engineers nor the crew can see us. Conseil and I will go to the central staircase. You, Mr. Aronnax, will remain in the library a stone’s throw from us, waiting for my signal. The oars, the mast, and the sail are in the boat . I even managed to carry some provisions there.” I got myself a wrench to unscrew the nuts that attach the boat to the hull of the Nautilus. So everything is ready. See you this evening. “The sea is rough,” I said. “I agree,” replied the Canadian, “but it must be risked. Freedom is worth paying for. Besides, the boat is solid, and a few miles with a fair wind are no big deal. Who knows if tomorrow we won’t be a hundred leagues offshore? Let circumstances favor us, and between ten and eleven o’clock, we will be landed somewhere on the mainland or dead. So, by the grace of God and see you this evening!” With that, the Canadian withdrew, leaving me almost stunned. I had imagined that, if necessary, I would have had time to think, to discuss. My stubborn companion wouldn’t allow me to. What would I have said to him, after all? Ned Land was a hundred times right. It was almost a circumstance, he was taking advantage of it. Could I go back on my word and assume this responsibility of compromising the future of my companions for a purely personal benefit ? Tomorrow, couldn’t Captain Nemo take us far away from all lands? At that moment, a rather loud whistle informed me that the tanks were filling, and the Nautilus sank beneath the waves of the Atlantic. I stayed in my room. I wanted to avoid the captain to hide from his eyes the emotion that dominated me. What a sad day I spent like this, between the desire to regain possession of my free will and the regret of abandoning this marvelous Nautilus, leaving my underwater studies unfinished! To leave this ocean, “my Atlantic,” as I liked to call it, without having observed its last layers, without having stolen from it those secrets that the seas of the Indies and the Pacific had revealed to me! My novel fell from my hands after the first volume, my dream was interrupted at the most beautiful moment! What bad hours passed thus, sometimes seeing myself safe, on land, with my companions, sometimes wishing, in spite of my reason, that some unforeseen circumstance might prevent the realization of Ned Land’s plans. Twice I came to the living room. I wanted to consult the compass. I wanted to see if the direction of the Nautilus was, in fact, bringing us closer to the coast or further away from it. But no. The Nautilus was still in Portuguese waters. It was pointing north, extending the shores of the Ocean. We had to accept this and prepare to flee. My baggage was not heavy. My notes, nothing more. As for Captain Nemo, I wondered what he would think of our escape, what worries, what harm it might perhaps cause him, and what he would do in the double event that it was either revealed or missed! Without doubt, I had no reason to complain about him, on the contrary. Never was hospitality more frank than his. In leaving him, I could not be accused of ingratitude. No oath bound us to him. It was on the force of circumstances alone that he was counting, and not on our word, to keep us forever with him. But this highly avowed claim to keep us eternally prisoners on board justified all our attempts. I had not seen the captain since our visit to the island of Santorini. Was chance to bring me into his presence before our departure? I desired it and feared it at the same time. I listened to see if I might hear him walking in his room next to mine. No sound reached my ears. This room must be deserted. Then I came to wonder if this strange character was on board. Since that night when the lifeboat had left the Nautilus for some mysterious service, my ideas about him had changed slightly. I thought, although he might have said so, that Captain Nemo must have maintained some kind of connection with the land . Did he never leave the Nautilus? Whole weeks had often passed without my meeting him. What was he doing during this time, and while I believed him to be prey to fits of misanthropy, was he not performing some secret act in the distance, the nature of which had escaped me until now? All these ideas and a thousand others assailed me at once. The field of conjecture can only be infinite in the strange situation in which we find ourselves.
I felt an unbearable unease. This day of waiting seemed eternal. The hours were ticking too slowly for my impatience. My dinner was served to me, as always, in my room. I ate badly, being too preoccupied. I left the table at seven o’clock. One hundred and twenty minutes—I counted them—still separated me from the moment when I was to join Ned Land. My agitation redoubled. My pulse beat violently. I could not remain still. I paced back and forth, hoping to calm the turmoil of my mind by movement. The idea of ​​succumbing to our reckless undertaking was the least painful of my worries; but at the thought of seeing our project discovered before leaving the Nautilus, at the thought of being brought back before Captain Nemo, irritated, or, what would have been worse, saddened by my abandonment, my heart palpitated. I wanted to see the salon one last time. I took the passageways, and arrived in this museum where I had spent so many pleasant and useful hours . I looked at all these riches, all these treasures, like a man on the eve of eternal exile who leaves never to return. These marvels of nature, these masterpieces of art, among which for so many days my life had been concentrated, I was going to abandon them forever. I would have liked to look through the salon window across the waters of the Atlantic; but the panels were hermetically sealed and a sheet metal coat separated me from this Ocean that I did not yet know. Walking through the living room in this way, I arrived near the door, arranged in the cutaway, which opened onto the captain’s room. To my great astonishment, this door was ajar. I involuntarily stepped back. If Captain Nemo was in his room, he could see me. However, hearing no noise, I approached. The
room was deserted. I pushed the door open. I took a few steps inside. Always the same severe, cenobitic appearance. At that moment, some etchings hanging on the wall, which I had not noticed during my first visit, caught my eye. They were portraits, portraits of those great historical men whose existence was nothing but a perpetual devotion to a great human idea, Kosciusko, the hero who fell with the cry of _Finis Polonioe_, Botzaris, the Leonidas of modern Greece, O’Connell, the defender of Ireland, Washington, the founder of the American Union, Manin, the Italian patriot, Lincoln, fallen under the bullet of a slaver, and finally, that martyr of the emancipation of the black race, John Brown, hanging from his gallows, as so terribly drawn by the pencil of Victor Hugo. What link existed between these heroic souls and the soul of Captain Nemo? Could I finally, from this gathering of portraits, extract the mystery of his existence? Was he the champion of oppressed peoples, the liberator of enslaved races? Had he figured in the last political or social commotions of this century. Had he been one of the heroes of the terrible American war, a lamentable and forever glorious war? Suddenly the clock struck eight. The beat of the first hammer strike on the bell tore me from my dreams. I shuddered as if an invisible eye could have plunged into the most secret of my thoughts, and I rushed out of the room. There, my gaze fell on the compass. Our direction was still north. The log indicated a moderate speed, the pressure gauge, a depth of about sixty feet. Circumstances therefore favored the Canadian’s plans. I returned to my room. I dressed warmly, sea boots, otter cap, byssus jacket lined with sealskin. I was ready. I waited. Only the shuddering of the propeller disturbed the profound silence that reigned on board. I listened, I strained my ears. Wouldn’t some sudden outburst of voices tell me that Ned Land had just been surprised in his escape plans? A mortal anxiety seized me. I tried in vain to regain my composure. At a few minutes to nine, I put my ear close to the captain’s door. There was no sound. I left my room and returned to the living room, which was plunged into semi-darkness, but deserted. I opened the door leading to the library. The same insufficient light, the same solitude. I went to stand near the door leading to the central staircase. I waited for Ned Land’s signal. At that moment, the shuddering of the propeller diminished noticeably, then stopped altogether. Why this change in the Nautilus’s course? Whether this halt favored or hindered Ned Land’s plans, I couldn’t have said. The silence was no longer broken except by the beating of my heart. Suddenly, a slight shock was felt. I understood that the Nautilus had just stopped on the ocean floor. My anxiety redoubled. The Canadian’s signal was not reaching me. I wanted to join Ned Land to urge him to postpone his attempt. I felt that our navigation was no longer taking place under ordinary conditions… At that moment, the door of the main lounge opened, and Captain Nemo appeared. He saw me, and, without further preamble: “Ah! Professor,” he said in a friendly tone, “I was looking for you. Do you know your history of Spain?” One would know the history of one’s own country thoroughly if, in the The conditions in which I found myself, my mind troubled, my head lost, one could not quote a word. “Well?” continued Captain Nemo, “did you hear my question? Do you know the history of Spain? ” “Very badly,” I replied. “That’s right, the scholars,” said the captain, “they don’t know. So, sit down,” he added, “and I’ll tell you a curious episode of this history.” The captain stretched out on a sofa, and, mechanically, I took a seat next to him, in the half-light. “Professor,” he said to me, “listen to me carefully. This story will interest you in a certain way, because it will answer a question that you have doubtless been unable to resolve. ” “I’m listening to you, captain,” I said, not knowing where my interlocutor was going with this, and wondering if this incident related to our plans to escape. — Professor, continued Captain Nemo, if you don’t mind , we’ll go back to 1702. You are aware that at that time, your King Louis XIV, believing that a potentate’s gesture was enough to drive the Pyrenees underground, had imposed the Duke of Anjou, his grandson, on the Spanish. This prince, who reigned more or less badly under the name of Philip V, had to deal with a strong opposition abroad . “Indeed, the previous year, the royal houses of Holland, Austria, and England had concluded a treaty of alliance at The Hague, with the aim of wresting the crown of Spain from Philip V and placing it on the head of an archduke, to whom they prematurely gave the name of Charles III. “Spain had to resist this coalition. But it was almost devoid of soldiers and sailors. However, she did not lack money , on the condition that her galleons, loaded with gold and silver from America, entered her ports. Now, towards the end of 1702, she was expecting a rich convoy that France was escorting by a fleet of twenty-three vessels commanded by Admiral de Château-Renaud, because the coalition navies were then scouring the Atlantic. “This convoy was to go to Cadiz, but the admiral, having learned that the English fleet was cruising in these waters, decided to rally at a port in France. “The Spanish commanders of the convoy protested against this decision. They wanted to be taken to a Spanish port, and, failing Cadiz, to the Bay of Vigo, located on the northwest coast of Spain, and which was not blockaded. “Admiral de Château-Renaud was weak enough to obey this injunction, and the galleons entered the Bay of Vigo. “Unfortunately, this bay forms an open roadstead that cannot be defended in any way. It was therefore necessary to hurry to unload the galleons before the arrival of the allied fleets, and time would not have been lacking for this landing, if a miserable question of rivalry had not suddenly arisen .
“Are you following the chain of events?” Captain Nemo asked me.
“Perfectly,” I said, not yet knowing the purpose of this history lesson. “I will continue. Here is what happened. The merchants of Cadiz had a privilege according to which they were to receive all the merchandise that came from the West Indies. Now, to unload the ingots from the galleons at the port of Vigo was to go against their right. They therefore complained to Madrid, and they obtained from the weak Philip V that the convoy, without proceeding to unload it, would remain sequestered in the roadstead of Vigo until the enemy fleets had moved away. “Now, while this decision was being made, on October 22, 1702, the English ships arrived in the Bay of Vigo. Admiral de Château-Renaud, despite his inferior forces, fought courageously. But when he saw that the riches of the convoy were about to fall into the hands of the enemy, he set fire to and scuttled the galleons which were swallowed up with their immense treasures.” Captain Nemo had stopped. I confess, I still didn’t see how this story could interest me. “Well?” I asked him. “Well, Mr. Aronnax,” Captain Nemo replied, “we are in this bay of Vigo, and it is up to you to penetrate its mysteries.” The captain stood up and asked me to follow him. I had had time to recover. I obeyed. The lounge was dark, but through the transparent windows the waves of the sea sparkled. I looked. Around the Nautilus, within a radius of half a mile, the waters appeared impregnated with electric light. The sandy bottom was clean and clear. Crewmen, dressed in diving suits, were busy clearing half-rotten barrels and ripped-open crates amidst still-blackened wreckage. From these crates and barrels, gold and silver ingots, cascades of piastres and jewels spilled out. The sand was strewn with them. Then, laden with this precious booty, these men returned to the Nautilus, unloaded their load, and resumed this inexhaustible haul of silver and gold. I understood. This was the scene of the battle of October 22, 1702. This very place had sunk the galleons loaded on behalf of the Spanish government. Here Captain Nemo came to collect, according to his needs, the millions with which he ballasted his Nautilus. It was for him, for him alone, that America had delivered its precious metals. He was the direct and undivided heir of these treasures wrested from the Incas and the vanquished of Fernand Cortez! “Did you know, Professor,” he asked me, smiling, “that the sea contained so much wealth? ” “I knew,” I replied, “that the silver held in suspension in its waters is estimated at two million tons . ” “No doubt, but to extract this silver, the expense would outweigh the profit. Here, on the contrary, I only have to pick up what men have lost, and not only in this bay of Vigo, but also in a thousand shipwrecks whose location my underwater map has noted. Do you understand now that I am rich in billions? ” “I understand, Captain. Allow me, however, to tell you that by exploiting this bay of Vigo, you have only anticipated the work of a rival company. ” “And which one?” “A company that has received from the Spanish government the privilege of searching for sunken galleons. The shareholders are lured by the bait of an enormous profit, for the value of these shipwrecked riches is estimated at five hundred million. ” “Five hundred million!” Captain Nemo replied. “They were there, but they are no longer there. ” “Indeed,” I said. “So a good advice to these shareholders would be an act of charity. Who knows, however, if it would be well received. What gamblers regret above all, ordinarily, is less the loss of their money than the loss of their foolish hopes. I pity them less, after all, than those thousands of unfortunate people who could have benefited from so much well-distributed wealth, while it will be forever sterile for them!” I had no sooner expressed this regret than I felt that it must have hurt Captain Nemo. “Sterile!” he replied, growing animated. Do you believe, sir, that these riches are lost, when it is I who gather them? Is it for myself, according to you, that I take the trouble to collect these treasures? Who says I do not make good use of them? Do you think that I do not know that there are suffering beings, oppressed races on this earth, wretches to relieve, victims to avenge? Do you not understand?… Captain Nemo stopped at these last words, perhaps regretting having spoken too much. But I had guessed. Whoever they were the motives that had forced him to seek independence under the seas, above all he had remained a man! His heart still beat with the sufferings of humanity, and his immense charity was addressed to enslaved races as well as to individuals! And I understood then to whom these millions sent by Captain Nemo were intended, when the Nautilus was sailing in the waters of insurgent Crete! Chapter 9. A Vanished Continent The next morning, February 19, I saw the Canadian enter my room. I was expecting his visit. He looked very disappointed. “Well, sir?” he said to me. “Yes! That damned captain had to stop precisely at the hour when we were about to flee his ship. ” “Yes, Ned, he had business with his banker. ” “His banker! ” “Or rather his banking house. By that I mean this Ocean where his riches are safer than they would be in the coffers of a State.” »
I then related to the Canadian the incidents of the previous day, in the secret hope of bringing him back to the idea of ​​not abandoning the captain; but my story had no other result than Ned’s energetically expressed regret at not having been able to take a stroll on the battlefield of Vigo on his own . “Well,” he said, “it’s not all over! It’s only a harpoon shot lost! Another time we’ll succeed, and this evening if necessary… ” “What is the direction of the Nautilus?” I asked. “I don’t know,” replied Ned. “Well! At noon, we’ll see the point.” The Canadian returned to Conseil. As soon as I was dressed, I went into the living room. The compass was not reassuring. The Nautilus’s course was south-southwest. We were turning our backs on Europe. I waited with a certain impatience for the point to be transferred to the map. Around eleven-thirty, the tanks emptied, and our aircraft rose to the surface of the ocean. I rushed toward the platform. Ned Land had preceded me there. No more land in sight. Nothing but the immense sea. A few sails on the horizon, no doubt those that go as far as Cape San Roque to seek favorable winds to round the Cape of Good Hope. The weather was overcast. A gale was brewing. Ned, furious, tried to pierce the misty horizon. He still hoped that, behind all this fog, this much-desired land lay. At noon, the sun appeared for a moment. The second took advantage of this clearing to gain altitude. Then, the sea becoming rougher, we descended again, and the hatch was closed. An hour later, when I consulted the map, I saw that the position of the Nautilus was indicated by 16°17′ longitude and 33°22′ latitude, one hundred and fifty leagues from the nearest coast. There was no way to think of fleeing, and I leave it to you to imagine the Canadian’s anger when I informed him of our situation. For my part, I was not unduly distressed. I felt as if relieved of the weight that oppressed me, and I was able to resume my usual work with a sort of relative calm. In the evening, around eleven o’clock, I received a very unexpected visit from Captain Nemo. He very graciously asked me if I felt tired from having stayed up the previous night. I replied in the negative. “Then, Mr. Aronnax, I will propose a curious excursion to you. ” “Suggest, Captain. ” “You have only visited the seabed during the day and under the light of the sun.” Would it be convenient for you to see them on a dark night? — Very gladly. — This walk will be tiring, I warn you. It will be a long walk and we will have to climb a mountain. The paths are not very well maintained. — What you are telling me, Captain, redoubles my curiosity. I am ready to follow you. — Come then, Professor, we will put on our diving suits.” Arriving at the locker room, I saw that neither my companions nor any member of the crew were to accompany us on this excursion. Captain Nemo hadn’t even suggested I take Ned or Conseil. In a few moments, we had donned our apparatus. The tanks, abundantly filled with air, were placed on our backs, but the electric lamps were not prepared. I pointed this out to the captain. “They would be useless to us,” he replied. I thought I had misheard, but I couldn’t repeat my observation, because the captain’s head had already disappeared into its metal casing. I finished harnessing myself, I felt an iron-tipped stick being placed in my hand, and a few minutes later, after the usual maneuver, we set foot on the bottom of the Atlantic, at a depth of 300 meters. Midnight was approaching. The waters were profoundly dark, but Captain Nemo showed me in the distance a reddish point, a sort of broad glow, which shone about two miles from the Nautilus. What this fire was, what materials fed it, why and how it revived in the liquid mass, I could not have said. In any case, it lit us up, vaguely it is true, but I soon became accustomed to this particular darkness, and I understood, in this circumstance, the uselessness of the Ruhmkorff apparatus. Captain Nemo and I walked close together, directly on the signal fire. The flat ground rose imperceptibly. We took long strides, helping ourselves with the stick; but our march was slow, in short, because our feet often sank into a sort of mud kneaded with seaweed and strewn with flat stones. As we advanced, I heard a sort of crackling above my head. This noise sometimes redoubled and produced a sort of continuous fizzing. I soon understood the cause. It was the rain falling violently, crackling on the surface of the waves. Instinctively, the thought came to me that I was going to be soaked! By the water, in the middle of the water ! I couldn’t help laughing at this bizarre idea. But to tell the truth, under the thick suit of the diving suit, you no longer feel the liquid element, and you believe yourself in the middle of an atmosphere a little denser than the Earth’s atmosphere, that’s all. After half an hour of walking, the ground became rocky. Jellyfish, microscopic crustaceans, and sea pens lit it up slightly with phosphorescent glows. I glimpsed piles of stones covered with a few million zoophytes and tangles of algae. My foot often slipped on these slimy carpets of kelp, and without my iron-shod stick, I would have fallen more than once. As I turned around, I could still see the whitish lantern of the Nautilus beginning to fade in the distance. These stony piles I have just spoken of were arranged on the ocean floor in a certain regularity that I could not explain. I could see gigantic furrows that disappeared into the distant darkness and whose length escaped all estimation. Other peculiarities also presented themselves, which I could not admit. It seemed to me that my heavy lead soles were crushing a litter of bones that cracked with a dry sound. What was this vast plain that I was thus crossing? I would have liked to question the captain, but his sign language, which allowed him to converse with his companions when they followed him on his underwater excursions, was still incomprehensible to me. However, the reddish light that guided us increased and set the horizon ablaze. The presence of this focus under the waters intrigued me to the highest degree. Was it some electrical effluence that was manifesting itself? Was I heading towards a natural phenomenon still unknown to scientists on land? Or even—for this thought crossed my mind— brain — was the hand of man intervening in this blaze? Was it fanning this fire? Was I to meet beneath these deep layers, companions, friends of Captain Nemo, living like him this strange existence, and whom he was going to visit? Would I find there a whole colony of exiles, who, tired of the miseries of the earth, had sought and found independence in the depths of the Ocean? All these crazy, inadmissible ideas pursued me, and in this frame of mind, constantly overexcited by the series of wonders that passed before my eyes, I would not have been surprised to encounter, at the bottom of this sea, one of those underwater cities that Captain Nemo dreamed of! Our route was becoming more and more clear. The whitening glow radiated from the summit of a mountain about eight hundred feet high. But what I saw was only a simple reverberation developed by the crystal of the layers of water. The focus, the source of this inexplicable darting, occupied the opposite slope of the mountain. Amid the stony labyrinths that crisscrossed the bottom of the Atlantic, Captain Nemo advanced without hesitation. He knew this dark road. He had traveled it often, no doubt, and could not get lost there. I followed him with unshakeable confidence. He appeared to me like one of the genies of the sea, and when he walked in front of me, I admired his tall stature, silhouetted in black against the luminous background of the horizon. It was one o’clock in the morning. We had arrived at the first ramps of the mountain. But to approach them, we had to venture along the difficult paths of a vast thicket. Yes! a thicket of dead trees, leafless, sapless, trees mineralized by the action of the waters, and dominated here and there by gigantic pines. It was like a coal mine still standing, holding by its roots to the collapsed ground, and whose branches, like fine black paper cutouts, stood out clearly against the ceiling of the waters. Imagine a forest of the Hartz, clinging to the sides of a mountain, but a submerged forest. The paths were cluttered with algae and fucus, among which teemed a world of crustaceans. I went on, climbing the rocks, stepping over the outstretched trunks, breaking the sea vines that swung from one tree to another, frightening the fish that flew from branch to branch. Carried along, I no longer felt tired. I followed my guide who did not tire. What a spectacle! How can I describe it? How can one describe the appearance of these woods and rocks in this liquid environment, their dark and fierce undersides, their tops colored with red tones under this light doubled by the reverberating power of the waters? We climbed rocks that then crumbled in enormous sections with a dull rumble of an avalanche. To the right, to the left, dark galleries were dug out where the gaze was lost. Here vast clearings opened up, which the hand of man seemed to have cleared, and I sometimes wondered if some inhabitant of these underwater regions would not suddenly appear to me. But Captain Nemo was still climbing. I did not want to stay behind. I followed him boldly. My stick lent me useful assistance. A false step would have been dangerous on these narrow passes hollowed out in the sides of the chasms; but I walked there with a firm footing and without feeling the intoxication of vertigo. Sometimes I would jump over a crevasse whose depth would have made me retreat into the midst of the glaciers of the earth; sometimes I would venture onto the swaying trunks of trees thrown from one abyss to another, without looking beneath my feet, having eyes only to admire the wild sites of this region. There, monumental rocks , leaning on their irregularly cut bases, seemed to defy the laws of balance. Between their knees of stone, trees grew like a jet under a pressure formidable, and supported those who supported them themselves. Then, natural towers, large sections cut sheer like curtain walls, inclined at an angle that the laws of gravitation would not have authorized on the surface of terrestrial regions. And I myself did not feel this difference due to the powerful density of the water, when, despite my heavy clothes, my copper head, my metal soles, I rose up slopes of impassable steepness, crossing them so to speak with the lightness of an ibex or a chamois! In the account that I give of this excursion under the waters, I feel well that I could not be credible! I am the historian of things of impossible appearance which are nevertheless real, incontestable. I did not dream. I saw and felt! Two hours after leaving the Nautilus, we had crossed the tree line, and a hundred feet above our heads rose the peak of the mountain, its projection casting a shadow over the dazzling radiation of the opposite slope. A few petrified shrubs ran here and there in grimacing zigzags. Fish rose en masse beneath our feet like birds surprised in the tall grass. The rocky mass was hollowed out with impenetrable crevices, deep caves , unfathomable holes, at the bottom of which I heard formidable things stirring. My blood rushed back to my heart when I saw an enormous antenna blocking my path, or some frightening pincer closing noisily in the shadow of the cavities! Thousands of luminous points shone in the midst of the darkness. They were the eyes of gigantic crustaceans, crouching in their lairs, giant lobsters rearing up like halberdiers and moving their legs with a clanking of iron, titanic crabs, trained like cannons on their carriages, and terrifying octopuses intertwining their tentacles like a living thicket of snakes. What was this exorbitant world that I did not yet know? To what order did these articulates belong, to which the rock formed a sort of second carapace? Where had nature found the secret of their vegetative existence, and for how many centuries had they lived like this in the lowest layers of the Ocean? But I could not stop. Captain Nemo, familiar with these terrible animals, no longer paid attention. We had arrived at a first plateau, where other surprises still awaited me. There, picturesque ruins were outlined, which betrayed the hand of man, and no longer that of the Creator. They were vast piles of stones where one could distinguish the vague shapes of castles and temples, clothed in a world of flowering zoophytes, and to which, instead of ivy, algae and fucus formed a thick plant mantle. But what was this portion of the globe engulfed by the cataclysms ? Who had arranged these rocks and stones like dolmens of prehistoric times? Where was I, where had Captain Nemo’s whim led me? I would have liked to question him. Unable to do so, I stopped him. I seized his arm. But he, shaking his head and pointing to the last summit of the mountain, seemed to say to me: “Come! Come again! Always come!” I followed him with a final burst, and in a few minutes, I had climbed the peak which dominated this entire rocky mass by about ten meters. I looked at the side we had just crossed. The mountain rose only seven to eight hundred feet above the plain; but from its opposite slope, it dominated the bottom below this portion of the Atlantic by twice as much. My gaze extended far into the distance and embraced a vast space lit by a violent flash . Indeed, this mountain was a volcano. Fifty feet below the peak, in the midst of a shower of stones and scoria, a large crater vomited torrents of lava, which dispersed in a cascade of fire within the liquid mass. Thus placed, this volcano, like an immense torch, lit up the lower plain to the furthest limits of the horizon. I have said that the underwater crater threw out lava, but not flames. Flames need the oxygen of the air, and they cannot develop underwater; but lava flows, which have within them the principle of their incandescence, can become white-red, fight victoriously against the liquid element and vaporize on contact with it. Rapid currents carried all these gases in diffusion , and the lava torrents slid down to the bottom of the mountain, like the excreta of Vesuvius on another Torre del Greco. Indeed, there, before my eyes, ruined, damaged, thrown down, appeared a destroyed city, its roofs collapsed, its temples demolished, its arches dislocated, its columns lying on the ground, where one could still feel the solid proportions of a sort of Tuscan architecture; further on, some remains of a gigantic aqueduct; here the thickly plastered elevation of an acropolis, with the floating forms of a Parthenon; there, vestiges of a quay, as if some ancient port had once sheltered on the shores of a vanished ocean the merchant ships and war triremes ; further still, long lines of crumbling walls, wide deserted streets, a whole Pompeii buried under the waters, which Captain Nemo was resurrecting before my eyes! Where was I? Where was I? I wanted to know at all costs, I wanted to speak, I wanted to tear off the copper sphere that imprisoned my head. But Captain Nemo came to me and stopped me with a gesture. Then, picking up a piece of chalky stone, he advanced towards a black basalt rock and traced this single word: ATLANTIS What a flash crossed my mind! Atlantis, the ancient Meropid of Theopompus, the Atlantis of Plato, this continent denied by Origen, Porphyry, Iamblichus, D’Anville, Malte-Brun, Humboldt, who attributed its disappearance to legendary accounts, accepted by Possidonius, Pliny, Ammianus-Marcellinus, Tertullian, Engel, Sherer, Tournefort, Buffon, d’Avezac, I had it there before my eyes, still bearing the irrefutable testimonies of its catastrophe! So it was this submerged region that existed outside Europe, Asia, Libya, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, where lived this powerful people of the Atlanteans, against whom the first wars of ancient Greece were waged! The historian who recorded in his writings the great deeds of these heroic times was Plato himself. His dialogue of Timaeus and Critias was , so to speak, drawn under the inspiration of Solon, poet and legislator. One day, Solon was talking with some wise old men of Sais, a city already eight hundred years old, as his annals engraved on the sacred wall of its temples testified. One of these old men told the story of another city a thousand years older. This first Athenian city, nine hundred centuries old, had been invaded and partly destroyed by the Atlanteans. These Atlanteans, he said, occupied an immense continent larger than Africa and Asia combined, which covered an area from the twelfth degree of latitude to the fortieth degree north. Their domination extended even to Egypt. They wanted to impose it as far as Greece, but they had to withdraw in the face of the indomitable resistance of the Hellenes. Centuries passed. A cataclysm occurred, floods, earthquakes . One night and one day were enough to annihilate this Atlantis from which the highest peaks, Madeira, the Azores, the Canaries, the Cape Verde Islands, still emerge. Such were the historical memories that Captain Nemo’s inscription made palpitate in my mind. Thus, led by the most Strange destiny, I was treading under foot on one of the mountains of this continent! I was touching with my hand these ruins, a thousand times centuries old and contemporary with geological epochs! I was walking where the contemporaries of the first man had walked! I was crushing under my heavy soles these skeletons of animals from fabulous times, which these trees, now mineralized, once covered with their shade! Ah! why was I short of time! I would have liked to descend the steep slopes of this mountain, to travel the entire length of this immense continent which doubtless linked Africa to America, and to visit these great antediluvian cities. There, perhaps, beneath my gaze, stretched Makhimos, the warrior, Eusebes, the pious, whose gigantic inhabitants lived for entire centuries, and who did not lack the strength to pile up these blocks which still resisted the action of the waters. Perhaps one day, some eruptive phenomenon will bring these submerged ruins back to the surface of the waves! Numerous underwater volcanoes have been reported in this portion of the Ocean, and many ships have felt extraordinary tremors as they passed over these tormented depths. Some have heard dull noises that announced the deep struggle of the elements; others have collected volcanic ash projected from the sea. All this soil as far as the Equator is still worked by Plutonian forces. And who knows if, in a distant era, increased by volcanic dejections and by successive layers of lava, the peaks of flaming mountains will not appear on the surface of the Atlantic! While I was dreaming thus, while I was trying to fix in my memory all the details of this grandiose landscape, Captain Nemo, leaning on a mossy stele, remained motionless and as if petrified in a mute ecstasy. Was he thinking of those vanished generations and asking them the secret of human destiny? Was it to this place that this strange man came to immerse himself in the memories of history, and to relive this ancient life, he who did not want modern life? What would I not have given to know his thoughts, to share them, to understand them! We remained in this place for a whole hour, contemplating the vast plain under the brilliance of the lava which sometimes took on a surprising intensity. The internal bubblings made rapid shivers run over the mountain’s crust. Deep sounds, clearly transmitted by this liquid medium, reverberated with majestic amplitude. At this moment, the moon appeared for a moment through the mass of water and threw a few pale rays on the submerged continent. It was only a glimmer, but of an indescribable effect. The captain stood up, took a last look at this immense plain; then with his hand he signaled me to follow him. We quickly descended the mountain. Once past the mineral forest, I saw the Nautilus’s lantern shining like a star. The captain walked straight towards it, and we were back on board just as the first tints of dawn were whitening the surface of the ocean. Chapter 10. UNDERWATER COAL MINES The next day, February 20, I woke up very late. The night’s fatigue had prolonged my sleep until eleven o’clock. I dressed quickly. I was eager to know the direction of the Nautilus. The instruments indicated that it was still heading south at a speed of twenty miles per hour at a depth of one hundred meters. Conseil entered. I told him about our nocturnal excursion, and, with the hatches open, he could still glimpse part of this submerged continent. In fact, the Nautilus skimmed the plain of Atlantis only ten meters above the ground . He flew like a balloon carried by the wind above the earthly meadows; but it would be truer to say that we We were in this living room as if we were in the carriage of an express train. The first planes that passed before our eyes were fantastically cut rocks , forests of trees that had passed from the plant kingdom to the animal kingdom, and whose motionless silhouettes grimaced beneath the waves. There were also stony masses buried under carpets of axidia and anemones, bristling with long vertical hydrophytes, then strangely convoluted blocks of lava that attested to the full fury of the Plutonian expansions. While these bizarre sites shone resplendent under our electric lights, I told Conseil the story of these Atlanteans, who, from a purely imaginary point of view, inspired Bailly with so many charming pages . I told him about the wars of these heroic peoples. I discussed the question of Atlantis as a man who can no longer doubt. But Conseil, distracted, listened little to me, and his indifference to dealing with this historical point was soon explained to me. Indeed, many fish attracted his attention, and when fish passed by, Conseil, carried away into the abyss of classification, left the real world. In this case, I had only to follow him and resume our ichthyological studies with him. Besides, these Atlantic fish did not differ significantly from those we had observed until now. They were rays of gigantic size, five meters long and endowed with great muscular strength that allowed them to leap above the waves, sharks of various species, among others, a fifteen-foot glaucous shark, with sharp triangular teeth, whose transparency made it almost invisible in the middle of the waters, brown sagres, prism-shaped humantines armored with tubercular skin, sturgeons similar to their congeners in the Mediterranean, trumpet pipefish, a foot and a half long, yellow-brown, equipped with small gray fins, without teeth or tongue, and which paraded like fine and supple snakes. Among the bony fish, Conseil noted blackish makairas, three meters long and armed with a piercing sword in their upper jaw, weevers, with lively colors, known in Aristotle’s time under the name of sea dragons and whose spines on their dorsal fin make them very dangerous to catch, then, coryphemes, with brown backs striped with small blue lines and framed in a gold border, beautiful sea breams, moon chrysostones, a sort of azure-reflected discs, which, lit from above by the sun’s rays, formed like silver spots, finally swordfish xyphias, eight meters long, marching in troops, carrying yellowish fins cut like scythes and long six-foot swords, intrepid animals, more herbivorous than piscivorous, which obeyed the slightest sign from their females like well-styled husbands. But while observing these various samples of marine fauna, I did not fail to examine the long plains of Atlantis. Sometimes, capricious land features forced the Nautilus to slow down , and it then slipped with the skill of a cetacean into narrow constrictions of hills. If this labyrinth became inextricable, the craft then rose like an aerostat, and once the obstacle was cleared, it resumed its rapid course a few meters above the bottom. An admirable and charming navigation, which recalled the maneuvers of an aerostatic promenade, with this difference, however, that the Nautilus passively obeyed the hand of its helmsman. Around four o’clock in the evening, the terrain, generally composed of thick mud intermixed with mineralized branches, gradually changed; it became more rocky and appeared to be strewn with conglomerates, basaltic tuffs , with some patches of lava and sulfurous obsidian. I thought that the mountain region would soon succeed the long plains, and, indeed, in certain evolutions of the Nautilus, I saw the southern horizon barred by a high wall that seemed to close off any exit. Its summit evidently exceeded the level of the ocean. It must be a continent, or at least an island, either one of the Canaries or one of the Cape Verde Islands. Since the position had not been determined—perhaps deliberately—I was unaware of our position. In any case, such a wall seemed to me to mark the end of this Atlantis, of which we had, in short, only explored a tiny portion. Night did not interrupt my observations. I was left alone. Conseil had returned to his cabin. The Nautilus, slowing down, hovered above the confused masses of the ground, sometimes skimming them as if it wanted to land there, sometimes capriciously rising to the surface of the waves. I then glimpsed some vivid constellations through the crystal waters, and precisely five or six of those zodiacal stars that trail behind Orion. I would have remained at my window for a long time, admiring the beauties of the sea and the sky, when the panels closed. At that moment, the Nautilus had arrived directly above the high wall. How it would maneuver, I could not guess. I returned to my room. The Nautilus was no longer moving. I fell asleep with the firm intention of waking up after a few hours of sleep. But, the next day, it was eight o’clock when I returned to the living room. I looked at the pressure gauge. It told me that the Nautilus was floating on the surface of the ocean. I heard, moreover, the sound of footsteps on the platform. However, no rolling betrayed the undulation of the upper waves. I climbed up to the panel. It was open. But, instead of the broad daylight I was expecting, I found myself surrounded by profound darkness. Where were we? Had I made a mistake? Was it still dark? No! Not a star shone, and night does not have such absolute darkness. I did not know what to think when a voice said to me: “Is that you, Professor?” “Ah! Captain Nemo,” I replied, “where are we? ” “Underground, Professor. ” “Underground!” I cried. “And the Nautilus is still floating? ” “It’s still floating. ” “But I don’t understand? ” “Wait a few moments. Our beacon will light up, and if you like bright situations, you will be satisfied.” I set foot on the platform and waited. The darkness was so complete that I could not even see Captain Nemo. However, looking at the zenith, exactly above my head, I thought I caught a vague glow, a sort of half-light that filled a circular hole. At that moment, the lantern suddenly came on, and its bright brilliance made this vague light vanish. I looked, after having closed my eyes for a moment, dazzled by the electric jet. The Nautilus was stationary. It was floating near a bank arranged like a quay. This sea that supported it at that moment was a lake imprisoned in a circle of walls that measured two miles in diameter, or six miles around. Its level—the pressure gauge indicated it—could only be the exterior level, for a communication necessarily existed between this lake and the sea. The high walls, inclined at their base, rounded into a vault and represented an immense inverted funnel, whose height was five or six hundred meters. At the summit there was a circular orifice through which I had noticed this slight brightness, evidently due to the diurnal radiation. Before examining more closely the interior arrangements of this enormous cavern, before asking myself whether it was the work of nature or of man, I went to Captain Nemo. “Where are we?” I said. “At the very center of an extinct volcano,” the captain replied, “a volcano whose interior the sea has invaded following some convulsion of the earth. While you were sleeping, Professor, the _Nautilus_ entered this lagoon through a natural channel opened ten meters below the surface of the ocean. This is its home port, a safe, convenient, mysterious harbor, sheltered from all the rhumbs of the wind! Find me on the coasts of your continents or your islands a harbor worth this assured refuge against the fury of hurricanes. “Indeed,” I replied, “here you are safe, Captain Nemo. Who could reach you in the center of a volcano? But, at its summit, did I not see an opening? ” “Yes, its crater, a crater once filled with lava, vapors, and flames, and which now gives passage to this invigorating air that we breathe. ” “But what is this volcanic mountain?” I asked. “It belongs to one of the many islets with which this sea is strewn. A simple reef for ships, an immense cavern for us.” Chance made me discover it, and in that, chance served me well. — But couldn’t one descend through this orifice which forms the crater of the volcano? — No more than I could climb it. Up to a hundred feet, the interior base of this mountain is passable, but above, the walls overhang, and their ramps could not be crossed. — I see, Captain, that nature serves you everywhere and always. You are safe on this lake, and no one but you can visit its waters. But, what good is this refuge? The Nautilus does not need a port. — No, Professor, but it needs electricity to move, elements to produce its electricity, sodium to feed its elements, coal to make its sodium, and coal mines to extract its coal. Now, precisely here, the sea covers entire forests which were buried in geological time; Now mineralized and transformed into coal, they are an inexhaustible mine for me. — So your men, Captain, are here doing the job of miners? — Exactly. These mines extend beneath the waves like the Newcastle coal mines. It is here that, wearing diving suits, pick and mattock in hand, my men will extract this coal, which I have not even asked for from the mines on land. When I burn this fuel to make sodium, the smoke that escapes from the crater of this mountain still gives it the appearance of an active volcano. — And we will see them at work, your companions? — No, not this time, at least, for I am in a hurry to continue our tour of the underwater world. So, I will be content to draw on the sodium reserves that I have. The time to embark them, that is to say only one day, and we will resume our voyage. So if you want to explore this cavern and tour the lagoon, make the most of this day, Mr. Aronnax.” I thanked the captain and went to find my two companions, who had not yet left their cabin. I invited them to follow me without telling them where they were. They went up onto the platform. Conseil, who was not surprised by anything, considered it a very natural thing to wake up under a mountain after falling asleep under the waves. But Ned Land had no other idea than to look for any exit from the cavern. After lunch, around ten o’clock, we went down to the bank. “So here we are once again on land,” said Conseil. “I don’t call it ‘land,'” replied the Canadian. “And besides, we are not on it, but under it.” Between the foot of the mountain walls and the waters of the lake there was a sandy shore which, at its widest point, measured 500 feet. On this beach, one could easily walk around the lake. But the base of the high walls formed a tormented ground, on which lay, in a picturesque heap, volcanic blocks and enormous pumice stones. All these disintegrated masses, covered with a polished enamel under the action of the fires underground, shone in contact with the electric jets of the lantern. The micaceous dust of the shore, which our steps raised, flew away like a cloud of sparks. The ground rose noticeably as we moved away from the relay of the waves, and we soon arrived at long and winding ramps, real steep slopes which allowed us to rise little by little, but we had to walk carefully in the middle of these conglomerates, which no cement linked together, and the foot slipped on these glassy trachytes, made of feldspar and quartz crystals. The volcanic nature of this enormous excavation was evident on all sides. I pointed this out to my companions. “Can you imagine,” I asked them, “what this funnel must have been like when it filled with bubbling lava, and the level of this incandescent liquid rose to the mouth of the mountain, like cast iron on the walls of a furnace? ” “I can imagine it perfectly,” Conseil replied. ” But will the gentleman tell me why the great smelter suspended his operation, and how it happened that the furnace was replaced by the tranquil waters of a lake? ” “Very probably, Conseil, because some convulsion produced below the surface of the ocean this opening which served as a passage for the Nautilus. Then the waters of the Atlantic rushed into the interior of the mountain. There was a terrible struggle between the two elements, a struggle which ended to the advantage of Neptune. But many centuries have passed since then, and the submerged volcano has changed into a peaceful grotto.” “Very well,” replied Ned Land. “I accept the explanation, but I regret, in our interest, that this opening the professor is talking about did not occur above sea level. ” “But, friend Ned,” replied Conseil, “if this passage had not been underwater, the Nautilus could not have penetrated it! ” “And I will add, Master Land, that the waters would not have rushed under the mountain and that the volcano would have remained a volcano. Therefore, your regrets are superfluous.” Our ascent continued. The ramps became increasingly steep and narrow. Deep excavations sometimes cut through them, which had to be crossed. Overhanging masses wanted to be turned. We slid on our knees, we crawled on our stomachs. But, with the help of Conseil’s skill and the strength of the Canadian, all obstacles were overcome. At a height of about thirty meters, the nature of the terrain changed, without it becoming more passable. The conglomerates and trachytes were succeeded by black basalts; the latter spread out in sheets all lumpy with blowholes; the former forming regular prisms, arranged like a colonnade which supported the fallout of this immense vault, an admirable specimen of natural architecture. Then, between these basalts wound long flows of cooled lava, encrusted with bituminous streaks, and, in places, stretched wide carpets of sulfur. A more powerful day, entering through the upper crater, flooded with a vague clarity all these volcanic dejections, forever buried in the bosom of the extinct mountain. However, our upward march was soon stopped, at a height of about two hundred and fifty feet, by impassable obstacles. The interior arch returned to overhang, and the climb had to change into a circular walk. At this last level, the vegetable kingdom began to struggle with the mineral kingdom. A few shrubs and even some trees emerged from the crevices of the wall. I recognized euphorbias that let their caustic juice flow. Heliotropes, very inept at justifying their name, since the sun’s rays never reached them, sadly bent their clusters of flowers with colors and perfumes half faded. Here and there, a few chrysanthemums grew timidly at the foot of long-leaved aloes sad and sickly leaves. But, between the lava flows, I saw small violets, still perfumed with a light scent, and I confess that I breathed them in with delight. Perfume is the soul of the flower, and the flowers of the sea, these splendid hydrophytes, have no soul! We had arrived at the foot of a clump of robust dragon trees, which pushed the rocks apart under the strain of their muscular roots, when Ned Land cried out: “Ah! sir, a hive! ” “A hive!” I replied, making a gesture of perfect incredulity. “Yes! A hive,” repeated the Canadian, “and bees buzzing around it.” I approached and had to face the facts. There, at the mouth of a hole dug in the hole of a dragon tree, were several thousand of these ingenious insects, so common throughout the Canaries, and whose products are particularly prized there. Quite naturally, the Canadian wanted to stock up on honey, and I would have been ungracious to oppose it. A certain quantity of dried leaves mixed with sulfur lit up under the spark of his lighter, and he began to smoke the bees. The buzzing gradually ceased, and the disemboweled hive yielded several pounds of fragrant honey. Ned Land filled his knapsack with it. “When I have mixed this honey with the paste of the artocarpus,” he told us, “I will be able to offer you a succulent cake. ” “Of course!” said Conseil, “it will be gingerbread. ” “All right, gingerbread,” I said, “but let us resume this interesting walk.” » At certain bends in the path we were following, the lake appeared in its entirety. The lantern illuminated its entire peaceful surface, which knew neither ripples nor undulations. The Nautilus remained perfectly still. On its platform and on the bank, the men of its crew were bustling about, black shadows clearly outlined in the midst of this luminous atmosphere. At that moment, we were skirting the highest crest of these first planes of rock that supported the vault. I saw then that bees were not the only representatives of the animal kingdom inside this volcano. Birds of prey were gliding and circling here and there in the shadows, or fleeing from their nests perched on points of rock. They were white-bellied sparrowhawks and screeching rattles. On the slopes, beautiful and fat bustards were also scampering with all the speed of their stilts . I leave it to one to imagine whether the Canadian’s lust was kindled by the sight of this tasty game, and whether he regretted not having a rifle in his hands. He tried to replace the lead with stones, and after several unsuccessful attempts, he managed to wound one of these magnificent bustards. To say that he risked his life twenty times to capture it is only the pure truth, but he did so well that the animal went back to the honey cakes in its bag. We then had to go back down to the shore, because the ridge was becoming impassable. Above us, the gaping crater appeared like a wide well opening. From this place, the sky could be seen quite clearly, and I saw clouds running, disheveled by the west wind, which left their misty rags trailing all the way to the summit of the mountain. Certain proof that these clouds were at a moderate height, because the volcano did not rise more than eight hundred feet above the level of the ocean. Half an hour after the last exploit of the Canadian we had regained the inland shore. Here, the flora was represented by large carpets of this fennel, a small umbelliferous plant very good for preserving, which also bears the names of stonecrop, stonecrop and sea fennel. Conseil harvested a few bunches. As for the fauna, it included thousands of crustaceans of all kinds, lobsters, crabs, scallops, mysis, reapers, galateas and a prodigious number of shells, cowries, rocks and limpets. In this place opened a magnificent grotto. My companions and I took pleasure in stretching out on its fine sand. The fire had polished its enameled and sparkling walls, all sprinkled with mica dust. Ned Land felt the walls and tried to probe their thickness. I could not help but smile. The conversation then turned to his eternal plans for escape, and I thought I could, without going too far, give him this hope: Captain Nemo had only gone south to replenish his sodium supply. I hoped, therefore, that, now, he would reach the coasts of Europe and America; which would allow the Canadian to resume his aborted attempt with greater success. We had been lying for an hour in this charming grotto. The conversation, animated at first, then languished. A certain drowsiness took hold of us. As I saw no reason to resist sleep, I gave in to a deep doze. I was dreaming—one does not choose one’s dreams—I was dreaming that my existence was reduced to the vegetative life of a simple mollusk. It seemed to me that this grotto formed the double valve of my shell… All of a sudden, I was awakened by Conseil’s voice. “Alert! Alert!” cried this worthy fellow. “What is it?” I asked, half raising myself. “The water is overtaking us!” I sat up. The sea rushed like a torrent into our retreat, and, decidedly, since we were not mollusks, we had to escape. In a few moments, we were safe on the summit of the grotto itself. “What is happening?” Conseil asked. Some new phenomenon? “No, my friends,” I replied, “it’s the tide, it’s only the tide that almost surprised us like Walter Scott’s hero! The ocean is swelling outside, and by a completely natural law of equilibrium, the level of the lake is rising as well. We’re off with half a bath. Let’s go change at the Nautilus.” Three-quarters of an hour later, we had completed our circular walk and were returning on board. The crew were just then finishing loading the sodium supplies, and the Nautilus could have left immediately. However, Captain Nemo gave no orders. Did he want to wait until nightfall and secretly leave through his underwater passage? Perhaps. In any case, the next day, the Nautilus, having left its home port, was sailing far from any land, and a few meters below the waves of the Atlantic. Chapter 11. THE SARGASU SEA The Nautilus’s direction had not changed. All hope of returning to European seas had therefore to be momentarily rejected. Captain Nemo maintained a southerly course. Where was he taking us? I dared not imagine. That day, the Nautilus crossed a singular portion of the Atlantic Ocean. No one is unaware of the existence of this great current of warm water known as the Gulf Stream. After leaving the Florida channels, it heads towards Spitsbergen. But before entering the Gulf of Mexico, around the forty-fourth degree of north latitude, this current divides into two branches; the main one carries towards the coasts of Ireland and Norway, while the second bends southwards near the Azores; then, striking the African shores and describing an elongated oval, it returns towards the Antilles. Now, this second arm — it is more of a necklace than an arm — surrounds with its rings of warm water this portion of the cold, calm, motionless ocean, which is called the Sargasso Sea. A true lake in the middle of the Atlantic, the waters of the great current take no less than three years to go around it. The Sargasso Sea, strictly speaking, covers the entire submerged part of Atlantis. Some authors have even admitted that these numerous herbs with which it is sown are torn from the meadows of this ancient continent. It is more probable, however, that these grasses, algae and fucus, taken from the shores of Europe and America, are carried to this zone by the Gulf Stream. This was one of the reasons which led Columbus to suppose the existence of a new world. When the ships of this bold researcher arrived at the Sargasso Sea, they navigated not without difficulty in the midst of these herbs which stopped their progress to the great fright of the crews, and they lost three long weeks crossing them. Such was the region that the Nautilus was visiting at that moment, a veritable meadow, a dense carpet of seaweed, fucus natans, and tropical grapes, so thick and compact that the bow of a ship would not have torn it apart easily. So Captain Nemo, not wanting to engage his propeller in this grassy mass, stayed a few meters below the surface of the waves. The name Sargassum comes from the Spanish word “sargazzo,” which means kelp. This kelp, the swimming kelp or berry-bearing kelp, mainly forms this immense bed. And here is why, according to the scholar Maury, the author of the Physical Geography of the Globe, these hydrophytes gather in this peaceful Atlantic basin: “The explanation that can be given,” he said, “seems to me to result from an experience known to everyone. If fragments of corks or any floating bodies are placed in a vase , and the water in the vase is made to move in a circular motion, the scattered fragments will be seen to gather in a group at the center of the liquid surface, that is to say at the least agitated point. In the phenomenon that concerns us, the vase is the Atlantic, the Gulf Stream is the circular current, and the Sargasso Sea is the central point where the floating bodies gather. I share Maury’s opinion, and I have been able to study the phenomenon in this special environment where ships rarely penetrate. Above us floated bodies from all over, piled up in the middle of these brownish grasses, tree trunks torn from the Andes or the Rocky Mountains and floated by the Amazon or the Mississippi, numerous wrecks, remains of keels or hulls, plankings broken and so weighed down by shells and barnacles that they could not rise to the surface of the Ocean. And time will one day justify this other opinion of Maury, that these materials, thus accumulated for centuries, will mineralize under the action of the waters and will then form inexhaustible coal mines. A precious reserve that provident nature is preparing for that moment when men will have exhausted the mines of the continents. Amidst this inextricable web of grasses and fucus, I noticed charming pink-colored starfish, sea anemonefish trailing their long hair of tentacles, green, red, and blue jellyfish, and especially those large Cuvier’s rhizostomes, whose bluish umbrella is edged with a purple festoon. The whole day of February 22 was spent in the Sargasso Sea, where fish, fond of marine plants and crustaceans, find abundant food. The next day, the ocean had resumed its usual appearance. From that moment on, for nineteen days, from February 23 to March 12, the Nautilus, holding the mid-Atlantic, carried us along at a constant speed of one hundred leagues per twenty-four hours. Captain Nemo obviously wanted to complete his underwater program and I had no doubt that, after rounding Cape Horn, he was thinking of returning to the southern seas of the Pacific. Ned Land had therefore been right to fear. In these wide seas, devoid of islands, there was no way to try to leave the ship. No way nor to oppose the wishes of Captain Nemo. The only course was to submit; but what could no longer be expected from force or cunning, I liked to think could be obtained by persuasion . This voyage over, would Captain Nemo not agree to give us our freedom on oath never to reveal his existence? An oath of honor that we would have kept. But it was necessary to discuss this delicate question with the captain. Now, would I have been willing to claim this freedom? Had he not himself declared, from the beginning and in a formal manner, that the secrecy of his life required our perpetual imprisonment on board the Nautilus? Shouldn’t my silence, for four months, seem to him a tacit acceptance of this situation? Wouldn’t returning to this subject have the result of giving rise to suspicions that could harm our plans, if some favorable circumstance arose later to resume them? I weighed all these reasons, turned them over in my mind, and submitted them to Conseil, who was no less embarrassed than I. In short, although I was not easily discouraged, I understood that the chances of ever seeing my fellow creatures again were diminishing day by day, especially at this moment when Captain Nemo was racing recklessly toward the southern Atlantic! During the nineteen days I mentioned above, no particular incident marked our voyage. I saw little of the captain. He was working. In the library I often found books that he left half-open, especially books on natural history. My work on the seabed, which he leafed through, was covered with marginalia, which sometimes contradicted my theories and systems. But the captain was content to refine my work in this way, and it was rare that he discussed matters with me. Sometimes I heard the melancholic sounds of his organ resonate, which he played with great expression, but only at night, in the midst of the most secret darkness, when the Nautilus fell asleep in the deserts of the Ocean. During this part of the voyage, we sailed for days on the surface of the waves. The sea was as if abandoned. Barely a few sailing ships, loaded for the Indies, were heading towards the Cape of Good Hope. One day we were pursued by the boats of a whaler who no doubt took us for some enormous whale of great value. But Captain Nemo did not want these brave people to waste their time and effort, and he ended the hunt by diving underwater. This incident seemed to greatly interest Ned Land. I do not think I am mistaken in saying that the Canadian must have regretted that our sheet metal cetacean could not be mortally wounded by the harpoon of these fishermen. The fish observed by Conseil and myself during this period differed little from those we had already studied in other latitudes. The main ones were a few specimens of this terrible genus of cartilaginous fish, divided into three subgenera which include no fewer than thirty-two species: striped sharks, five meters long, with a depressed head wider than the body, a rounded caudal fin, and whose back bears seven large parallel and longitudinal black bands, then perlon sharks, ash gray, pierced with seven gill openings and equipped with a single dorsal fin placed approximately towards the middle of the body. Also passing were large dogfish, voracious fish if ever there were any. We have the right not to believe the stories of the fishermen, but here is what they say. In the body of one of these animals, a buffalo head and an entire calf were found; in another, two tuna and a sailor in uniform; in another, a soldier with his saber; in another, a horse with its rider. All this, to tell the truth, is not an article of faith. Still, none of these animals left to be caught in the nets of the Nautilus, and that I could not verify their voracity. Elegant and playful troops of dolphins accompanied us for days on end. They went in bands of five or six, hunting in packs like wolves in the countryside, no less voracious than sea dogs, if I believe a professor from Copenhagen, who removed from the stomach of a dolphin thirteen porpoises and fifteen seals. It was, it is true, a killer whale, belonging to the largest known species, and whose length sometimes exceeds twenty-four feet. This family of dolphins has ten genera, and those that I saw were of the genus of dolphins, remarkable for an excessively narrow snout four times as long as the skull. Their body, measuring three meters, was black above, and underneath was a pinkish white dotted with very rare small spots. I will also mention, in these seas, curious samples of these fish of the order of the acanthopteriges and of the family of the scienoids. Some authors—more poets than naturalists— claim that these fish sing melodiously, and that their voices together form a concert that a choir of human voices could not equal. I do not say no, but these scenes did not give us any serenade as we passed, and I regret it. To finish, Conseil classified a large quantity of flying fish. Nothing was more curious than to see the dolphins give chase to them with marvelous precision. Whatever the range of its flight, whatever trajectory it described, even above the Nautilus, the unfortunate fish always found the dolphin’s mouth open to receive it. They were either pirapedes or trigle-kites, with luminous mouths, which, during the night, after having traced streaks of fire in the atmosphere, plunged into the dark waters like so many shooting stars. Until March 13, our navigation continued under these conditions. That day, the Nautilus was employed in sounding experiments that greatly interested me. We had then traveled nearly thirteen thousand leagues since our departure in the high seas of the Pacific. The point placed us at 450°37′ south latitude and 370°53’ west longitude. These were the same waters where Captain Denham of the Herald sounded fourteen thousand meters without finding a bottom. There too, Lieutenant Parcker of the American frigate Congress had been unable to reach the underwater floor at fifteen thousand one hundred and forty meters. Captain Nemo decided to send his Nautilus to the deepest depths in order to check these various soundings. I prepared to note down all the results of the experiment. The saloon hatches were opened, and maneuvers began to reach these prodigiously remote layers. It is likely that there was no question of diving while filling the tanks. Perhaps they would not have been able to sufficiently increase the specific gravity of the Nautilus. Besides, to come back up, it would have been necessary to expel this excess water, and the pumps would not have been powerful enough to overcome the external pressure. Captain Nemo decided to seek the ocean floor by a sufficiently elongated diagonal, by means of his lateral planes which were placed at an angle of forty-five degrees with the water lines of the Nautilus. Then, the propeller was brought to its maximum speed, and its four-bladed blades beat the waves with indescribable violence. Under this powerful thrust, the hull of the Nautilus shuddered like a sonorous string and sank steadily beneath the water. The captain and I, stationed in the saloon, followed the needle of the pressure gauge as it deviated rapidly. Soon we passed the habitable zone where most fish reside. While some of these animals can only live on the surface of the seas or rivers, others, less so numerous, remain at fairly great depths. Among the latter, I observed the hexanch, a kind of dogfish equipped with six respiratory slits, the telescope with enormous eyes, the armoured malarmat, with gray thoracines, black pectorals, protected by its plastron of pale red bony plates, then finally the grenadier, which, living at a depth of twelve hundred meters, could withstand a pressure of one hundred and twenty atmospheres. I asked Captain Nemo if he had observed fish at greater depths. “Fish?” he replied, “rarely. But in the current state of science, what do we presume, what do we know? ” “Here it is, Captain. We know that as we go towards the lower layers of the Ocean, plant life disappears faster than animal life. We know that, where animated beings are still found, not a single hydrophyte vegetates.” We know that peregrine oysters live in 2,000 meters of water, and that MacClintock, the hero of the polar seas, pulled a living starfish from a depth of 2,500 meters. We know that the crew of the Royal Navy’s Bull-Dog fished a starfish in 2,620 fathoms, or more than a league deep. But, Captain Nemo, perhaps you will tell me that we know nothing? “No, Professor,” replied the captain, “I will not be so rude. However, I will ask you how you explain that beings can live at such depths? ” “I explain it for two reasons,” I replied. ” First, because the vertical currents, determined by the differences in salinity and density of the waters, produce a movement that is sufficient to maintain the rudimentary life of peregrine oysters and starfish. ” “Exactly,” said the captain. “Then, because, if oxygen is the basis of life, we know that the quantity of dissolved oxygen in seawater increases with depth instead of decreasing, and that the pressure of the lower layers contributes to compressing it. ” “Ah! We know that?” replied Captain Nemo, in a slightly surprised tone. “Well, Professor, we are right to know it, because it is the truth. I will add, in fact, that the swim bladder of fish contains more nitrogen than oxygen when these animals are caught at the surface of the water, and more oxygen than nitrogen, on the contrary, when they are pulled from the great depths. Which proves your system right. But let us continue our observations.” My gaze returned to the pressure gauge. The instrument indicated a depth of 6,000 meters. We had been submerged for an hour. The Nautilus, sliding on its inclined planes, was still sinking. The deserted waters were admirably transparent and of a diaphanousness that nothing could describe. An hour later, we were at thirteen thousand meters—about three and a quarter leagues—and the bottom of the ocean could not be glimpsed. However, at fourteen thousand meters, I saw blackish peaks rising up in the middle of the water. But these summits could belong to mountains as high as the Himalayas or Mont Blanc, or even higher, and the depth of these abysses remained inestimable. The Nautilus descended even lower, despite the powerful pressures it was undergoing. I felt its plates tremble under the joints of their bolts; its bars arched; its partitions groaned; the windows of the saloon seemed to warp under the pressure of the water. And this solid apparatus would have given way without doubt, if, as its captain had said, it had not been capable of resisting like a solid block. Skimming the slopes of these rocks lost under the waters, I still saw a few shells, serpuls, living spinorbis, and certain specimens of starfish. But soon these last representatives of animal life disappeared, and, below three leagues, the Nautilus exceeded the limits of underwater existence, as a balloon rises into the air above the breathable zones. We had reached a depth of sixteen thousand meters—four leagues—and the sides of the Nautilus were then supporting a pressure of sixteen hundred atmospheres, that is, sixteen hundred kilograms for each square centimeter of its surface! “What a situation!” I cried. “To travel in these deep regions where man has never reached! See, Captain, see these magnificent rocks, these uninhabited caves, these last receptacles of the globe, where life is no longer possible! What unknown sites, and why must we be reduced to preserving only the memory of them? ” “Would it please you,” Captain Nemo asked me, “to bring back something better than a memory? ” “What do you mean by these words?” — I mean that nothing is easier than taking a photographic view of this underwater region! I hadn’t had time to express the surprise this new proposal caused me when, at a call from Captain Nemo, a lens was brought into the living room. Through the wide-open panels, the electrically illuminated liquid medium was distributed with perfect clarity . No shadow, no degradation of our artificial light. The sun could not have been more favorable to an operation of this nature. The Nautilus, under the thrust of its propeller, controlled by the inclination of its planes, remained motionless. The instrument was trained on these sites of the ocean floor, and in a few seconds, we had obtained a negative of extreme purity. This is the positive proof that I give here. There we see these primordial rocks that have never known the light of the heavens, these inferior granites that form the powerful foundation of the globe, these deep caves hollowed out in the stony mass, these profiles of incomparable clarity and whose terminal line stands out in black, as if it were due to the brush of certain Flemish artists. Then, beyond, a horizon of mountains, an admirable undulating line that composes the background of the landscape. I cannot describe this collection of smooth, black, polished rocks, without a moss, without a stain, with strangely cut shapes and solidly established on this carpet of sand that sparkled under the jets of electric light. However, Captain Nemo, after having finished his operation, had said to me: “Let’s go up, Professor. We must not abuse this situation nor expose the Nautilus to such pressure for too long. ” “Let’s go up!” I replied. “Hold on tight.” » I hadn’t yet had time to understand why the captain was making this recommendation when I was thrown onto the carpet. Its propeller engaged at a signal from the captain, its planes raised vertically, the Nautilus, carried like a balloon into the air, rose with lightning speed. It cut through the mass of water with a sonorous shudder. No detail was visible. In four minutes, it had crossed the four leagues that separated it from the surface of the ocean, and, after emerging like a flying fish, it fell back, making the waves spurt to a prodigious height. Chapter 12. SPERM WHALES AND WHALES. During the night of March 13-14, the Nautilus resumed its southerly direction. I thought that at the height of Cape Horn, it would set a westward course in order to reach the seas of the Pacific and complete its circumnavigation of the world. He did nothing and continued to head back towards the southern regions. Where did he want to go? To the Pole? It was insane. I began to believe that the captain’s temerity sufficiently justified Ned Land’s apprehensions. The Canadian, for some time, had not spoken to me about his plans to escape. He had become less communicative, almost silent. I I saw how much this prolonged imprisonment weighed on him. I felt the anger building up inside him. When he met the captain, his eyes lit up with a dark fire, and I always feared that his natural violence would carry him to some extreme. That day, March 14, Conseil and he came to find me in my room. I asked them the reason for their visit. “A simple question to ask you, sir,” the Canadian replied. “Speak, Ned. ” “How many men do you think there are on board the Nautilus? ” “I couldn’t say, my friend. ” “It seems to me,” Ned Land continued, “that its operation does not require a large crew. ” “Indeed,” I replied, “in the conditions in which it is, a dozen men at most should be enough to operate it. ” “Well,” said the Canadian, “why would there be more? ” “Why?” I replied. I stared fixedly at Ned Land, whose intentions were easy to guess. “Because,” I said, “if I believe my presentiments, if I have correctly understood the captain’s existence, the Nautilus is not just a ship. It must be a place of refuge for those who, like its commander, have broken off all contact with land. ” “Perhaps,” said Conseil, “but after all, the Nautilus can only hold a certain number of men, and couldn’t the gentleman estimate this maximum? ” “How so, Conseil? ” “By calculation. Given the capacity of the ship, which the gentleman knows, and, consequently, the quantity of air it contains; knowing , moreover, what each man expends in the act of breathing, and comparing these results with the necessity for the Nautilus to come up every twenty-four hours…” Conseil’s sentence went on and on, but I saw clearly where he was going with this.
“I understand you,” I said; but this calculation, easy to establish , can only give a very uncertain figure. “It doesn’t matter,” Ned Land continued, insisting. “Here is the calculation,” I replied. “Each man uses up in one hour the oxygen contained in one hundred liters of air, or in twenty-four hours the oxygen contained in two thousand four hundred liters. We must therefore find out how many times the Nautilus contains two thousand four hundred liters of air. ” “Precisely,” Conseil said. “Now,” I continued, “the capacity of the Nautilus being fifteen hundred barrels, and that of the barrel a thousand liters, the Nautilus contains fifteen hundred thousand liters of air, which, divided by two thousand four hundred…” I quickly calculated with a pencil: “… gives the quotient six hundred twenty-five. Which amounts to saying that the air contained in the Nautilus could strictly suffice for six hundred twenty-five men for twenty-four hours. ” “Six hundred twenty-five!” repeated Ned. “But be assured,” I added, “that, passengers, sailors , and officers alike, we do not make up a tenth of that number. ” “That’s still too many for three men!” Conseil murmured. “So, my poor Ned, I can only advise you to be patient. ” “And even better than patience,” Conseil replied, “resignation.” Conseil had used the right word. “After all,” he continued, “Captain Nemo cannot always go south! He will have to stop, even if only in front of the ice floe, and return to more civilized seas! Then it will be time to resume Ned Land’s plans.” The Canadian shook his head, ran his hand over his forehead, did not reply , and withdrew. “May I make an observation to him, sir,” Conseil said to me. “Poor Ned thinks of everything he cannot have. Everything comes back to him from his past life. Everything that is forbidden to us seems regrettable to him . ” His old memories oppress him and his heart is heavy. You have to understand him. What does he have to do here? Nothing. He is not a scholar like the gentleman, and could not acquire the same taste as us for the admirable things of the sea. He would risk everything to be able to enter a tavern in his country! ” It is certain that the monotony of the ship must have seemed unbearable to the Canadian, accustomed to a free and active life. The events that could excite him were rare. However, that day, an incident came to remind him of his beautiful days as a harpooner. Around eleven o’clock in the morning, being on the surface of the Ocean, the _Nautilus_ came across a pod of whales. An encounter that did not surprise me , because I knew that these animals, hunted to excess, have taken refuge in the basins of high latitudes. The role played by the whale in the marine world, and its influence on geographical discoveries, have been considerable. It was she who, drawing in her wake, first the Basques, then the Asturians, the English, and the Dutch, emboldened them against the dangers of the Ocean and led them from one end of the earth to the other. Whales like to frequent the southern and northern seas. Ancient legends even claim that these cetaceans brought fishermen to within seven leagues of the North Pole. If the fact is false, it will be true one day, and it is probably thus, by hunting whales in the Arctic or Antarctic regions, that men will reach this unknown point of the globe. We were sitting on the platform in a calm sea. But the month of October in these latitudes gave us beautiful autumn days. It was the Canadian—he could not be mistaken—who reported a whale on the horizon in the east. Looking closely, one could see its blackish back rising and falling alternately above the waves, five miles from the Nautilus. “Ah!” cried Ned Land, “if I were on board a whaler, this would be an encounter I would enjoy! It’s a large animal! See with what power its blowholes expel columns of air and steam! A thousand devils! Why must I be chained to this piece of sheet metal! ” “What! Ned,” I replied, “have you not yet recovered from your old ideas of fishing? ” “Can a whaler, sir, forget his old profession? Does one ever tire of the emotions of such a hunt? ” “You have never fished in these seas, Ned? ” “Never, sir. Only in the boreal seas, and as much in the Bering Strait as in the Davis Strait.” “Then the southern right whale is still unknown to you. It is the right whale that you have hunted until now, and it would not venture to pass the warm waters of the Equator. ” “Ah! Professor, what are you telling me?” replied the Canadian in a rather incredulous tone. “I am telling you what is. ” “For example! I, who am speaking to you, in sixty-five, two and a half years ago, I landed near Greenland a whale that still bore in its flank the punched harpoon of a Bering whaler. Now, I ask you, how, after having been struck west of America, would the animal have come to be killed in the east, if it had not, after having rounded either Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, crossed the Equator? ” “I think like my friend Ned,” said Conseil, “and I await what the gentleman will reply.” “Sir will tell you, my friends, that whales are located, depending on their species, in certain seas which they do not leave. And if one of these animals came from the Bering Strait into that of Davis, it is quite simply because there is a passage from one sea to the other, either on the coasts of America or on those of Asia. ” “Should we believe you?” asked the Canadian, closing one eye. “We must believe you, sir,” replied Conseil. “From then on,” continued the Canadian, “since I have never fished in these “I don’t know the whales that frequent these waters? ” “I told you, Ned. ” “All the more reason to make their acquaintance,” Conseil replied. “Look! Look!” cried the Canadian, his voice filled with emotion. “She’s approaching! She’s coming towards us! She’s taunting me! She knows I can’t do anything against her!” Ned stamped his foot. His hand trembled as he brandished an imaginary harpoon . “Are these cetaceans,” he asked, “as big as those in the boreal seas? ” “Approximately, Ned. ” “I’ve seen big whales, sir, whales that measured up to a hundred feet in length! I’ve even been told that the Hullamock and the Umgallick of the Aleutian Islands sometimes exceeded a hundred and fifty feet. ” “That seems exaggerated to me,” I replied. These animals are only whales, equipped with dorsal fins, and like sperm whales, they are generally smaller than the right whale. “Ah!” cried the Canadian, whose gaze never left the ocean, “it’s getting closer, it’s coming into the waters of the Nautilus!” Then, resuming his conversation: “You speak,” he said, “of the sperm whale as if it were a small creature! However, gigantic sperm whales are mentioned. They are intelligent cetaceans. Some, it is said, cover themselves with algae and fucus. They are taken for islets. They camp on them, settle there, make fires… ” “They build houses on them,” said Conseil. “Yes, joker,” replied Ned Land. “Then, one fine day, the animal dives and drags all its inhabitants to the bottom of the abyss. ” “Like in the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor,” I replied, laughing. — Ah! Master Land, it seems you like extraordinary stories ! What sperm whales you have! I hope you don’t believe them! — Sir Naturalist, replied the Canadian seriously, you must believe everything whales say! — How well she walks, that one! How she slips away! — They say these animals can go around the world in fifteen days. — I don’t say no. — But what you probably don’t know, Mr. Aronnax, is that, at the beginning of the world, whales sped even faster. — Ah! really, Ned! And why is that? — Because then, they had their tails across, like fish, that is to say, this tail, compressed vertically, struck the water from left to right and from right to left. But the Creator, noticing that they were moving too fast, twisted their tails, and since then, they have been beating the waves up and down to the detriment of their speed. “Well, Ned,” I said, using an expression from the Canadian, “should we believe you? ” “Not too much,” replied Ned Land, “and no more than if I told you that there are whales three hundred feet long and weighing one hundred thousand pounds. ” “That is a lot, indeed,” I said. “However, it must be admitted that certain cetaceans acquire considerable development, since, it is said, they provide up to one hundred and twenty tons of oil. ” “I have seen that,” said the Canadian. “I readily believe it, Ned, just as I believe that certain whales are equal in size to one hundred elephants. Imagine the effects produced by such a mass launched at full speed! ” “Is it true,” asked Conseil, “that they can sink ships?” “Ships, I don’t think so,” I replied. “It is said, however, that in 1820, precisely in these southern seas, a whale rushed at the Essex and made it fall back at a speed of four meters per second. Waves penetrated from the stern, and the Essex sank almost immediately.” Ned looked at me mockingly. “For my part,” he said, “I received a blow from a whale’s tail— in my boat, of course. My companions and I were thrown to a height of six meters. But beside the whale of Professor, mine was only a calf. “Do these animals live long?” Conseil asked. “A thousand years,” the Canadian replied without hesitation. “And how do you know, Ned? ” “Because they say so. ” “And why do they say so? ” “Because they know. ” “No, Ned, they don’t know, but they suppose so, and here is the reasoning on which they base themselves. Four hundred years ago, when fishermen first hunted whales, these animals were larger than they are today. It is therefore supposed, quite logically, that the inferiority of modern whales comes from the fact that they have not had time to reach their full development. This is what made Buffon say that these cetaceans could and even should live a thousand years. Do you hear?” Ned Land didn’t hear. He was no longer listening. The whale was still approaching. He devoured it with his eyes. “Ah!” he cried, “it’s no longer one whale, it’s ten, it’s twenty, it’s a whole herd! And to be able to do nothing! To be there bound hand and foot! ” “But, friend Ned,” said Conseil, “why not ask Captain Nemo for permission to hunt?…” Conseil had hardly finished his sentence when Ned Land collapsed through the hatch and ran to look for the captain. A few moments later, the two of them reappeared on the platform. Captain Nemo observed the herd of cetaceans playing on the waters a mile from the Nautilus. “They are southern right whales,” he said. “There’s the fortune of a fleet of whaling ships there. ” “Well, sir,” asked the Canadian, “could I not give them chase, if only to remember my former profession as a harpooner?” “What’s the point,” replied Captain Nemo, “hunting just to destroy! We have no use for whale oil on board. ” “However, sir,” continued the Canadian, “in the Red Sea, you authorized us to pursue a dugong! ” “The point was to provide fresh meat for my crew. Here, it would be killing for the sake of killing. I know that it is a privilege reserved for man, but I do not condone these murderous pastimes. By destroying the southern right whale like the right whale, harmless and good beings , your kind, Master Land, are committing a reprehensible action . Thus, they have already depopulated all of Baffin Bay, and they will wipe out a class of useful animals. So leave these unfortunate cetaceans alone. They have enough of their natural enemies, sperm whales, swordfish, and sawfish, without you interfering.” » I leave you to imagine the Canadian’s face during this moral lesson. To give such reasons to a hunter was to waste one’s words. Ned Land looked at Captain Nemo and obviously did not understand what he wanted to tell him. However, the captain was right. The barbaric and reckless relentlessness of the fishermen will one day cause the last whale to disappear from the ocean. Ned Land whistled his Yankee doodle between his teeth, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and turned his back on us. Meanwhile, Captain Nemo was observing the herd of cetaceans, and addressing me: “I was right to claim that, apart from man, whales have enough other natural enemies. These will have to deal with a tough fight before long. Do you see, Mr. Aronnax, eight miles to leeward, those blackish dots that are moving? ” “Yes, Captain,” I replied. “They are sperm whales, terrible animals that I have sometimes encountered in flocks of two or three hundred! As for those, cruel and harmful beasts, we are right to exterminate them.” The Canadian turned sharply at these last words. “Well, captain,” I said, “there is still time, in the interest of whales… — No need to expose yourself, Professor. The Nautilus will be enough to disperse these sperm whales. It’s armed with a steel spur that’s as good as Master Land’s harpoon, I imagine.” The Canadian didn’t hesitate to shrug his shoulders. Attacking cetaceans with a spur! Who had ever heard of that? “Wait, Mr. Aronnax,” said Captain Nemo. “We ‘ll show you a hunt you haven’t yet seen. No pity for these ferocious cetaceans. They’re nothing but mouth and teeth!” Mouth and teeth! The macrocephalic sperm whale, which sometimes reaches a length of over twenty-five meters, could not be better depicted. The enormous head of this cetacean occupies about a third of its body. Better armed than the whale, whose upper jaw is only furnished with baleen, it is equipped with twenty-five large teeth, twenty centimeters high, cylindrical and conical at their summit, and which weigh two pounds each. It is in the upper part of this enormous head and in large cavities separated by cartilages, that three to four hundred kilograms of this precious oil, called ” whale’s white” are found. The sperm whale is an ungainly animal, more tadpole than fish, according to Frédol’s remark. It is poorly built, being, so to speak, “missing” in the whole left part of its frame, and seeing hardly anything except with its right eye. However, the monstrous herd was still approaching. It had seen the whales and was preparing to attack them. The victory of the sperm whales could be prejudged in advance, not only because they are better built for attack than their harmless adversaries, but also because they can stay under the waves longer , without coming up to breathe on the surface. It was high time to go to the whales’ aid. The Nautilus put itself between two waters. Conseil, Ned, and I took our places in front of the saloon windows. Captain Nemo went near the helmsman to maneuver his craft like an engine of destruction. Soon, I felt the propeller beat faster and our speed increase. The fight had already begun between the sperm whales and the whales when the Nautilus arrived. It maneuvered in such a way as to cut off the troop of macrocephali. The latter, at first, showed little emotion at the sight of the new monster joining the battle. But soon they had to avoid its blows. What a fight! Ned Land himself, soon filled with enthusiasm, finally clapped his hands. The Nautilus was nothing more than a formidable harpoon, brandished by the hand of its captain. It launched itself against these fleshy masses and pierced them right through, leaving behind two swarming halves of the animal. It didn’t feel the tremendous blows of its tail that struck its sides. Nor did it feel the shocks it produced. One sperm whale exterminated, it ran to another, veering on the spot so as not to miss its prey, going forward, behind, docile to its rudder, diving when the cetacean sank into the deep layers, rising with it when it returned to the surface, striking it head-on or sideways, cutting it or tearing it, and in all directions and at all speeds, piercing it with its terrible spur. What carnage! What a noise on the surface of the waves! What high-pitched whistles and what snores peculiar to these terrified animals! In the middle of these usually peaceful layers, their tails created veritable swells. For an hour this Homeric massacre continued, from which the macrocephali could not escape. Several times, ten or twelve together tried to crush the Nautilus under their mass. Through the window, we could see their enormous mouths paved with teeth, their formidable eyes. Ned Land, who could no longer control himself, threatened and insulted them. We felt that they were clinging to our craft, like dogs a rag under the thickets. But the Nautilus, forcing its propeller, carried them away, dragged them along, or brought them back to the upper level of the water, without worrying about their enormous weight or their powerful grip. Finally the mass of sperm whales thinned out. The waves became calm again. I felt that we were rising to the surface of the ocean. The hatch was opened, and we rushed onto the platform. The sea was covered with mutilated corpses. A tremendous explosion could not have divided, torn, shredded these fleshy masses with more violence . We were floating in the midst of gigantic bodies, bluish on the back, whitish under the belly, and all humped with enormous protuberances. A few terrified sperm whales were fleeing on the horizon. The waves were dyed red over a space of several miles; and the Nautilus was floating in the middle of a sea of ​​blood. Captain Nemo joined us. “Well, Master Land?” he said. “Well, sir,” replied the Canadian, whose enthusiasm had subsided, “it is a terrible sight, indeed. But I am not a butcher, I am a hunter, and this is only a butchery. ” “It is a massacre of harmful animals,” replied the captain, “and the Nautilus is not a butcher’s knife. ” “I prefer my harpoon,” replied the Canadian. “Everyone has his own weapon,” replied the captain, staring fixedly at Ned Land. I feared that the latter might allow himself to be carried away by some violence which would have had deplorable consequences. But his anger was diverted by the sight of a whale which the Nautilus was accosting at that moment. The animal had not been able to escape the teeth of the sperm whales. I recognized the southern right whale, with its depressed head, which is entirely black. Anatomically, it is distinguished from the white whale and the North Cape whale by the fusion of the seven cervical vertebrae, and it has two more ribs than its congeners. The unfortunate cetacean, lying on its side, its belly riddled with bites, was dead. At the end of its mutilated fin still hung a small calf that it had not been able to save from the massacre. Its open mouth let water flow, murmuring like an undertow through its baleen. Captain Nemo steered the Nautilus close to the animal’s corpse. Two of his men climbed onto the whale’s side, and I saw, not without astonishment, that they were removing from its breasts all the milk they contained, that is to say, the value of two to three barrels. The captain offered me a cup of this still-warm milk. I could not help but express my dislike for this beverage. He assured me that this milk was excellent, and that it was in no way different from cow’s milk. I tasted it and agreed with him. It was therefore a useful reserve for us, because this milk, in the form of salted butter or cheese, should bring a pleasant variety to our daily diet. From that day on, I noticed with concern that Ned Land’s attitude toward Captain Nemo was becoming increasingly worse, and I resolved to keep a close eye on the Canadian’s actions. Chapter 13. THE ICE FLAKE The Nautilus had resumed its imperturbable direction toward the south. It was following the fiftieth meridian with considerable speed. Did it want to reach the pole? I did not think so, for until now all attempts to reach that point on the globe had failed. The season, moreover, was already well advanced, since March 13 in the Antarctic lands corresponds to September 13 in the boreal regions, which begins the equinoctial period. On March 14, I saw floating ice at 55° latitude, simple pale debris of twenty to twenty-five feet, forming reefs on which the sea broke. The Nautilus remained on the surface of the Ocean. Ned Land, having already fished in the Arctic seas, was familiar with this spectacle of icebergs. Conseil and I were admiring it for the first time. In the atmosphere, towards the southern horizon, stretched a dazzling white band. The English whalers gave it the name “ice-blinck.” However thick the clouds, they cannot obscure it. It announces the presence of a pack or bank of ice. Indeed, soon larger blocks appeared whose brightness changed according to the whims of the mist. Some of these masses showed green veins, as if copper sulfate had traced their wavy lines. Others, similar to enormous amethysts, let the light penetrate. These reverberated the rays of day on the thousand facets of their crystals. Those, nuanced with the vivid reflections of limestone, would have been enough to build an entire city of marble. The further south we went, the more these floating islands grew in number and importance. Polar birds nested there by the thousands. They were petrels, petrels, shearwaters, deafening us with their cries. Some, mistaking the Nautilus for the corpse of a whale, came to rest there and pecked at its resonant sheet metal. During this voyage amidst the ice, Captain Nemo often stood on the platform. He carefully observed these abandoned waters. I saw his calm gaze sometimes brighten. Did he tell himself that in these polar seas forbidden to man, he was at home there, master of these impassable spaces? Perhaps. But he didn’t speak. He remained motionless, only coming to when his maneuvering instincts took over. Then steering his Nautilus with consummate skill, he skillfully avoided the collision of these masses, some of which measured a length of several miles and a height that varied from seventy to eighty meters. Often the horizon appeared entirely closed. At the height of the sixtieth degree of latitude, all passage had disappeared. But Captain Nemo, searching carefully, soon found some narrow opening through which he slipped boldly, knowing full well, however, that it would close behind him. Thus it was that the Nautilus, guided by this skillful hand, passed all these ice floes, classified, according to their shape or size, with a precision that enchanted Conseil: icebergs or mountains, ice fields or smooth and limitless fields, drift ice or floating ice, pack ice or broken fields, called palchs when they are circular, and streams when they are made of elongated pieces. The temperature was quite low. The thermometer, exposed to the outside air , showed two to three degrees below zero. But we were warmly dressed in furs, which the seals or sea bears had borne the brunt of. The interior of the Nautilus, regularly heated by its electrical appliances, defied the most intense cold. Moreover, it would have been enough for it to sink a few meters below the waves to find a bearable temperature. Two months earlier, we would have enjoyed perpetual daylight in this latitude ; but already night fell for three or four hours, and later, it was to cast six months of shadow over these circumpolar regions. On March 15, the latitude of the New Shetland Islands and the South Orkney Islands was passed. The captain informed me that many tribes of seals formerly inhabited these lands; But the English and American whalers, in their rage for destruction, massacring the adults and pregnant females, where the animation of life existed, had left behind them the silence of death. On March 16, around eight o’clock in the morning, the Nautilus, following the fifty-fifth meridian, crossed the Antarctic Circle. The ice surrounded us on all sides and closed the horizon. Meanwhile, Captain Nemo walked from pass to pass, always rising.
“But where is he going?” I asked. “In front of him,” Conseil replied. “After all, when he can go no further, he’ll stop. ” “I wouldn’t swear to it!” I replied. And, to be frank, I will admit that this adventurous excursion did not displease me. To what degree the beauties of these new regions amazed me, I cannot express. The ice took on superb attitudes. Here, their ensemble formed an oriental city, with its innumerable minarets and mosques. There, a collapsed city , as if thrown to the ground by a convulsion of the earth. Aspects incessantly varied by the oblique rays of the sun, or lost in the gray mists amidst hurricanes of snow. Then, from all sides, detonations, landslides, great somersaults of icebergs, which changed the scenery like the landscape of a diorama. When the Nautilus was submerged at the moment when these balances were broken, the noise propagated under the waters with a frightening intensity, and the fall of these masses created formidable eddies even in the deep layers of the Ocean. The Nautilus rolled and pitched like a ship abandoned to the fury of the elements. Often, seeing no way out, I thought that we were definitively prisoners; but, instinct guiding him, on the slightest clue Captain Nemo discovered new passes. He was never wrong in observing the thin streams of bluish water which furrowed the ice-fields. So I did not doubt that he had already ventured the Nautilus into the middle of the Antarctic seas. However, on the day of March 16, the ice fields completely blocked our route. It was not yet pack ice, but vast ice fields cemented by the cold. This obstacle could not stop Captain Nemo, and he launched himself against the ice field with frightful violence. The Nautilus entered like a wedge into this crumbly mass, and divided it with terrible cracks. It was the ancient battering ram driven by infinite power. The ice debris, thrown high, fell back in hail around us. By its sheer force of impulse, our craft dug a channel. Sometimes, carried by its momentum, it climbed onto the ice field and crushed it with its weight, or at times, buried under the ice field, it divided it by a simple pitching movement that produced large rents. During these days, violent squalls assailed us. In certain thick fogs, one could not have seen one another from one end of the platform to the other. The wind shifted suddenly at all points of the compass. The snow accumulated in layers so hard that it had to be broken with picks. At a temperature of five degrees below zero alone, all the exterior parts of the Nautilus were covered with ice. A rigging could not have been maneuvered, because all the falls would have been engaged in the grooves of the pulleys. A vessel without sails and powered by an electric motor that did not require coal could alone face such high latitudes. In these conditions, the barometer generally remained very low. It even fell to 73°5′. The compass readings no longer offered any guarantees. Its frantic needles marked contradictory directions , as it approached the southern magnetic pole, which is not to be confused with the south of the world. Indeed, according to Hansten, this pole is located approximately at 70° latitude and 130° longitude, and according to Duperrey’s observations, at 135° longitude and 70°30′ latitude. It was then necessary to make numerous observations on the compasses carried in different parts of the ship and take an average. But often, one relied on dead reckoning to determine the route traveled, an unsatisfactory method in the midst of these winding passes whose reference points constantly change. Finally, on March 18, after twenty useless assaults, the Nautilus found itself definitively stuck. It was no longer the streams, nor the pikes, nor the ice fields, but an interminable and motionless barrier formed of mountains welded together. “The ice floe!” the Canadian told me. I understood that for Ned Land, as for all the navigators who had preceded us, it was the insurmountable obstacle. The sun having appeared for a moment around noon, Captain Nemo obtained a fairly accurate observation which gave our situation as 51°30′ longitude and 67°39′ south latitude. It was already an advanced point of the Antarctic regions. There was no longer any appearance of sea, of liquid surface, before our eyes.
Beneath the spur of the Nautilus stretched a vast, tormented plain, tangled with confused blocks, with all that capricious jumble that characterizes the surface of a river some time before the ice breaks up, but on gigantic proportions. Here and there, sharp peaks, slender needles rising to a height of two hundred feet; further away, a series of sheer cliffs clad in grayish hues, vast mirrors that reflected a few rays of sunlight half-drowned in the mists. Then, over this desolate nature, a fierce silence, barely broken by the beating of petrels’ or shearwaters’ wings. Everything was frozen then, even the noise. The Nautilus had to stop in its adventurous course in the middle of the ice fields. “Sir,” Ned Land said to me that day, “if your captain goes any further ! ” “Well?” “He will be a master man. ” “Why, Ned? ” “Because no one can cross the ice floe. He is powerful, your captain; but, damn it! He is no more powerful than nature, and where she has set limits, one must stop willingly or unwillingly. ” “Indeed, Ned Land, and yet I would have liked to know what is behind this ice floe! A wall, that is what irritates me most! ” “The gentleman is right,” said Conseil. “Walls were only invented to annoy scientists. There should be no walls anywhere. ” “Good!” said the Canadian. “Behind this ice floe, we know very well what is.
” “What then?” I asked. “Ice, and always ice! ” “You are certain of that fact, Ned,” I replied, “but I am not . That is why I would like to go and see.” “Well, Professor,” replied the Canadian, “give up on that idea. You’ve reached the ice floe, which is already enough, and you won’t go any further, neither your Captain Nemo, nor his Nautilus. And whether he likes it or not, we’ll return north, that is to say, to the land of honest people.” I must agree that Ned Land was right, and as long as ships are not made to navigate on ice fields, they will have to stop in front of the ice floe. Indeed, despite his efforts, despite the powerful means employed to separate the ice, the Nautilus was reduced to immobility. Ordinarily, those who can go no further have to retrace their steps. But here, returning was as impossible as moving forward, because the passes had closed behind us, and if our craft remained stationary, it would soon be blocked. This was what happened around two o’clock in the evening, and the young ice formed on its sides with astonishing rapidity. I had to admit that Captain Nemo’s conduct was more than imprudent. I was on the platform at that moment. The captain, who had been observing the situation for a few moments, said to me: “Well, Professor, what do you think?” “I think we’re caught, Captain. ” “Caught! And how do you mean that? ” “I mean that we can’t go forward or backward, or in any direction.” That, I believe, is what is called “caught,” at least on the inhabited continents. — So, Mr. Aronnax, you think that the Nautilus will not be able to free itself? — Hardly, Captain, because the season is already too advanced for you to count on the ice breaking up. — Ah! Professor, replied Captain Nemo ironically , you will always be the same! You see nothing but hindrances and obstacles! I assure you that not only will the Nautilus free itself, but it will go even further! — Farther south? I asked, looking at the captain. — Yes, sir, it will go to the pole. — To the pole! I cried, unable to restrain a movement of incredulity. — Yes, replied the captain coldly, to the Antarctic pole, to that unknown point where all the meridians of the globe intersect. You know if I can do with the Nautilus what I want. Yes! I knew it. I knew this man was audacious to the point of recklessness! But to overcome these obstacles that bristle at the South Pole, more inaccessible than this North Pole not yet reached by the boldest navigators, was it not an absolutely insane undertaking, and one that only the mind of a madman could conceive! It then occurred to me to ask Captain Nemo if he had already discovered this pole that had never been set foot on by a human being. “No, sir,” he replied, “and we will discover it together. Where others have failed, I will not fail. I have never taken my Nautilus so far across the southern seas; but, I repeat, it will go even further. ” “I want to believe you, Captain,” I continued in a somewhat ironic tone. ” I believe you! Let’s go ahead! There are no obstacles for us! Let’s break through this ice floe!” Let’s blow it up, and if it resists, let’s give the Nautilus wings so it can go over it! “Over it?” Professor, Captain Nemo replied calmly. “Not over it, but under it. ” “Under it!” I cried. A sudden revelation of the captain’s plans had just illuminated my mind. I had understood. The marvelous qualities of the Nautilus would serve him well again in this superhuman enterprise! “I see that we are beginning to understand each other, Professor,” the captain told me, half-smiling. “You already glimpse the possibility—I would say the success—of this attempt. What is impracticable with an ordinary ship becomes easy for the Nautilus. If a continent emerges at the pole, it will stop in front of that continent. But if, on the contrary, it is bathed by the open sea, it will go to the pole itself!” “Indeed,” I said, carried away by the captain’s reasoning, “if the surface of the sea is solidified by ice, its lower layers are free, by that providential reason which has placed the maximum density of sea water at a degree higher than that of freezing. And, if I am not mistaken, the submerged part of this ice floe is to the emerging part as four is to one? ” “Approximately, Professor. For every foot that icebergs have above the sea, they have three below. Now, since these mountains of ice do not exceed a height of one hundred meters, they only sink three hundred. Now, what is three hundred meters for the Nautilus? ” “Nothing, sir. ” “It will even be able to seek out at a greater depth this uniform temperature of marine waters, and there we will brave with impunity the thirty or forty degrees of cold of the surface. ” “True, sir, very true,” I replied, growing animated. “The only difficulty,” Captain Nemo continued, “will be to remain submerged for several days without renewing our air supply. ” “Is that all?” I replied. “The Nautilus has vast tanks; we will fill them, and they will provide us with all the oxygen we need. ” “Well imagined, Mr. Aronnax,” the captain replied, smiling. But not wanting you to accuse me of temerity, I submit all my objections to you in advance. — Do you have any more to make? — Just one. It is possible, if the sea exists at the South Pole, that this sea is entirely blocked, and, consequently, that we cannot return to its surface! — Well, sir, are you forgetting that the Nautilus is armed with a formidable ram, and could we not launch it diagonally against these fields of ice which will open up on impact? — Hey! Professor, you have ideas today! — Besides, Captain, I added, becoming even more enthusiastic, why should we not encounter open sea at the South Pole as at the North Pole? The poles of cold and the poles of the Earth do not coincide in either the southern or northern hemispheres, and until proven otherwise, we must assume either a continent or an ocean free of ice at these two points of the globe. “I believe it too, Mr. Aronnax,” replied Captain Nemo. “I will only point out to you that after having raised so many objections to my project, you are now overwhelming me with arguments in its favor.” Captain Nemo spoke the truth. I had even managed to outdo him in audacity ! It was I who was dragging him to the pole! I was ahead of him, I was outdistanced… But no! poor fool. Captain Nemo knew the pros and cons of the question better than you, and he was amused to see you carried away in the reveries of the impossible! However, he had not lost a moment. At a signal the first mate appeared. These two men conversed quickly in their incomprehensible language, and whether the second had been previously warned, or whether he found the project practicable, he showed no surprise. But impassive as he was, he did not show a more complete impassivity than Conseil, when I announced to this worthy fellow our intention of pushing on to the South Pole. A “as it pleases sir ” greeted my communication, and I had to be content with it. As for Ned Land, if ever shoulders were raised high, it was those of the Canadian. “You see, sir,” he said to me, “you and your Captain Nemo, you make me feel sorry for you! ” “But we will go to the Pole, Master Ned. ” “Possible, but you won’t believe it!” And Ned Land returned to his cabin, “so as not to cause a disaster,” he said as he left me. Meanwhile, the preparations for this audacious attempt had just begun. The Nautilus’s powerful pumps forced air into the tanks and stored it at high pressure. Around four o’clock, Captain Nemo told me that the platform hatches were going to be closed. I took a last look at the thick ice floe we were about to cross. The weather was clear, the atmosphere quite pure, the cold very bitter, twelve degrees below zero; but the wind having calmed down, this temperature did not seem too unbearable. About ten men climbed onto the sides of the Nautilus and, armed with picks, they broke the ice around the hull , which was soon cleared. This operation was carried out quickly, because the young ice was still thin. We all went back inside. The usual tanks filled with this water kept free at the waterline. The Nautilus was soon descending. I had taken a seat in the lounge with Conseil. Through the open window, we looked down at the lower layers of the Southern Ocean. The thermometer was rising. The pressure gauge needle was drifting on the dial. At about three hundred meters, as Captain Nemo had predicted, we were floating beneath the undulating surface of the ice floe. But the Nautilus sank even deeper. It reached a depth of eight hundred meters. The water temperature, which had been twelve degrees at the surface, was now only eleven. Two degrees had already been gained. It goes without saying that the temperature of the Nautilus, raised by its heating devices, was maintained at a much higher level. All the maneuvers were carried out with extraordinary precision. “We’ll get through, with all due respect to the gentleman,” Conseil told me. “I’m counting on it!” I replied with a tone of profound conviction. Under this open sea, the Nautilus had taken the direct route to the pole, without deviating from the fifty-second meridian. From 67°30′ to 90°, twenty-two and a half degrees in latitude remained to be covered, that is to say, a little more than five hundred leagues. The Nautilus reached an average speed of twenty-six miles per hour, the speed of an express train. If it maintained this speed, forty hours would be enough for it to reach the pole. For part of the night, the novelty of the situation kept Conseil and me at the saloon window. The sea lit up under the electric irradiation of the lantern. But it was deserted. Fish did not stay in these imprisoned waters. They only found there a passage to go from the Antarctic Ocean to the open sea of ​​the pole. Our progress was rapid. It was felt as such by the shuddering of the long steel hull. Around two o’clock in the morning, I went to take a few hours of rest. Conseil followed suit. Crossing the passageways, I did not encounter Captain Nemo. I assumed he was in the helmsman’s cage. The next day, March 19, at five o’clock in the morning, I resumed my post in the lounge. The electric log indicated that the speed of the Nautilus had been moderated. It was then rising towards the surface, but cautiously, slowly emptying its tanks. My heart was pounding. Were we going to emerge and return to the free atmosphere of the pole? No. A shock informed me that the Nautilus had struck the lower surface of the ice floe, which was still very thick, judging by the dullness of the noise. Indeed, we had “touched,” to use the marine expression, but in the opposite direction and at a depth of one thousand feet. This left two thousand feet of ice above us, one thousand of which were emerging. The ice floe was then higher than what we had observed at its edges. A far from reassuring circumstance. During that day, the Nautilus repeated this same experiment several times, and always came up against the wall that crowned above it. At certain moments, it encountered it at a depth of nine hundred meters, which was twelve hundred meters thick , two hundred meters of which rose above the surface of the ocean. This was double its height at the moment when the Nautilus had sunk beneath the waves. I carefully noted these various depths, and thus obtained the underwater profile of this chain which developed beneath the waters. By evening, no change had occurred in our situation. The ice was still between four hundred and five hundred meters deep. An obvious decrease, but what thickness still existed between us and the surface of the ocean! It was then eight o’clock. For four hours already, the air should have been renewed inside the Nautilus, according to the daily routine on board. However, I was not suffering too much, although Captain Nemo had not yet asked his tanks for additional oxygen. My sleep was difficult during that night. Hope and fear besieged me alternately. I got up several times. The fumbling of the Nautilus continued. Around three o’clock in the morning, I observed that the lower surface of the ice floe was only encountered at a depth of fifty meters. One hundred and fifty feet then separated us from the surface of the water. The ice floe was gradually becoming an ice field again. The mountain was becoming a plain again. My eyes never left the pressure gauge. We were still climbing , following diagonally the resplendent surface that sparkled under the electric rays. The ice floe was lowering above and below below by elongated ramps. It thinned out by the thousand. Finally, at six o’clock in the morning, on that memorable day of March 19, the door of the lounge opened. Captain Nemo appeared. “The open sea!” he told me. Chapter 14. THE SOUTH POLE I rushed to the platform. Yes! The open sea. Barely a few scattered ice floes, moving icebergs; in the distance, an extensive sea ; a world of birds in the air, and myriads of fish beneath these waters which, depending on the depths, varied from intense blue to olive green. The thermometer marked three degrees centigrade above zero. It was like a relative spring enclosed behind this ice floe, whose distant masses stood out against the northern horizon. “Are we at the pole?” I asked the captain, my heart pounding. “I don’t know,” he replied. “At noon we’ll take stock.” “But will the sun show itself through these mists?” I said, looking up at the grayish sky. “However little it appears, it will be enough for me, ” replied the captain. Ten miles from the Nautilus, to the south, a solitary islet rose to a height of two hundred meters. We marched toward it, cautiously, for this sea could be strewn with reefs. An hour later, we reached the islet. Two hours later, we completed our circumference. It measured four to five miles in circumference. A narrow channel separated it from a considerable land mass, perhaps a continent, whose limits we could not see. The existence of this land seemed to support Maury’s hypotheses. The American engineer had noticed, in fact, that between the South Pole and the sixtieth parallel, the sea is covered with floating ice, of enormous dimensions, which are never found in the North Atlantic. From this, he drew the conclusion that the Antarctic Circle contains considerable land, since icebergs cannot form in the open sea, but only on coasts. According to his calculations, the mass of ice enveloping the southern pole forms a vast ice cap whose width must reach four thousand kilometers. However, the Nautilus, for fear of running aground, had stopped three cables’ length from a beach dominated by a superb pile of rocks. The boat was launched into the sea. The captain, two of his men carrying the instruments, Conseil, and I embarked. It was ten o’clock in the morning. I had not seen Ned Land. The Canadian, no doubt, did not want to disavow himself in the presence of the South Pole. A few strokes of the oar brought the boat to the sand, where it ran aground. Just as Conseil was about to jump ashore, I held him back. “Sir,” I said to Captain Nemo, “to you the honor of being the first to set foot on this land. ” “Yes, sir,” replied the captain, “and if I do not hesitate to tread this polar soil, it is because, until now, no human being has left the trace of his footsteps there.” Having said this, he jumped lightly onto the sand. A strong emotion made his heart beat. He climbed a rock that ended in an overhanging small promontory, and there, arms crossed, his gaze ardent, motionless, silent, he seemed to take possession of these southern regions. After five minutes spent in this ecstasy, he turned towards us. “Whenever you wish, sir,” he called to me. I disembarked, followed by Conseil, leaving the two men in the boat. The ground for a long stretch presented a reddish-colored tuff, as if it had been crushed brick. Scoria, lava flows, pumice stones covered it. Its volcanic origin could not be ignored . In certain places, a few light fumaroles, giving off a sulphurous odour, attested that the internal fires still retained their expansive power. However, having climbed a high escarpment, I saw no volcano within a radius of several miles. It is known that in these Antarctic regions, James Ross found the craters of Erebus and Terror in full activity on the one hundred and sixty-seventh meridian and at 77°32′ latitude. The vegetation of this desolate continent seemed to me extremely limited. A few lichens of the species _Unsnea melanoxantha_ spread over the black rocks. Certain microscopic plantlets, rudimentary diatoms , a sort of cell arranged between two quartz shells, long purple and crimson fucus, supported on small swim bladders and which the surf threw ashore, composed all the meager flora of this region. The shore was dotted with mollusks, small mussels, limpets, smooth, heart-shaped buccardas, and particularly clios with an oblong and membranous body, whose head is formed of two rounded lobes. I also saw myriads of these three-centimeter-long Clios borealis, which the whale swallows a world of with each mouthful. These charming pteropods, true butterflies of the sea, enlivened the open waters on the edge of the shore. Among other zoophytes appeared in the shallows some coralligenous arborescences, of those which, according to James Ross, live in the Antarctic seas up to a thousand meters deep; then, small halcyons belonging to the species _procellaria pelagica_, as well as a large number of starfish peculiar to these climates, and starfish which studded the ground. But where life abounded was in the air. There flew and fluttered by the thousands birds of varied species, deafening us with their cries. Others crowded the rocks, watching us pass without fear and crowding familiarly under our feet. They were penguins as agile and supple in the water, where they have sometimes been mistaken for swift bonitos, as they are awkward and heavy on land. They uttered bizarre cries and formed numerous assemblies, restrained in gestures, but prodigal in clamour. Among the birds, I noticed sheathbills, from the wading family, as big as pigeons, white in color, with short, conical beaks , and an eye framed by a red circle. Conseil stocked up on them, for these birds, properly prepared, make a pleasant dish. In the air flew sooty albatrosses with a wingspan of four meters, rightly called the vultures of the Ocean, gigantic petrels , among others the _quebrante-huesos_, with arched wings, which are great seal eaters, checkerspots, a kind of small duck whose upper part of the body is black and white, finally a whole series of petrels, some whitish, with wings edged with brown, others blue and special to the Antarctic seas, these ones “so oily,” I said to Conseil, “that the inhabitants of the Faroe Islands are content to adapt a wick to them before lighting them. ” “A little more,” replied Conseil, and they would be perfect lamps! After that, one cannot demand that nature should have previously provided them with a wick! » After half a mile, the ground appeared riddled with penguin nests, a sort of burrow set up for laying eggs, from which many birds escaped. Captain Nemo later had several hundred of them hunted, because their black flesh is very edible. They brayed like donkeys. These animals, the size of goose, slate-colored on the body, white underneath, and with a lemon-colored border, let themselves be killed with stones without trying to escape. However, the mist did not lift, and at eleven o’clock, the sun had not yet appeared. Its absence did not fail to worry me. Without it, no observations were possible. How then could we determine if we had reached the pole? When I joined Captain Nemo, I found him silently leaning on a piece of rock and looking at the sky. He seemed impatient, upset. But what could be done? This bold and powerful man did not command the sun as he did the sea. Noon arrived without the day star having shown itself for a single instant. We
couldn’t even tell where he was behind the curtain of mist. Soon this mist dissolved into snow. “See you tomorrow,” the captain said simply, and we returned to the Nautilus amidst the swirling atmosphere. During our absence, the nets had been set, and I watched with interest the fish that had just been hauled aboard. The Antarctic seas serve as a refuge for a very large number of migratory fish, who flee the storms of lower areas, only to fall prey, it is true, to porpoises and seals. I noted some southern cottes, a decimeter long, a kind of whitish cartilaginous fish crossed with livid bands and armed with stings, then Antarctic chimaeras, three feet long, with a very elongated body, white, silvery, and smooth skin, a rounded head, a back with three fins, and a snout ending in a proboscis that curves towards the mouth. I tasted their flesh, but I found it tasteless, despite Conseil’s opinion, who was quite happy with it. The snowstorm lasted until the next day. It was impossible to stand on the platform. From the lounge where I noted the incidents of this excursion to the polar continent, I heard the cries of petrels and albatrosses playing in the midst of the storm. The Nautilus did not remain motionless, and, continuing along the coast, it advanced another ten miles to the south, in the midst of the half-light left by the sun as it skimmed the edges of the horizon. The next day, March 20, the snow had stopped. The cold was a little sharper . The thermometer showed two degrees below zero. The fogs lifted, and I hoped that, that day, our observation could be made. Captain Nemo not having yet appeared, the boat picked up Conseil and me and put us ashore. The nature of the soil was the same, volcanic. Everywhere there were traces of lava, scoria, basalt, without my seeing the crater that had vomited them out. Here as there, myriads of birds enlivened this part of the polar continent. But this empire, they shared it then with vast herds of marine mammals who looked at us with their gentle eyes. They were seals of various species, some lying on the ground, others lying on drifting ice floes, many coming out of the sea or returning to it. They did not run away at our approach, having never had any dealings with man, and I reckoned there was enough to supply a few hundred ships. “Well,” said Conseil, “it’s lucky that Ned Land didn’t come with us! ” “Why not, Conseil? ” “Because the rabid hunter would have killed everything. ” “Everything is saying a lot, but I believe, in fact, that we could not have prevented our friend the Canadian from harpooning some of these magnificent cetaceans. Which would have disgraced Captain Nemo, for he does not shed the blood of harmless creatures unnecessarily. ” “He’s right. ” “Certainly, Conseil. But tell me, haven’t you already classified these superb specimens of marine fauna?” “Sir knows very well,” Conseil replied, “that I am not very knowledgeable about the practice. When sir teaches me the names of these animals… ” “They are seals and walruses. ” “Two genera, which belong to the family of pinnipeds,” my learned Conseil hastened to say, “order of carnivores, group of unguiculata, subclass of monodelphians, class of mammals, branch of vertebrates. ” “Good, Conseil,” I replied, “but these two genera, seals and walruses, are divided into species, and if I am not mistaken, we will have the opportunity to observe them here. Let us walk.” It was eight o’clock in the morning. Four hours remained for us to use until the sun could be usefully observed. I directed our steps towards a vast bay which cut into the granite cliff of the shore. There, I can say that as far as the eye could see around us, the land and ice floes were crowded with marine mammals, and I involuntarily looked for old Proteus, the mythological shepherd who guarded these immense herds of Neptune. These were particularly seals. They formed distinct groups, males and females, the father watching over his family, the mother nursing her young, some young, already strong, breaking free a few steps away. When these mammals wanted to move, they went by small jumps due to the contraction of their body, and they helped themselves rather clumsily with their imperfect flipper, which, in the manatee, their congener, forms a real forearm. I must say that, in the water, their element par excellence, these animals with their mobile backbone, narrow pelvis, short and tight fur, and webbed feet, swim admirably. At rest and on land, they assumed extremely graceful attitudes. Also, the ancients, observing their gentle physiognomy, their expressive gaze that could not be surpassed by the most beautiful woman’s gaze, their velvety and limpid eyes, their charming poses, and poeticizing them in their own way, they transformed the males into tritons, and the females into sirens.
I pointed out to Conseil the considerable development of the cerebral lobes in these intelligent cetaceans. No mammal, except man, has richer cerebral matter. Also, seals are susceptible to receiving a certain education; they are easily domesticated, and I think, with certain naturalists, that, properly trained, they could be of great service as fishing dogs. Most of these seals slept on the rocks or on the sand. Among these seals, strictly speaking, which have no external ears —differing in this from the sea lions, whose ear protrudes— I observed several varieties of stenorhynchus, three meters long, white with hair, with bulldog heads, armed with ten teeth in each jaw , four incisors on the top and bottom, and two large canines cut in the shape of fleur-de-lis. Among them slipped marine elephants, a kind of seal with a short, mobile trunk, the giants of the species, which, with a circumference of twenty feet, measured a length of ten meters. They made no movement as we approached. “Aren’t they dangerous animals?” Conseil asked me. “No,” I replied, “unless they are attacked. When a seal defends its young, its fury is terrible, and it is not rare for it to tear the fishermen’s boat to pieces. ” “It is within its rights,” Conseil replied. “I don’t say no.” Two miles further on, we were stopped by the promontory that protected the bay from the southerly winds. It fell straight down to the sea and foamed under the surf. Beyond it burst forth formidable roars, such as a herd of ruminants might have produced. “Well,” Conseil said, “a concert of bulls? ” “No,” I said, “a concert of walruses. Are they fighting? ” “Are they fighting or playing. ” “With all due respect to the gentleman, you must see this. ” “You must see it, Conseil. ” And there we were, crossing the blackish rocks, in the midst of unexpected landslides, and on stones that the ice made very slippery. More than once, I rolled to the detriment of my back. Conseil, more prudent or more solid, hardly flinched, and raised me up, saying: “If monsieur would be so kind as to spread his legs, monsieur would keep his balance better.” Arriving at the upper ridge of the promontory, I saw a vast white plain, covered with walruses. These animals were playing among themselves. They were howls of joy, not of anger. Walruses resemble seals in the shape of their bodies and the arrangement of their limbs. But the canines and incisors are missing from their lower jaw, and as for the upper canines, These are two tusks, eighty centimeters long, which measure thirty-three centimeters at the circumference of their socket. These teeth, made of a compact and unstriated ivory, harder than that of elephants, and less prone to yellowing, are highly sought after. Walruses are also the target of indiscriminate hunting which will soon destroy them to the last one, since hunters, indiscriminately massacring pregnant females and young ones, destroy more than four thousand of them each year. Passing by these curious animals, I was able to examine them at leisure, for they did not disturb themselves. Their skin was thick and rough, of a tawny tone tending towards red, their fur short and sparse. Some were four meters long. More tranquil and less fearful than their northern counterparts, they did not entrust to chosen sentinels the task of monitoring the approaches to their camp. After examining this walrus city, I thought of retracing my steps.
It was eleven o’clock, and if Captain Nemo was in favorable conditions for observation, I wanted to be present at his operation. However, I did not expect the sun to show itself that day. Clouds crushed on the horizon hid it from our view. It seemed that this jealous star did not want to reveal to human beings this inaccessible point of the globe. However, I thought of returning to the Nautilus. We followed a narrow steep path that ran along the top of the cliff. At eleven thirty , we had arrived at the landing point. The grounded lifeboat had put the captain ashore. I saw him standing on a block of basalt. His instruments were near him. His gaze was fixed on the northern horizon, near which the sun was then describing its elongated curve. I took a seat beside him and waited without speaking. Noon arrived, and, as on the previous day, the sun did not appear. It was a foregone conclusion. The observation was still missing. If it did not take place tomorrow, we would have to abandon our situation altogether. Indeed, it was precisely March 20th. Tomorrow, the 21st, the day of the equinox, refraction not taken into account, the sun would disappear below the horizon for six months, and with its disappearance would begin the long polar night. Since the September equinox, it had emerged from the northern horizon, rising in elongated spirals until December 21st. At that time, the summer solstice of these boreal regions, it had begun to descend again, and the next day, it would cast its last rays upon them. I communicated my observations and my fears to Captain Nemo. “You were right, Mr. Aronnax,” he said to me, “if tomorrow I do not obtain the altitude of the sun, I will not be able to resume this operation for six months. But also, precisely because the hazards of my navigation brought me, on March 21, to these seas, my point will be easy to take, if, at noon, the sun shows itself to our eyes. ” “Why, Captain? ” “Because, when the star of the day describes such elongated spirals, it is difficult to measure exactly its height above the horizon, and the instruments are liable to make serious errors. ” “How will you proceed then? ” “I will only use my chronometer,” Captain Nemo replied. ” If tomorrow, March 21, at noon, the disk of the sun, taking into account refraction , is exactly cut by the northern horizon, it is because I am at the South Pole. ” “Indeed,” I said. However, this statement is not mathematically rigorous, because the equinox does not necessarily fall at noon. “No doubt, sir, but the error will not be a hundred meters, and we do not need more. See you tomorrow then.” Captain Nemo returned on board. Conseil and I stayed until five o’clock pacing the beach, observing and studying. I do not I collected no curious object, except for a penguin egg, remarkable for its size, and for which an amateur would have paid more than a thousand francs. Its isabella color, the stripes and the characters that adorned it like so many hieroglyphs, made it a rare trinket. I placed it in Conseil’s hands, and the prudent, sure-footed boy, holding it like a precious piece of Chinese porcelain, brought it back intact to the Nautilus. There I placed this rare egg under one of the museum’s display cases. I ate with appetite an excellent piece of seal liver whose taste recalled that of pork. Then I went to bed, not without having invoked, like an Indian, the favors of the radiant star. The next day, March 21, at five o’clock in the morning, I went up to the platform. I found Captain Nemo there. “The weather is clearing a little,” he told me. “I have good hope.” After lunch, we will go ashore to choose an observation post.” This point agreed upon, I went to find Ned Land. I would have liked to take him with me. The obstinate Canadian refused, and I saw clearly that his taciturnity and his bad temper were increasing day by day. After all, I did not regret his stubbornness in this circumstance. Truly, there were too many seals ashore, and it was not right to subject this thoughtless fisherman to this temptation. Lunch over, I went ashore. The Nautilus had risen a few more miles during the night. It was offshore, a good league from a coast dominated by a sharp peak four to five hundred meters high. The boat carried with me Captain Nemo, two men of the crew, and the instruments, that is to say, a chronometer, a telescope and a barometer. During our crossing, I saw numerous whales belonging to the three species peculiar to the southern seas: the right whale, which has no dorsal fin; the humpback, a whale with a pleated belly and vast whitish fins, which, despite its name, do not form wings; and the finback, yellowish-brown, the most lively of the cetaceans. This powerful animal can be heard from afar when it projects its columns of air and vapor, which resemble swirls of smoke, to a great height. These different mammals frolicked in troops in the calm waters, and I saw clearly that this basin of the Antarctic pole now served as a refuge for cetaceans too eagerly hunted by hunters. I also noticed long whitish cords of salps, a kind of aggregated mollusk, and large jellyfish swaying in the swirling waves. At nine o’clock, we reached land. The sky was clearing. The clouds were receding to the south. The mists were leaving the cold surface of the water. Captain Nemo headed toward the peak he no doubt wanted to make his observatory. It was a difficult climb over sharp lava and pumice stones, in an atmosphere often saturated with sulfurous fumes from the fumaroles. The captain, for a man unaccustomed to walking on land, climbed the steepest slopes with a suppleness, an agility that I could not equal, and that an ibex hunter would have envied. It took us two hours to reach the summit of this peak, half porphyry, half basalt. From there, our gaze embraced a vast sea which, towards the north, clearly traced its terminal line against the background of the sky . At our feet, dazzling white fields. Above our heads , a pale azure, free of mist. To the north, the disk of the sun like a ball of fire already chipped by the sharp edge of the horizon. From the bosom of the waters rose in magnificent sheaves hundreds of liquid jets . In the distance, the Nautilus, like a sleeping cetacean. Behind us, towards the south and east, an immense land, a chaotic heap of rocks and ice whose limit could not be seen. Captain Nemo, upon reaching the summit of the peak, carefully noted its height by means of the barometer, because he had to take it into account in his observation. At a quarter to twelve, the sun, then seen only by refraction, appeared as a golden disc and scattered its last rays over this abandoned continent, over these seas that man has never yet furrowed. Captain Nemo, equipped with a reticle telescope, which, by means of a mirror, corrected the refraction, observed the star sinking little by little below the horizon following a very elongated diagonal. I held the chronometer. My heart was beating fast. If the disappearance of the half-disc of the sun coincided with the noon of the chronometer, we were at the pole itself. “Noon!” I cried. “The South Pole!” replied Captain Nemo in a grave voice, giving me the telescope which showed the star of the day precisely cut into two equal portions by the horizon. I watched the last rays crown the peak and the shadows gradually rise on its ramps. At that moment, Captain Nemo, resting his hand on my shoulder, said to me:
“Sir, in 1600, the Dutchman Gheritk, carried by the currents and storms, reached 64° south latitude and discovered New Shetland. In 1773, on January 17, the illustrious Cook, following the thirty-eighth meridian, arrived at 67°30′ latitude, and in 1774, on January 30, on the one hundred and ninth meridian, he reached 71°15′ latitude. In 1819, the Russian Bellinghausen found himself on the sixty-ninth parallel, and in 1821, on the sixty-sixth at 111° west longitude. In 1820, the Englishman Brunsfield was stopped on the sixty-fifth degree. In the same year, the American Morrel, whose accounts are doubtful, ascending the forty-second meridian, discovered the open sea at 70°14′ latitude. In 1825, the Englishman Powell could not go beyond the sixty-second degree. In the same year, a simple seal fisherman, the Englishman Weddel, climbed as far as 72°14′ latitude on the thirty-fifth meridian, and as far as 74°15′ on the thirty-sixth. In 1829, the Englishman Forster, commanding the Chanticleer, took possession of the Antarctic continent at 63°26′ latitude and 66°26′ longitude. In 1831, the Englishman Biscoë, on February 1, discovered Enderby Land at 68°50′ latitude, in 1832, on February 5, Adelaide Land at 67° latitude, and on February 21, Graham Land at 64°45′ latitude. In 1838, the Frenchman Dumont d’Urville, stopped in front of the ice floe at 62°57′ latitude, surveyed Louis-Philippe Land; two years later, in a new point to the south, he named Adélie Land at 66°30′, on January 21, and eight days later, at 64°40′, the Clarie Coast. In 1838, the Englishman Wilkes advanced as far as the sixty-ninth parallel on the hundredth meridian. In 1839, the Englishman Balleny discovered Sabrina Land , on the edge of the polar circle. Finally, in 1842, the Englishman James Ross, ascending the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, on January 12, at 76°56′ latitude and 171°7′ east longitude, found Victoria Land; on the 23rd of the same month, he noted the seventy-fourth parallel, the highest point reached until then; on the 27th, it was at 76°8′, on the 28th, at 77°32′, on February 2, at 78°4′, and in 1842, he returned to the seventy-first degree which he could not exceed. Well, I, Captain Nemo, on this 21st of March 1868, have reached the South Pole at the ninetieth degree, and I take possession of this part of the globe equal to one-sixth of the recognized continents. “In whose name, Captain? ” “In mine, sir!” And so saying, Captain Nemo unfurled a black flag, bearing a quartered gold N on its stamen. Then, turning towards the star of the day whose last rays were licking the horizon of the sea: “Farewell, sun!” he cried. ” Disappear, radiant star! Set yourself beneath this open sea, and let a six-month night spread its shadows on my new domain! » Chapter 15. ACCIDENT OR INCIDENT? The next day, March 22, at six o’clock in the morning, preparations for departure began. The last glimmers of twilight were melting into night. The cold was bitter. The constellations shone with surprising intensity. At the zenith shone that admirable Southern Cross, the pole star of the Antarctic regions. The thermometer marked twelve degrees below zero, and when the wind freshened, it caused stinging bites. Ice floes multiplied on the open water. The sea tended to get stuck everywhere. Numerous blackish patches, spread across its surface, announced the imminent formation of young ice. Obviously, the southern basin, frozen during the six months of winter, was absolutely inaccessible. What became of the whales during this period? No doubt, they went under the ice floe to seek more passable seas. As for the seals and walruses, accustomed to living in the harshest climates, they remained in these icy waters. These animals have the instinct to dig holes in the ice fields and always keep them open. It is in these holes that they come to breathe; when the birds, driven out by the cold, have migrated north, these marine mammals remain the sole masters of the polar continent. However, the water reservoirs had filled, and the Nautilus was slowly descending. At a depth of a thousand feet, it stopped. Its propeller beat the waves, and it advanced due north at a speed of fifteen miles per hour. Toward evening, it was already floating under the immense icy carapace of the ice floe. The saloon hatches had been closed as a precaution, because the hull of the Nautilus could hit some submerged block. So, I spent that day putting my notes in order. My mind was entirely occupied with memories of the pole. We had reached this inaccessible point without fatigue, without danger, as if our floating wagon had glided along the rails of a railway. And now the return journey truly began. Would it still have such surprises in store for me? I thought so, so inexhaustible is the series of underwater wonders! However, in the five and a half months since chance had thrown us to this shore, we had covered fourteen thousand leagues, and on this journey longer than the terrestrial Equator, how many incidents, both curious and terrible, had charmed our voyage: hunting in the forests of Crespo, the grounding of the Torres Strait, the coral cemetery, the fisheries of Ceylon, the Arabian tunnel, the fires of Santorini, the millions of people in Vigo Bay, Atlantis, the South Pole! During the night, all these memories, passing from dream to dream, did not allow my brain to sleep for a moment. At three o’clock in the morning, I was awakened by a violent shock. I had sat up in bed and was listening in the darkness when I was suddenly thrown into the middle of the room. Obviously, the Nautilus was listing considerably after hitting. I leaned against the walls and dragged myself along the passageways to the living room, which was lit by the luminous ceiling. The furniture was overturned. Fortunately, the display cases, firmly grasped by the foot, had held firm. The starboard paintings, under the displacement of the vertical, stuck to the tapestries, while those on the port side moved away by a foot at their lower edge. The Nautilus was therefore lying on its starboard side, and, what’s more, completely motionless. Inside, I heard the sound of footsteps and confused voices. But Captain Nemo did not appear. Just as I was about to leave the living room, Ned Land and Conseil entered. “What’s the matter?” I told them at once. “I came to ask Monsieur,” Conseil replied. “A thousand devils!” cried the Canadian, “I know it well! The Nautilus has touched, and judging by the list it is giving, I don’t think not that he’s getting away with it like the first time in the Torres Strait. “But at least,” I asked, “did he return to the surface of the sea? ” “We don’t know,” Conseil replied. “It’s easy to make sure,” I replied. I consulted the pressure gauge. To my great surprise, it indicated a depth of 360 meters. “What does that mean?” I cried. “We must question Captain Nemo,” Conseil said. “But where can we find him?” Ned Land asked. “Follow me,” I said to my two companions. We left the lounge. In the library, no one. On the central staircase, at the crew’s quarters, no one. I assumed that Captain Nemo must be posted in the helmsman’s cage. The best thing was to wait. The three of us returned to the lounge. I will pass over the Canadian’s complaints in silence. He had every right to lose his temper. I let him vent his bad mood at his leisure, without answering him. We had been like this for twenty minutes, trying to catch the slightest noise that was happening inside the Nautilus, when Captain Nemo entered. He didn’t seem to see us. His face, usually so impassive, revealed a certain anxiety. He silently observed the compass, the pressure gauge, and came to place his finger on a point of the planisphere, in that part that represented the southern seas. I didn’t want to interrupt him. Only, a few moments later, when he turned to me, I said to him, turning against him an expression he had used in the Torres Strait: “An incident, Captain? ” “No, sir,” he replied, “an accident this time. ” “Serious? ” “Perhaps. ” “Is the danger immediate? ” “No. ” “Has the Nautilus run aground? ” “Yes.” “And this grounding came about?” “From a whim of nature, not from human incompetence. Not a single mistake was made in our maneuvers. However, one cannot prevent equilibrium from producing its effects. One can defy human laws, but not resist natural laws.” A singular moment that Captain Nemo chose to indulge in this philosophical reflection. In short, his answer told me nothing. “May I know, sir,” I asked him, “what is the cause of this accident?” “An enormous block of ice, an entire mountain, has turned over, ” he replied. “When icebergs are undermined at their base by warmer waters or by repeated impacts, their center of gravity rises. Then they turn over, they topple. That is what happened. One of these blocks, in overturning, struck the Nautilus, which was floating beneath the waters.” Then, sliding under its hull and lifting it with irresistible force, it brought it back into less dense layers , where it lies on its side. But can’t the Nautilus be freed by emptying its tanks, so as to restore its equilibrium? “That’s what’s being done right now, sir. You can hear the pumps working. Look at the needle on the pressure gauge. It indicates that the Nautilus is rising, but the block of ice is rising with it, and until an obstacle stops its upward movement, our position will not be changed.” Indeed, the Nautilus was still listing to starboard. No doubt it would right itself when the block stopped itself. But at that moment, who knows if we wouldn’t have struck the upper part of the ice floe, if we wouldn’t be terribly squeezed between the two icy surfaces? I was thinking about all the consequences of this situation. Captain Nemo kept watching the pressure gauge. The Nautilus had risen about 150 feet since the iceberg had fallen , but it was still making the same angle with the perpendicular. Suddenly, a slight movement was felt in the hull. Obviously, the Nautilus was straightening up a little. The objects suspended in the saloon were noticeably returning to their normal position. The walls were becoming closer to verticality. None of us spoke. With moved hearts, we watched, we felt the straightening. The floor was becoming horizontal again beneath our feet. Ten minutes passed. “At last, we’re upright!” I cried. “Yes,” said Captain Nemo, heading for the saloon door. “But will we float?” I asked him. “Certainly,” he replied, “since the tanks are not yet emptied , and once emptied, the Nautilus will have to rise to the surface of the sea.” The captain went out, and I soon saw that, by his orders, the Nautilus’s upward movement had been stopped. Indeed, it would soon have struck the lower part of the ice floe, and it would have been better to keep it between two waters. “We had a narrow escape!” Conseil said then. “Yes.
We could have been crushed between these blocks of ice, or at least imprisoned. And then, for lack of being able to renew the air… Yes! We had a narrow escape! ” “If it’s over!” murmured Ned Land. I didn’t want to start a pointless discussion with the Canadian, and I didn’t reply. Besides, the hatches opened at that moment, and the outside light burst through the unobstructed window. We were in open water, as I said; but, at a distance of ten meters, on each side of the Nautilus, rose a dazzling wall of ice. Above and below, the same wall. Above, because the lower surface of the ice floe extended like an immense ceiling. Below, because the overturned block, having slid little by little, had found two points of support on the side walls which held it in this position. The Nautilus was imprisoned in a veritable ice tunnel, about twenty meters wide, filled with calm water. It was therefore easy for it to get out by walking either forward or backward , and then to resume, a few hundred meters lower , a free passage under the ice floe. The luminous ceiling had been extinguished, and yet the lounge shone with an intense light. This was because the powerful reverberation of the ice walls violently reflected the sheets of the lantern there. I cannot paint the effect of the voltaic rays on these large, capriciously cut blocks, each angle, each edge, each facet of which threw a different glow, according to the nature of the veins which ran in the ice. A dazzling mine of gems, and particularly sapphires whose blue jets crossed the green jet of emeralds. Here and there opaline shades of infinite softness ran through the midst of burning points like so many fiery diamonds whose brilliance the eye could not bear. The power of the beacon was a hundredfold, like that of a lamp through the lenticular blades of a first-rate lighthouse. “How beautiful it is! How beautiful it is!” cried Conseil. “Yes!” I said, “it is an admirable spectacle. Isn’t it, Ned? ” “Hey! a thousand devils! Yes,” retorted Ned Land. “It is superb! I am furious to be forced to admit it. We have never seen anything like it. But this spectacle could cost us dearly. And, if I must tell the truth, I think we are seeing things here that God wanted to forbid the gaze of man!” Ned was right. It was too beautiful. Suddenly, a cry from Conseil made me turn around. “What is it?” I asked. “Sir, close your eyes! Sir, don’t look!” Conseil, saying this, quickly pressed his hands to his eyelids. “But what is the matter, my boy? ” “I am dazzled, blinded!” My eyes involuntarily turned towards the window, but I could not to bear the fire that was devouring her. I understood what had happened. The Nautilus had just started moving at high speed. All the tranquil flashes of the ice walls had then changed into dazzling rays. The fires of these myriads of diamonds merged together. The Nautilus, carried by its propeller, was traveling in a sheath of lightning. The panels of the lounge then closed. We held our hands over our eyes, all imbued with those concentric gleams that float before the retina when the sun’s rays have struck it too violently. It took some time to calm the trouble in our eyes. Finally, our hands were lowered. “My word, I would never have believed it,” said Conseil. “And I still don’t believe it!” retorted the Canadian. “When we return to earth,” Conseil added, “weary of so many wonders of nature, what will we think of these miserable continents and the little works created by the hand of men! No! The inhabited world is no longer worthy of us!” Such words from the mouth of an impassive Fleming show how boiling our enthusiasm had reached. But the Canadian did not fail to throw in his cold water. “The inhabited world!” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t worry, my friend Conseil, we won’t return there!” It was then five o’clock in the morning. At that moment, a shock occurred at the front of the Nautilus. I understood that its ram had just struck a block of ice. It must have been a false maneuver, because this underwater tunnel, blocked with blocks, did not offer easy navigation. I therefore thought that Captain Nemo, altering his route, would circumvent these obstacles or follow the twists and turns of the tunnel. In any case, the forward movement could not be absolutely halted. However, contrary to my expectations, the Nautilus took on a very pronounced retrograde movement. “Are we going back?” Conseil said. “Yes,” I replied. “The tunnel must have no exit on this side. ” “And then?” “Then,” I said, “the maneuver is quite simple. We will retrace our steps and exit through the southern opening. That’s all.” In speaking thus, I wanted to appear more reassured than I really was . However, the Nautilus’s retrograde movement was accelerating, and, moving against the propeller, it was carrying us along with great speed. “It will be a delay,” Ned said. “What does it matter, a few hours more or less, as long as we get out. ” “Yes,” Ned Land repeated, “as long as we get out!” » I strolled for a few moments from the living room to the library. My companions were seated and silent. I soon threw myself onto a sofa and picked up a book, which my eyes scanned mechanically. A quarter of an hour later, Conseil, approaching me, said: “Is what the gentleman is reading very interesting? ” “Very interesting,” I replied. “I think so. It is the gentleman’s book that the gentleman is reading! ” “My book?” In fact, I was holding in my hand the work “The Great Seabed.” I had no idea. I closed the book and resumed my walk. Ned and Conseil got up to leave. “Stay, my friends,” I said, holding them back. “Let us stay together until we are out of this impasse. ” “As it pleases the gentleman,” Conseil replied. A few hours passed. I often observed the instruments hanging on the wall of the living room. The pressure gauge indicated that the Nautilus was maintaining a constant depth of three hundred meters, the compass that it was still heading south, the log that it was traveling at a speed of twenty miles per hour, excessive speed in such a confined space. But Captain Nemo knew that he could not hurry too much, and that then, minutes were worth centuries. At eight twenty-five, a second shock occurred. At the stern, this time. I turned pale. My companions had moved closer to me. I had took Conseil’s hand. We questioned each other with our eyes, and more directly than if words had interpreted our thoughts. At that moment, the captain entered the lounge. I went to him. “Is the road blocked to the south?” I asked him. “Yes, sir. The iceberg, turning over, has closed off all exit. ” “Are we blocked? ” “Yes.” Chapter 16. LACK OF AIR. Thus, around the Nautilus, above, below, an impenetrable wall of ice. We were prisoners of the pack ice! The Canadian had struck a table with his formidable fist. Conseil was silent. I looked at the captain. His face had regained its usual impassivity . He had crossed his arms. He was thinking. The Nautilus was no longer moving. The captain then spoke: “Gentlemen,” he said in a calm voice, “there are two ways to die in the conditions we are in.” » This inexplicable character looked like a mathematics professor giving a demonstration to his students. “The first,” he continued, “is to die crushed. The second is to die asphyxiated. I’m not talking about the possibility of dying of hunger, because the Nautilus’s supplies will certainly last longer than we will. So let’s worry about the chances of being crushed or asphyxiated. ” “As for asphyxiation, Captain,” I replied, “there’s no need to fear it, because our tanks are full. ” “Right,” Captain Nemo continued, “but they will only provide two days of air. Now, we’ve been buried underwater for thirty-six hours , and already the Nautilus’s heavy atmosphere needs to be renewed. In forty-eight hours, our reserve will be exhausted. ” “Well, Captain, let’s be delivered before forty-eight hours! ” “We’ll try, at least, by piercing the wall that surrounds us.” “Which way?” I asked. “That’s what the probe will tell us. I’m going to beach the Nautilus on the lower bank, and my men, wearing diving suits, will attack the iceberg from its thinnest wall. ” “Can we open the saloon hatches? ” “No problem. We’re not moving any further.” Captain Nemo left. Soon, whistling noises told me that water was getting into the tanks. The Nautilus lowered slowly and came to rest on the ice bottom at a depth of 350 meters, the depth at which the lower ice bank was submerged . “My friends,” I said, “the situation is serious, but I’m counting on your courage and your energy. ” “Sir,” the Canadian replied, “it’s not at this moment that I will bore you with my recriminations. I am ready to do anything for the common good. ” “Good, Ned,” I said, holding out my hand to the Canadian. “I will add,” he continued, “that, skilled at handling a pickaxe as well as a harpoon, if I can be of use to the captain, he can use me. ” “He will not refuse your help. Come, Ned.” I led the Canadian to the room where the men of the Nautilus were putting on their diving suits. I informed the captain of Ned’s proposal, which was accepted. The Canadian put on his sea suit and was ready as soon as his fellow workers. Each of them carried on his back the Rouquayrol apparatus to which the tanks had supplied a large continent of pure air. A considerable, but necessary, borrowing from the Nautilus’s reserve. As for the Ruhmkorff lamps, they became useless in the midst of these luminous waters saturated with electric rays. When Ned was dressed, I returned to the lounge whose windows were uncovered, and, posted near Conseil, I examined the ambient layers that supported the Nautilus. A few moments later, we saw a dozen men from the crew set foot on the ice floe, and among them Ned Land, recognizable by his tall stature. Captain Nemo was with them. Before digging the walls, he had some soundings that were to ensure the proper direction of the work. Long probes were driven into the side walls; but after fifteen meters, they were still stopped by the thick wall. It was useless to attack the ceiling surface, since it was the ice floe itself that measured more than four hundred meters in height. Captain Nemo then had the lower surface sounded. There, ten meters of wall separated us from the water. Such was the thickness of this ice field. From then on, it was a matter of cutting out a piece equal in area to the waterline of the Nautilus. This was about six thousand five hundred cubic meters to detach, in order to dig a hole through which we would descend below the ice field. The work was immediately begun and carried out with tireless obstinacy. Instead of digging around the Nautilus, which would have caused greater difficulties, Captain Nemo had the immense pit drawn eight meters from its port quarter. Then his men simultaneously tapped it at several points around its circumference. Soon. The pickaxe vigorously attacked this compact material, and large blocks were detached from the mass. By a curious effect of specific gravity, these blocks, lighter than water, flew, so to speak, to the vault of the tunnel, which thickened at the top as it diminished toward the bottom. But it mattered little, as long as the lower wall thinned accordingly. After two hours of energetic work, Ned Land returned exhausted. He and his companions were replaced by new workers , whom Conseil and I joined. The first mate of the Nautilus directed us. The water seemed singularly cold to me, but I quickly warmed up by handling the pickaxe. My movements were very free, although they took place under a pressure of thirty atmospheres. When I returned after two hours of work to get some food and rest, I found a notable difference between the pure fluid supplied to me by the Rouquayrol apparatus and the atmosphere of the Nautilus, already charged with carbonic acid. The air had not been renewed for forty-eight hours, and its life-giving qualities were considerably weakened. However, in a period of twelve hours, we had removed only a slice of ice one meter thick from the outlined area, or about six hundred cubic meters. Assuming that the same work was accomplished in twelve hours, it would still take five nights and four days to complete this undertaking. “Five nights and four days!” I said to my companions, “and we only have two days’ worth of air in the tanks.” “Not to mention,” replied Ned, “that once we’ve left this damned prison, we’ll still be imprisoned under the ice floe and without any possible communication with the atmosphere!” A correct reflection. Who could then have foreseen the minimum time necessary for our deliverance? Wouldn’t asphyxiation have suffocated us before the Nautilus could return to the surface of the waves ? Was it destined to perish in this tomb of ice with all those it contained? The situation seemed terrible. But everyone had faced it head on, and all were determined to do their duty to the end. Following my predictions, during the night, another one- meter slice was removed from the immense cell. But in the morning, when, wearing my diving suit, I traversed the liquid mass at a temperature of six to seven degrees below zero, I noticed that the side walls were gradually coming closer together. The layers of water far from the pit, which were not heated by the work of men and the play of tools, showed a tendency to solidify. In the presence of this new and imminent danger, what became of our chances of salvation, and how could we prevent the solidification of this liquid medium, which would have made shatter the walls of the Nautilus like glass? I did not mention this new danger to my two companions. What was the point of risking wasting the energy they were putting into the painful work of rescue? But when I was back on board, I pointed out this serious complication to Captain Nemo. “I know,” he said to me in that calm tone that the most terrible circumstances could not alter. “It’s one more danger, but I see no way of dealing with it. The only chance of salvation is to go faster than the solidification. It’s a matter of arriving first. That’s all.” Arrive first! Well, I should have been used to these ways of speaking! That day, for several hours, I wielded the pickaxe with obstinacy. This work sustained me. Besides, working meant leaving the Nautilus, it meant breathing directly this pure air borrowed from the tanks and supplied by the apparatus, it meant abandoning an impoverished and polluted atmosphere. Towards evening, the pit had deepened another meter. When I returned on board, I was nearly asphyxiated by the carbonic acid with which the air was saturated. Ah! if only we had the chemical means that would have allowed us to expel this noxious gas! We did not lack oxygen . All this water contained a considerable quantity of it and, by decomposing it with our powerful batteries, it would have given us back the life-giving fluid. I had thought of it, but what good would it have done, since the carbonic acid, a product of our breathing, had invaded all parts of the ship. To absorb it, it would have been necessary to fill containers with caustic potash and stir them incessantly. Now, this material was missing on board, and nothing could replace it. That evening, Captain Nemo had to open the taps of his tanks and launch a few columns of pure air inside the Nautilus. Without this precaution, we would not have woken up. The next day, March 26, I resumed my work as a miner, entering the fifth meter. The side walls and the lower surface of the ice floe were visibly thickening. It was obvious that they would join before the Nautilus managed to free itself. Despair seized me for a moment. My pick was almost slipping from my hands. What was the point of digging, if I was to perish suffocated, crushed by this water that was turning to stone, a torture that the ferocity of the savages had not even invented. It seemed to me that I was between the formidable jaws of a monster that was irresistibly approaching . At that moment, Captain Nemo, directing the work, working himself, passed near me. I touched his hand and showed him the walls of our prison. The starboard wall had advanced to within four meters of the hull of the Nautilus. The captain understood me and signaled me to follow him. We returned on board. My diving suit removed, I accompanied him into the saloon. “Monsieur Aronnax,” he said to me, “we must attempt some heroic measure, or we will be sealed in this water, which has solidified like cement .
” “Yes!” I said, “but what can we do? ” “Ah!” he cried, “if my Nautilus were strong enough to withstand this pressure without being crushed? ” “Well?” I asked, not grasping the captain’s idea. “Don’t you understand,” he continued, “that this freezing of the water would come to our aid!” Don’t you see that by solidifying, it would burst these fields of ice that imprison us, just as it does, by freezing, the hardest stones! Do n’t you feel that it would be an agent of salvation instead of being an agent of destruction! — Yes, Captain, perhaps. But whatever resistance to crushing the Nautilus possesses, it could not withstand this terrible pressure and would flatten like a sheet of metal. — I know that, sir. We must therefore not count on the help of nature, but on ourselves. We must oppose this solidification. We must stop it. Not only are the side walls closing in, but there are not ten feet of water left at the front or the back of the Nautilus. Freezing is affecting us from all sides. “How long,” I asked, ” will the air in the tanks allow us to breathe on board?” The captain looked me straight in the face. “The day after tomorrow,” he said, “the tanks will be empty!” A cold sweat came over me. And yet, should I have been surprised by this answer? On March 22, the Nautilus had plunged beneath the open waters of the pole. We were on the 26th. For five days, we had been living on the ship’s reserves! And what breathable air remained had to be preserved for the workers. As I write these things, my impression is still so vivid that an involuntary terror seizes my whole being, and the air seems to fail my lungs! Meanwhile, Captain Nemo was thinking, silent, motionless. Visibly, an idea was crossing his mind. But he seemed to be pushing it away. He was answering himself negatively. Finally, these words escaped his lips! “Boiling water!” he murmured. “Boiling water?” I cried. “Yes, sir. We are enclosed in a relatively small space . Wouldn’t jets of boiling water, constantly injected by the Nautilus’s pumps, raise the temperature of this environment and delay its freezing? ” “We must try it,” I said resolutely. “Let’s try it, Professor.” The thermometer then showed minus seven degrees outside. Captain Nemo led me to the galleys where vast distilling apparatuses were in operation, providing drinking water by evaporation. They were charged with water, and all the electric heat from the batteries was sent through the coils bathed in the liquid. In a few minutes, this water had reached 100 degrees. It was directed to the pumps while new water gradually replaced it. The heat developed by the batteries was such that the cold water, drawn from the sea, after only passing through the apparatus, arrived boiling at the pump bodies. The injection began, and three hours later, the thermometer showed an external reading of six degrees below zero. That was one degree gained. Two hours later, the thermometer showed only four. “We will succeed,” I said to the captain, after having followed and checked the progress of the operation with numerous remarks. “I think so,” he replied. “We will not be crushed. We only have asphyxiation to fear.” » During the night, the water temperature rose to one degree below zero. The injections could not raise it higher. But since seawater only freezes at minus two degrees, I was finally reassured against the dangers of solidification. The next day, March 27, six meters of ice had been torn from the cell. Only four meters remained to be removed. That was another forty-eight hours of work. The air could no longer be renewed inside the Nautilus. So, this day continued to worsen. An intolerable heaviness overwhelmed me. Around three o’clock in the evening, this feeling of anguish was carried within me to a violent degree. Yawns dislocated my jaws. My lungs gasped as I searched for this oxidizing fluid, indispensable for breathing, which was becoming increasingly rare. A moral torpor took hold of me. I was lying there without strength, almost unconscious. My brave Counsel, seized by the same symptoms, suffering from the same pains, never left me. He took my hand, he encouraged me, and I could still hear him murmuring: “Ah! If only I could not breathe to give more air to Monsieur ! » Tears came to my eyes hearing him speak like this. If our situation, for all of us, was intolerable inside, with what haste, with what joy, we put on our diving suits to work in our turn! The picks echoed on the icy layer. Arms grew tired, hands grazed, but what were these fatigues, what did these injuries matter! Vital air reached the lungs! We breathed! We breathed! And yet, no one prolonged their work underwater beyond the allotted time . Their task accomplished, each handed over to their panting companions the tank that would pour out their life. Captain Nemo set the example and submitted first to this severe discipline. The hour arrived, he handed over his apparatus to another and returned to the foul atmosphere on board, always calm, without a falter, without a murmur. That day, the usual work was accomplished with even more vigor .
Only two meters remained to be removed from the entire surface. Only two meters separated us from the open sea. But the tanks were almost empty of air. The little that remained had to be saved for the workers. Not an atom for the Nautilus! When I returned on board, I was half suffocated. What a night! I cannot paint it. Such suffering cannot be described. The next day, my breathing was oppressed. The headaches were mingled with dizzying vertigo that made me feel like a drunken man. My companions experienced the same symptoms. Some of the crew were grumbling. That day, the sixth of our imprisonment, Captain Nemo, finding the pickaxe and the mattock too slow, resolved to crush the layer of ice that still separated us from the liquid layer. This man had retained his composure and his energy. He tamed physical pain with his moral strength. He thought, he planned, he acted. According to his order, the vessel was relieved, that is, lifted from the icy layer by a change in specific gravity. When it floated, it was hauled up so as to bring it above the immense pit drawn along its waterline. Then, its water tanks filling, it descended and nestled in the cell. At this moment, the entire crew returned on board, and the double communicating door was closed. The Nautilus was then resting on the layer of ice, which was not a meter thick and which the probes had pierced in a thousand places. The tank taps were then opened wide and one hundred cubic meters of water rushed in, increasing the weight of the Nautilus by one hundred thousand kilograms. We waited, we listened, forgetting our suffering, still hoping. We staked our salvation on one last shot. Despite the buzzing that filled my head, I soon heard shuddering beneath the hull of the Nautilus. A drop in level occurred . The ice cracked with a singular crash, like that of tearing paper, and the Nautilus lowered. “We’re going through!” Conseil whispered in my ear. I couldn’t answer him. I seized his hand. I squeezed it in an involuntary convulsion. Suddenly, carried away by its frightful overload, the Nautilus sank like a cannonball beneath the water, that is to say, it fell as if it had done into a void! All the electrical power was applied to the pumps, which immediately began to expel the water from the tanks. After a few minutes, our fall was stopped. Soon, even, the pressure gauge indicated an upward movement. The propeller, working at full speed, made the sheet metal hull shudder right down to its bolts, and dragged us north. But how long would this navigation last under the ice floes to the open sea? One more day? I would have died before then! Half stretched out on a couch in the library, I was suffocating. My face was purple, my lips blue, my faculties suspended. I could no longer see, I could no longer hear. The notion of time had disappeared from my mind. My muscles could not contract. The hours that passed like this, I could not estimate them. But I was aware of my agony beginning. I understood that I was going to die… Suddenly I came to. A few gulps of air entered my lungs. Had we risen to the surface of the waves? Had we crossed the ice floe? No! It was Ned and Conseil, my two brave friends, who were sacrificing themselves to save me. A few atoms of air still remained at the bottom of a device. Instead of breathing it, they had consecrated it for me, and, while they were suffocating, they were pouring life into me drop by drop! I wanted to push the device away. They held my hands, and for a few moments, I breathed voluptuously. My gaze went to the clock. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. It must have been March 28th. The Nautilus was traveling at the frightening speed of forty miles an hour. It was writhing in the water. Where was Captain Nemo? Had he succumbed? Had his companions died with him? At that moment, the pressure gauge indicated that we were only twenty feet from the surface. A simple field of ice separated us from the atmosphere. Couldn’t it be broken? Perhaps! In any case, the Nautilus was going to try. I felt, in fact, that it was taking an oblique position, lowering its stern and raising its spur. An introduction of water had been enough to upset its balance. Then, pushed by its powerful propeller, it attacked the ice field from below like a formidable battering ram. He gradually burst it, withdrew, slammed into it at full speed against the tearing field, and finally, carried away by a supreme surge, he hurled himself onto the icy surface , crushing it with his weight. The hatch was opened, one might say torn off, and pure air flooded into every part of the Nautilus. Chapter 17. FROM CAPE HORN TO THE AMAZON How I came to be on the platform, I cannot say. Perhaps the Canadian had transported me there. But I breathed, I inhaled the invigorating sea air. My two companions were getting drunk near me on these fresh molecules. Unfortunates, deprived of food for too long, cannot throw themselves thoughtlessly on the first foodstuffs offered to them. We, on the contrary, did not have to restrain ourselves; we could inhale with full lungs the atoms of this atmosphere, and it was the breeze, the breeze itself, that poured this voluptuous intoxication upon us! “Ah!” Conseil said, “how good oxygen is! Sir, don’t be afraid to breathe. There’s enough for everyone.” As for Ned Land, he didn’t speak, but he opened his jaws wide enough to frighten a shark. And what powerful breaths! The Canadian ” pulled” like a stove in full combustion. Our strength returned quickly, and when I looked around , I saw that we were alone on the platform. No one from the crew. Not even Captain Nemo. The strange sailors of the Nautilus were content with the air circulating inside. None had come to revel in the open atmosphere. The first words I spoke were words of thanks and gratitude to my two companions. Ned and Conseil had prolonged my existence during the last hours of this long agony. All my gratitude could not repay too much for such devotion. “Well! Professor,” Ned Land replied, “it’s not worth talking about! What merit did we have in that? None. It was only a question of arithmetic. Your existence was worth more than ours. Therefore it had to be preserved. ” “No, Ned,” I replied, “it wasn’t worth more. No one is superior to a generous and good man, and you are! “That’s good! That’s good!” repeated the embarrassed Canadian. “And you, my brave Conseil, you suffered a lot. ” “But not too much, to tell the gentleman everything. I did need a few gulps of air, but I think I would have gotten used to it. Besides, I was looking at the gentleman who was swooning and it did n’t make me want to breathe at all. It took away, as they say, my breath…” Conseil, embarrassed at having plunged into banality, didn’t finish. “My friends,” I replied, deeply moved, “we are bound to each other forever, and you have rights over me… ” “Which I will abuse,” retorted the Canadian. “Huh?” said Conseil. “Yes,” continued Ned Land, “the right to take you with me, when I leave this infernal Nautilus. ” “By the way,” said Conseil, “are we going on the right side?” “Yes,” I replied, “since we are going towards the sun, and here the sun is north. ” “No doubt,” Ned Land continued, “but it remains to be seen whether we are heading for the Pacific or the Atlantic, that is to say, the frequented or deserted seas.” I could not answer that, and I feared that Captain Nemo would instead take us back to that vast ocean that bathes the coasts of both Asia and America. He would thus complete his tour of the underwater world and return to those seas where the Nautilus found complete independence. But if we returned to the Pacific, far from any inhabited land, what would become of Ned Land’s plans? We must soon be certain of this important point. The Nautilus was moving quickly. The polar circle was soon crossed, and the course set for the promontory of Horn. We were abeam of the American point, on March 31, at seven o’clock in the evening. Then all our past suffering was forgotten. The memory of this imprisonment in the ice faded from our minds. We thought only of the future. Captain Nemo no longer appeared, neither in the lounge nor on the platform. The position recorded each day on the planisphere and made by the second officer allowed me to determine the exact direction of the Nautilus. Now, that evening, it became evident, to my great satisfaction, that we were returning north by the Atlantic route. I informed the Canadian and Conseil of the result of my observations. “Good news,” replied the Canadian, “but where is the Nautilus going? ” “I couldn’t say, Ned. ” “Would its captain want, after the South Pole, to confront the North Pole and return to the Pacific by the famous Northwest Passage? We shouldn’t challenge him,” replied Conseil. “Well,” said the Canadian, “we’ll give him the slip first.” “In any case,” Conseil added, “Captain Nemo is a master of his trade , and we won’t regret having known him. ” “Especially when we’ve left him!” Ned Land retorted. The next day, April 1, when the Nautilus rose to the surface of the waves, a few minutes before noon, we became aware of a coast to the west. It was Tierra del Fuego, to which the first navigators gave this name upon seeing the numerous plumes of smoke rising from the native huts. This Tierra del Fuego forms a vast agglomeration of islands that extends over thirty leagues in length and eighty leagues in width, between 53° and 56° south latitude, and 67°50′ and 77°15′ west longitude. The coast seemed low to me, but in the distance rose high mountains. I even thought I glimpsed Mount Sarmiento, 2,700 meters above sea level, a pyramidal block of schist with a very sharp peak, which, depending on whether it is veiled or clear of vapors, “announces good or bad weather,” Ned Land told me. “A famous barometer, my friend. ” “Yes, sir, a natural barometer, which never deceived me when I was navigating in the passes of the Strait of Magellan.” At that moment, this peak appeared clearly outlined against the sky. It was an omen of good weather. It came true. The Nautilus, having gone back under the water, approached the coast, extending it only a few miles further. Through the windows of the lounge, I saw long vines and gigantic fucus, these pear-shaped kelp, of which the open sea of ​​the pole contained some specimens. With their viscous and polished filaments, they measured up to 300 meters in length; real cables, thicker than a thumb, very strong, they often serve as moorings for ships. Another grass, known as velp, with leaves four feet long, embedded in coralligenous concretions, carpeted the seabed. It served as a nest and food for myriads of crustaceans and mollusks, crabs, cuttlefish. There, seals and otters indulged in splendid meals, mixing fish flesh and sea vegetables, following the English method. Over these lush, fatty bottoms, the Nautilus passed with extreme speed. Towards evening, it approached the Falkland Islands, whose rugged peaks I was able to recognize the next day. The depth of the sea was moderate. I therefore thought, not without reason, that these two islands, surrounded by a large number of islets, were once part of the Magellanic lands. The Falkland Islands were probably discovered by the famous John Davis, who gave them the name Davis-Southern Islands. Later, Richard Hawkins called them Maiden Islands, the Virgin Islands. They were then named Malouines, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, by fishermen from Saint-Malo, and finally Falkland by the English, to whom they belong today. In these waters, our nets brought back beautiful specimens of algae, and particularly a certain fucus whose roots were laden with mussels which are the best in the world. Geese and ducks landed by the dozen on the platform and soon took their places in the ship’s galleys. In terms of fish, I observed in particular bony fish belonging to the goby genus, and especially the bullheads, two decimeters long, all dotted with whitish and yellow spots. I also admired numerous jellyfish, and the most beautiful of the genus, the chrysaores peculiar to the seas of the Falklands. Sometimes they represented a very smooth half-spherical umbrella, striped with reddish-brown lines and ending in twelve regular festoons; sometimes they were an upside-down basket from which gracefully escaped large leaves and long red twigs. They swam, waving their four leafy arms and letting their opulent hair of tentacles hang adrift . I would have liked to preserve some samples of these delicate zoophytes; but they are only clouds, shadows, appearances, which melt and evaporate outside their native element. When the last heights of the Falklands had disappeared below the horizon, the Nautilus submerged between twenty and twenty-five meters and followed the American coast. Captain Nemo did not show himself. Until April 3, we did not leave the vicinity of Patagonia, sometimes under the ocean, sometimes on its surface. The Nautilus passed the wide estuary formed by the mouth of the Plata, and found itself, on April 4, abeam of Uruguay, but fifty miles offshore. Its direction remained north, and it followed the long windings of South America. We had then traveled sixteen thousand leagues since our embarkation in the Seas of Japan. Around eleven o’clock in the morning, the Tropic of Capricorn was cut on the thirty-seventh meridian, and we passed off Cape Frio. Captain Nemo, to the great displeasure of Ned Land, did not like the vicinity of these inhabited coasts of Brazil, for he was traveling with dizzying speed. Not a fish, not a bird, not even the fastest , could follow us, and the natural curiosities of These seas escaped all observation. This rapidity was maintained for several days, and on the evening of April 9, we were aware of the easternmost point of South America, which forms Cape San Roque. But then the Nautilus deviated again, and went to seek out at greater depths an underwater valley that is hollowed out between this cape and Sierra Leone on the African coast. This valley branches off at the height of the Antilles and ends in the north with an enormous depression of 9,000 meters. At this point, the geological section of the Ocean shows a cliff six kilometers long, cut sheer, as far as the Lesser Antilles, and, at the height of the Cape Verde Islands, another wall no less considerable, which thus encloses the entire submerged continent of Atlantis. The bottom of this immense valley is broken by a few mountains which create picturesque aspects of these underwater depths. I speak of it mainly from the handwritten charts contained in the library of the Nautilus, charts evidently written by Captain Nemo and drawn up from his personal observations. For two days, these deserted and deep waters were explored by means of inclined planes. The Nautilus provided long diagonal tacks which took it to all heights. But on April 11, it suddenly rose, and land reappeared before us at the opening of the Amazon River, a vast estuary whose flow is so considerable that it desalinates the sea over a space of several leagues. The Equator was cut off. Twenty miles to the west remained the Guianas, a French territory on which we would have found easy refuge. But the wind was blowing a strong breeze, and the furious waves would not have allowed a simple canoe to confront them. Ned Land no doubt understood this, because he said nothing to me. For my part, I made no allusion to his plans to escape, because I did not want to push him into some attempt that would have inevitably failed. I easily compensated myself for this delay with interesting studies. During these two days of April 11 and 12, the Nautilus did not leave the surface of the sea, and its trawl brought back a miraculous catch of zoophytes, fish and reptiles. A few zoophytes had been dredged up by the trawl chain. These were, for the most part, beautiful phyctallines, belonging to the actinidian family, and among other species, the phyctalis protexta, native to this part of the Ocean, a small cylindrical trunk , decorated with vertical lines and speckled with red dots , crowned by a marvelous blossoming of tentacles. As for the mollusks, they consisted of products that I had already observed, turritella, olive-porphyries, with regularly intersecting lines whose red spots stood out vividly against a background of flesh; fanciful pterocera, similar to petrified scorpions, translucent hyales, argonauts, cuttlefish excellent to eat, and certain species of squid, which the naturalists of antiquity classified among the flying fish, and which serve mainly as bait for cod fishing. Of the fish of these waters that I had not yet had the opportunity to study, I noted various species. Among the cartilaginous: petromizons-pricka, a kind of eel, fifteen inches long, with a greenish head, violet fins, a bluish-grey back, a silvery-brown belly dotted with bright spots, the irises of the eyes circled with gold, curious animals that the current of the Amazon must have carried to the sea, because they inhabit fresh waters; tuberculate rays, with a pointed snout, a long, slender tail, armed with a long, serrated stinger; small sharks, one meter long, grey and whitish in skin, whose teeth, arranged in several rows, curve backward, and which are commonly known under the name of slipperfish; lophia-vespertillions, a kind of reddish isosceles triangles, of a half-meter, to which the pectoral fins are attached by fleshy extensions which give them the appearance of bats, but which their horny appendage, located near the nostrils, has led to the nickname sea unicorns; finally some species of batiste, the curassavian whose dotted flanks shine with a brilliant gold color, and the light purple caprisque, with shimmering shades like the throat of a pigeon. I end here this somewhat dry, but very exact nomenclature, with the series of bony fish that I observed: passers, belonging to the genus of apleronotus, whose snout is very obtuse and snow-white, the body painted a beautiful black, and which are equipped with a very long and very delicate fleshy strap ; odontagnathus spiky, long sardines of three decimeters, resplendent with a bright silvery shine; scombres-guares, equipped with two anal fins; centronotes-nègres, with black hues, which are caught with brandons, long fish of two meters, with fatty, white, firm flesh, which, fresh, have the taste of eel, and dry, the taste of smoked salmon; semi-red wrasses, covered with scales only at the base of the dorsal and anal fins ; chrysoptera, on which gold and silver mingle their brilliance with those of ruby ​​and topaz; spares-tails-d’or, whose flesh is extremely delicate, and whose phosphorescent properties betray them in the middle of the waters; spares-pobs, with thin tongue, with orange hues; sciènes-coro with golden caudals, acanthures-noirauds, anableps of Surinam, etc. This “et coetera” cannot prevent us from mentioning another fish that Conseil will remember for a long time, and for good reason. One of our nets had brought in a sort of very flattened ray which, with its tail cut off, would have formed a perfect disc and which weighed about twenty kilograms. It was white underneath, reddish above, with large round spots of dark blue and circled in black, very smooth skin, and ending in a bilobed fin. Stretched out on the platform, it struggled, tried to turn itself over with convulsive movements, and made such an effort that a last jolt was about to throw it into the sea. But Conseil, who was holding on to his fish, rushed towards it, and before I could stop him , he seized it with both hands. Immediately, there it was, overturned, legs in the air, paralyzed on one half of its body, and crying: “Ah! my master, my master! Come to me.” ” It was the first time that the poor boy hadn’t spoken to me “in the third person.” The Canadian and I had picked him up, rubbed him with both arms, and when he came to his senses, this eternal classifier murmured in a broken voice: “Class of cartilaginous, order of chondropterygians, with fixed gills, suborder of selachians, family of rays, genus of torpedoes !” “Yes, my friend,” I replied, “it was a torpedo that put you in this deplorable state. ” “Ah! Sir, believe me,” Conseil retorted, “but I will take revenge on this animal. And how? “By eating it.” Which he did that same evening, but purely out of retaliation, because frankly it was tough. The unfortunate Conseil had attacked a torpedo of the most dangerous species, the cumana. This strange animal, in a conductive medium such as water, strikes down fish several meters away , such is the power of its electrical organ, whose two main surfaces measure no less than twenty-seven square feet. The next day, April 12, during the day, the Nautilus approached the Dutch coast, towards the mouth of the Maroni. There lived several groups of manatees in families. They were manates which, like the dugong and the stellera, belong to the order of the Syrenians. These beautiful animals, peaceful and harmless, six to seven meters long, must have weighed at least four thousand kilograms. I learned to Ned Land and Conseil that provident nature had assigned these mammals an important role. It is they, in fact, who, like seals, must graze the underwater meadows and thus destroy the agglomerations of grass that obstruct the mouths of tropical rivers . “And do you know,” I added, “what has happened since men have almost entirely annihilated these useful races? It is that the putrefied grasses have poisoned the air, and the poisoned air is the yellow fever that devastates these admirable regions. Poisonous vegetation has multiplied under these torrid seas, and the disease has irresistibly spread from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata to Florida! ” And if we are to believe Toussenel, this scourge is nothing compared to the one that will strike our descendants, when the seas are depopulated of whales and seals. Then, clogged with octopuses, jellyfish, and squid, they will become vast hotbeds of infection, since their waves will no longer possess “those vast stomachs, which God had entrusted with skimming the surface of the seas.” However, without disdaining these theories, the crew of the Nautilus seized half a dozen manatas. The aim was, in fact, to supply the galleys with excellent flesh, superior to that of beef and veal. This hunt was not interesting. The manatas let themselves be struck without defending themselves. Several thousand kilos of meat, intended to be dried, were stored on board. That day, a particularly well-practiced fishing expedition further increased the Nautilus’s reserves, as these seas were so rich in game. The trawl had brought back in its meshes a certain number of fish whose heads ended in an oval plate with fleshy edges. These were echeneids, from the third family of subbrachian malacopterygians. Their flattened disc is composed of mobile transverse cartilaginous laminae, between which the animal can create a vacuum, which allows it to adhere to objects like a suction cup. The remora, which I had observed in the Mediterranean, belongs to this species. But the one in question here was the osteochera echeneid, particular to this sea. Our sailors, as they caught them, placed them in buckets full of water. Once the fishing was finished, the Nautilus approached the coast. At this spot, a number of sea turtles were sleeping on the surface of the waves. It would have been difficult to capture these precious reptiles, for the slightest noise awakens them, and their solid shell is harpoon-proof. But the echeneid was to carry out this capture with extraordinary sureness and precision. This animal, in fact, is a living hook, which would bring happiness and fortune to the naive angler . The men of the Naulilus attached to the tails of these fish a ring large enough not to hinder their movements, and to this ring, a long rope moored on board by the other end. The echeneids, thrown into the sea, immediately began their role and attached themselves to the plastrons of the turtles. Their tenacity was such that they would have torn themselves apart rather than let go. They were hauled aboard , and with them the turtles to which they adhered. We thus caught several caddis crabs, a meter wide, which weighed two hundred kilos. Their shell, covered with large, thin, transparent, brown horny plates , with white and yellow speckles, made them very valuable. In addition, they were excellent from an edible point of view, as were the common turtles which are exquisitely tasty . This catch ended our stay in the vicinity of the Amazon, and, when night fell, the Nautilus returned to the open sea. Chapter 18. THE OCTOPUS For several days, the Nautilus kept constantly away from the American coast. It obviously did not want to frequent the waves of the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean Sea. However, there would have been plenty of water under his keel, since the average depth of these seas is eighteen hundred meters; but probably these waters, dotted with islands and crisscrossed by steamers, were not suitable for Captain Nemo. On April 16, we sighted Martinique and Guadeloupe , at a distance of about thirty miles. I glimpsed their high peaks for a moment. The Canadian, who intended to carry out his plans in the Gulf, either by reaching land or by landing on one of the many boats that make the coastal trade from one island to another, was very disconcerted. Escape would have been very feasible if Ned Land had managed to seize the boat without the captain’s knowledge. But in the open ocean, it was no longer an option.
The Canadian, Conseil, and I had a rather long conversation on this subject. For six months we had been prisoners aboard the Nautilus. We had traveled seventeen thousand leagues, and, as Ned Land said, there was no reason for it to end. So he made me a proposal I hadn’t expected. It was to categorically ask Captain Nemo this question: Did the captain intend to keep us on board indefinitely? Such an approach repelled me. In my opinion, it could not succeed. We should expect nothing from the commander of the Nautilus, but everything from us alone. Besides, for some time now, this man had become more somber, more withdrawn, less sociable. He seemed to avoid me.
I only saw him at rare intervals. Formerly, he enjoyed explaining the wonders of the sea to me; now he abandoned me to my studies and no longer came to the salon. What change had taken place in him? For what reason? I had nothing to reproach myself for. Perhaps our presence on board weighed on him? However, I must not hope that he would be the man to set us free. I therefore asked Ned to let me think before acting. If this approach obtained no result, it could revive his suspicions, make our situation painful and harm the Canadian’s plans. I will add that I could in no way argue about our health. If we except the harsh ordeal of the ice floe of the South Pole, we had never been better, neither Ned, nor Conseil, nor I. This healthy food, this salubrious atmosphere, this regularity of existence, this uniformity of temperature, did not give rise to illnesses, and for a man to whom the memories of earth left no regrets, for a Captain Nemo, who is at home, who goes where he wants, who by ways mysterious to others, not to himself, advances to his goal, I understood such an existence. But we had not broken with humanity. For my part, I did not want to bury with me my studies so curious and so new. I now had the right to write the true book of the sea, and I wanted this book to see the light of day sooner rather than later. There again, in these waters of the Antilles, ten meters below the surface of the waves, through the open hatches, how many interesting products I had to note in my daily notes! These were, among other zoophytes, galleys known under the name of spelagic physalia, a sort of large oblong bladders, with pearly reflections, stretching their membrane to the wind and letting their blue tentacles float like silk threads; charming jellyfish to the eye, real nettles to the touch, distilling a corrosive liquid. Among the articulates, there were annelids a meter and a half long, armed with a pink proboscis and equipped with seventeen hundred locomotory organs, which wound under the waters and threw out all the glimmers of the solar spectrum as they passed. Among the fish phylum, there were molubar rays, enormous cartilaginous creatures ten feet long and weighing six hundred pounds, with a triangular pectoral fin, the middle of the back a slightly rounded, the eyes fixed at the extremities of the front of the head, and which, floating like a ship’s wreck, sometimes applied themselves like an opaque shutter to our window. They were American triggerfish for which nature has ground only white and black, bobies plumiers, elongated and fleshy, with yellow fins, with prominent jaws, scumbres of sixteen decimeters, with short and sharp teeth, covered with small scales, belonging to the species of albicores. Then, in swarms, appear surmullets, corseted with gold stripes from head to tail, waving their resplendent fins; true masterpieces of jewelry once dedicated to Diana, particularly sought after by the rich Romans, and of which the proverb said: “Whoever takes them, does not eat them!” » Finally, golden pomacanths, adorned with emerald bands, dressed in velvet and silk, passed before our eyes like Veronese lords; spurred spades hid beneath their swift thoracic fins; fifteen-inch clupanodons enveloped themselves in their phosphorescent glow; mullets beat the sea with their large fleshy tails; red whitefish seemed to scythe the waves with their sharp pectoral fins, and silvery selenes, worthy of their name, rose on the horizon of the waters like so many moons with whitish reflections. How many other marvelous and new specimens I would have observed, if the Nautilus had not gradually lowered itself towards the deep layers! Its inclined planes carried it down to depths of two thousand and three thousand five hundred meters. Then animal life was represented only by encrines, starfish, charming pentacrines with jellyfish heads, whose straight stem supported a small calyx, trochus, bloody snails and crackellas, large coastal mollusks. On April 20, we had climbed to an average height of fifteen hundred meters. The nearest land was then this archipelago of the Lucayan Islands, scattered like a pile of paving stones on the surface of the water. There rose high underwater cliffs, straight walls made of rough blocks arranged in wide layers, between which were dug black holes that our electric rays did not illuminate to the bottom. These rocks were carpeted with tall grasses, giant kelp, gigantic fucus, a veritable espalier of hydrophytes worthy of a world of Titans. From these colossal plants that Conseil, Ned, and I were talking about, we were naturally led to mention the gigantic animals of the sea. Some are obviously intended as food for others. However, through the windows of the almost motionless Nautilus, I could still only see on these long filaments the principal articulates of the division of brachiura, the long- legged amber crabs, the purple crabs, and the clios peculiar to the seas of the Antilles. It was about eleven o’clock when Ned Land drew my attention to a formidable swarming that was occurring among the large algae.
“Well,” I said, “those are veritable octopus caverns, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of these monsters there. ” “What!” Conseil said, “squid, simple squid, of the class of cephalopods? ” “No,” I said, “large octopuses.” But friend Land was probably mistaken, for I can’t see anything. “I’m sorry,” Conseil replied. “I’d like to see face to face one of those octopuses I’ve heard so much about, ones that can drag ships to the bottom of the abyss. These creatures are called krak… ” “Just crack,” the Canadian replied ironically. “Krakens,” Conseil countered, finishing his remarks without paying attention to his companion’s joke. “No one will ever make me believe,” said Ned Land, “that such animals exist.”
“Why not?” Conseil replied. “We did believe in Monsieur’s narwhal. ” “We were wrong, Conseil. ” “No doubt! But others doubtless still believe in it. ” “It’s probable, Conseil, but for my part, I am determined not to admit the existence of these monsters until I have dissected them with my own hands. ” “So,” Conseil asked me, “Monsieur doesn’t believe in gigantic octopuses? ” “Hey! Who the devil ever did?” cried the Canadian. “A lot of people, friend Ned. ” “Not fishermen. Scientists, perhaps! ” “Pardon, Ned. Fishermen and scientists! ” “But I, who am speaking to you,” Conseil said with the most serious air in the world, “I remember perfectly well having seen a large boat pulled beneath the waves by the arms of a cephalopod. ” “You saw that?” asked the Canadian. “Yes, Ned. ” “With your own eyes? ” “With my own eyes.” “Where, please? ” “In Saint-Malo?” Conseil replied imperturbably. “In the port?” said Ned Land ironically. “No, in a church,” replied Conseil. “In a church!” cried the Canadian. “Yes, friend Ned. It was a painting representing the octopus in question! ” “Good!” said Ned Land, bursting into laughter. “Mr. Conseil, making me pose! ” “Actually, he’s right,” I said. “I’ve heard of this painting; but the subject it represents is taken from a legend, and you know what to think of legends in matters of natural history! Besides, when it comes to monsters, the imagination is only too willing to run wild. Not only has it been claimed that these octopuses could drag ships, but a certain Olaus Magnus speaks of a cephalopod, a mile long, which looked more like an island than an animal.” It is also said that the Bishop of Nidros once erected an altar on an immense rock. When his mass was over, the rock set off and returned to the sea. The rock was an octopus. “And that’s all?” asked the Canadian. “No,” I replied. “Another bishop, Pontoppidan of Berghem, also speaks of an octopus on which a cavalry regiment could maneuver ! ” “They were all right, the bishops of old!” said Ned Land. “Finally, the naturalists of antiquity cite monsters whose mouths resembled a gulf, and which were too big to pass through the Strait of Gibraltar. ” “Good!” said the Canadian. “But in all these stories, what is true?” asked Conseil. “Nothing, my friends, at least nothing that goes beyond the limits of probability to rise to the level of fable or legend.” However, for the imagination of storytellers, one needs, if not a cause, at least a pretext. It cannot be denied that there are octopuses and squid of very large species, but inferior to cetaceans. Aristotle recorded the dimensions of a squid at five cubits, or three meters ten. Our fishermen frequently see some whose length exceeds one meter eighty. The museums of Trieste and Montpellier preserve octopus skeletons that measure two meters. Moreover, according to the calculations of naturalists, one of these animals, only six feet long , would have tentacles twenty-seven feet long. This is enough to make it a formidable monster. “Are they caught these days?” asked the Canadian. “If they don’t catch them, sailors at least see them. A friend of mine, Captain Paul Bos, of Le Havre, often told me that he had encountered one of these monsters of colossal size in the seas of India. But the most astonishing fact, which no longer allows us to deny the existence of these gigantic animals, happened a few years ago, in 1861. “What is this fact?” asked Ned Land. “Here it is. In 1861, in the northeast of Tenerife, roughly by the latitude where we are at this moment, the crew of the aviso _Alecton_ spotted a monstrous squid swimming in its waters. Commander Bouguer approached the animal, and attacked it with harpoon and rifle shots, without much success, because bullets and harpoons pierced the soft flesh like insubstantial jelly. After several fruitless attempts, the crew managed to pass a noose around the mollusk’s body. This noose slid down to the caudal fins and stopped there. They then tried to haul the monster on board, but its weight was so considerable that it separated from its tail under the pull of the rope, and, deprived of this ornament, it disappeared beneath the waters. “Well, that’s a fact,” said Ned Land. “An indisputable fact, my good Ned. That’s why it was proposed to name this octopus “Bouguer’s squid.” “And what was its length?” asked the Canadian. “Wasn’t it about six meters long?” said Conseil, who, standing at the window, was once again examining the crevices in the cliff. “Precisely,” I replied. “Wasn’t its head,” Conseil continued, “crowned with eight tentacles, which fluttered on the water like a brood of snakes? ” “Precisely. ” “Weren’t its eyes, set flush with its head, considerably developed? ” “Yes, Conseil. ” “And its mouth, wasn’t it a real parrot’s beak, but a formidable one? ” “Indeed, Conseil. ” “Well! With all due respect to the gentleman,” Conseil replied calmly, ” if it isn’t Bouguer’s squid, here is at least one of its brothers.” I looked at Conseil. Ned Land rushed to the window. “The dreadful beast,” he cried. I looked in turn, and I could not repress a movement of repulsion. Before my eyes was moving a horrible monster, worthy of figuring in teratological legends. It was a squid of colossal dimensions, eight meters long. It was walking backward with extreme velocity in the direction of the Nautilus. It looked out with its enormous fixed eyes of glaucous hues. Its eight arms, or rather its eight feet, implanted on its head, which earned these animals the name cephalopods, were twice as long as its body and twisted like the hair of the furies. One could clearly see the two hundred and fifty suckers arranged on the internal face of the tentacles in the form of semispherical capsules. Sometimes these suckers pressed against the living room window, creating a vacuum. The mouth of this monster—a horn-like beak shaped like a parrot’s beak—opened and closed vertically. Its tongue, a horny substance, itself armed with several rows of sharp teeth, emerged quivering from this veritable shear. What a fantasy of nature! A bird’s beak on a mollusk! Its body, spindle-shaped and swollen in its middle part, formed a fleshy mass that must have weighed twenty to twenty-five thousand kilograms. Its inconstant color, changing with extreme rapidity according to the irritation of the animal, passed successively from livid gray to reddish brown. What was this mollusk irritated by? No doubt by the presence of this Nautilus, more formidable than it, and over which its sucking arms or mandibles had no hold. And yet, what monsters these octopuses are, what vitality the creator has bestowed upon them, what vigor in their movements, since they possess three hearts! Chance had brought us into the presence of this squid, and I did not want to lose the opportunity to carefully study this specimen of cephalopods. I overcame the horror this sight inspired in me, and, taking a pencil, I began to draw it. “Perhaps it is the same as that of the _Alecton_,” said Conseil. “No,” replied the Canadian, “since this one is whole and the other has lost its tail!” “That’s no reason,” I replied. “The arms and tails of these animals reform by reintegration, and over the past seven years, the tail of Bouguer’s squid has probably had time to grow back. ” “Besides,” Ned countered, “if it’s not this one, it might be one of those!” Indeed, other octopuses were appearing at the starboard window. I counted seven of them. They were forming a procession around the Nautilus, and I heard the scraping of their beaks on the metal hull. We were well served . I continued my work. These monsters were maintaining their position in our waters with such precision that they seemed motionless, and I could have traced them in foreshortening on the window. Besides, we were moving at a moderate pace. Suddenly the Nautilus stopped. A shock made its entire frame shudder. “Did we touch?” I asked. “In any case,” replied the Canadian, “we would already be free, because we are floating.” The Nautilus was probably floating, but it was no longer moving. The branches of its propeller were not beating the waves. A minute passed. Captain Nemo, followed by his second in command, entered the lounge. I had not seen him for some time. He seemed gloomy to me. Without
speaking to us, without perhaps seeing us, he went to the hatch, looked at the octopuses, and said a few words to his second in command. The latter left. Soon the hatches closed. The ceiling lit up. I went over to the captain. “A curious collection of octopuses,” I told him, in the casual tone that an amateur would adopt before the crystal of an aquarium. “Indeed, Mr. Naturalist,” he replied, “and we are going to fight them hand to hand.” I looked at the captain. I thought I hadn’t heard correctly. “Hand to hand?” I repeated. “Yes, sir. The propeller has stopped. I think the horny mandibles of one of those squids have gotten caught in its branches. Which is preventing us from walking. ” “And what are you going to do? ” “Rise to the surface and massacre all this vermin. ” “A difficult undertaking. ” “Indeed. Electric bullets are powerless against this soft flesh, where they don’t find enough resistance to burst. But we will attack them with an axe. ” “And a harpoon, sir,” said the Canadian, “if you don’t refuse my help.
” “I accept it, Master Land. ” “We will accompany you,” I said, and, following Captain Nemo, we headed towards the central staircase. There, about ten men, armed with boarding axes, were ready for the attack. Conseil and I took two axes. Ned Land grabbed a harpoon. The Nautilus had then returned to the surface of the waves. One of the sailors, positioned on the last rungs, was unscrewing the bolts of the hatch. But the nuts were barely free when the hatch rose with extreme violence, evidently pulled by the suction cup of an octopus arm. Immediately one of these long arms slid like a snake through the opening, and twenty others fluttered above it. With a blow of his axe, Captain Nemo cut off this formidable tentacle, which slid writhing down the rungs. Just as we were pressing against each other to reach the platform, two other arms, lashing through the air, fell upon the sailor in front of Captain Nemo and snatched him up with irresistible violence. Captain Nemo gave a cry and rushed outside. We rushed after him. What a scene! The unfortunate man, seized by the tentacle and stuck to its suckers, was swung through the air at the whim of this enormous trunk. He was groaning, he was suffocating, he was shouting: “Mine! Mine!” These words, _spoken in French_, caused me profound stupor! So I had a compatriot on board, several, perhaps! I will hear this heart-rending call all my life! The unfortunate creature was lost. Who could tear it from this powerful grip? Meanwhile, Captain Nemo had rushed toward the octopus and, with a blow of his axe, had cut off another arm. His second in command was struggling furiously against other monsters crawling on the sides of the Nautilus. The crew fought with axes. The Canadian, Conseil, and I sank our weapons into these fleshy masses. A violent smell of musk penetrated the atmosphere. It was horrible. For a moment, I thought that the unfortunate creature, embraced by the octopus, would be torn from its powerful suction. Seven out of eight arms had been severed. Only one, brandishing the victim like a feather, writhed in the air. But at the moment when Captain Nemo and his second in command rushed toward it, the animal spurted out a column of a blackish liquid, secreted by a pouch located in its abdomen. We were blinded. When this cloud dissipated, the squid had disappeared, and with it my unfortunate compatriot! What rage drove us then against these monsters! We no longer possessed ourselves. Ten or twelve octopuses had invaded the platform and the sides of the Nautilus. We rolled pell-mell in the middle of these sections of snakes which quivered on the platform in waves of blood and black ink. It seemed that these slimy tentacles were reborn like the heads of the hydra. Ned Land’s harpoon, with each blow, plunged into the glaucous eyes of the squids and burst them. But my audacious companion was suddenly knocked down by the tentacles of a monster he had been unable to avoid. Ah! how my heart did not break with emotion and horror! The formidable beak of the squid had opened on Ned Land. This unfortunate man was about to be cut in two. I rushed to his aid. But Captain Nemo had beaten me to it. His axe disappeared between the two enormous mandibles, and miraculously saved, the Canadian, getting up, plunged his entire harpoon into the octopus’s triple heart. “I owed myself this revenge!” Captain Nemo said to the Canadian. Ned bowed without replying. This fight had lasted a quarter of an hour. The monsters, vanquished, mutilated, mortally wounded, finally gave way to us and disappeared beneath the waves. Captain Nemo, red with blood, motionless near the lantern, looked at the sea that had swallowed one of his companions, and great tears flowed from his eyes. Chapter 19. THE GULF STREAM None of us will ever forget that terrible scene of April 20. I wrote it under the impression of violent emotion. Since then, I have reviewed the story. I read it to Conseil and to the Canadien. They found it accurate in fact, but insufficient in effect. To paint such pictures, one would need the pen of the most illustrious of our poets, the author of _Les Travailleurs de la Mer_. I said that Captain Nemo wept as he looked at the waves. His pain was immense. It was the second companion he had lost since we arrived on board. And what a death! This friend, crushed, suffocated, broken by the formidable arm of an octopus, crushed under its iron mandibles, should not rest with his companions in the peaceful waters of the coral cemetery! For me, in the midst of this struggle, it was this cry of despair uttered by the unfortunate man that had torn my heart. This poor Frenchman, forgetting his conventional language, had resumed speaking the language of his country and his mother, to make a supreme appeal! Among this crew of the Nautilus, associated in body and soul with Captain Nemo, fleeing like him from contact with men, I had a compatriot! Was he alone in representing France in this mysterious association, obviously composed of individuals of diverse nationalities? It was yet another of those insoluble problems that constantly arose before my mind! Captain Nemo returned to his room, and I did not see him again for some time. But how sad, desperate, irresolute he must have been, judging by this ship of which he was the soul and which received all his impressions! The Nautilus no longer maintained a determined direction. He came and went, floated like a corpse at the mercy of the waves. His propeller had been freed, and yet he hardly used it . He navigated at random. He could not tear himself away from the scene of his last struggle, from this sea which had devoured one of his own! Ten days passed like this. It was only on May 1st that the Nautilus resumed its frank course to the north, after having learned of the Lucayes at the opening of the Bahama Channel. We were then following the current of the greatest river of the sea, which has its own banks, its own fish and its own temperature. I named the Gulf Stream. It is a river, in fact, which flows freely in the middle of the Atlantic, and whose waters do not mix with the oceanic waters. It is a salty river, saltier than the surrounding sea. Its average depth is three thousand feet, its average width sixty miles. In certain places, its current moves at a speed of four kilometers per hour. The invariable volume of its waters is greater than that of all the rivers of the globe. The true source of the Gulf Stream, recognized by Commander Maury, its starting point, if you will, is located in the Bay of Biscay. There, its waters, still weak in temperature and color, begin to form. It descends to the south, skirts equatorial Africa, warms its waves in the rays of the torrid zone, crosses the Atlantic, reaches Cape San Roque on the Brazilian coast, and forks into two branches , one of which will be further saturated with the hot molecules of the Caribbean Sea . Then, the Gulf Stream, responsible for reestablishing the balance between temperatures and mixing the waters of the tropics with the boreal waters, begins its role as a balancer. Heated to white heat in the Gulf of Mexico, it rises to the north on the American coasts, advances as far as Newfoundland, deviates under the pressure of the cold current of the Davis Strait, takes the route of the Ocean again by following on one of the great circles of the globe the rhumb line, divides into two arms at about the forty-third degree, one of which, aided by the northeast trade wind, returns to the Bay of Biscay and the Azores, and the other of which, after having warmed the shores of Ireland and Norway, goes as far as beyond Spitsbergen, where its temperature falls to four degrees, to form the open sea of ​​the pole. It is on this river of the Ocean that the Nautilus was then sailing. At its exit from the Bahama Channel, fourteen leagues wide and three hundred and fifty meters deep, the Gulf Stream moves at a rate of eight kilometers per hour. This speed decreases regularly as it advances northward, and it is to be hoped that this regularity persists, for if, as has been observed, its speed and direction change, European climates will be subject to disturbances whose consequences cannot be calculated. Around noon, I was on the platform with Conseil. I was explaining to him the particularities relating to the Gulf Stream. When my explanation was finished, I invited him to plunge his hands into the current. Conseil obeyed, and was very surprised to experience no sensation of heat or cold. “This comes,” I told him, “from the fact that the temperature of the waters of the Gulf Stream, as they leave the Gulf of Mexico, is not very different from that of blood. This Gulf Stream is a vast caloriferous system that allows the coasts of Europe to be adorned with eternal greenery. And, if we are to believe Maury, the heat of this current, fully utilized, would provide enough caloric energy to keep a river of molten iron as large as the Amazon or the Missouri molten. At that moment, the speed of the Gulf Stream was two meters twenty-five per second. Its current is so distinct from the surrounding sea that its compressed waters project onto the Ocean and a difference in level is created between them and the cold waters. Dark, moreover, and very rich in saline matter, they stand out with their pure indigo against the green waves that surround them. Such is the clarity of their demarcation line that the Nautilus, at the height of the Carolines, cut through the waves of the Gulf Stream with its spur, while its propeller was still beating those of the Ocean. This current carried with it a whole world of living beings. The Argonauts, so common in the Mediterranean, traveled there in large groups. Among the cartilaginous fish, the most remarkable were rays whose very slender tails formed about a third of the body, and which formed vast lozenges twenty-five feet long; then, small sharks a meter long, with large heads, short, rounded snouts, sharp teeth arranged in several rows, and whose bodies appeared to be covered with scales. Among the bony fish, I noted gray wrasses particular to these seas, stingrays whose irises shone like fire, and scythes a meter long, with wide mouths bristling with small teeth. which made a faint cry of the black centronotes of which I have already spoken, blue coriphènes, highlighted with gold and silver, parrots, true rainbows of the Ocean, which can rival in color the most beautiful birds of the tropics, the blemies-bosquiens with triangular heads, bluish rhombuses without scales, batrachoids covered with a yellow and transverse band which forms a Greek t, swarms of small gohies-hoc dotted with brown spots, dipterodons with silver heads and yellow tails, various samples of salmones, mugilomores, slender in size, shining with a soft brilliance, which Lacépède dedicated to the amiable companion of his life, finally a beautiful fish, the American knight, which, decorated with all the orders and adorned with all the ribbons, frequents the shores of this great nation where the ribbons and the orders are so poorly estimated. I will add that, during the night, the phosphorescent waters of the Gulf Stream rivaled the electric brilliance of our lantern, especially in these stormy weathers which frequently threatened us. On May 8, we were still across Cape Hatteras, at the height of North Carolina. The width of the Gulf Stream is seventy-five miles, and its depth two hundred and ten meters. The Nautilus continued to wander at random. All surveillance seemed banished from the ship. I will agree that in these conditions, an escape could succeed. Indeed, the inhabited shores everywhere offered easy refuges. The sea was incessantly crisscrossed by numerous steamers which provide service between New York or Boston and the Gulf of Mexico, and crossed night and day by these small schooners responsible for coastal trade on the various points of the American coast. One could hope to be picked up. It was therefore a favorable opportunity, despite the thirty miles separating the Nautilus from the coasts of the Union. But an unfortunate circumstance completely thwarted the Canadian’s plans. The weather was very bad. We were approaching these waters where storms are frequent, this homeland of waterspouts and cyclones, precisely generated by the Gulf Stream current. To confront an often rough sea in a frail canoe was to run into certain doom. Ned Land himself admitted it. So he was champing at the bit, seized by a furious nostalgia that only flight could have cured. “Sir,” he said to me that day, “this must end. I want to be sure. Your Nemo is leaving the land and heading north . But I tell you, I’ve had enough of the South Pole, and I will not follow him to the North Pole.” –What is to be done, Ned, since escape is impracticable at this moment? –I come back to my idea. We must speak to the captain. You said nothing when we were in the seas of your country. I want to speak now that we are in the seas of mine. When I think that in a few days, the Nautilus will be off Nova Scotia, and that there, towards Newfoundland, a large bay opens, that into this bay flows the Saint Lawrence and that the Saint Lawrence is my river, the river of Quebec, my native city; when I think of that, fury rises in my face, my hair stands on end. Come, sir, I’ll throw myself into the sea instead! I won’t stay here! I’m suffocating!” The Canadian was evidently at the end of his tether. His vigorous nature could not accommodate itself to this prolonged imprisonment. His countenance deteriorated day by day. His character became more and more gloomy. Nearly seven months had passed without us having any news from land. Moreover, Captain Nemo’s isolation, his changed mood, especially since the octopus fight, his taciturnity, all made things appear different to me . I no longer felt the enthusiasm of the early days. You would have to be a Fleming like Conseil to accept this situation, in this environment reserved for cetaceans and other inhabitants of the sea. Truly, if this brave fellow, instead of lungs, had had gills , I believe he would have made a distinguished fish! “Well, sir?” Ned Land continued, seeing that I did not reply. “Well, Ned, do you want me to ask Captain Nemo what his intentions are toward us? ” “Yes, sir. ” “And that, even though he has already made them known? ” “Yes. I wish to be sure one last time. Speak for me alone, in my name alone, if you wish. ” “But I rarely meet him. He even avoids me.” “That’s one more reason to go see him. ” “I’ll question him, Ned. ” “When?” asked the Canadian, insisting. “When I meet him. ” “Monsieur Aronnax, do you want me to go and find him? ” “No, leave it to me. Tomorrow… ” “Today,” said Ned Land. “Very well. Today I’ll see him,” I replied to the Canadian, who, by acting himself, would certainly have compromised everything. I remained alone. The request decided, I resolved to finish immediately. I prefer a thing done than something to be done. I returned to my room. From there, I heard people walking in Captain Nemo’s room. I must not let this opportunity to meet him slip away. I knocked on his door. I got no answer. I knocked again, then turned the knob. The door opened. I went in. The captain was there. Bent over his work table, he hadn’t heard me. Determined not to leave without questioning him, I approached him. He raised his head abruptly, frowned, and said to me in a rather harsh tone: “You here! What do you want from me? ” “Talk to you, Captain. ” “But I’m busy, sir, I’m working. This freedom I’m giving you to isolate yourself, can’t I have it for myself?” The reception was not very encouraging. But I was determined to hear everything in order to answer everything. “Sir,” I said coldly, “I have to speak to you about a matter that I am not allowed to delay. ” “What is it, sir?” he replied ironically. “Have you made some discovery that I’ve missed? Has the sea revealed any new secrets to you?” We were far from the mark. But before I could answer, showing me a manuscript open on his table, he said to me in a more serious tone: “Here, Mr. Aronnax, is a manuscript written in several languages. It contains the summary of my studies on the sea, and, if it pleases God, it will not perish with me. This manuscript, signed with my name, completed by the story of my life, will be enclosed in a small device unsinkable. The last survivor of all of us aboard the Nautilus will throw this device into the sea, and it will go wherever the waves carry it.” The name of this man! His story written by himself! His mystery would one day be revealed? But, at this moment, I saw in this communication only an introduction. “Captain,” I replied, “I can only approve of the thought that makes you act. The fruit of your studies must not be lost. But the means you are using seem primitive to me. Who knows where the winds will blow this device, into whose hands it will fall? Couldn’t you find better? Can’t you, or one of yours… ? ” “Never, sir,” said the captain quickly, interrupting me. “But I, my companions, we are ready to keep this manuscript in reserve, and if you give us back our freedom… ” “Freedom!” said Captain Nemo, getting up. “Yes, sir, and that’s what I wanted to ask you about. We’ve been on board you for seven months, and I ask you today, on behalf of my companions as well as myself, if your intention is to keep us there forever. ” “Mr. Aronnax,” said Captain Nemo, “I will answer you today what I answered seven months ago: Whoever enters the Nautilus must never leave it. It is slavery itself that you are imposing on us. ” “Call it whatever name you like. ” “But everywhere the slave retains the right to regain his freedom! Whatever means are available to him, he may believe them to be good! ” “This right,” replied Captain Nemo, “who denies it to you? Have I ever thought of chaining you with an oath?” The captain looked at me, crossing his arms. ” Sir,” I said, “to return to this subject a second time would be neither to your taste nor mine.” But since we have begun it, let us exhaust it. I repeat, it is not only about me personally . For me, study is a help, a powerful diversion, a drive, a passion that can make me forget everything. Like you, I am a man who lives unknown, obscure, in the fragile hope of one day bequeathing to the future the result of my work, by means of a hypothetical apparatus entrusted to the chance of the waves and the winds. In a word, I can admire you, follow you without displeasure in a role that I understand on certain points: but there are still other aspects of your life that make me glimpse it surrounded by complications and mysteries in which only here, my companions and I, have no part. And even when our hearts were able to beat for you, moved by some of your sorrows or stirred by your acts of genius or courage, we had to repress within ourselves even the smallest token of that sympathy which is born at the sight of what is beautiful and good, whether it comes from friend or enemy. Well, it is this feeling that we are strangers to everything that touches you, which makes our position something unacceptable, impossible, even for me but impossible for Ned Land especially. Every man, simply by the fact that he is a man, is worth thinking about. Have you asked yourself what plans for revenge the love of liberty, the hatred of slavery, could give rise to in a nature like that of the Canadian, what he could think, attempt, try?… ” I was silent. Captain Nemo stood up. “Let Ned Land think, attempt, try whatever he wants, what does it matter to me ? It wasn’t me who went looking for him! It’s not for my own pleasure that I keep him on board! As for you, Mr. Aronnax, you are one of those who can understand everything, even silence. I have nothing more to say to you. May this first time you have just discussed this subject also be the last, because a second time, I wouldn’t even be able to listen to you.” I withdrew. From that day on, our situation was very tense. I reported my conversation to my two companions. “We know now,” said Ned, “that there is nothing to expect from this man. The Nautilus is approaching Long Island. We will flee, whatever the weather.” But the sky was becoming more and more threatening. Symptoms of a hurricane were appearing. The atmosphere was becoming whitish and milky. The thin sheaves of cyrrhus were being replaced on the horizon by layers of nimbocumulus. Other low clouds were rapidly receding. The sea was swelling and billowing into long swells. The birds were disappearing, with the exception of the satanicles, friends of storms. The barometer was falling noticeably and indicated an extreme tension of vapors in the air . The storm-glass mixture was decomposing under the influence of the electricity that saturated the atmosphere. The struggle of the elements was imminent. The storm broke on May 18, precisely when the Nautilus was floating off Long Island, a few miles from the New York Channel. I can describe this struggle of the elements, because instead of fleeing it in the depths of the sea, Captain Nemo, by an inexplicable whim, wanted to brave it on its surface. The wind was blowing from the southwest, at first very strong, that is to say with a speed of fifteen meters per second, which increased to twenty-five meters around three o’clock in the evening. This is the number for storms. Captain Nemo, unshaken by the gusts, had taken his place on the platform. He had tied himself up to his waist to resist the monstrous waves that were breaking. I had hoisted myself up and tied myself up too, dividing my admiration between this storm and this incomparable man who stood up to it. The rough sea was swept by great rags of cloud that dipped into its waves. I could no longer see any of those small intermediate waves that form at the bottom of large troughs. Nothing but long, sooty undulations, whose crests do not break, they are so compact. Their height increased. They excited each other. The Nautilus, sometimes lying on its side, sometimes erect like a mast, rolled and pitched terribly. Around five o’clock, a torrential rain fell, which did not dampen either the wind or the sea. The hurricane raged at a speed of forty-five meters per second, or nearly forty leagues per hour. It is in these conditions that it overturns houses, drives roof tiles into doors, breaks iron gates, and displaces twenty-four-pounder cannons. And yet the Nautilus, in the midst of the storm, justified the words of a learned engineer: “There is no well-built hull that cannot defy the sea!” It was not a resistant rock that these waves would have demolished, it was a spindle of steel, obedient and mobile, without rigging, without masts, which defied their fury with impunity. However, I carefully examined these raging waves. They measured up to fifteen meters in height and a length of one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five meters, and their propagation speed, half that of the wind, was fifteen meters per second. Their volume and their power increased with the depth of the water. I then understood the role of these waves which trap the air in their sides and force it back to the bottom of the sea where they carry life with oxygen. Their extreme pressure force – it has been calculated – can reach up to 3,000 kilograms per square foot of the surface they counteract. It was such waves that, in the Hebrides, moved a block weighing 84,000 pounds. It was they who, in the storm of December 23, 1864, after having overturned part of the city of Yeddo, in Japan, traveling 700 kilometers per hour, went to break the same day on the shores of America. The intensity of the storm increased with the night. The barometer, as in In 1860, during a cyclone in Réunion, 710 millimeters fell. At nightfall , I saw a large ship pass on the horizon, struggling painfully. It was capsizing under light steam to stay upright in the waves. It must have been one of the steamers on the New York- Liverpool or Le Havre lines. It soon disappeared into the shadows. At ten o’clock in the evening, the sky was on fire. The atmosphere was streaked with violent flashes of lightning. I could not bear the glare, while Captain Nemo, looking them in the face, seemed to be sucking the soul of the storm into himself . A terrible noise filled the air, a complex noise, made up of the howls of crashing waves, the roars of the wind, and the peals of thunder. The wind was blowing at all points of the horizon, and the cyclone, starting from the east, was returning there by passing through the north, west, and south, in the opposite direction to the rotating storms of the southern hemisphere. Ah! that Gulf Stream! It truly justified its name of king of storms! It is it that creates these formidable cyclones by the difference in temperature of the layers of air superimposed on its currents. The rain had been succeeded by a downpour of fire. The water droplets were changing into fulminating plumes. It was as if Captain Nemo, wanting a death worthy of him, was trying to be struck by lightning. With a frightful pitching movement, the Nautilus raised its steel spur in the air, like the rod of a lightning rod, and I saw long sparks shoot out. Broken, exhausted, I sank flat on my stomach toward the hatch. I opened it and went back down to the living room. The storm was then reaching its maximum intensity. It was impossible to stand up inside the Nautilus. Captain Nemo returned around midnight. I heard the tanks gradually filling, and the Nautilus sank gently below the surface of the waves. Through the open windows of the living room, I saw large, frightened fish passing like ghosts through the burning waters. Some were struck down by lightning before my eyes! The Nautilus continued to descend. I thought it would find calm at a depth of fifteen meters. No. The upper layers were too violently agitated. We had to seek rest as deep as fifty meters in the bowels of the sea. But there, what tranquility, what silence, what a peaceful environment! Who would have thought that a terrible hurricane was then unleashed on the surface of this Ocean?
Chapter 20. AT 47°24′ LATITUDE AND 17°28′ LONGITUDE As a result of this storm, we had been driven east. All hope of escaping to the landfalls of New York or the Saint Lawrence vanished. Poor Ned, in despair, isolated himself like Captain Nemo. Conseil and I were inseparable. I said that the Nautilus had strayed to the east. I should have said, more precisely, to the northeast. For several days, it wandered sometimes on the surface of the waves, sometimes below, amidst those mists so dreadful to navigators. They are mainly due to the melting ice, which maintains an extreme humidity in the atmosphere. How many ships have been lost in these waters, when they were going to reconnoitre the uncertain lights of the coast! How many disasters due to these opaque fogs! How many collisions on these reefs whose surf is extinguished by the noise of the wind! How many collisions between the ships, despite their position lights, despite the warnings of their whistles and their alarm bells! Also, the bottom of these seas offered the appearance of a battlefield, where all these vanquished of the Ocean still lay; some old and already fat; others young and reflecting the glare of our beacon on their fittings and their copper hulls. Among them, how many ships lost body and soul, with their crews, their world of emigrants, on these dangerous points indicated in the statistics, Cape Race, Saint Paul Island, the Strait of Belle-Ile, the St. Lawrence Estuary! And in just a few years, how many victims have been contributed to these funereal annals by the Royal Mail, Inmann, and Montreal lines: the Solway, the Isis, the Paramatta, the Hungarian, the Canadian, the Anglo-Saxon, the Humboldt, the United States, all stranded; the Arctic, the Lyonnais, sunk by collision; the Président, the Pacific, the City of Glasgow, disappeared for unknown causes, somber wrecks among which the Nautilus sailed, as if it had been reviewing the dead! On May 15, we were on the southern tip of the Newfoundland Bank . This bank is a product of marine alluvium, a considerable mass of this organic detritus, brought either from the Equator by the Gulf Stream current, or from the northern pole, by this counter-current of cold water which runs along the American coast. Here also accumulate erratic blocks carried by the break-up of the ice. There has formed a vast ossuary of fish, mollusks or zoophytes which perish there by the billions. The depth of the sea is not considerable at the Newfoundland Bank. A few hundred fathoms at most. But towards the south a deep depression suddenly opens up , a hole of 3,000 meters. There the Gulf Stream widens. It is a flowering of its waters. It loses its speed and its temperature, but it becomes a sea. Among the fish that the Nautilus frightened as it passed, I will mention the one-meter cyclopterus, with a blackish back and an orange belly, which gives its congeners a little-followed example of marital fidelity, a large unernack, a sort of emerald moray eel, of excellent taste, large-eyed karraks, whose head bears some resemblance to that of a dog, blennies, ovoviviparous like snakes, two-decimeter black gobies or gudgeon, long-tailed macrouras , shining with a silvery sheen, fast fish, ventured far from the Hyperborean seas. The nets also picked up a bold, daring, vigorous, well-muscled fish, armed with spines on its head and stingers on its fins, a true scorpion of two to three meters, a bitter enemy of blennies, gads and salmon, it was the cotte of the northern seas, with a tubercular body, brown in color, red on the fins. The fishermen of the Nautilus had some difficulty in capturing this animal, which, thanks to the conformation of its opercula, preserves its respiratory organs from the drying contact of the atmosphere and can live for some time out of the water. I now mention—for the record—bosquians, small fish that accompany ships for a long time in the boreal seas, oxyrhine-bearing scorpionfish, specific to the northern Atlantic, scorpionfish, and I come to the gades, mainly the cod species, which I surprised in its favorite waters, on this inexhaustible bank of Newfoundland. We can say that these cod are mountain fish, because Newfoundland is nothing but an underwater mountain. When the Nautilus opened a path through their pressed phalanges, Conseil could not restrain this observation: “That! Cod!” he said; “but I thought that cod were flat like dabs or soles? ” “Naive!” I cried. Cod are only flat at the grocer’s, where they are shown open and spread out.” But in the water, they are spindle-shaped fish like mullets, and perfectly formed for walking. “I want to believe it, sir,” Conseil replied. “What a swarm, what an anthill! ” “Hey, my friend, there would be many more of them, without their enemies, the scorpionfish and men! Do you know how many eggs have been counted in a single female? ” “Let’s get this right,” Conseil replied. “Five hundred thousand. ” “Eleven million, my friend. ” “Eleven million. That’s what I will never admit, unless count them myself. — Count them, Conseil. But you’d be quicker to believe me. Besides, the French, the English, the Americans, the Danes, the Norwegians fish for cod by the thousands. They are consumed in prodigious quantities, and without the astonishing fertility of these fish, the seas would soon be depopulated. Thus in England and America alone, five thousand ships manned by seventy-five thousand sailors are employed in cod fishing. Each ship brings in forty thousand on average, which makes twenty-five million. On the coasts of Norway, the same result. — Well, replied Conseil, I’ll leave it to the gentleman. I won’t count them.
— What then? — The eleven million eggs. But I will make a remark. — What is it? — It is that if all the eggs hatched, four cod would be enough to supply England, America, and Norway. ” As we skimmed the bottom of the Newfoundland Bank, I saw perfectly these long lines, armed with two hundred hooks, which each boat sets out by the dozen. Each line, pulled by one end by means of a small grapnel, was held on the surface by a rope fixed to a cork buoy. The Nautilus had to maneuver skillfully in the middle of this underwater network. Moreover, it did not remain long in these frequented waters. It rose to around the forty-second degree of latitude. This was at the height of Saint John, Newfoundland and Heart’s Content, where the end of the transatlantic cable ends. The Nautilus, instead of continuing to travel north, headed east, as if it wanted to follow this telegraph plateau on which the cable rests, and whose relief has been given with extreme accuracy by numerous soundings . It was on May 17, about five hundred miles from Heart’s Content, at a depth of two thousand eight hundred meters, that I saw the cable lying on the ground. Conseil, whom I had not warned, at first took it for a gigantic sea serpent and was preparing to classify it according to his usual method. But I disabused the worthy fellow and to console him for his disappointment, I taught him various peculiarities of the laying of this cable. The first cable was laid during the years 1857 and 1858; but, after having transmitted about four hundred telegrams, it ceased to function. In 1863, the engineers built a new cable, measuring three thousand four hundred kilometers and weighing four thousand five hundred tons, which was embarked on the Great Eastern. This attempt failed again. Now, on May 25, the Nautilus, submerged at a depth of 3,836 meters, was precisely at the spot where the rupture occurred that ruined the enterprise. It was 638 miles from the Irish coast. It was discovered at 2:00 p.m. that communications with Europe had just been interrupted. The ship’s electricians decided to cut the cable before fishing it out, and by 11:00 p.m., they had brought back the damaged section. A joint and a splice were remade; then the cable was submerged again. But, a few days later, it broke and could not be recovered from the depths of the ocean. The Americans were not discouraged. The audacious Cyrus Field, the promoter of the enterprise, who risked his entire fortune on it, called for a new subscription. It was immediately covered. Another cable was laid under better conditions. The bundle of insulated conductor wires, wrapped in gutta-percha, was protected by a mattress of textile materials contained in a metal frame. The Great Eastern set sail again on July 13, 1866. The operation went well. However, an incident occurred. Several times, while unwinding the cable, the electricians observed that nails had recently been driven into it with the aim of damaging the core. Captain Anderson, his officers, his engineers, met, deliberated, and posted that if the culprit was caught on board, he would be thrown into the sea without further trial. Since then, the criminal attempt has not been repeated. On July 23, the Great Eastern was only eight hundred kilometers from Newfoundland, when news of the armistice concluded between Prussia and Austria after Sadowa was telegraphed from Ireland. On the 27th, he surveyed the port of Heart’s Content in the midst of the fog. The enterprise was happily completed, and by its first dispatch, young America addressed to old Europe these wise words so rarely understood: “Glory to God in heaven, and peace to men of good will on earth.” I did not expect to find the electric cable in its primitive state, as it was when it left the manufacturing workshops. The long snake, covered with shell debris, bristling with foraminifera, was encrusted in a stony coating that protected it from the piercing mollusks. It lay quietly, sheltered from the movements of the sea, and under a pressure favorable to the transmission of the electric spark that passes from America to Europe in thirty-two hundredths of a second. The life of this cable will undoubtedly be infinite, for it has been observed that the gutta-percha envelope improves by its stay in sea water. Moreover, on this plateau so fortunately chosen, the cable is never immersed to such depths that it could break. The Nautilus followed it to its lowest bottom, located at 4,431 meters, and there it still lay without any traction effort. Then we approached the place where the accident of 1863 had occurred. The ocean floor then formed a valley 120 kilometers wide, on which Mont Blanc could have been placed without its summit emerging from the surface of the waves. This valley is closed to the east by a sheer wall 2,000 meters high. We arrived there on May 28, and the Nautilus was only 150 kilometers from Ireland. Was Captain Nemo going to go back up to land on the British Isles? No. To my great surprise, he went back down to the south and returned to the European seas. As I rounded the Emerald Isle, I caught a glimpse of Cape Clear and the Fastenet light, which illuminates the thousands of ships leaving Glasgow or Liverpool. An important question then arose in my mind. Would the Nautilus dare to enter the Channel? Ned Land, who had reappeared since we reached land, kept questioning me. How could I answer him? Captain Nemo remained invisible. After giving the Canadian a glimpse of the shores of America, was he going to show me the coasts of France? Meanwhile, the Nautilus was still heading south. On May 30, it passed within sight of Land’s End, between the extreme tip of England and the Isles of Scilly, which it left to starboard. If it wanted to enter the Channel, it would have to turn due east. It didn’t. Throughout the day of May 31, the Nautilus circled the sea in a series of circles that greatly intrigued me. It seemed to be looking for a place it had some difficulty finding. At noon, Captain Nemo came to take stock himself. He didn’t speak to me. He seemed more gloomy than ever. Who could have saddened him so? Was it his proximity to the European shores? Did he feel some memory of his abandoned country? What did he feel then? Remorse or regret? This thought occupied my mind for a long time, and I had a presentiment that chance would soon betray the captain’s secrets . The next day, June 31, the Nautilus maintained the same course. It was evident that he was trying to reconnoiter a specific point in the ocean. Captain Nemo came to take the sun’s altitude, as he had done the day before. The sea was beautiful, the sky clear. Eight miles to the east, a large steamship stood out on the horizon. No flag was flying from its horn, and I could not recognize its nationality. Captain Nemo, a few minutes before the sun passed the meridian, took his sextant and observed with extreme precision. The absolute calm of the waves facilitated his operation. The motionless Nautilus felt neither rolling nor pitching. I was at that moment on the platform. When his bearing was finished, the captain uttered these words alone: ​​”It’s here!” He went back down through the hatch. Had he seen the vessel altering its course and seeming to be approaching us? I could not say. I returned to the saloon. The hatch closed, and I heard the hissing of the water in the tanks. The Nautilus began to sink, following a vertical line, because its hampered propeller no longer gave it any movement. A few minutes later, it stopped at a depth of 833 meters and rested on the ground. The luminous ceiling of the salon then went out, the panels opened, and through the windows, I saw the sea brightly illuminated by the rays of the lantern in a half-mile radius. I looked to port and saw nothing but the immensity of the calm waters. To starboard, on the bottom, appeared a strong extumescence which attracted my attention. They looked like ruins buried under a mass of whitish shells as if under a blanket of snow. On examining this mass carefully, I thought I recognized the thickened forms of a ship, shaved of its masts, which must have sunk by the bow. This disaster certainly dated from a distant era. This wreck, to be so encrusted in the limestone of the waters, had already had many years spent on this ocean floor. What was this ship? Why had the Nautilus come to visit its grave? Was it not a shipwreck that had dragged this vessel under the waters? I did not know what to think when, near me, I heard Captain Nemo say in a slow voice: “Formerly this ship was called the Marseillais. It carried seventy-four cannons and was launched in 1762. In 1778, on August 13, commanded by La Poype-Vertrieux, it fought audaciously against the Preston. In 1779, on July 4, it participated with Admiral d’Estaing’s squadron in the capture of Grenada. In 1781, on September 5, it took part in the battle of the Count of Grasse in the Chesapeake Bay. In 1794, the French Republic changed its name. On April 16 of the same year, it joined Villaret-Joyeuse’s squadron in Brest, tasked with escorting a wheat convoy coming from America under the command of Admiral Van Stabel. On the 11th and 12th of Prairial, Year II, this squadron met with English vessels. Sir, today is the 13th of Prairial, June 1, 1868. Seventy-four years ago , to the day, at this very spot, at latitude 47°24′ and longitude 17°28′, this ship, after a heroic battle, dismasted of all three masts, water in its holds, a third of its crew out of action, chose to sink with its three hundred and fifty-six sailors rather than surrender, and nailing its flag to its stern, it disappeared beneath the waves to the cry of: Long live the Republic! “The _Vengeur_!” I cried. “Yes! Sir. The _Vengeur_! A fine name!” murmured Captain Nemo, crossing his arms. Chapter 21. A HURRICANE This way of speaking, the unexpectedness of this scene, this history of the patriotic ship coldly recounted at first, then the emotion with which the strange character had pronounced his last words, this name of _Avenger_, the meaning of which could not escape me, all united to deeply strike my mind. My gaze no longer left the captain. He, his hands outstretched towards the sea, gazed ardently at the glorious wreck. Perhaps I would never know who he was, where he came from, where he was going, but I saw more and more the man emerging from the scientist. It was not a common misanthropy that had imprisoned Captain Nemo and his companions in the sides of the Nautilus , but a monstrous or sublime hatred that time could not weaken. Was this hatred still seeking revenge? The future would soon teach me. Meanwhile, the Nautilus was slowly rising towards the surface of the sea, and I saw the confused forms of the Avenger disappear little by little. Soon a slight rolling told me that we were floating in the open air. At that moment, a dull detonation was heard. I looked at the captain. The captain did not move. “Captain?” I said. He didn’t answer. I left him and went up onto the platform. Conseil and the Canadian had preceded me. “Where did that detonation come from?” I asked. “A cannon shot,” replied Ned Land. I looked in the direction of the ship I had seen. It had come closer to the Nautilus and could be seen to be gaining steam. Six miles separated it from us. “What is that ship, Ned? ” “From her rigging, from the height of her lower masts,” replied the Canadian, “I’d bet on a warship. May she come towards us and sink, if necessary, that damned Nautilus! ” “Friend Ned,” replied Conseil, “what harm can she do to the Nautilus? Will she attack her under the waves? Will she cannonade her at the bottom of the sea?”
“Tell me, Ned,” I asked, “can you recognize the nationality of this vessel?” The Canadian, frowning, lowering his eyelids, and narrowing his eyes at the corners, stared at the ship for a few moments with all the power of his gaze. “No, sir,” he replied. “I cannot recognize to what nation she belongs. Her flag is not hoisted. But I can affirm that she is a warship, for a long pennant unfurls from the end of her mainmast.” For a quarter of an hour, we continued to observe the vessel as it headed toward us. I could not believe, however, that he would have recognized the Nautilus at that distance, still less that he knew what this underwater craft was. Soon the Canadian announced to me that this vessel was a large warship, rammed, a two-decker armored ship. Thick black smoke was escaping from its two funnels. Its tightly set sails merged with the line of the yards. Its gaff bore no flag. The distance still prevented us from distinguishing the colors of its pennant, which fluttered like a thin ribbon. It was advancing rapidly. If Captain Nemo let it approach, a chance of salvation was offered to us. “Sir,” Ned Land said to me, “if this ship passes us within a mile, I will throw myself into the sea, and I urge you to do the same.” I did not respond to the Canadian’s proposal, and I continued to watch the ship, which was growing visibly. Whether it was English, French, American, or Russian, it was certain that it would welcome us if we could reach its side. “Sir will kindly remember,” Conseil then said, “that we have some experience of swimming. He can rely on me to tow him to this ship, if it suits him to follow our friend Ned.” I was about to reply when a white vapor burst forth from the front of the warship. Then, a few seconds later, the waters , disturbed by the fall of a heavy body, splashed the stern of the Nautilus. Shortly after, a detonation struck my ear. “What? They’re firing at us!” I cried. “Good people!” murmured the Canadian. “So they don’t take us for castaways clinging to a wreck! ” “With all due respect to sir…” “Good,” Conseil said, shaking off the water that a new cannonball had caused to spurt up towards him. “With all due respect to sir, they have recognized the narwhal, and they are cannonading the narwhal. ” “But they must see,” I cried, “that they are dealing with men.
” “Perhaps that’s why!” replied Ned Land, looking at me. A whole revelation dawned on me. No doubt, we now knew what to make of the existence of the supposed monster. No doubt, in his collision with the Abraham Lincoln, when the Canadian struck it with its harpoon, Commander Farragut had recognized that the narwhal was an underwater boat, more dangerous than a supernatural cetacean? Yes, it had to be so, and on all the seas, no doubt, this terrible engine of destruction was now being pursued! Terrible indeed, if, as one might suppose, Captain Nemo was using the Nautilus for a work of vengeance! During that night, when he imprisoned us in the cell, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, had he not attacked some ship? Hadn’t that man, now buried in the coral cemetery, been a victim of the shock caused by the Nautilus? Yes, I repeat. It had to be so. Part of Captain Nemo’s mysterious existence was being revealed. And if his identity was not recognized, at least the nations allied against him were now hunting, no longer a chimerical being, but a man who had vowed implacable hatred to them! All that formidable past appeared before my eyes. Instead of meeting friends on this approaching ship, we could find only pitiless enemies. Meanwhile, the cannonballs were multiplying around us. Some, hitting the liquid surface, ricocheted off to be lost at considerable distances. But none reached the Nautilus. The armored ship was then only three miles away. Despite his violent cannonade, Captain Nemo did not appear on the platform. And yet, one of these conical cannonballs, normally striking the hull of the Nautilus, would have been fatal to him. The Canadian then said to me: “Sir, we must do everything we can to get out of this bad situation. Let’s make signals! A thousand devils! Perhaps people will understand that we are honest people!” Ned Land took his handkerchief to wave it in the air. But he had barely deployed it when, struck down by an iron hand, despite his prodigious strength, he fell to the deck. “Wretch,” cried the captain, “do you want me to nail you to the Nautilus’s spur before it rushes against this ship!” Captain Nemo, terrible to hear, was even more terrible to see. His face had paled under the spasms of his heart, which must have stopped beating for a moment. His pupils had contracted terribly. His voice no longer spoke, it roared. His body leaning forward, he twisted the Canadian’s shoulders under his hand. Then, abandoning him and turning towards the warship whose cannonballs were raining down around him: “Ah! You know who I am, ship of a cursed nation!” he cried in his powerful voice. “I didn’t need your colors to recognize you! Look! I’ll show you mine!” ” And Captain Nemo unfurled a black flag at the front of the platform , similar to the one he had already planted at the South Pole. At that moment, a cannonball struck obliquely the hull of the Nautilus, without damaging it, and ricocheted near the captain, and was lost at sea. Captain Nemo shrugged his shoulders. Then, addressing me: “Go down,” he said briefly, “go down, you and your companions. ” “Sir,” I cried, “are you going to attack this ship, “Sir, I’m going to sink it. You won’t do that! ” “I will,” Captain Nemo replied coldly. “Do n’t you dare judge me, sir. Fate is showing you what you shouldn’t have seen. The attack has come. The response will be terrible. Go back. ” “What is this ship? ” “You don’t know? Well, so much the better! Its nationality, at least, will remain a secret to you. Go down.” The Canadian, Conseil, and I could only obey. About fifteen sailors from the Nautilus surrounded the captain and looked with an implacable feeling of hatred at this ship advancing towards them. One felt that the same breath of vengeance animated all these souls. I went down at the moment when another projectile was again grating the hull of the Nautilus, and I heard the captain cry out: “Strike, senseless ship! Be lavish with your useless cannonballs!” You will not escape the ram of the Nautilus. But this is not the place where you must perish! I do not want your ruins to be mixed up with those of the Avenger! I returned to my room. The captain and his first mate had remained on the platform. The propeller was set in motion, the Nautilus, moving away at speed, put itself out of range of the ship’s cannonballs. But the pursuit continued, and Captain Nemo was content to maintain his distance. Around four o’clock in the evening, unable to contain the impatience and anxiety that were consuming me, I returned to the central staircase. The hatch was open. I ventured onto the platform. The captain was still pacing there with an agitated step. He was watching the ship, which remained five or six miles to leeward of him. It circled around him like a wild beast, and drawing it eastward, it let itself be pursued. However, he wasn’t attacking. Perhaps he was still hesitating. I wanted to intervene one last time. But I had barely called out to Captain Nemo when he silenced me: “I am the law, I am justice!” he said to me. ” I am the oppressed, and here is the oppressor! It is because of him that everything I have loved, cherished, venerated, homeland, wife, children, my father, my mother, I have seen everything perish! Everything I hate is there! Be quiet!” I took one last look at the warship, which was gaining steam. Then I joined Ned and Conseil. “We will flee!” I cried. “Good,” said Ned. “What is this ship? ” “I don’t know. But whatever it is, it will be sunk before nightfall.” In any case, it is better to perish with him than to become accomplices in reprisals whose fairness cannot be measured. “That is my opinion,” Ned Land replied coldly. “Let’s wait until nightfall.” Night came. A profound silence reigned on board. The compass indicated that the Nautilus had not changed its direction. I could hear the beating of its propeller striking the waves with rapid regularity. It was staying on the surface of the water, and a slight rolling carried it now to one side, now to the other. My companions and I had resolved to flee the moment the ship came close enough, either to be heard or to be seen, for the moon, which was to be full three days later, was shining resplendently. Once on board this ship, if we could not prevent the blow that threatened it, at least we would do everything that circumstances allowed us to attempt. Several times I thought the Nautilus was preparing to attack. But it simply let its adversary get closer, and a short time later, it resumed its flight. Part of the night passed without incident. We watched for an opportunity to act. We spoke little, being too emotional. Ned Land would have liked to rush into the sea. I forced him to wait. In my opinion, the Nautilus was to attack the two-decker on the surface of the waves, and then it would not only be possible, but easy to escape. At three o’clock in the morning, anxious, I climbed onto the platform. Captain Nemo had not left it. He was standing at the front, near his flag, which a light breeze unfurled above his head. He did not take his eyes off the ship. His gaze, of extraordinary intensity, seemed to attract him, fascinate him, draw him along more surely than if he had given him the tow! The moon was then passing the meridian. Jupiter was rising in the east. In the midst of this peaceful nature, the sky and the ocean vied with each other in tranquility, and the sea offered the night star the most beautiful mirror that had ever reflected its image. And when I thought of this profound calm of the elements, compared to all this anger brewing in the flanks of the imperceptible Nautilus, I felt my whole being shudder. The ship was two thousand meters away from us. He had come closer, still moving towards that phosphorescent glow that signaled the presence of the Nautilus. I saw its position lights, green and red, and its white lantern suspended from the main forestay. A faint reverberation illuminated its rigging and indicated that the lights were pushed to the limit. Showers of sparks, slag of burning coals, escaping from its funnels, starred the atmosphere. I remained like this until six o’clock in the morning, without Captain Nemo appearing to notice me. The ship remained a mile and a half away from us, and with the first glimmers of day, its cannonade began again. The moment could not be far off when, with the Nautilus attacking its adversary, my companions and I would leave forever this man whom I dared not judge. I was preparing to go down to warn them, when the second officer climbed onto the platform. Several sailors accompanied him. Captain Nemo did not see them or did not want to see them. Certain measures were taken that could have been called the “combat stations ” of the Nautilus. They were very simple. The guardrail that formed a balustrade around the platform was lowered. Likewise, the lantern and helmsman cages were retracted into the hull so as to be only flush with it. The surface of the long cigar of sheet metal no longer offered a single projection that could hinder its maneuvering. I returned to the saloon. The Nautilus was still emerging. A few morning glimmers of light filtered into the liquid layer. Under certain undulations of the waves, the windows were animated by the redness of the rising sun. That terrible day of June 2 was dawning. At five o’clock, the log told me that the speed of the Nautilus was moderating. I understood that it was allowing itself to be approached. Besides, the detonations were becoming more violent. The cannonballs were plowing through the surrounding water and screwing into it with a singular hiss.
“My friends,” I said, “the moment has come. A handshake, and God save us!” Ned Land was resolute, Conseil calm, I nervous, barely containing myself. We passed into the library. Just as I pushed open the door that opened onto the central staircase, I heard the upper panel suddenly close. The Canadian rushed up the steps, but I stopped him. A familiar hiss told me that water was entering the tanks on board. Indeed, in a few moments, the Nautilus submerged a few meters below the surface of the waves. I understood his maneuver. It was too late to act. The Nautilus wasn’t thinking of striking the two-decker in its impenetrable armor, but below its waterline, where the metal shell no longer protected the hull. We were imprisoned again, forced witnesses to the sinister drama that was being prepared. Besides, we barely had time to think. Taking refuge in my room, we looked at each other without saying a word. A profound stupor had taken hold of my mind. The movement of thought stopped within me. I found myself in this state painful that precedes the expectation of a terrible detonation. I waited, I listened, I lived only by the sense of hearing! However, the speed of the Nautilus increased noticeably. It was its momentum that it was thus gaining. Its entire hull shuddered. Suddenly, I let out a cry. A shock occurred, but relatively light. I felt the penetrating force of the steel ram. I heard scrapings, scrapings. But the Nautilus, carried away by its propulsive power, passed through the mass of the vessel like the needle of a sailboat through canvas! I could not hold it in. Mad, distraught, I rushed out of my room and rushed into the living room. Captain Nemo was there. Mute, somber, implacable, he was looking out the port hatch. An enormous mass was sinking beneath the waters, and so as not to miss any of its agony, the Nautilus was descending into the abyss with it. Ten meters from me, I saw this half-open hull, where the water was sinking with a thunderous noise, then the double line of cannons and the railings. The deck was covered with black shadows that were stirring. The water was rising. The unfortunates were throwing themselves into the shrouds, clinging to the masts, writhing beneath the water. It was a human anthill surprised by the invasion of a sea! Paralyzed, stiff with anguish, my hair standing on end, my eyes wide open, my breathing incomplete, breathless, voiceless, I watched, too! An irresistible attraction glued me to the window! The enormous vessel was sinking slowly. The Nautilus, following him, watched his every move. Suddenly, an explosion occurred. The compressed air made the ship’s decks fly as if the holds had caught fire. The thrust of the water was so strong that the Nautilus veered off course. Then the unfortunate ship sank more rapidly. Its tops, laden with victims, appeared, then the tillers, bending under clusters of men, and finally the top of its mainmast. Then the dark mass disappeared, and with it the crew of corpses swept away by a formidable eddy… I turned toward Captain Nemo. This terrible avenger, a true archangel of hatred, was still watching. When it was all over, Captain Nemo, heading toward the door of his room, opened it and entered. I followed him with my eyes. On the back panel, below the portraits of his heroes, I saw the portrait of a still young woman and two small children. Captain Nemo looked at them for a few moments, held out his arms, and, kneeling, he burst into tears. Chapter 22. CAPTAIN NEMO’S LAST WORDS The hatches had closed on this frightening vision, but the light had not been restored to the salon. Inside the Nautilus, there was only darkness and silence. He was leaving this place of desolation, a hundred feet underwater, with prodigious speed. Where was he going? North or south? Where was this man fleeing after this horrible reprisal? I had returned to my room where Ned and Conseil stood silently. I felt an insurmountable horror for Captain Nemo. Whatever he had suffered at the hands of men, he had no right to punish them like this. He had made me, if not an accomplice, at least a witness to his vengeance! It was already too much. At eleven o’clock, the electric light reappeared. I went into the lounge. It was deserted. I consulted the various instruments. The Nautilus was heading north at a speed of twenty-five miles per hour, sometimes at the surface of the sea, sometimes thirty feet below. Bearing on the chart, I saw that we were passing at the opening of the English Channel, and that our direction was taking us towards the boreal seas with incomparable speed. I could barely catch, as they passed quickly, the long- nosed sharks, the hammerhead sharks, the dogfish that frequent these waters, great sea eagles, flocks of seahorses, like knights in a game of chess, eels fluttering like the serpents of a firework , armies of crabs fleeing obliquely, crossing their claws over their shells, and finally troops of porpoises competing for speed with the Nautilus. But observing, studying, classifying, was no longer an option. By evening, we had crossed two hundred leagues of the Atlantic. The shadows fell, and the sea was filled with darkness until the moon rose. I returned to my room. I could not sleep. I was assailed by nightmares. The horrible scene of destruction repeated itself in my mind. Since that day, who can say how far the Nautilus took us in this basin of the North Atlantic? Always with immeasurable speed! Always in the midst of the Hyperborean mists! Did he touch the tips of Spitsbergen, the ridges of Novaya Zemlya ? Did he sail through these unknown seas, the White Sea, the Kara Sea, the Gulf of Obi, the Liarrov Archipelago, and these unknown shores of the Asian coast? I could not say. I could no longer estimate the time that was passing. Time had been suspended on the ship’s clocks. It seemed that night and day, as in the polar regions, no longer followed their regular course. I felt myself drawn into that realm of the strange where the overworked imagination of Edgar Poe moved at ease . At every moment, I expected to see, like the fabulous Gordon Pym, “that veiled human figure, of proportions much vaster than that of any inhabitant of the earth, thrown across that cataract which defends the approaches to the pole”! I estimate—but I may be wrong—I estimate that this adventurous journey of the Nautilus lasted fifteen or twenty days, and I don’t know how long it would have lasted without the catastrophe that ended this voyage. Captain Nemo was no longer in question. Nor was his second in command. Not a single man of the crew was visible for a single instant. Almost incessantly, the Nautilus floated under the water. When it rose to the surface to refresh its air, the hatches opened or closed automatically. No more points were plotted on the planisphere. I didn’t know where we were. I will also say that the Canadian, at the end of his strength and patience, no longer appeared. Conseil could not get a single word out of him, and feared that, in a fit of delirium and under the influence of a frightening nostalgia , he would kill himself. He therefore watched over him with constant devotion . It is understandable that, under these conditions, the situation was no longer tenable. One morning—on what date, I cannot say—I had dozed off towards the early hours of the morning, a painful and sickly drowsiness. When I awoke, I saw Ned Land leaning over me, and I heard him say in a low voice: “We are going to flee!” I sat up. “When are we fleeing?” I asked. “Next night. All surveillance seems to have disappeared from the Nautilus. It seems that stupor reigns on board. Will you be ready, sir? ” “Yes. Where are we? ” “In sight of land that I just sighted this morning in the midst of the fog, twenty miles to the east. ” “What are these lands? ” “I don’t know, but whatever they are, we will take refuge there. ” “Yes! Ned. Yes, we will flee tonight, even if the sea swallows us up!” “The sea is rough, the wind violent, but twenty miles to go in this light boat of the Nautilus don’t frighten me. I was able to carry some food and a few bottles of water without the crew knowing. ” “I’ll follow you. ” “Besides,” added the Canadian, “if I’m surprised, I’ll defend myself, I’ll get killed. ” “We’ll die together, friend Ned.” I had decided on anything. The Canadian left me. I reached the platform, on which I could barely hold myself against the shock of the waves. The sky was threatening, but since the land was there in these thick mists, we had to flee. We must not lose a day or an hour. I returned to the living room, simultaneously fearing and desiring to meet Captain Nemo, wanting and not wanting to see him again. What would I have said to him? Could I hide from him the involuntary horror he inspired in me? No! It would have been better not to find myself face to face with him ! It would have been better to forget him! And yet! How long that day was, the last I had to spend aboard the Nautilus! I remained alone. Ned Land and Conseil avoided speaking to me for fear of betraying themselves. At six o’clock, I had dinner, but I was not hungry. I forced myself to eat, despite my reluctance, not wanting to weaken. At six-thirty, Ned Land entered my room. He said to me: “We won’t see each other again until we leave. At ten o’clock, the moon will not yet be up. We will take advantage of the darkness. Come to the boat. Conseil and I will wait for you there.” Then the Canadian left, without giving me time to reply. I wanted to check the direction of the Nautilus. I went to the living room. We were traveling north-northeast with frightening speed, at a depth of fifty meters. I took a last look at these wonders of nature, at these riches of art piled up in this museum, at this unrivaled collection destined one day to perish at the bottom of the sea with the man who had formed it. I wanted to fix in my mind a supreme impression. I remained like this for an hour, bathed in the scent of the luminous ceiling, and reviewing these treasures resplendent under their glass cases. Then I returned to my room. There, I put on sturdy sea clothes. I gathered my notes and held them tightly to me. My heart was beating violently. I couldn’t suppress its pulsations. Certainly, my confusion, my agitation would have betrayed me to Captain Nemo. What was he doing at that moment? I listened at the door of his room. I heard the sound of footsteps. Captain Nemo was there. He hadn’t gone to bed. With every movement, it seemed to me that he was going to appear and ask me why I wanted to flee! I felt incessant alarms. My imagination magnified them. This impression became so poignant that I wondered if it wouldn’t be better to enter the captain’s room, see him face to face, defy him with gestures and glances! It was a mad inspiration. Fortunately, I restrained myself, and I lay down on my bed to calm the agitations of my body. My nerves calmed a little, but, my brain overexcited, I relived in a quick memory my entire existence on board the Nautilus, all the incidents, happy or unhappy, that had crossed my life since my disappearance from the Abraham Lincoln, the underwater hunts, the Torres Strait, the savages of Papua, the grounding, the coral cemetery, the Suez passage, the island of Santorini, the Cretan diver, the bay of Vigo, Atlantis, the ice floe, the South Pole, imprisonment in the ice, the fight of the octopuses, the storm of the Gulf Stream, the Avenger, and that horrible scene of the ship sunk with its crew! All these events passed before my eyes, like those backdrops that unfold in the background of a theater. Then Captain Nemo grew disproportionately in this strange environment. His type was becoming more pronounced and taking on superhuman proportions . He was no longer my fellow man, he was the man of the waters, the genius of the seas. It was then nine thirty. I held my head with both hands to prevent it from bursting. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to think anymore.
Another half hour of waiting! Half an hour of a nightmare that could drive me mad! At that moment, I heard the vague chords of the organ, a harmony sad beneath an indefinable song, true laments of a soul that wants to break its earthly bonds. I listened with all my senses at once, barely breathing, immersed like Captain Nemo in these musical ecstasies that carried him beyond the limits of this world. Then, a sudden thought terrified me. Captain Nemo had left his room. He was in this living room that I had to cross to escape. There, I would meet him one last time. He would see me, he would perhaps speak to me! A gesture from him could annihilate me, a single word, chain me to his ship! However, ten o’clock was about to strike. The time had come to leave my room and rejoin my companions. There was no hesitation, even if Captain Nemo stood before me. I opened my door cautiously, and yet, it seemed to me that as it turned on its hinges, it made a frightening noise. Perhaps this noise existed only in my imagination! I crept forward through the dark passageways of the Nautilus, stopping at every step to suppress my heartbeat. I reached the corner door of the lounge. I opened it gently. The lounge was plunged into profound darkness. The chords of the organ echoed faintly. Captain Nemo was there. He could n’t see me. I don’t even think that in broad daylight, he wouldn’t have noticed me, so completely absorbed was he by his ecstasy. I dragged myself along the carpet, avoiding the slightest bump whose noise might have betrayed my presence. It took me five minutes to reach the back door that led to the library. I was about to open it when a sigh from Captain Nemo rooted me to the spot. I realized he was getting up. I even caught a glimpse of him, for a few rays of light from the lit library filtered into the lounge. He came towards me, arms crossed, silent, gliding rather than walking, like a ghost. His oppressed chest swelled with sobs. And I heard him murmur these words—the last to ever strike my ear: “Almighty God! Enough! Enough!” Was it the confession of remorse that thus escaped the conscience of this man?… Distraught, I rushed into the library. I climbed the central staircase, and, following the upper gangway, I arrived at the boat. I entered through the opening that had already given passage to my two companions. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” I cried. “At once!” replied the Canadian. The hole cut in the sheet metal of the Nautilus was first closed and bolted with a wrench that Ned Land had provided. The opening of the boat also closed, and the Canadian began to unscrew the nuts that still held us to the underwater boat. Suddenly, an internal noise was heard. Voices answered each other briskly. What was it? Had our escape been noticed? I felt Ned Land slip a dagger into my hand. “Yes!” I murmured, “we will know how to die!” The Canadian had stopped in his work. But one word, repeated twenty times, a terrible word, revealed to me the cause of this agitation that was spreading aboard the Nautilus. It was not us that his crew wanted! “Maelstrom! Maelstrom!” he cried. The Maelstrom! Could a more frightening name in a more frightening situation sound in our ears? Were we then in these dangerous waters off the Norwegian coast? Was the Nautilus being dragged into this chasm at the moment when our boat was about to break away from its sides? We know that at the moment of the flow, the waters confined between the Faroe and Loffoden Islands are thrown forward with irresistible violence. They form a whirlpool from which no ship has ever been able to escape. From all points of the horizon monstrous waves rush. They form this chasm rightly called the “Navel of the Ocean,” whose power of attraction extends to a distance of fifteen kilometers. Not only ships are sucked in there, but whales, but also polar bears from the boreal regions. It was there that the Nautilus, involuntarily or perhaps voluntarily , had been engaged by its captain. It described a spiral whose radius diminished more and more. Like it, the canoe, still clinging to its side, was carried away with dizzying speed. I felt it. I experienced that sickly whirling that follows a too prolonged gyration. We were in terror, in horror brought to its peak, circulation suspended, nervous influence annihilated, crossed by cold sweats like the sweats of agony! And what a noise around our frail canoe! What roars that the echo repeated at a distance of several miles! What a crash of water breaking against the sharp rocks of the bottom, where the hardest bodies break, where tree trunks wear away and become “furry with hair,” according to the Norwegian expression! What a situation! We were tossed about terribly. The Nautilus defended itself like a human being. Its steel muscles cracked. Sometimes it stood up, and we with it! “We must hold on,” said Ned, “and tighten the nuts! By staying attached to the Nautilus, we can still save ourselves…!” He had not finished speaking when there was a crack. The nuts were missing, and the boat, torn from its socket, was hurled like a stone from a sling into the middle of the whirlpool. My head hit an iron frame, and under this violent shock, I lost consciousness. Chapter 23. CONCLUSION. Here is the conclusion of this voyage under the sea. What happened during that night, how the boat escaped the formidable eddy of the Maelstrom, how Ned Land, Conseil, and I got out of the abyss, I cannot say. But when I came to, I was lying in the cabin of a fisherman in the Loffoden Islands. My two companions, safe and sound, were near me and pressing my hands. We embraced each other effusively. At this moment, we cannot think of returning to France. The means of communication between northern Norway and the south are rare. I am therefore forced to wait for the passage of the steamer that makes the bimonthly service to the North Cape. It is therefore there, among these brave people who took us in, that I review the account of these adventures. It is exact. Not a single fact has been omitted, not a single detail has been exaggerated. This is the faithful narration of this improbable expedition under an element inaccessible to man, and whose progress will one day make the roads free. Will they believe me? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, after all. What I can affirm now is my right to speak of these seas under which, in less than ten months, I have crossed twenty thousand leagues, of this underwater tour of the world which has revealed to me so many wonders across the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the southern and northern seas! But what has become of the Nautilus? Did it resist the embraces of the Maelstrom? Is Captain Nemo still alive? Does he continue his terrifying reprisals under the Ocean, or has he stopped before this last hecatomb? Will the waves one day bring back this manuscript which contains the whole story of his life? Will I finally know the name of this man? Will the missing ship tell us, by its nationality, the nationality of Captain Nemo? I hope so. I also hope that his powerful craft conquered the sea in its most terrible abyss, and that the Nautilus survived where so many ships have perished! If this is so, if Captain Nemo still inhabits this Ocean, his adopted homeland, may hatred be appeased in this fierce heart! May the contemplation of so many wonders extinguish in him the spirit of vengeance! May the avenger fades away, let the scientist continue the peaceful exploration of the seas! If his destiny is strange, it is also sublime. Didn’t I understand it for myself? Didn’t I live ten months of this extranatural existence? So, to this question posed, six thousand years ago, by Ecclesiastes: “Who has ever been able to fathom the depths of the abyss?” two men among all men have the right to answer now. Captain Nemo and me. END OF THE SECOND PART You have just read with us the second part of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne’s timeless masterpiece. This story, at the crossroads of science and dreams, paved the way for the modern imagination of underwater exploration and continues to captivate readers around the world. Through the journeys of Captain Nemo and his reluctant companions, Verne questions us about freedom, knowledge, and the mysteries of nature. Thank you for listening to this adventure, and let’s meet again soon for new literary discoveries.