Collins Classics

History of Collins

In 1819, Millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.

Soon after, William published the first Collins novel, Ready Reckoner, however it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.

Aged 30, William’s son, William II took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly ‘Victorian’ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and Pilgrim’s Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopaedias and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.

In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of ‘books for the millions’ was developed. Affordable editions of classical literature were published and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everyman’s Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.

HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition – publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

History of Collins

CHAPTER 1 A Floating Reef

CHAPTER 2 For and Against

CHAPTER 3 As Monsieur Pleases

CHAPTER 4 Ned Land

CHAPTER 5 At Random

CHAPTER 6 With all Steam on

CHAPTER 7 A Whale of an Unknown Species

CHAPTER 8 Mobilis in Mobile

CHAPTER 9 Ned Land’s Anger

CHAPTER 10 Nemo

CHAPTER 11 The ‘Nautilus’

CHAPTER 12 Everything by Electricity

CHAPTER 13 Figures

CHAPTER 14 The Black River

CHAPTER 15 A Written Invitation

CHAPTER 16 At the Bottom of the Sea

CHAPTER 17 A Submarine Forest

CHAPTER 18 Four Thousand Leagues Under the Pacific

CHAPTER 19 Vanikoro

CHAPTER 20 Torres Straits

CHAPTER 21 Some Days on Land

CHAPTER 22 Captain Nemo’s Thunderbolt

CHAPTER 23 Aegri Somnia

CHAPTER 24 The Coral Kingdom

CHAPTER 25 The Indian Ocean

CHAPTER 26 A Fresh Proposition of Captain Nemo’s

CHAPTER 27 A Pearl Worth Ten Millions

CHAPTER 28 The Red Sea

CHAPTER 29 The Arabian Tunnel

CHAPTER 30 The Grecian Archipelago

CHAPTER 31 The Mediterranean in Forty-Eight Hours

CHAPTER 32 Vigo Bay

CHAPTER 33 A Vanished Continent

CHAPTER 34 Submarine Coalfields

CHAPTER 35 The Sargasso Sea

CHAPTER 36 Cachalots and Whales

CHAPTER 37 The Ice-Bank

CHAPTER 38 The South Pole

CHAPTER 39 Accident or Incident?

CHAPTER 40 Want of Air

CHAPTER 41 From Cape Horn to the Amazon

CHAPTER 42 Poulps

CHAPTER 43 The Gulf Stream

CHAPTER 44 In Latitude 47° 24′ and Longitude 17° 18′

CHAPTER 45 A Hecatomb

CHAPTER 46 Captain Nemo’s Last Words

CHAPTER 47 Conclusion

CLASSIC LITERATURE: WORDS AND PHRASES

About the author

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1 A Floating Reef

In the year 1866 the whole maritime population of Europe and America was excited by a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon. This excitement was not confined to merchants, sailors, sea-captains, shippers, and naval officers of all countries, but the governments of many states on the two continents were deeply interested.

The excitement was caused by an enormous ‘something’ that ships were often meeting. It was a long, spindle-shaped, and sometimes phosphorescent object, much larger and more rapid than a whale.

The different accounts that were written of this object in various log-books agreed generally as to its structure, wonderful speed, and the peculiar life with which it appeared endowed. If it was a cetacean it surpassed in bulk all those that had hitherto been classified; neither Cuvier, Lacepède, M. Dumeril, nor M. de Quatrefages would have admitted the existence of such a monster, unless he had seen it with his own scientific eyes.

By taking the average of observations made at different times – rejecting the timid estimates that assigned to this object a length of 200 feet, as well as the exaggerated opinions which made it out to be a mile in width and three in length – we may fairly affirm that it surpassed all the dimensions allowed by the ichthyologists of the day, if it existed at all. It did exist, that was undeniable, and with that leaning towards the marvellous that characterises humanity, we cannot wonder at the excitement it produced in the entire world.

On the 20th of July, 1866, the steamer Governor Higgenson, of the Calcutta and Burnach Steam Navigation Company, met this moving mass five miles off the east coast of Australia. Captain Baker thought at first that he was in presence of an unknown reef; he was preparing to take its exact position, when two columns of water, projected by the inexplicable object, went hissing up a hundred and fifty feet into the air. Unless there was an intermittent geyser on the reef, the Governor Higgenson had to do with some aquatic mammal, unknown till then, which threw out columns of water mixed with air and vapour from its blowholes.

A similar occurrence happened on the 23rd of July in the same year to the Columbus, of the West India and Pacific Steam Navigation Company, in the Pacific Ocean. It was, therefore, evident that this extraordinary cetaceous creature could transport itself from one place to another with surprising velocity, seeing there was but an interval of three days between the two observations, separated by a distance of more than 700 nautical leagues.

Fifteen days later, two thousand leagues from the last place it was seen at, the Helvetia, of the Compagnie Nationale, and the Shannon, of the Royal Mail Steamship Company, sailing to windward in that part of the Atlantic between the United States and Europe, each signalled the monster to the other in 42° 15’ N. lat. and 60° 35’ W. long. As the Shannon and the Helvetia were of smaller dimensions than the object, though they measured 300 feet over all, the minimum length of the mammal was estimated at more than 350 feet. Now the largest whales are never more than sixty yards long, if so long.

These accounts arrived one after another; fresh observations made on board the transatlantic ship Le Pereire, the running foul of the monster by the Etna, of the Inman Line; a report drawn up by the officers of the French frigate La Normandie; a very grave statement made by the ship’s officers of the Commodore Fitz James on board the Lord Clyde, deeply stirred public opinion. In light-hearted countries jokes were made on the subject; but in grave and practical countries like England, America, and Germany, much attention was paid to it.

In all the great centres the monster became the fashion; it was sung about in the cafés, scoffed at in the newspapers, and represented at all the theatres. It gave opportunity for hoaxes of every description. In all newspapers short of copy imaginary beings reappeared, from the white whale, the terrible ‘Moby Dick’ of the Northern regions, to the inordinate ‘kraken,’ whose tentacles could fold round a vessel of 500 tons burden and drag it down to the depths of the ocean. The accounts of ancient times were reproduced: the opinions of Aristotle and Pliny, who admitted the existence of these monsters, and the Norwegian tales about Bishop Pontoppidan, those of Paul Heggede, and lastly the report of Mr Harrington, whose good faith could not be put in question when he affirmed that, being on board the Castillian, in 1857, he saw this enormous serpent, which until then had only frequented the seas of the old Constitutionnel newspaper.

Then broke out the interminable polemics of believers and disbelievers in learned societies and scientific journals. The ‘question of the monster’ inflamed all minds. The journalists who professed to be scientific, at strife with those who professed to be witty, poured out streams of ink during this memorable controversy; some even two or three drops of blood, for they wandered from the sea serpent to the most offensive personalities.

During the first months of the year 1867 the question seemed to be buried out of sight and mind, when fresh facts brought it again before the public. It had then changed from a scientific problem to be solved to a real and serious danger to be avoided. The question took another phase. The monster again became an island or rock. On the 5th of March, 1867, the Moravian, of the Montreal Ocean Company, struck her starboard quarter on a rock which no chart gave in that point. She was then going at the rate of thirteen knots under the combined efforts of the wind and her 400 horse-power. Had it not been for the more than ordinary strength of the hull in the Moravian she would have been broken by the shock, and have gone down with 237 passengers.

The accident happened about daybreak. The officers on watch hurried aft, and looked at the sea with the most scrupulous attention. They saw nothing except what looked like a strong eddy, three cables’ length off, as if the waves had been violently agitated. The bearings of the place were taken exactly, and the Moravian went on her way without apparent damage. Had she struck on a submarine rock or some enormous fragment of wreck? They could not find out, but during the examination made of the ship’s bottom when under repair, it was found that part of her keel was broken.

This fact, extremely grave in itself, would perhaps have been forgotten, like so many others, if three weeks afterwards it had not happened again under identical circumstances, only, thanks to the nationality of the ship that was this time victim of the shock, and the reputation of the company to which the vessel belonged, the circumstance was immensely commented upon.

On the 13th of April, 1867, with a smooth sea and favourable breeze, the Cunard steamer Scotia was going at the rate of thirteen knots an hour under the pressure of her 1000 horse-power.

At 4.17 p.m., as the passengers were assembled at dinner in the great saloon, a slight shock was felt on the hull of the Scotia, on her quarter a little aft of the paddle.

The Scotia had not struck anything, but had been struck by some sharp and penetrating rather than blunt surface. The shock was so slight that no one on board would have been uneasy at it had it not been for the carpenter’s watch, who rushed upon deck, calling out – ‘She is sinking! she is sinking!’

Captain Anderson went down immediately into the hold and found that a leak had sprung in the fifth compartment, and the sea was rushing in rapidly. Happily there were no boilers in this compartment, or the fires would have been at once put out. Captain Anderson ordered the engines to be immediately stopped, and one of the sailors dived to ascertain the extent of the damage. Some minutes after it was ascertained that there was a large hole about two yards in diameter in the ship’s bottom. Such a leak could not be stopped, and the Scotia, with her paddles half submerged, was obliged to continue her voyage. She was then 300 miles from Cape Clear, and after three days’ delay, which caused great anxiety in Liverpool, she entered the company’s docks.

The engineers then proceeded to examine her in the dry dock, where she had been placed. They could scarcely believe their eyes; at two yards and a half below water-mark was a regular rent in the shape of an isosceles triangle. The place where the piece had been taken out of the iron plates was so sharply defined that it could not have been done more neatly by a punch. The perforating instrument that had done the work was of no common stamp, for after having been driven with prodigious force, and piercing an iron plate one and three eighths of an inch thick, it had been withdrawn by some wonderful retrograde movement.

Such was the last fact, and it again awakened public opinion on the subject. After that all maritime disasters not satisfactorily accounted for were put down to the account of the monster. All the responsibility of the numerous wrecks annually recorded at Lloyd’s was laid to the charge of this fantastic animal, and thanks to the ‘monster,’ communication between the two continents became more and more difficult; the public loudly demanding that the seas should be rid of the formidable cetacean at any price.

CHAPTER 2 For and Against

At the period when these events were happening I was returning from a scientific expedition into the region of Nebraska. In my quality of Assistant Professor in the Paris Museum of Natural History, the French Government had attached me to that expedition. I arrived at New York, loaded with precious collections made during six months in Nebraska, at the end of March. My departure from France was fixed for the beginning of May. Whilst I waited and was occupying myself with classifying my mineralogical, botanical, and zoological riches, the incident happened to the Scotia.

I was perfectly acquainted with the subject which was the question of the day, and it would have been strange had I not been. I had repeatedly read all the American and European papers without being any the wiser as to the cause. The mystery puzzled me, and I hesitated to form any conclusion.

When I arrived at New York the subject was hot. The hypothesis of a floating island or reef, which was supported by incompetent opinion, was quite abandoned, for unless the shoal had a machine in its stomach, how could it change its position with such marvellous rapidity? For the same reason the idea of a floating hull or gigantic wreck was given up.

There remained, therefore, two possible solutions of the enigma which created two distinct parties; one was that the object was a colossal monster, the other that it was a submarine vessel of enormous motive power. This last hypothesis, which, after all, was admissible, could not stand against inquiries made in the two hemispheres. It was hardly probable that a private individual should possess such a machine. Where and when had he caused it to be built, and how could he have kept its construction secret? Certainly a Government might possess such a destructive engine, and it was possible in these disastrous times, when the power of weapons of war has been multiplied, that, without the knowledge of others, a state might possess so formidable a weapon. After the chassepots came the torpedoes, and after the torpedoes the submarine rams, and after them – the reaction. At least, I hope so.

But the hypothesis of a war machine fell before the declaration of different Governments, and as the public interest suffered from the difficulty of transatlantic communication, their veracity could not be doubted. Besides, secrecy would be even more difficult to a government than to a private individual. After inquiries made in England, France, Russia, Prussia, Spain, Italy, America, and even Turkey, the hypothesis of a submarine monitor was definitely rejected.

On my arrival at New York, several persons did me the honour of consulting me about the phenomenon in question. The Honourable Pierre Aronnax, Professor in the Paris Museum, was asked by the New York Herald to give his opinion on the matter. I subjoin an extract from the article which I published on the 30th of April: –

‘After having examined the different hypothesis one by one, and all other suppositions being rejected, the existence of a marine animal of excessive strength must be admitted.

‘The greatest depths of the ocean are totally unknown to us. What happens there? What beings can live twelve or fifteen miles below the surface of the sea? We can scarcely conjecture what the organisation of these animals is. However, the solution of the problem submitted to me may affect the form of the dilemma, we either know all the varieties of beings that people our planet or we do not. If we do not know them all – if there are still secrets of ichthyology for us – nothing is more reasonable than to admit the existence of fishes or cetaceans of an organisation suitable to the strata inaccessible to soundings, which for some reason or other come up to the surface at intervals.

‘If, on the contrary, we do know all living species, we must, of course, look for the animal in question amongst the already classified marine animals, and in that case I should be disposed to admit the existence of a gigantic narwhal.

‘The common narwhal, or sea-unicorn, is often sixty feet long. This size increased five or tenfold, and a strength in proportion to its size being given to the cetacean, and its offensive arms being increased in the same proportion, you obtain the animal required. It will have the proportions given by the officers of the Shannon, the instrument that perforated the Scotia, and the strength necessary to pierce the hull of the steamer.

‘In fact, the narwhal is armed with a kind of ivory sword or halberd, as some naturalists call it. It is the principal tusk, and is as hard as steel. Some of these tusks have been found imbedded in the bodies of whales, which the narwhal always attacks with success. Others have been with difficulty taken out of ships’ bottoms, which they pierced through and through like a gimlet in a barrel. The Museum of the Paris Faculty of Medicine contains one of these weapons, two and a quarter yards in length and fifteen inches in diameter at the base.

‘Now, suppose this weapon to be ten times stronger, and its possessor ten times more powerful, hurl it at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and you obtain a shock that might produce the catastrophe required. Therefore, until I get fuller information, I shall suppose it to be a sea-unicorn of colossal dimensions, armed, not with a halberd, but with a spur like ironclads or battering rams, the massiveness and motive power of which it would possess at the same time. This inexplicable phenomenon may be thus explained, unless something exists over and above anything ever conjectured, seen, or experienced, which is just possible.’

My article was well received, and provoked much discussion amongst the public. It rallied a certain number of partisans. The solution which it proposed left freedom to the imagination. The human mind likes these grand conceptions of supernatural beings. Now the sea is precisely their best instrument of transmission, the only medium in which these giants, by the side of which terrestrial animals, elephants, or rhinoceri, are but dwarfs, can breed and develop. The liquid masses transport the largest known species of mammalia, and they perhaps contain molluscs of enormous size, crustaceans frightful to contemplate, such as lobsters more than a hundred yards long, or crabs weighing two hundred tons. Why should it not be so? Formerly, terrestrial animals, contemporaries of the geological epochs, quadrupeds, quadrumans, reptiles, and birds, were constructed in gigantic moulds. The Creator had thrown them into a colossal mould which time has gradually lessened. Why should not the sea in its unknown depths have kept there vast specimens of the life of another age – the sea which never changes, whilst the earth changes incessantly? Why should it not hide in its bosom the last varieties of these titanic species, whose years are centuries, and whose centuries are millenniums?

But I am letting myself be carried away by reveries which are no longer such to me. A truce to chimeras which time has changed for me into terrible realities. I repeat, opinion was then made up as to the nature of the phenomenon, and the public admitted without contestation the existence of the prodigious animal which had nothing in common with the fabulous sea serpents.

But if some people saw in this nothing but a purely scientific problem to solve, others more positive, especially in America and England, were of opinion to purge the ocean of this formidable monster, in order to reassure transmarine communications.

Public opinion having declared its verdict, the United States were first in the field, and preparations for an expedition to pursue the narwhal were at once begun in New York. A very fast frigate, the Abraham Lincoln, was put in commission, and the arsenals were opened to Captain Farragut, who actively hastened the arming of his frigate.

But, as generally happens, from the moment it was decided to pursue the monster, the monster was not heard of for two months. It seemed as if this unicorn knew about the plots that were being weaved for it. It had been so much talked of, even through the Atlantic Cable! Would-be wits pretended that the cunning fellow had stopped some telegram in its passage, and was now using the knowledge for his own benefit.

So when the frigate had been prepared for a long campaign, and furnished with formidable fishing apparatus, they did not know where to send her to. Impatience was increasing with the delay, when on July 2 it was reported that a steamer of the San Francisco Line, from California to Shanghai, had met with the animal three weeks before in the North Pacific Ocean.

The emotion caused by the news was extreme, and twenty-four hours only were granted to Captain Farragut before he sailed. The ship was already victualled and well stocked with coal. The crew were there to a man, and there was nothing to do but to light the fires.

Three hours before the Abraham Lincoln left Brooklyn Pier I received the following letter: –

‘Sir, – If you would like to join the expedition of the Abraham Lincoln, the United States Government will have great pleasure in seeing France represented by you in the enterprise. Captain Farragut has a cabin at your disposition.

‘Faithfully yours,

‘J. B. Hobson, Secretary of Marine.’

CHAPTER 3 As Monsieur Pleases

Three seconds before the arrival of J. B. Hobson’s letter I had no more idea of pursuing the unicorn than of attempting the North-West Passage. Three seconds after having read the secretary’s letter I had made up my mind that ridding the world of this monster was my veritable vocation and the single aim of my life.

But I had just returned from a fatiguing journey, and was longing for rest in my own little place in the Jardin des Plantes amongst my dear and precious collections. But I forgot all fatigue, repose, and collections, and accepted without further reflection the offer of the American Government.

‘Besides,’ I said to myself, ‘all roads lead back to Europe, and the unicorn may be amiable enough to draw me towards the French coast. This worthy animal may allow itself to be caught in European seas for my especial benefit, and I will not take back less than half a yard of its halberd to the National History Museum.’

But in the meantime the narwhal was taking me to the North Pacific Ocean, which was going to the antipodes on the road to France.

‘Conseil!’ I called in an impatient tone. ‘Conseil!’

Conseil was my servant, a faithful fellow who accompanied me on all my journeys, a brave Dutchman I had great confidence in; he was phlegmatic by nature, regular from principle, zealous from habit, showing little astonishment at the varied surprises of life, very skilful with his hands, apt at any service, and, in spite of his name, never giving any counsel, even when asked for it.

By dint of contact with the world of savants in our Jardin des Plantes, Conseil had succeeded in knowing something. He was a specialist, well up in the classification of Natural History, but his science stopped there. As far as practice was concerned, I do not think he could have distinguished a cachalot from a whale. And yet what a brave fellow he was!

Conseil had followed me during the last ten years wherever science had directed my steps. He never complained of the length or fatigue of a journey, or of having to pack his trunk for any country, however remote, whether China or Congo. He went there or elsewhere without questioning the wherefore. His health defied all illness, and he had solid muscles, but no nerves – not the least appearance of nerves – of course, I mean in his mental faculties. He was thirty years old, and his age to that of his master was as fifteen is to twenty. May I be excused for saying that I was forty?

But Conseil had one fault. He was intensely formal, and would never speak to me except in the third person, which was sometimes irritating.

‘Conseil!’ I repeated, beginning my preparations for departure with a feverish hand.

Certainly, I was certain of this faithful fellow. Usually I did not ask him if it was or was not convenient for him to accompany me on my travels; but this time an expedition was in question which might be a very long and hazardous one, in pursuit of an animal capable of sinking a frigate like a nutshell. There was matter for reflection, even to the most impassive man in the world. What would Conseil say?

‘Conseil!’ I called for the third time.

Conseil appeared.

‘Did monsieur call me?’ said he on entering.

‘Yes, my boy. Get yourself and me ready to start in two hours.’

‘As it pleases monsieur,’ answered Conseil calmly.

‘There is not a minute to lose. Pack up all my travelling utensils, as many coats, shirts, and socks as you can get in. Make haste!’

‘And monsieur’s collections?’ asked Conseil.

‘We will see to them presently.’

‘What, the archiotherium, the hyracotherium, the oreodons, the cheropotamus, and monsieur’s other skins?’

‘They will stay at the hotel.’

‘And the live babiroussa of monsieur’s?’

‘They will feed it during our absence. Besides, I will give orders to have our menagerie forwarded to France.’

‘We are not going back to Paris, then?’ asked Conseil.

‘Yes – certainly we are,’ answered I evasively; ‘but by making a curve.’

‘The curve that monsieur pleases.’

‘Oh, it is not much; not so direct a route, that’s all. We are going in the Abraham Lincoln.’

‘As it may suit monsieur.’

‘You know about the monster, Conseil – the famous narwhal. We are going to rid the seas of it. A glorious mission, but – dangerous too. We don’t know where we are going to. Those animals may be very capricious! But we will go, whether or no! We have a captain who will keep his eyes open.’

‘As monsieur does, I will do,’ answered Conseil.

‘But think, for I will hide nothing from you. It is one of those voyages from which people do not always come back.’

‘As monsieur pleases.’

A quarter of an hour afterwards our trunks were ready. Conseil had packed them by sleight of hand, and I was sure nothing would be missing, for the fellow classified shirts and clothes as well as he did birds or mammals.

The hotel lift deposited us in the large vestibule of the first floor. I went down the few stairs that led to the ground floor. I paid my bill at the vast counter, always besieged by a considerable crowd. I gave the order to send my cases of stuffed animals and dried plants to Paris. I opened a sufficient credit for the babiroussa, and, Conseil following me, I sprang into a vehicle.

Our luggage was at once sent on board, and we soon followed it. I asked for Captain Farragut. One of the sailors conducted me to the poop, where I found myself in the presence of a pleasant-looking officer, who held out his hand to me.

‘Monsieur Pierre Aronnax?’ he said.

‘Himself,’ replied I. ‘Do I see Captain Farragut?’

‘In person. You are welcome, professor. Your cabin is ready for you.’

I bowed, and leaving the commander to his duties, went down to the cabin prepared for me.

The Abraham Lincoln had been well chosen and equipped for her new destination. She was a frigate of great speed, furnished with overheating apparatus that allowed the tension of the steam to reach seven atmospheres. Under that pressure the Abraham Lincoln reached an average speed of eighteen miles and three-tenths an hour good speed, but not enough to wrestle with the gigantic cetacean.

The interior arrangements of the frigate were in keeping with her nautical qualities. I was well satisfied with my cabin, which was situated aft, and opened on the wardroom.

‘We shall be comfortable here,’ said I to Conseil.

‘Yes, as comfortable as a hermit crab in a crumpet-shell.’

I left Conseil to stow our luggage away, and went up on deck in order to see the preparations for departure. Captain Farragut was just ordering the last moorings to be cast loose, so that had I been one quarter of an hour later the frigate would have started without me, and I should have missed this extraordinary, supernatural, and incredible expedition, the true account of which may well be received with some incredulity.

But Commander Farragut did not wish to lose either a day or an hour before scouring the seas in which the animal had just been signalled. He sent for his engineer.

‘Is the steam full on?’ asked the captain.

‘Yes, captain,’ replied the engineer.

‘Go ahead, then,’ cried Farragut.

The Abraham Lincoln was soon moving majestically amongst a hundred ferry-boats and tenders loaded with spectators, passed the Brooklyn quay, on which, as well as on all that part of New York bordering on the East River, crowds of spectators were assembled. Thousands of handkerchiefs were waved above the compact mass, and saluted the Abraham Lincoln until she reached the Hudson at the point of that elongated peninsula which forms the town of New York.

Then the frigate followed the coast of New Jersey, along the right bank of the beautiful river covered with villas, and passed between the forts, which saluted her with their largest guns. The Abraham Lincoln acknowledged the salutation by hoisting the American colours three times, their thirty-nine stars shining resplendent from the mizen peak; then modifying her speed to take the narrow channel marked by buoys and formed by Sandy Hook Point, she coasted the long sandy shore, where several thousand spectators saluted her once more.

Her escorts of boats and tenders followed her till she reached the light boat, the two lights of which mark the entrance to the New York Channel.

Three o’clock was then striking. The pilot went down into his boat and rejoined the little schooner which was waiting under lee, the fires were made up, the screw beat the waves more rapidly, and the frigate coasted the low yellow shore of Long Island, and at 8 p.m., after having lost sight in the north-west of the lights on Fire Island, she ran at full steam on to the dark waters of the Atlantic.

CHAPTER 4 Ned Land

Captain Farragut was a good seaman, worthy of the frigate he was commanding. His ship and he were one. He was the soul of it. No doubt arose in his mind on the question of the cetacean, and he did not allow the existence of the animal to be disputed on board. He believed in it like simple souls believe in the Leviathan – by faith, not by sight. The monster existed, and he had sworn to deliver the seas from it. Either Captain Farragut would kill the narwhal or the narwhal would kill Captain Farragut – there was no middle course.

The officers on board shared the opinion of their chief. It was amusing to hear them talking, arguing, disputing, and calculating the different chances of meeting whilst they kept a sharp look-out over the vast extent of ocean. More than one took up his position on the crosstrees who would have cursed the duty as a nuisance at any other time. Whilst the sun described its diurnal circle the rigging was crowded with sailors who could not keep in place on deck. And nevertheless the Abraham Lincoln was not yet ploughing the suspected waters of the Pacific.

As to the crew, all they wanted was to meet the unicorn, harpoon it, haul it on board, and cut it up. Captain Farragut had offered a reward of 2000 dollars to the first cabin-boy, sailor, or officer who should signal the animal. I have already said that Captain Farragut had carefully provided all the tackle necessary for taking the gigantic cetacean. A whaler would not have been better furnished. We had every known engine, from the hand harpoon to the barbed arrow of the blunderbuss and the explosive bullets of the deck-gun. On the forecastle lay a perfect breech-loader, very thick at the breech and narrow in the bore, the model of which had been in the Paris Exhibition of 1867. This precious weapon, of American make, could throw with ease a conical projectile, weighing nine pounds, to a mean distance of ten miles. Thus the Abraham Lincoln not only possessed every means of destruction, but, better still, she had on board Ned Land, the king of harpooners.

Ned Land was a Canadian of uncommon skill, who had no equal in his perilous employment. He possessed ability, sang-froid, audacity, and subtleness to a remarkable degree, and it would have taken a sharp whale or a singularly wily cachalot to escape his harpoon. He was about forty years of age, tall (more than six feet high), strongly built, grave, and taciturn, sometimes violent, and very passionate when put out. His person, and especially the power of his glance, which gave a singular expression to his face, attracted attention.

I believe that Captain Farragut had done wisely in engaging this man. He was worth all the rest of the ship’s company as far as his eye and arm went. I could not compare him to anything better than a powerful telescope which would be a cannon always ready to fire as well.

I now depict this brave companion as I knew him afterwards, for we are old friends, united in that unchangeable friendship which is born and cemented in mutual danger. Ah, brave Ned, I only hope I may live a hundred years more to remember you longer.

Now what was Ned Land’s opinion on the subject of this marine monster? I must acknowledge that he hardly believed in the narwhal, and that he was the only one on board who did not share the universal conviction.

One evening, three weeks after our departure, the frigate was abreast of Cape Blanc, thirty miles to leeward of the Patagonian coast. Another week and the Abraham Lincoln would be ploughing the waters of the Pacific.

Seated on the poop, Ned Land and I were talking on all sorts of subjects, looking at that mysterious sea whose greatest depths have remained till now inaccessible to the eye of man. I brought the conversation naturally to the subject of the giant unicorn, and discussed the different chances of success in our expedition. Then seeing that Ned Land let me go on talking without saying anything himself, I pressed him more closely.

‘Well, Ned,’ I said to him, ‘are you not yet convinced of the existence of the cetacean we are pursuing? Have you any particular reasons for being so incredulous?’

The harpooner looked at me for some minutes before replying, struck his forehead with a gesture habitual to him, shut his eyes as if to collect himself, and said at last, –

‘Perhaps I have, M. Arronax.’

‘Yet you, Ned, are a whaler by profession. You are familiar with the great marine mammalia, and your imagination ought easily to accept the hypothesis of enormous cetaceans. You ought to be the last to doubt in such circumstances.’

‘That is what deceives you, sir,’ answered Ned. ‘It is not strange that common people should believe in extraordinary comets, or the existence of antediluvian monsters peopling the interior of the globe, but no astronomer or geologist would believe in such chimeras. The whaler is the same. I have pursued many cetaceans, harpooned a great number, and killed some few; but however powerful or well armed they were, neither their tails nor their defences could ever have made an incision in the iron plates of a steamer.’

‘Yet, Ned, it is said that ships have been bored through by the tusk of a narwhal.’

‘Wooden ships, perhaps,’ answered the Canadian, ‘though I have never seen it, and until I get proof to the contrary I deny that whales, cachalots, or sea-unicorns could produce such an effect.’

‘Listen to me, Ned.’

‘No, sir, no; anything you like but that – a gigantic poulp, perhaps?’

‘No, that can’t be. The poulp is only a mollusc; its flesh has no more consistency than its name indicates.’

‘Then you really do believe in this cetacean, sir?’ said Ned.

‘Yes, Ned. I repeat it with a conviction resting on the logic of facts. I believe in the existence of a mammal, powerfully organised, belonging to the branch of vertebrata, like whales, cachalots, and dolphins, and furnished with a horn tusk, of which the force of penetration is extreme.’

‘Hum!’ said the harpooner, shaking his head like a man who will not let himself be convinced.

‘Remark, my worthy Canadian,’ I continued, ‘if such an animal exists and inhabits the depths of the ocean, it necessarily possesses an organisation the strength of which would defy all comparison.’

‘Why must it have such an organisation?’ asked Ned.

‘Because it requires an incalculable strength to keep in such deep water and resist its pressure. Admitting that the pressure of the atmosphere is represented by that of a column of water thirty-two feet high. In reality the column of water would not be so high, as it is sea-water that is in question, and its density is greater than that of fresh water. When you dive, Ned, as many times thirty-two feet of water as there are above you, so many times does your body support a pressure equal to that of the atmosphere – that is to say, 15 lbs. for each square inch of its surface. It hence follows that at 320 feet this pressure equals that of 10 atmospheres; at 3200 feet, 100 atmospheres; and at 32,000 feet, 1000 atmospheres – that is, about six and a half miles, which is equivalent to saying that if you can reach this depth in the ocean, each square inch of the surface of your body would bear a pressure of 14,933 1/3 lbs. Do you know how many square inches you have on the surface of your body?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘About 6500; and as in reality the atmospheric pressure is about 15 lbs. to the square inch, your 6500 square inches support at this minute a pressure of 97,000 lbs.’

‘Without my perceiving it?’

‘Yes; and if you are not crushed by such a pressure, it is because the air penetrates the interior of your body with equal pressure, and there is a perfect equilibrium between the interior and exterior pressure, which thus neutralise each other, and allow you to bear it without inconvenience. But it is another thing in water.’

‘Yes, I understand,’ answered Ned, becoming more attentive, ‘because I am in water, but it is not in me.’

‘Precisely, Ned; so that at 32 feet below the surface of the sea you would undergo a pressure of 97,500 lbs.; at 320 feet, 975,000 lbs.; and at 32,000 feet the pressure would be 97,500,000 lbs. – that is to say, you would be crushed as flat as a pancake.’

‘The devil!’ exclaimed Ned.

‘If vertebrata can maintain themselves in such depths, especially those whose surface is represented by millions of square inches, it is by hundreds of millions of pounds we must estimate the pressure they bear. Calculate, then, what must be the resistance of their bony structure and the strength of their organisation to withstand such a pressure.’

‘They must be made of iron plate eight inches thick, like the ironclads!’ said Ned.

‘Yes, and think what destruction such a mass could cause if hurled with the speed of an express against the hull of a ship.’

Ned would not give in.

‘Have I not convinced you?’ I said.

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

‘But if they do not exist, Mr Obstinate, how do you account for the Scotia’s accident?’

‘Because it is—’ began Ned hesitatingly.

‘Go on!’

‘Because – it is not true!’ answered the Canadian, repeating, without knowing it, a celebrated answer of Arago.

But this answer proved the obstinacy of the harpooner and nothing else. That day I did not press him further. The accident to the Scotia was undeniable. The hole existed so really that they were obliged to stop it up, and I do not think that the existence of a hole can be more categorically demonstrated. Now the hole had not made itself, and since it had not been done by submarine rocks or submarine machines, it was certainly due to the perforating tool of an animal.

Now, in my opinion, and for all the reasons previously deduced, this animal belonged to the embranchment of the vertebrata, to the class of mammals, to the group of pisciforma, and, finally, to the order of cetaceans. As to the family in which it took rank, whale, cachalot, or dolphin, as to the genus of which it formed a part, as to the species in which it would be convenient to put it, that was a question to be elucidated subsequently. In order to solve it the unknown monster must be dissected; to dissect it, it must be taken, to take it, it must be harpooned – which was Ned Land’s business – to harpoon it, it must be seen – which was the crew’s business – and to see it, it must be encountered – which was the business of hazard.

CHAPTER 5 At Random

The voyage of the Abraham Lincoln for some time was marked by no incident. At last a circumstance happened which showed off the wonderful skill of Ned Land and the confidence that might be placed in him.

On the 30th of June, the frigate, being then off the Falkland Islands, spoke some American whalers, who told us they had not met with the narwhal. But one of them, the captain of the Munroe, knowing that Ned Land was on board the Abraham Lincoln, asked for his help in capturing a whale they had in sight. Captain Farragut, desirous of seeing Ned Land at work, allowed him to go on board the Munroe, and fortune favoured our Canadian so well, that instead of one whale he harpooned two with a double blow, striking one right in the heart, and capturing the other after a pursuit of some minutes.

Certainly if the monster ever had Ned Land to deal with I would not bet in its favour.

On the 6th of July, about 3 p.m., we doubled, fifteen miles to the south, the solitary island to which some Dutch sailors gave the name of their native town, Cape Horn. The next day the frigate was in the Pacific.

‘Keep a sharp look-out!’ cried all the sailors.

Both eyes and telescopes, a little dazzled certainly by the thought of 2000 dollars, never had a minute’s rest. Day and night they observed the surface of the ocean; and even nyctalops, whose faculty of seeing in the darkness increased their chances fifty per cent., would have had to keep a sharp look-out to win the prize.

I, myself, who thought little about the money, was not, however, the least attentive on board. I was constantly on deck, giving but few minutes to my meals, and indifferent to either rain or sunshine. Now leaning over the sea on the forecastle, now on the taffrail, I devoured with greedy eyes the soft foam which whitened the sea as far as those eyes could reach! How many times have I shared the emotion of the officers and crew when some capricious whale raised its black back above the waves! The deck was crowded in a minute. The companion ladders poured forth a torrent of officers and sailors, each with heaving breast and troubled eye watching the cetacean. I looked and looked till I was nearly blind, whilst Conseil, always calm, kept saying to me, –

‘If monsieur did not keep his eyes open so much he would see more.’

But vain excitement! The Abraham Lincoln would modify her speed, run down the animal signalled, which always turned out to be a simple whale or common cachalot, and disappeared amidst a storm of execration.

Ned Land always showed the most tenacious incredulity; he even affected not to examine the seas except during his watch, unless a whale was in sight; and yet his marvellous power of vision might have been of great service. But eight hours out of the twelve the obstinate Canadian read or slept in his cabin.

‘Bah!’ he would answer; ‘there is nothing, M. Aronnax; and even if there is an animal, what chance have we of seeing it? Are we not going about at random? I will admit that the beast has been seen again in the North Pacific, but two months have already gone by since that meeting, and according to the temperament of your narwhal it does not like to stop long enough in the same quarter to grow mouldy. It is endowed with a prodigious faculty of moving about. Now, you know as well as I do, professor, that Nature makes nothing inconsistent, and would not give to a slow animal the faculty of moving rapidly if it did not want to use it. Therefore, if the beast exists, it is far enough off now.’

I did not know what to answer to that. We were evidently going along blindly. But how were we to do otherwise? Our chances, too, were very limited. In the meantime no one yet doubted of our success, and there was not a sailor on board who would have bet against the narwhal and against its early apparition.

We were at last on the scene of the last frolics of the monster; and the truth was, no one lived really on board. The entire crew were under the influence of such nervous excitement as I could not give the idea of. They neither ate nor slept. Twenty times a day some error of estimation, or the optical delusion of a sailor perched on the yards, caused intolerable frights; and these emotions, twenty times repeated, kept us in a state too violent not to cause an early reaction.

And, in fact, the reaction was not slow in coming. For three months – three months, each day of which lasted a century – the Abraham Lincoln ploughed all the waters of the North Pacific, running down all the whales signalled, making sharp deviations from her route, veering suddenly from one tack to another, and not leaving one point of the Chinese or Japanese coast unexplored. And yet nothing was seen but the immense waste of waters – nothing that resembled a gigantic narwhal, nor a submarine islet, nor a wreck, nor a floating reef, nor anything at all supernatural.

The reaction, therefore, began. Discouragement at first took possession of all minds, and opened a breach for incredulity. A new sentiment was experienced on board, composed of three-tenths of shame and seven-tenths of rage. They called themselves fools for being taken in by a chimera, and were still more furious at it. The mountains of arguments piled up for a year fell down all at once, and all every one thought of was to make up the hours of meals and sleep which they had so foolishly sacrificed.

With the mobility natural to the human mind, they threw themselves from one excess into another. The warmest partisans of the enterprise became finally its most ardent detractors. The reaction ascended from the depths of the vessel, from the coal-hole, to the officers’ ward-room, and certainly, had it not been for very strong determination on the part of Captain Farragut, the head of the frigate would have been definitely turned southward.

However, this useless search could be no further prolonged. No crew of the American navy had ever shown more patience or zeal; its want of success could not be imputed to it. There was nothing left to do but to return.

A representation in this sense was made to the commander. The commander kept his ground. The sailors did not hide their dissatisfaction, and the service suffered from it. I do not mean that there was revolt on board, but after a reasonable period of obstinacy the commander, like Columbus before him, asked for three days’ patience. If in three days the monster had not reappeared, the man at the helm should give three turns of the wheel, and the Abraham Lincoln should make for the European seas.

Two days passed. The frigate kept up steam at half-pressure. Large quantities of bacon were trailed in the wake of the ship, to the great satisfaction of the sharks. The frigate lay to, and her boats were sent in all directions, but the night of the 4th of November passed without unveiling the submarine mystery.

Japan lay less than 200 miles to leeward. Eight bells had just struck as I was leaning over the starboard side. Conseil, standing near me, was looking straight in front of him. The crew, perched in the ratlins, were keeping a sharp look-out in the approaching darkness. Officers with their night-glasses swept the horizon.

Looking at Conseil, I saw that the brave fellow was feeling slightly the general influence – at least it seemed to me so. Perhaps for the first time, his nerves were vibrating under the action of a sentiment of curiosity.

‘Well, Conseil,’ said I, ‘this is your last chance of pocketing 2000 dollars.’

‘Will monsieur allow me to tell him that I never counted upon the reward, and if the Union had promised 100,000 dollars it would never be any the poorer.’

‘You are right, Conseil. It has been a stupid affair, after all. We have lost time and patience, and might just as well have been in France six months ago.’

‘Yes, in monsieur’s little apartments, classifying monsieur’s fossils, and monsieur’s babiroussa would be in its cage in the Jardin des Plantes, attracting all the curious people in Paris.’

‘Yes, Conseil, and besides that we shall get well laughed at.’

‘Certainly,’ said Conseil tranquilly. ‘I think they will laugh at monsieur. And I must say—’

‘What, Conseil?’

‘That it will serve monsieur right! When one has the honour to be a savant like monsieur, one does not expose—’

Conseil did not finish his compliment. In the midst of general silence Ned Land’s voice was heard calling out, –

‘Look out, there! The thing we are looking for is on our weather beam!’

CHAPTER 6 With all Steam on

At this cry the entire crew rushed towards the harpooner. Captain, officers, masters, sailors, and cabin-boys, even the engineers left their engines, and the stokers their fires. The order to stop her had been given, and the frigate was only moving by her own momentum. The darkness was then profound, and although I knew the Canadian’s eyes were very good, I asked myself what he could have seen, and how he could have seen it. My heart beat violently.

At two cables’ length from the Abraham Lincoln on her starboard quarter, the sea seemed to be illuminated below the surface. The monster lay some fathoms below the sea, and threw out the very intense but inexplicable light mentioned in the reports of several captains. This light described an immense and much-elongated oval, in the centre of which was condensed a focus the over-powering brilliancy of which died out by successive gradations.

‘It is only an agglomeration of phosphoric particles,’ cried one of the officers.

‘No, sir,’ I replied with conviction. ‘Never did pholas or salpae produce such a light as that. That light is essentially electric. Besides – see! look out! It moves – forward – on to us!’

A general cry rose from the frigate.

‘Silence!’ called out the captain. ‘Up with the helm! Reverse the engines!’

The frigate thus tried to escape, but the supernatural animal approached her with a speed double her own.

Stupefaction, more than fear, kept us mute and motionless. The animal gained upon us. It made the round of the frigate, which was then going at the rate of fourteen knots, and enveloped her with its electric ring like luminous dust. Then it went two or three miles off, leaving a phosphoric trail like the steam of an express locomotive. All at once, from the dark limits of the horizon, where it went to gain its momentum, the monster rushed towards the frigate with frightful rapidity, stopped suddenly at a distance of twenty feet, and then went out, not diving, for its brilliancy did not die out by degrees, but all at once, as if turned off. Then it reappeared on the other side of the ship, either going round her or gliding under her hull. A collision might have occurred at any moment, which might have been fatal to us.

I was astonished at the way the ship was worked. She was being attacked instead of attacking; and I asked Captain Farragut the reason. On the captain’s generally impassive face was an expression of profound astonishment.

‘M. Aronnax,’ he said, ‘I do not know with how formidable a being I have to deal, and I will not imprudently risk my frigate in the darkness. We must wait for daylight, and then we shall change parts.’

‘You have no longer any doubt, captain, of the nature of the animal?’

‘No, sir. It is evidently a gigantic narwhal, and an electric one too.’

‘Perhaps,’ I added, ‘we can no more approach it than we could a gymnotus or a torpedo.’

‘It may possess as great blasting properties, and if it does it is the most terrible animal that ever was created. That is why I must keep on my guard.’

All the crew remained up that night. No one thought of going to sleep. The Abraham Lincoln not being able to compete in speed, was kept under half-steam. On its side the narwhal imitated the frigate, let the waves rock it at will, and seemed determined not to leave the scene of combat.

Towards midnight, however, it disappeared, dying out like a large glowworm. At seven minutes to one in the morning a deafening whistle was heard, like that produced by a column of water driven out with extreme violence.

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

‘Ned Land,’ asked the commander, ‘have you often heard whales roar?’

‘Yes, captain, often; but never such a whale as I earned 2000 dollars by sighting.’

‘True, you have a right to the prize; but tell me, is it the same noise they make?’

‘Yes, sir; but this one is incomparably louder. It is not to be mistaken. It is certainly a cetacean there in our seas. With your permission, sir, we will have a few words with him at daybreak.’

‘If he is in a humour to hear them, Mr Land,’ said I, in an unconvinced tone.

‘Let me get within a length of four harpoons,’ answered the Canadian, ‘and he will be obliged to listen to me.’

‘But in order to approach him,’ continued the captain, ‘I shall have to put a whaler at your disposition.’

‘Certainly sir.’

‘But that will be risking the lives of my men.’

‘And mine too,’ answered the harpooner simply.

About 2 a.m. the luminous focus reappeared, no less intense, about five miles to the windward of the frigate. Notwithstanding the distance and the noise of the wind and sea, the loud strokes of the animal’s tail were distinctly heard, and even its panting breathing. When the enormous narwhal came up to the surface to breathe, it seemed as if the air rushed into its lungs like steam in the vast cylinders of a 2000 horse-power engine.

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

Until daylight we were all on the qui-vive, and then the fishing tackle was prepared. The first mate loaded the blunderbusses, which throw harpoons the distance of a mile, and long duck-guns with explosive bullets, which inflict mortal wounds even upon the most powerful animals. Ned Land contented himself with sharpening his harpoon – a terrible weapon in his hands.

Day began to break, and with the first glimmer of dawn the electric light of the narwhal disappeared. At 7 a.m. a very thick sea-fog obscured the atmosphere, and the best glasses could not pierce it.

I climbed the mizenmast and found some officers already perched on the mast-heads.

At 8 a.m. the mist began to clear away. Suddenly, like the night before, Ned Land’s voice was heard calling, –

‘The thing in question on the port quarter!’

All eyes were turned towards the point indicated. There, a mile and a half from the frigate, a large black body emerged more than a yard above the waves. Its tail, violently agitated, produced a considerable eddy. Never did caudal appendage beat the sea with such force. An immense track, dazzlingly white, marked the passage of the animal, and described a long curve.

The frigate approached the cetacean, and I could see it well. The accounts of it given by the Shannon and Helvetia had rather exaggerated its dimensions, and I estimated its length at 150 feet only. As to its other dimensions, I could only conceive them to be in proportion.

Whilst I was observing it, two jets of vapour and water sprang from its vent-holes and ascended to a height of fifty yards, thus fixing my opinion as to its way of breathing. I concluded definitely that it belonged to the vertebrate branch of mammalia, order of cetaceans, family…Here I could not decide. The order of cetaceans comprehends three families – whales, cachalots, and dolphins – and it is in the last that narwhals are placed.

The crew were waiting impatiently for their captain’s orders. Farragut, after attentively examining the animal, had the chief engineer called.

‘Is your steam up?’ asked the captain.

‘Yes, captain,’ answered the engineer.

‘Then make up your fires and put on all steam.’

Three cheers greeted this order. The hour of combat had struck. Some minutes afterwards the funnels of the frigate were giving out torrents of black smoke, and the deck shook under the trembling of the boilers.

The Abraham Lincoln, propelled by her powerful screw, went straight at the animal, who let her approach to within half a cable’s length, and then, as if disdaining to dive, made a little attempt at flight, and contented itself with keeping its distance.

This pursuit lasted about three-quarters of an hour, without the frigate gaining four yards on the cetacean. It was quite evident she would never reach it at that rate.

The captain twisted his beard impatiently.

‘Ned Land!’ called the captain, ‘do you think I had better have the boats lowered?’

‘No, sir,’ answered Ned Land, ‘for that animal won’t be caught unless it chooses.’

‘What must be done, then?’

‘Force steam if you can, captain, and I, with your permission, will post myself under the bowsprit, and if we get within a harpoon length I shall hurl one.’

‘Very well,’ said the captain. ‘Engineer, put on more pressure.’

Ned Land went to his post, the fires were increased, the screw revolved forty-three times a minute, and the steam poured out of the valves. The log was heaved, and it was found that the frigate was going eighteen miles and five-tenths an hour. But the animal went eighteen and five-tenths an hour too.

During another hour the frigate kept up that speed without gaining a yard. It was humiliating for one of the quickest vessels in the American navy. The crew began to get very angry. The sailors swore at the animal, who did not deign to answer them. The captain not only twisted his beard, he began to gnaw it too. The engineer was called once more.

‘Have you reached your maximum of pressure?’ asked the captain.

‘Yes sir.’

The captain ordered him to do all he could without absolutely blowing up the vessel, and coal was at once piled up on the fires. The speed of the frigate increased. Her masts shook again. The log was again heaved, and this time she was making nineteen miles and three-tenths.

‘All steam on!’ called out the captain.

The engineer obeyed. The manometer marked ten degrees. But the cetacean did the nineteen miles and three-tenths as easily as the eighteen and five-tenths.

What a chase! I cannot describe the emotion that made my whole being vibrate again. Ned Land kept at his post, harpoon in hand. The animal allowed itself to be approached several times. Sometimes it was so near that the Canadian raised his hand to hurl the harpoon, when the animal rushed away at a speed of at least thirty miles an hour, and even during our maximum of speed it bullied the frigate, going round and round it.

A cry of fury burst from all lips. We were not further advanced at twelve o’clock than we had been at eight. Captain Farragut then made up his mind to employ more direct means.

‘Ah!’ said he, ‘so that animal goes faster than my ship! Well, we’ll see if he’ll go faster than a conical bullet. Master, send your men to the forecastle.’

The forecastle gun was immediately loaded and pointed. It was fired, but the ball passed some feet above the cetacean, which kept about half a mile off.

‘Let some one else try!’ called out the captain. ‘Five hundred dollars to whomsoever will hit the beast!’

An old gunner with a gray beard – I think I see now his calm face as he approached the gun – put it into position and took a long aim. A loud report followed and mingled with the cheers of the crew.

The bullet reached its destination; it struck the animal, but, gliding off the rounded surface, fell into the sea two miles off.

‘Malediction!’ cried the captain; ‘that animal must be clad in six-inch iron plates. But I’ll catch it, if I have to blow up my frigate!’

It was to be hoped that the animal would be exhausted, and that it would not be indifferent to fatigue like a steam-engine. But the hours went on, and it showed no signs of exhaustion.

It must be said, in praise of the Abraham Lincoln, that she struggled on indefatigably. I cannot reckon the distance we made during this unfortunate day at less than 300 miles. But night came on and closed round the heaving ocean.

At that minute, I believed our expedition to be at an end, and that we should see the fantastic animal no more.

I was mistaken, for at 10.50 p.m. the electric light reappeared, three miles windward to the frigate, clear and intense as on the night before.

The narwhal seemed motionless. Perhaps, fatigued with its day’s work, it was sleeping in its billowy cradle. That was a chance by which the captain resolved to profit.

He gave his orders. The Abraham Lincoln was kept up at half-steam, and advanced cautiously so as not to awaken her adversary. It is not rare to meet in open sea with whales fast asleep, and Ned Land had harpooned many a one in that condition. The Canadian went back to his post under the bowsprit.

The frigate noiselessly approached, and stopped at two cables’ length from the animal. No one breathed. A profound silence reigned on deck. We were not 1000 feet from the burning focus, the light of which increased and dazzled our eyes.

At that minute, leaning on the forecastle bulwark, I saw Ned Land below me, holding the martingale with one hand and with the other brandishing his terrible harpoon, scarcely twenty feet from the motionless animal.

All at once he threw the harpoon, and I heard the sonorous stroke of the weapon, which seemed to have struck a hard body.

The electric light suddenly went out, and two enormous waterspouts fell on the deck of the frigate, running like a torrent from fore to aft, upsetting men, and breaking the lashing of the spars.

A frightful shock followed. I was thrown over the rail before I had time to stop myself, and fell into the sea.

CHAPTER 7 A Whale of an Unknown Species

Although I was surprised by my unexpected fall, I still kept a very distinct impression of my sensations. I was at first dragged down to a depth of about twenty feet. I was a good swimmer, and this plunge did not make me lose my presence of mind. Two vigorous kicks brought me back to the surface.

My first care was to look for the frigate. Had the crew seen me disappear? Had the Abraham Lincoln veered round? Would the captain have a boat lowered? Might I hope to be saved?

The darkness was profound. I perceived a black mass disappearing in the east, the beacon lights of which were dying out in the distance. It was the frigate. I gave myself up.

‘Help! help!’ cried I, swimming towards the frigate with desperate strokes.

My clothes embarrassed me. The water glued them to my body. They paralysed my movements. I was sinking.

‘Help!’ rang out again in the darkness.

This was the last cry I uttered. My mouth filled with water. I struggled not to be sucked into the abyss.

Suddenly my clothes were seized by a vigorous hand, and I felt myself brought back violently to the surface of the water, and I heard – yes, I heard these words uttered in my ear, –

‘If monsieur will have the goodness to lean on my shoulder, monsieur will swim much better.’

I seized the arm of my faithful Conseil.

‘You!’ I cried – ‘you!’

‘Myself,’ answered Conseil, ‘at monsieur’s service.’

‘Did the shock throw you into the sea too?’

‘No; but being in the service of monsieur, I followed him.’

The worthy fellow thought that quite natural.

‘What about the frigate?’ I asked.

‘The frigate!’ answered Conseil, turning on his back; ‘I think monsieur will do well not to count upon the frigate.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, as I jumped into the sea, I heard the man at the helm call out, “The screw and the rudder are broken.”’

‘Broken?’

‘Yes, by the monster’s tusk. It is the only damage she has sustained, I think, but without a helm she can’t do anything for us.’

‘Then we are lost!’

‘Perhaps,’ answered Conseil tranquilly. ‘In the mean-time we have still several hours before us, and in several hours many things may happen.’

The sang-froid of Conseil did me good. I swam more vigorously, but encumbered by my garments, which dragged me down like a leaden weight, I found it extremely difficult to keep up. Conseil perceived it.

‘Will monsieur allow me to make a slit?’ said he. And, slipping an open knife under my clothes, he slit them rapidly from top to bottom. Then he quickly helped me off with them whilst I swam for both. I rendered him the same service, and we went on swimming near each other.

In the meantime our situation was none the less terrible. Perhaps our disappearance had not been remarked, and even if it had, the frigate could not tack without her helm. Our only chance of safety was in the event of the boats being lowered.

The collision had happened about 11 p.m. About 1 a.m. I was taken with extreme fatigue, and all my limbs became stiff with cramp. Conseil was obliged to keep me up, and the care of our preservation depended upon him alone. I heard the poor fellow breathing hard, and knew he could not keep up much longer.

‘Let me go! Leave me!’ I cried.

‘Leave monsieur? Never!’ he answered. ‘I shall drown with him.’

Just then the moon appeared through the fringe of a large cloud that the wind was driving eastward. The surface of the sea shone under her rays. I lifted my head and saw the frigate. She was five miles from us, and only looked like a dark mass, scarcely distinguishable. I saw no boats.

I tried to call out, but it was useless at that distance. My swollen lips would not utter a sound. Conseil could still speak, and I heard him call out ‘Help!’ several times.

We suspended our movements for an instant and listened. It might be only a singing in our ears, but it seemed to me that a cry answered Conseil’s.

‘Did you hear?’ I murmured.

‘Yes, yes!’

And Conseil threw another despairing cry into space. This time there could be no mistake. A human voice answered ours. Was it the voice of some other victim of the shock, or a boat hailing us in the darkness? Conseil made a supreme effort, and, leaning on my shoulder whilst I made a last struggle for us both, he raised himself half out of the water, and I heard him shout. Then my strength was exhausted, my fingers slipped, my mouth filled with salt water, I went cold all over, raised my head for the last time, and began to sink.

At that moment I hit against something hard, and I clung to it in desperation. Then I felt myself lifted up out of the water, and I fainted. I soon came to, thanks to the vigorous friction that was being applied to my body, and I half opened my eyes.

‘Conseil!’ I murmured.

‘Did monsieur ring?’ answered Conseil.

Just then, by the light of the moon that was getting lower on the horizon, I perceived a face that was not Conseil’s, but which I immediately recognised.

‘Ned!’ I cried.

‘The same, sir, looking after his prize,’ replied the Canadian.

‘Were you thrown into the sea when the frigate was struck?’

‘Yes, sir, but, luckier than you, I soon got upon a floating island.’

‘An island.’

‘Yes, or if you like better, on our giant narwhal.’

‘What do you mean, Ned?’

‘I mean that I understand now why my harpoon did not stick into the skin, but was blunted.’

‘Why, Ned, why?’

‘Because the beast is made of sheet-iron plates.’

I wriggled myself quickly to the top of the half-submerged being or object on which we had found refuge. I struck my foot against it. It was evidently a hard and impenetrable body, and not the soft substance which forms the mass of great marine mammalia. But this hard body could not be a bony carapace like that of antediluvian animals. I could not even class it amongst amphibious reptiles, such as tortoises and alligators, for the blackish back that supported me was not scaly but smooth and polished.

The blow produced a metallic sound, and, strange as it may appear, seemed caused by being struck on riveted plates. Doubt was no longer possible. The animal, monster, natural phenomenon that had puzzled the entire scientific world, and misled the imagination of sailors in the two hemispheres, was, it must be acknowledged, a still more astonishing phenomenon, a phenomenon of man’s making. The discovery of the existence of the most fabulous and mythological being would not have astonished me in the same degree. It seems quite simple that anything prodigious should come from the hand of the Creator, but to find the impossible realised by the hand of man was enough to confound the imagination.

We were lying upon the top of a sort of submarine boat, which looked to me like an immense steel fish. Ned Land’s mind was made up on that point, and Conseil and I could only agree with him.

‘But then,’ said I, ‘this apparatus must have a locomotive machine, and a crew inside of it to work it.’

‘Evidently,’ replied the harpooner, ‘and yet for the three hours that I have inhabited this floating island, it has not given sign of life.’

‘The vessel has not moved?’

‘No, M. Aronnax. It is cradled in the waves, but it does not move.’

‘We know, without the slightest doubt, however, that it is endowed with great speed, and as a machine is necessary to produce the speed, and a mechanician to guide it, I conclude from that that we are saved.’

‘Hum,’ said Ned Land in a reserved tone of voice.

At that moment, and as if to support my arguments, a boiling was heard at the back of the strange apparatus, the propeller of which was evidently a screw, and it began to move. We only had time to hold on to its upper part, which emerged about a yard out of the water. Happily its speed was not excessive.

‘As long as it moves horizontally,’ murmured Ned Land, ‘I have nothing to say. But if it takes it into its head to plunge, I would not give two dollars for my skin!’

The Canadian might have said less still. It therefore became urgent to communicate with whatever beings were shut up in the machine. I looked on its surface for an opening, a panel, a ‘man hole,’ to use the technical expression; but the lines of bolts, solidly fastened down on the joints of the plates, were clear and uniform.

Besides, the moon then disappeared and left us in profound obscurity. We were obliged to wait till daybreak to decide upon the means of penetrating to the interior of this submarine boat.

Thus, then, our safety depended solely upon the caprice of the mysterious steersmen who directed this apparatus, and if they plunged we were lost! Unless that happened I did not doubt the possibility of entering into communication with them. And it was certain that unless they made their own air they must necessarily return from time to time to the surface of the ocean to renew their provision of breathable molecules. Therefore there must be an opening which put the interior of the boat into communication with the atmosphere.

As to the hope of being saved by Commander Farragut, that had to be completely renounced. We were dragged westward, and I estimated that our speed, relatively moderate, attained twelve miles an hour. The screw beat the waves with mathematical regularity, sometimes emerging and throwing the phosphorescent water to a great height.

About 4 a.m. the rapidity of the apparatus increased. We resisted with difficulty this vertiginous impulsion, when the waves beat upon us in all their fury. Happily Ned touched with his hand a wide balustrade fastened on to the upper part of the iron top, and we succeeded in holding on to it solidly.

At last this long night slipped away. My incomplete memory does not allow me to retrace all the impressions of it. A single detail returns to my mind. During certain lullings of the sea and wind, I thought several times I heard vague sounds, a sort of fugitive harmony produced by far-off chords. What, then, was the mystery of this submarine navigation, of which the entire world vainly sought the explanation? What beings lived in this strange boat? What mechanical agent allowed it to move with such prodigious speed?

When daylight appeared the morning mists enveloped us, but they soon rose, and I proceeded to make an attentive examination of the sort of horizontal platform we were on, when I felt myself gradually sinking.

‘Mille diables!’ cried Land, kicking against the sonorous metal, ‘open, inhospitable creatures!’

But it was difficult to make oneself heard amidst the deafening noise made by the screw. Happily the sinking ceased.

Suddenly a noise like iron bolts being violently withdrawn was heard from the interior of the boat. One of the iron plates was raised, a man appeared, uttered a strange cry, and disappeared immediately.

Some moments after, eight strong fellows, with veiled faces, silently appeared, and dragged us down into their formidable machine.

CHAPTER 8 Mobilis in Mobile

This abduction, so brutally executed, took place with the rapidity of lightning. I do not know what my companions felt at being introduced into this floating prison; but, for my own part, a rapid shudder froze my very veins. With whom had we to do? Doubtless with a new species of pirates, who made use of the sea in a way of their own.

The narrow panel had scarcely closed upon me when I was enveloped by profound darkness. My eyes, dazzled by the light outside, could distinguish nothing. I felt my naked feet touch the steps of an iron ladder. Ned Land and Conseil, firmly held, followed me. At the bottom of the ladder a door opened and closed again immediately with a sonorous bang.

We were alone. Where? I neither knew nor could I imagine. All was darkness, and such absolute darkness, that after some minutes I had not been able to make out even those faint glimmers of light which float in the darkest nights.

Meanwhile, Ned Land, furious at this manner of proceeding, gave free course to his indignation.

‘The people here,’ he cried, ‘could not be worse if they were cannibals. I shouldn’t be surprised if they were, but I declare they shan’t eat me without my protesting!’

‘Calm yourself, friend Ned; calm yourself,’ answered Conseil tranquilly. ‘Don’t get into a rage beforehand. We aren’t on the spit yet.’

‘No, but we’re in the oven. This hole’s as dark as one. Happily my “bowie-knife” is still on me, and I shall see well enough to use it. The first of these rascals that lays his hand on me—’

‘Don’t get irritated, Ned,’ then said I to the harpooner, ‘and do not compromise yourself by useless violence. Who knows that we are not overheard? Let us rather try to make out where we are.’

I groped my way about. When I had gone about five steps I came to an iron wall made of riveted plates. Then turning, I knocked against a wooden table, near which were several stools. The flooring of this prison was hidden under thick matting, which deadened the noise of our footsteps. The walls revealed no traces of either door or window. Conseil, going round the reverse way, met me, and we returned to the centre of the room, which measured about twenty feet by ten. As to its height, Ned Land, notwithstanding his tall stature, could not measure it.

Half an hour passed away without bringing any change in our position, when from the extreme of obscurity our eyes passed suddenly to the most violent light. Our prison was lighted up all at once – that is to say, it was filled with a luminous matter so intense that at first I could not bear its brilliancy. I saw from its whiteness and intensity that it was the same electric light that shone around the submarine boat like a magnificent phosphoric phenomenon. After having involuntarily closed my eyes I opened them again, and saw that the luminous agent was escaping from a polished half-globe, which was shining in the top part of the room.

‘Well, we can see at last!’ cried Ned Land, who, with his knife in hand, held himself on the defensive.

‘Yes,’ answered I, risking the antithesis, ‘but the situation is none the less obscure.’

‘Let monsieur have patience,’ said the impassible Conseil.

The sudden lighting of the cabin had allowed me to examine its least details. It only contained the table and five stools. The invisible door seemed hermetically closed. No noise reached our ears. All seemed dead in the interior of this machine. Was it moving, or was it motionless on the surface of the ocean, or deep in its depths? I could not guess.

However, the luminous globe was not lighted without a reason. I hoped that the men of the crew would soon show themselves, and my hope was well founded. A noise of bolts and bars being withdrawn was heard, the door opened, and two men appeared. One was short in stature, vigorously muscular, with broad shoulders, robust limbs, large head, abundant black hair, thick moustache, and all his person imprinted with that southern vivacity which characterises the Provençal inhabitants of France.

The second deserves a more detailed description. I read at once his dominant qualities on his open face – self-confidence, because his head was firmly set on his shoulders, and his black eyes looked round with cold assurance – calmness, for his pale complexion announced the tranquillity of his blood – energy, demonstrated by the rapid contraction of his eyebrows; and, lastly, courage, for his deep breathing denoted vast vital expansion. I felt involuntarily reassured in his presence, and augured good from it. He might be of any age from thirty-five to fifty. His tall stature, wide forehead, straight nose, clear-cut mouth, magnificent teeth, taper hands, indicated a highly-nervous temperament. This man formed certainly the most admirable type I had ever met with. One strange detail was that his eyes, rather far from each other, could take in nearly a quarter of the horizon at once. This faculty – I verified it later on – was added to a power of vision superior even to that of Ned Land. When the unknown fixed an object he frowned, and his large eyelids closed round so as to contract the range of his vision, and the result was a look that penetrated your very soul. With it he pierced the liquid waves that looked so opaque to us as if he read to the very depths of the sea.

The two strangers had on caps made from the fur of the sea-otter, sealskin boots, and clothes of a peculiar texture, which allowed them great liberty of movement.

The taller of the two – evidently the chief on board – examined us with extreme attention without speaking a word. Then he turned towards his companion, and spoke to him in a language I could not understand. It was a sonorous, harmonious, and flexible idiom, of which the vowels seemed very variously accented.

The other answered by shaking his head and pronouncing two or three perfectly incomprehensible words. Then, from his looks, he seemed to be questioning me directly.

I answered in good French that I did not understand his language; but he did not seem to know French, and the situation became very embarrassing.

‘If monsieur would relate his story,’ said Conseil, ‘these gentlemen may understand some words of it.’

I began the recital of my adventures, articulating clearly all my syllables, without leaving out a single detail. I gave our names and qualities. The man with the soft, calm eyes listened to me calmly, and even politely, with remarkable attention. But nothing in his face indicated that he understood me. When I had done he did not speak a single word.

There still remained one resource, that of speaking English. Perhaps they would understand that almost universal language. I knew it, and German too, sufficiently to read it correctly, but not to speak it fluently.

‘It is your turn now, Land,’ I said to the harpooner. ‘Make use of your best English, and try to be more fortunate than I.’

Ned did not need urging, and began the same tale in English, and ended by saying what was perfectly true, that we were half dead with hunger. To his great disgust, the harpooner did not seem more intelligible than I. Our visitors did not move a feature. It was evident that they neither knew the language of Arago nor Faraday. I was wondering what to do next, when Conseil said to me, –

‘If monsieur will allow me, I will tell them in German.’

‘What! do you know German?’ I cried.

‘Like a Dutchman, sir.’

‘Well, do your best, old fellow.’

And Conseil, in his tranquil voice, told our story for the third time, but without success.

I then assembled all the Latin I had learnt at school, and told my adventures in that dead language. Cicero would have stopped his ears and sent me to the kitchen, but I did the best I could with the same negative result.

After this last attempt the strangers exchanged a few words in their incomprehensible language, and went away without a gesture that could reassure us. The door closed upon them.

‘It is infamous!’ cried Ned Land, who broke out again for the twentieth time. ‘What! French, English, German, and Latin are spoken to those rascals, and not one of them has the politeness to answer.’

‘Calm yourself,’ said I to the enraged harpooner; ‘anger will do no good.’

‘But do you know, professor,’ continued our irascible companion, ‘that it is quite possible to die of hunger in this iron cage?’

‘Bah!’ exclaimed Conseil; ‘with exercising a little philosophy we can still hold out a long while.’

‘My friends,’ said I, ‘we must not despair. We have been in worse situations before now. Do me the pleasure of waiting before you form an opinion of the commander and crew of this vessel.’

‘My opinion is already formed,’ answered Ned Land. ‘They are rascals—’

‘Well, and of what country?’

‘Of Rascaldom!’

‘My worthy Ned, that country is not yet sufficiently indicated on the map of the world, and I acknowledge that the nationality of those two men is difficult to determine. Neither English, French, nor German, that is all we can affirm. However, I should be tempted to admit that the commander and his second were born under low latitudes. There is something meridional in them. But are they Spaniards, Turks, Arabians, or Indians? Their physical type does not allow me to decide; as to their language, it is absolutely incomprehensible.’

‘That is the disadvantage of not knowing every language,’ answered Conseil, ‘or the disadvantage of not having a single language.’

‘That would be of no use,’ answered Ned Land. ‘Do you not see that those fellows have a language of their own – a language invented to make honest men who want their dinners despair? But in every country in the world, to open your mouth, move your jaws, snap your teeth and lips, is understood. Does it not mean in Quebec as well as the Society Islands, in Paris as well as the Antipodes, “I am hungry – give me something to eat!”’

‘Oh,’ said Conseil, ‘there are people so unintelligent—’

As he was saying these words the door opened, and a steward entered. He brought us clothes similar to those worn by the two strangers, which we hastened to don.

Meanwhile, the servant – dumb and deaf too in all appearance – had laid the cloth for three.

‘This is something like,’ said Conseil, ‘and promises well.’

‘I’ll bet anything there’s nothing here fit to eat,’ said the harpooner. ‘Tortoise liver, fillets of shark, or beefsteak from a sea-dog, perhaps!’

‘We shall soon see,’ said Conseil.

The dishes with their silver covers were symmetrically placed on the table. We had certainly civilised people to deal with, and had it not been for the electric light which inundated us, I might have imagined myself in the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, or the Grand Hotel in Paris. There was neither bread nor wine, nothing but pure fresh water, which was not at all to Ned Land’s taste. Amongst the dishes that were placed before us I recognised several kinds of fish delicately cooked; but there were some that I knew nothing about, though they were delicious. I could not tell to what kingdom their contents belonged. The dinner service was elegant and in perfect taste; each piece was engraved with a letter and motto of which the following is a fac-simile:–

Mobilis in Mobile.

N.

Mobile in a mobile element! The letter N was doubtless the initial of the enigmatical person who commanded at the bottom of the sea.

Ned and Conseil did not observe so much. They devoured all before them, and I ended by imitating them.

But at last even our appetite was satisfied, and we felt overcome with sleep. A natural reaction after the fatigue of the interminable night during which we had struggled with death.

My two companions lay down on the carpet, and were soon fast asleep. I did not go so soon, for too many thoughts filled my brain; too many insoluble questions asked me for a solution; too many images kept my eyes open. Where were we? What strange power was bearing us along? I felt, or rather I thought I felt, the strange machine sinking down to the lowest depths of the sea. Dreadful nightmares took possession of me. I saw a world of unknown animals in these mysterious asylums, amongst which the submarine boat seemed as living, moving, and formidable as they. Then my brain grew calmer, my imagination melted into dreaminess, and I fell into a deep sleep.

CHAPTER 9 Ned Land’s Anger

I do not know how long our sleep lasted, but it must have been a long time, for it rested us completely from our fatigues. I awoke first. My companions had not yet moved.

I had scarcely risen from my rather hard couch when I felt all my faculties clear, and looked about me.

Nothing was changed in the room. The prison was still a prison, and the prisoners prisoners. The steward, profiting by our sleep, had cleared the supper things away. Nothing indicated an approaching change in our position, and I asked myself seriously if we were destined to live indefinitely in that cage.

This prospect seemed to me the more painful, because, though my head was clear, my chest was oppressed. The heavy air weighed upon my lungs. We had evidently consumed the larger part of the oxygen the cell contained, although it was large. One man consumes in one hour the oxygen contained in 176 pints of air, and this air, then loaded with an almost equal quantity of carbonic acid, becomes unbearable.

It was, therefore, urgent to renew the atmosphere of our prison, and most likely that of the submarine boat also. Thereupon a question came into my head, ‘How did the commander of this floating dwelling manage? Did he obtain air by chemical means, by evolving the heat of oxygen contained in chlorate of potassium, and by absorbing the carbonic acid with caustic potassium? In that case he must have kept up some relations with land in order to procure the materials necessary to this operation. Did he confine himself simply to storing up air under great pressure in reservoirs, and then let it out according to the needs of his crew? Perhaps. Or did he use the more convenient, economical, and consequently more probable means of contenting himself with returning to breathe on the surface of the water like a cetacean, and of renewing for twenty-four hours his provision of atmosphere? Whatever his method might be, it seemed to me prudent to employ it without delay.

I was reduced to multiplying my respirations to extract from our cell the small quantity of oxygen it contained, when, suddenly, I was refreshed by a current of fresh air, loaded with saline odours. It was a sea breeze, life-giving, and charged with iodine. I opened my mouth wide, and my lungs became saturated with fresh particles. At the same time I felt the boat roll, and the iron-plated monster had evidently just ascended to the surface of the ocean to breathe like the whales. When I had breathed fully, I looked for the ventilator which had brought us the beneficent breeze, and, before long, found it.

I was making these observations when my two companions awoke nearly at the same time, doubtless through the influence of the reviving air. They rubbed their eyes, stretched themselves, and were on foot instantly.

‘Did monsieur sleep well?’ Conseil asked me, with his usual politeness.

‘Very well. And you, Land?’

‘Soundly, Mr Professor. But if I am not mistaken, I am breathing a sea breeze.’

A seaman could not be mistaken in that, and I told the Canadian what had happened while he was asleep.

‘That accounts for the roarings we heard when the supposed narwhal was in sight of the Abraham Lincoln.’

‘Yes, Mr Land, that is its breathing.’

‘I have not the least idea what time it can be, M. Aronnax, unless it be dinner-time.’

‘Dinner time, Ned? Say breakfast time at least, for we have certainly slept something like twenty-four hours.’

‘I will not contradict you,’ answered Ned Land, ‘but dinner or breakfast, the steward would be welcome. I wish he would bring one or the other.’

‘The one and the other,’ said Conseil.

‘Certainly,’ answered the Canadian, ‘we have right to two meals, and, for my own part, I shall do honour to both.’

‘Well, Ned, we must wait,’ I answered. ‘It is evident that those two men had no intention of leaving us to die of hunger, for in that case there would have been no reason to give us dinner yesterday.’

‘Unless it is to fatten us!’ answered Ned.

‘I protest,’ I answered. ‘We have not fallen into the hands of cannibals.’

‘One swallow does not make a summer,’ answered the Canadian seriously. ‘Who knows if those fellows have not been long deprived of fresh meat, and in that case these healthy and well-constituted individuals like the professor, his servant, and me—’

‘Drive away such ideas, Land,’ I answered, ‘and above all do not act upon them to get into a rage with our hosts, for that would only make the situation worse.’

‘Any way,’ said the harpooner, ‘I am devilishly hungry, and, dinner or breakfast, the meal does not arrive!’

‘Land,’ I replied, ‘we must conform to the rule of the vessel, and I suppose that our stomachs are in advance of the steward’s bell.’

‘Well, then, we must put them right,’ answered Conseil tranquilly.

‘That is just like you, Conseil,’ answered the impatient Canadian. ‘You do not use up your bile or your nerves! Always calm, you would be capable of saying your grace before your Benedicite, and of dying of hunger before you complained.’

‘What is the use of complaining?’ asked Conseil.

‘It does one good to complain! It is something. And if these pirates – I say pirates not to vex the professor, who does not like to hear them called cannibals – and if these pirates think that they are going to keep me in this cage where I am stifled without hearing how I can swear, they are mistaken. Come, M. Aronnax, speak frankly. Do you think they will keep us long in this iron box?’

‘To tell you the truth, I know no more about it than you, friend Land.’

‘But what do you think about it?’

‘I think that hazard has made us masters of an important secret. If it is in the interest of the crew of this submarine vessel to keep it, and if this interest is of more consequence than the life of three men, I believe our existence to be in great danger. In the contrary case, on the first opportunity, the monster who has swallowed us will send us back to the world inhabited by our fellow men.’

‘Unless he enrols us amongst his crew,’ said Conseil, ‘and he keeps us thus—’

‘Until some frigate,’ replied Ned Land, ‘more rapid or more skilful than the Abraham Lincoln, masters this nest of plunderers, and sends its crew and us to breathe our last at the end of his mainyard.’

‘Well reasoned, Mr Land,’ I replied. ‘But I believe no proposition of the sort has yet been made to us, so it is useless to discuss what we should do in that case. I repeat, we must wait, take counsel of circumstances, and do nothing, as there is nothing to do.’

‘On the contrary, Mr Professor,’ answered the harpooner, who would not give up his point, ‘we must do something.’

‘What, then?’

‘Escape.’

‘To escape from a terrestrial prison is often difficult, but from a submarine prison, that seems to me quite impracticable.’

‘Come, friend Ned,’ said Conseil, ‘what have you to say to master’s objection? I do not believe an American is ever at the end of his resources.’

The harpooner, visibly embarrassed, was silent, a flight under the conditions hazard had imposed upon us was absolutely impossible. But a Canadian is half a Frenchman, and Ned Land showed it by his answer.

‘Then, M. Aronnax,’ he said, after some minutes’ reflection, ‘you do not guess what men ought to do who cannot escape from prison?’

‘No, my friend.’

‘It is very simple; they must make their arrangements to stop in it.’

‘I should think so, said Conseil; ‘it is much better to be inside than on the top or underneath.’

‘But after you have thrown your jailers and keepers out?’ added Ned Land.

‘What, Ned? You seriously think of seizing this vessel?’

‘Quite seriously,’ answered the Canadian.

‘It is impossible.’

‘How so, sir? A favourable chance may occur, and I do not see what could prevent us profiting by it. If there are twenty men on board this machine they will not frighten two Frenchmen and a Canadian, I suppose.’

It was better to admit the proposition of the harpooner than to discuss it. So I contented myself with answering, –

‘Let such circumstances come, Mr Land, and we will see. But until they do I beg of you to contain your impatience. We can only act by stratagem, and you will not make yourself master of favourable chances by getting in a rage. Promise me, therefore, that you will accept the situation without too much anger.’

‘I promise you, professor,’ answered Ned Land in a not very assuring tone; ‘not a violent word shall leave my mouth, not an angry movement shall betray me, not even if we are not waited upon at table with desirable regularity.’

‘I have your word, Ned,’ I answered.

Then the conversation was suspended, and each of us began to reflect on his own account. I acknowledge that, for my own part, and notwithstanding the assurance of the harpooner, I kept no illusion. I did not admit the probability of the favourable occasions of which Ned Land had spoken. To be so well worked, the submarine boat must have a numerous crew, and consequently, in case of a struggle, we should have to do with numbers too great. Besides, before aught else, we must be free, and we were not. I did not even see any means of leaving this iron cell so hermetically closed. And should the strange commander of the boat have a secret to keep – which appeared at least probable – he would not allow us freedom of movement on board. Now, would he get rid of us by violence, or would he throw us upon some corner of earth? All that was the unknown. All these hypotheses seemed to me extremely plausible, and one must be a harpooner to hope to conquer liberty again.

I understood, though, that Ned Land should get more exasperated with the thoughts that took possession of his brain. I heard him swearing in a gruff undertone, and saw his looks again become threatening. He rose, moved about like a wild beast in a cage, and struck the wall with his fist and foot. Moreover, time was going, hunger was cruelly felt, and this time the steward did not appear. If they had really good intentions towards us they had too long forgotten our shipwrecked condition.

Ned Land, tormented by the twinges of his robust stomach, became more and more enraged, and notwithstanding his promise I really feared an explosion when he would again be in the presence of the men on board.

Two more hours rolled on, and Ned’s anger increased; he cried and called at the top of his voice, but in vain. The iron walls were deaf. The boat seemed quite still. The silence became quite oppressive.

I dare no longer think how long our abandonment and isolation in this cell might last. The hopes that I had conceived after our interview with the commander of the vessel vanished one by one. The gentle look of this man, the generous expression of his face, the nobility of his carriage, all disappeared from my memory. I again saw this enigmatical personage such as he must necessarily be, pitiless and cruel. I felt him to be outside the pale of humanity, inaccessible to all sentiment of pity, the implacable enemy of his fellow men, to whom he had vowed imperishable hatred.

But was this man going, then, to let us perish from inanition, shut up in this narrow prison, given up to the horrible temptations to which ferocious famine leads? This frightful thought took a terrible intensity in my mind, and imagination helping, I felt myself invaded by unreasoning fear. Conseil remained calm. Ned was roaring. At that moment a noise was heard outside. Steps clanged on the metal slabs. The bolts were withdrawn, the door opened, the steward appeared.

Before I could make a movement to prevent him, the Canadian had rushed upon the unfortunate fellow, knocked him down, and fastened on his throat. The steward was choking under his powerful hand.

Conseil was trying to rescue his half-suffocated victim from the hands of the harpooner, and I was going to join my efforts to his, when, suddenly, I was riveted to my place by these words, spoken in French: –

‘Calm yourself, Mr Land, and you, professor, please to listen to me.’

CHAPTER 10 Nemo

The man who spoke thus was the commander of the vessel.

When Ned Land heard these words he rose suddenly.

The almost strangled steward went tottering out on a sign from his master; but such was the power of the commander on his vessel that not a gesture betrayed the resentment the man must have felt towards the Canadian. Conseil, interested in spite of himself, and I stupefied, awaited the result of this scene in silence.

The commander, leaning against the angle of the table, with his arms folded, looked at us with profound attention. After some minutes of a silence which none of us thought of interrupting, he said in a calm and penetrating voice, –

‘Gentlemen, I speak French, English, German, and Latin equally well. I might, therefore, have answered you at our last interview, but I wished to know you first, and afterwards to ponder on what you said. The stories told by each of you agreed in the main, and assured me of your identity. I know now that accident has brought me into the presence of M. Pierre Aronnax, Professor of Natural History in the Paris Museum, charged with a foreign scientific mission, his servant Conseil, and Ned Land, of Canadian origin, harpooner on board the frigate Abraham Lincoln, of the United States navy.’

I bent my head in sign of assent. There was no answer necessary. This man expressed himself with perfect ease, and without the least foreign accent. And yet I felt that he was not one of my countrymen. He continued the conversation in these terms: –

‘I dare say you thought me a long time in coming to pay you this second visit. It was because, after once knowing your identity, I wished to ponder upon what to do with you. I hesitated long. The most unfortunate conjuncture of circumstances has brought you into the presence of a man who has broken all ties that bound him to humanity. You came here to trouble my existence—’

‘Unintentionally,’ said I.

‘Unintentionally,’ he repeated, raising his voice a little. ‘Is it unintentionally that the Abraham Lincoln pursues me in every sea? Was it unintentionally that you took passage on board her? Was it unintentionally that your bullets struck my vessel? Did Mr Land throw his harpoon unintentionally?’

‘You are doubtless unaware,’ I answered, ‘of the commotion you have caused in Europe and America. When the Abraham Lincoln pursued you on the high seas, every one on board believed they were pursuing a marine monster.’

A slight smile curled round the commander’s lips, then he went on in a calmer tone, –

‘Dare you affirm, M. Aronnax, that your frigate would not have pursued a submarine vessel as well as a marine monster?’

This question embarrassed me, for it was certain that Captain Farragut would not have hesitated. He would have thought it as much his duty to destroy such a machine as the gigantic narwhal he took it to be.

‘You see, sir,’ continued the commander, ‘I have the right to treat you as enemies.’

I answered nothing, and for a very good reason; the unknown had force on his side, and it can destroy the best arguments.

‘I have long hesitated,’ continued the commander. ‘Nothing obliges me to give you hospitality. I could place you upon the platform of this vessel, upon which you took refuge; I might sink it beneath the waters and forget that you ever existed. I should only be using my right.’

‘The right of a savage, perhaps,’ I answered, ‘but not that of a civilised man.’

‘Professor,’ quickly answered the commander, ‘I am not what is called a civilised man. I have done with society entirely for reasons that seem to me good, therefore I do not obey its laws, and I desire you never to allude to them before me again.’

This was uttered clearly. A flash of anger and contempt had kindled in the man’s eyes, and I had a glimpse of a terrible past in his life. He had not only put himself out of the pale of human laws, but he had made himself independent of them, free, in the most rigorous sense of the word, entirely out of their reach. Who, then, would dare to pursue him in the depths of the sea, when on its surface he baffled all efforts attempted against him? What armour, however thick, could support the blows of his spur? No man could ask him for an account of his works. God, if he believed in Him, his conscience, if he had one, were the only judges he could depend upon.

These reflections rapidly crossed my mind, whilst the strange personage was silent, absorbed, withdrawn into himself. I looked at him with terror mingled with interest, doubtless as Oedipus considered the Sphinx.

After a rather long silence the commander went on speaking.

‘I have hesitated, therefore,’ said he, ‘but I thought that my interest might be reconciled with that natural pity to which every human being has a right. You may remain on my vessel, since fate has brought you to it. You will be free, and in exchange for this liberty which, after all, will be relative, I shall only impose one condition upon you. Your word of honour to submit to it will be sufficient.’

‘Speak, sir,’ I answered. ‘I suppose this condition is one that an honest man can accept?’

‘Yes; it is this: It is possible that certain unforeseen events may force me to consign you to your cabin for some hours, or even days. As I do not wish to use violence, I expect from you, in such a case, more than from all others, passive obedience. By acting thus I take all the responsibility; I acquit you entirely, by making it impossible for you to see what ought not to be seen. Do you accept the condition?’

So things took place on board which were, at least, singular and not to be seen by people who were not placed beyond the pale of social laws.

‘We accept,’ I replied. ‘Only I ask your permission to address to you one question – only one. What degree of liberty do you intend giving us?’

‘The liberty to move about freely and observe even all that passes here – except under rare circumstances – in short, the liberty that my companions and I enjoy ourselves.’

It was evident that we did not understand each other.

‘Pardon me, sir,’ I continued, ‘but this liberty is only that of every prisoner to pace his prison. It is not enough for us.’

‘You must make it enough.’

‘Do you mean to say we must for ever renounce the idea of seeing country, friends, and relations again?’

‘Yes, sir. But to renounce the unendurable worldly yoke that men call liberty is not perhaps so painful as you think.’

‘I declare,’ said Ned Land, I’ll never give my word of honour not to try to escape.’

‘I did not ask for your word of honour, Mr Land,’ answered the commander coldly.

‘Sir,’ I replied, carried away in spite of myself, ‘you take advantage of your position towards us. It is cruel!’

‘No, sir, it is kind. You are my prisoners of war. I keep you when I could, by a word, plunge you into the depths of the ocean. You attacked me. You came and surprised a secret that I mean no man inhabiting the world to penetrate – the secret of my whole existence. And you think that I am going to send you back to that world? Never! In retaining you, it is not you I guard, it is myself!’

These words indicated that the commander’s mind was made up, and that argument was useless.

‘Then, sir,’ I answered, ‘you give us the simple choice between life and death?’

‘As you say.’

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

‘None, sir,’ answered the unknown.

Then, in a gentler voice, he went on, –

‘Now, allow me to finish what I have to say to you. I know you, M. Aronnax. You, if not your companions, will not have so much to complain of in the chance that has bound you to my lot. You have carried your investigations as far as terrestrial science allowed you. But on board my vessel you will have an opportunity of seeing what no man has seen before. Thanks to me, our planet will give up her last secrets.’

I cannot deny that these words had a great effect upon me. My weak point was touched, and I forgot for a moment that the contemplation of these divine things was not worth the loss of liberty. Besides, I counted upon the future to decide that grave question, and so contented myself with saying, –

‘What name am I to call you by, sir?’

‘Captain Nemo,’ answered the commander. ‘That is all I am to you, and you and your companions are nothing to me but the passengers of the Nautilus.’

The captain called, and a steward appeared. The captain gave him his orders in that foreign tongue which I could not understand. Then turning to the Canadian and Conseil, –

‘Your meal is prepared in your cabin,’ he said to them. ‘Be so good as to follow that man.’

My two companions in misfortune left the cell where they had been confined for more than thirty hours.

‘And now, M. Aronnax, our breakfast is ready. Allow me to lead the way.’

I followed Captain Nemo into a sort of corridor lighted by electricity, similar to the waist of a ship. After going about a dozen yards, a second door opened before me into a kind of dining-room, decorated and furnished with severe taste. High oaken sideboards, inlaid with ebony ornaments, stood at either end of the room, and on their shelves glittered china, porcelain, and glass of inestimable value. The plate that was on them sparkled in the light which shone from the ceiling, tempered and softened by fine painting. In the centre of the room was a table richly spread. Captain Nemo pointed to my seat.

‘Sit down,’ said he, ‘and eat like a man who must be dying of hunger.’

The breakfast consisted of a number of dishes, the contents of which were all furnished by the sea; of some I neither knew the nature nor mode of preparation. They were good, but had a peculiar flavour which I soon became accustomed to. They appeared to be rich in phosphorus.

Captain Nemo looked at me. I asked him no questions, but he guessed my thoughts, and said, –

‘Most of these dishes are unknown to you, but you can eat of them without fear. They are wholesome and nourishing. I have long renounced the food of the earth, and I am none the worse for it. My crew, who are healthy, have the same food.’

‘Then all these dishes are the produce of the sea?’ said I.

‘Yes, professor, the sea supplies all my needs. Sometimes I cast my nets in tow, and they are drawn in ready to break. Sometimes I go and hunt in the midst of this element, which seems inaccessible to man, and run down the game of submarine forests. My flocks, like those of Neptune’s old shepherd, graze fearlessly the immense ocean meadows. I have a vast estate there, which I cultivate myself, and which is always stocked by the Creator of all things.’

I looked at Captain Nemo with some astonishment, and answered, –

‘I can quite understand that your nets should furnish excellent fish for your table, and that you should pursue aquatic game in your submarine forests; but I do not understand how a particle of meat can find its way into your bill of fare.’

‘What you believe to be meat, professor, is nothing but fillet of turtle. Here also are dolphins’ livers, which you might take for ragout of pork. My cook is a clever fellow, who excels in preparing these various products of the sea. Taste all these dishes. Here is a conserve of holothuria, which a Malay would declare to be unrivalled in the world; here is a cream furnished by the cetacea, and the sugar by the great fucus of the North Sea; and, lastly, allow me to offer you some anemone preserve, which equals that made from the most delicious fruits.’

Whilst I was tasting, more from curiosity than as a gourmet, Captain Nemo enchanted me with extraordinary stories.

‘Not only does the sea feed me,’ he continued, ‘but it clothes me too. These materials that clothe you are wrought from the byssus of certain shells; they are dyed with the purple of the ancients, and the violet shades which I extract from the aplysis of the Mediterranean. The perfumes you will find on the toilet of your cabin are produced from the distillation of marine plants. Your bed is made with the softest wrack-grass of the ocean. Your pen will be a whale’s fin, your ink the liquor secreted by the calamary. Everything now comes to me from the sea, and everything will one day return to it!’

‘You love the sea, captain?’

‘Yes, I love it. The sea is everything. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert where man is never alone, for he feels life quivering around him on every side. The sea does not belong to despots. On its surface iniquitous rights can still be exercised, men can fight there, devour each other there, and transport all terrestrial horrors there. But at thirty feet below its level their power ceases, their influence dies out, their might disappears. Ah, sir, live in the bosom of the waters! There alone is independence! There I recognise no masters! There I am free!’

Captain Nemo stopped suddenly in the midst of this burst of enthusiasm. Had he let himself be carried out of his habitual reserve? Had he said too much? During some moments he walked about much agitated. Then his nerves became calmer, his face regained its usual calm expression, and turning towards me, –

‘Now, professor,’ said he, ‘if you wish to visit the Nautilus, I am at your service.’

CHAPTER 11 The ‘Nautilus’

Captain Nemo rose, and I followed him. A folding door, contrived at the back of the room, opened, and I entered a room about the same size as the one I had just left.

It was a library. High bookcases of black rosewood supported on their shelves a great number of books in uniform binding. They went round the room, terminating at their lower part in large divans, covered with brown leather, curved so as to afford the greatest comfort. Light, movable desks, made to slide in and out at will, were there to rest one’s book while reading. In the centre was a vast table, covered with pamphlets, amongst which appeared some newspapers, already old. The electric light flooded this harmonious whole, and was shed from four polished globes half sunk in the volutes of the ceiling. This room, so ingeniously fitted up, excited my admiration, and I could scarcely believe my eyes.

‘Captain Nemo,’ said I to my host, who had just thrown himself on one of the divans, ‘you have a library here that would do honour to more than one continental palace, and I am lost in wonder when I think that it can follow you to the greatest depths of the ocean.’

‘Where could there be more solitude or more silence, professor?’ answered Captain Nemo. ‘Did your study in the museum offer you as complete quiet?’

‘No, and I must acknowledge it is a very poor one compared with yours. You must have from six to seven thousand volumes here.’

‘Twelve thousand, M. Aronnax. These are the only ties between me and the earth. But the day that my Nautilus plunged for the first time beneath the waters the world was at an end for me. That day I bought my last books, my last pamphlets, and my last newspapers; and since then I wish to believe that men no longer think nor write. These books, professor, are at your disposition, and you can use them freely.’

I thanked Captain Nemo, and went up to the library shelves. Books of science, ethics, and literature – written in every language – were there in quantities; but I did not see a single work on political economy amongst them; they seemed to be severely prohibited on board. A curious detail was that all these books were classified indistinctly, in whatever language they were written, and this confusion showed that the captain of the Nautilus could read with the utmost facility any volume he might take up by chance.

‘This room is not only a library,’ said Captain Nemo; ‘it is a smoking-room too.’

‘A smoking-room?’ cried I. ‘Do you smoke here, then?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Then, sir, I am forced to believe that you have kept up relations with Havana?’

‘No, I have not,’ answered the captain. Accept this cigar, M. Aronnax; although it does not come from Havana, you will be pleased with it if you are a connoisseur.’

I took the cigar that was offered me; its shape was something like that of a Londres, but it seemed to be made of leaves of gold. I lighted it at a little brazier which was supported on an elegant bronze pedestal, and drew the first whiffs with the delight of an amateur who has not smoked for two days.

‘It is excellent,’ said I, ‘but it is not tobacco.’

‘No,’ answered the captain. ‘This tobacco comes neither from Havana nor the East. It is a sort of seaweed, rich in nicotine, with which the sea supplies me, but somewhat sparingly. If you do not regret the Londres, M. Aronnax, smoke these as much as you like.’

As Captain Nemo spoke he opened the opposite door to the one by which we had entered the library, and I passed into an immense and brilliantly-lighted saloon. It was a vast four-sided room, with panelled walls, measuring thirty feet by eighteen, and about fifteen feet high. A luminous ceiling, decorated with light arabesques, distributed a soft, clear light over all the marvels collected in the museum. For it was, in fact, a museum in which an intelligent and prodigal hand had gathered together all the treasures of nature and art with the artistic confusion of a painter’s studio.

About thirty pictures by the first artists, uniformly framed and separated by brilliant drapery, were hung on tapestry of severe design. I saw there works of great value, most of which I had admired in the special collections of Europe, and in exhibitions of paintings. The amazement which the captain of the Nautilus had predicted had already begun to take possession of me.

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

‘Sir,’ I answered, ‘without seeking to know who you are, may I be allowed to recognise in you an artist?’

‘Only an amateur, sir. Formerly I liked to collect these works of art. I was a greedy collector and an indefatigable antiquary, and have been able to get together some objects of great value. These are my last gatherings from that world which is now dead to me. In my eyes your modern artists are already old; they have two or three thousand years of existence, and all masters are of the same age in my mind.’

‘And these musicians?’ said I, pointing to the works of Weber, Rossini, Mozart, and many others, scattered over a large piano-organ fixed in one of the panels of the room.

‘These musicians,’ answered Captain Nemo, ‘are contemporaries of Orpheus, for all chronological differences are effaced in the memory of the dead; and I am dead, as much dead as those of your friends who are resting six feet under the earth!

Captain Nemo ceased talking, and seemed lost in a profound reverie. I looked at him with great interest, analysing in silence the strange expressions of his face.

I respected his meditation, and went on passing in review the curiosities that enriched the saloon. They consisted principally of marine plants, shells, and other productions of the ocean, which must have been found by Captain Nemo himself. In the centre of the saloon rose a jet of water lighted up by electricity, and falling into a basin formed of a single tridacne shell, measuring about seven yards in circumference; it, therefore, surpassed in size the beautiful tridacnes given to Francis I. of France by the Venetian Republic, and that now form two basins for holy water in the church of Saint Sulpice in Paris.

All round this basin were elegant glass cases, fastened by copper rivets, in which were classed and labelled the most precious productions of the sea that had ever been presented to the eye of a naturalist. My delight as a professor may be imagined. I saw there a collection of inestimable value. Amongst these specimens I quote from memory the elegant royal hammer-fish of the Indian Ocean, with its white spots standing out brightly on a red and brown ground; an imperial spondyle, bright-coloured, and bristling with spikes, a rare specimen in the museums of Europe, and the value of which I estimated at £800; a hammer-fish from the Australian seas, only procured with difficulty; fragile white bivalve shells that a breath might blow away like a soap-bubble; several varieties of the Java aspirgillum, a sort of calcareous tube, edged with leafy folds, much prized by amateurs; a whole series of trochi, some a greenish yellow, found in the American seas; others of a reddish brown, natives of Australian waters; others from the Gulf of Mexico, remarkable for their imbricated shells: and, rarest of all, the magnificent New Zealand spur.

Apart and in special apartments were chaplets of pearls of the greatest beauty, which the electric light pricked with points of fire; pink pearls, torn from the pinnamarina of the Red Sea; green pearls from the haliotyde iris; yellow, blue, and black pearls, the curious productions of different molluscs from every ocean, and certain mussels from the watercourses of the North; lastly, several specimens of priceless value, gathered from the rarest pintadines. Some of these pearls were bigger than a pigeon’s egg, and were worth more than the one Travernier sold to the Shah of Persia for 3,000,000 francs, and surpassed the one in the possession of the Imaum of Muscat, which I had believed unrivalled.

It was impossible to estimate the worth of this collection. Captain Nemo must have spent millions in acquiring these various specimens, and I was asking myself from whence he had drawn the money to gratify his fancy for collecting, when I was interrupted by these words: – ‘You are examining my shells, professor. They certainly must be interesting to a naturalist, but for me they have a greater charm, for I have collected them all myself, and there is not a sea on the face of the globe that has escaped my search.’

‘I understand, captain – I understand the delight of moving amongst such riches. You are one of those people who lay up treasures for themselves. There is not a museum in Europe that possesses such a collection of marine products. But if I exhaust all my admiration upon it, I shall have none left for the vessel that carries it. I do not wish to penetrate into your secrets, but I must confess that this Nautilus, with the motive power she contains, the contrivances by which she is worked, the powerful agent which propels her, all excite my utmost curiosity. I see hung on the walls of this room instruments the use of which I ignore.’

‘When I told you that you were free on board my vessel, I meant that every portion of the Nautilus was open to your inspection. The instruments you will see in my room, professor, where I shall have much pleasure in explaining their use to you. But come and look at your own cabin.’

I followed Captain Nemo, who, by one of the doors opening from each panel of the drawing-room, regained the waist of the vessel. He conducted me aft, and there I found, not a cabin, but an elegant room with a bed, toilet-table, and several other articles of furniture. I could only thank my host.

‘Your room is next to mine,’ said he, opening a door: ‘and mine opens into the saloon we have just left.’

I entered the captain’s room; it had a severe, almost monkish aspect. A small iron bedstead, an office desk, some articles of toilet – all lighted by a strong light. There were no comforts, only the strictest necessaries.

Captain Nemo pointed to a seat.

‘Pray sit down,’ he said.

I obeyed, and he began thus: –

CHAPTER 12 Everything by Electricity

‘Sir,’ said Captain Nemo, showing me the instruments hung on the walls of the room, ‘here are the instruments necessary for the navigation of the Nautilus. Here, as in the saloon, I have them always before me, and they indicate my position and exact direction in the midst of the ocean. You are acquainted with some of them.’

‘Yes,’ I answered; ‘I understand the usual nautical instruments. But I see others that doubtless answer the peculiar requirements of your vessel. That dial with a movable needle is a manometer, is it not?’

‘Yes, by communication with the water it indicates the exterior pressure and gives our depth at the same time.’

‘And these sounding-lines of a novel kind?’

‘They are thermometric, and give the temperature of the different depths of water.’

‘And these other instruments, the use of which I cannot guess?’

‘Here I ought to give you some explanation, professor. There is a powerful, obedient, rapid, and easy agent which lends itself to all uses, and reigns supreme here. We do everything by its means. It is the light, warmth, and soul of my mechanical apparatus. This agent is electricity.’

‘Yes, captain, you possess an extreme rapidity of movement which does not well agree with the power of electricity. Until now its dynamic force has been very restricted, and has only produced little power.’

‘Professor,’ answered Captain Nemo, ‘my electricity is not everybody’s, and you will permit me to withhold any further information.’

‘I will not insist, sir; I will content myself with being astonished at such wonderful results. A single question, however, I will ask, which you need not answer if it is an indiscreet one. The elements which you employ to produce this marvellous agent must necessarily be soon consumed. The zinc, for instance, that you use – how do you obtain a fresh supply? You now have no communication with the land?’

‘I will answer your question,’ replied Captain Nemo.

‘In the first place I must inform you that there exist, at the bottom of the sea, mines of zinc, iron, silver, and gold, the working of which would most certainly be practicable; but I am not indebted to any of these terrestrial metals. I was determined to seek from the sea alone the means of producing my electricity.’

‘From the sea?’

‘Yes, professor, and I was at no loss to find these means. It would have been possible, by establishing a circuit between wires plunged to different depths, to obtain electricity by the diversity of temperature to which they would have been exposed; but I preferred to employ a more practicable system.’

‘And what was that?’

‘You know the composition of sea-water? Chloride of sodium forms a notable proportion of it. Now it is this sodium that I extract from sea-water, and of which I compose my ingredients. Mixed with mercury it takes the place of zinc for the voltaic pile. The mercury is never exhausted; only the sodium is consumed, and the sea itself gives me that. Besides, the electric power of the sodium piles is double that of zinc ones.’

‘I clearly understand, captain, the convenience of sodium in the circumstances in which you are placed. The sea contains it. Good. But you still have to make it, to extract it, in a word. And how do you do that? Your pile would evidently serve the purpose of extracting it; but the consumption of sodium necessitated by the electrical apparatus would exceed the quantity extracted. You would consume more than you would produce.’

‘I do not extract it by the pile, professor. I employ nothing but the heat of coal.’

‘Coal!’ I urged.

‘We will call it sea-coal if you like,’ replied Captain Nemo.

‘And are you able to work submarine coal-mines?’

‘You shall see me so employed, M. Aronnax. I only ask you for a little patience; you have time to be patient here. I get everything from the ocean. It produces electricity, and electricity supplies the Nautilus with light – in a word, with life.’

‘But not with the air you breathe.’

‘I could produce the air necessary for my consumption, but I do not, because I go up to the surface of the water when I please. But though electricity does not furnish me with the air to breathe, it works the powerful pumps which store it up in special reservoirs, and which enable me to prolong at need, and as long as I like, my stay in the depths of the sea.’

‘Captain,’ I replied, ‘I can do nothing but admire. You have evidently discovered what mankind at large will, no doubt, one day discover, the veritable dynamic power of electricity.’

‘Whether they will discover it I do not know,’ replied Captain Nemo coldly. ‘However that may be, you now know the first application that I have made of this precious agent. It is electricity that furnishes us with a light that surpasses in uniformity and continuity that of the sun itself. Look now at this clock! It is an electric one, and goes with a regularity that defies the best of chronometers. I have divided it into twenty-four hours, like the Italian clocks, because there exists for me neither night nor day, sun nor moon, only this factitious light that I take with me to the bottom of the sea. Look! just now it is 10 a.m.’

‘Exactly so.’

‘This dial hanging in front of us indicates the speed of the Nautilus. An electric wire puts it into communication with the screw. Look! just now we are going along at the moderate speed of fifteen miles an hour. But we have not finished yet, M. Aronnax,’ continued Captain Nemo, rising, ‘if you will follow me we will visit the stern of the Nautilus.’

I followed Captain Nemo across the waist, and in the centre of the boat came to a sort of well that opened between two water-tight partitions. An iron ladder, fastened by an iron hook to the partition, led to the upper end. I asked the captain what it was for.

‘It leads to the boat,’ answered he.

‘What! have you a boat?’ I exclaimed in astonishment.

‘Certainly, an excellent one, light and unsinkable, that serves either for fishing or pleasure trips.’

‘Then when you wish to embark you are obliged to go up to the surface of the water.’

‘Not at all. The boat is fixed on the top of the Nautilus in a cavity made for it. It has a deck, is quite water-tight, and fastened by solid bolts. This ladder leads to a man-hole in the hull of the Nautilus, corresponding to a similar hole in the boat. It is by this double opening that I get to the boat. The one is shut by my men in the vessel, I shut the one in the boat by means of screw pressure, I undo the bolts, and the little boat darts up to the surface of the sea with prodigious rapidity. I then open the panel of the deck, carefully closed before, I mast it, hoist my sail, take my oars, and am off.’

‘But how do you return?’

‘I do not return to it; it comes to me.’

‘At your order?’

‘At my order. An electric wire connects us. I telegraph my orders.’

‘Really,’ I said, intoxicated by such marvels, ‘nothing can be more simple!’

After having passed the companion ladder that led to the platform, I saw a cabin about twelve feet long, in which Conseil and Ned Land were devouring their meal. Then a door opened upon a kitchen nine feet long, situated between the vast store-rooms of the vessel. There electricity, better than gas itself, did all the cooking. The wires under the stoves communicated with platinum sponges, and gave out a heat which was regularly kept up and distributed. They also heated a distilling apparatus which, by evaporation, furnished excellent drinking water. A bathroom, comfortably furnished with hot and cold water taps, opened out of this kitchen.

Next to the kitchen was the berth-room of the vessel, eighteen feet long. But the door was closed, and I could not see how it was furnished, which might have given me an idea of the number of men employed on board the Nautilus. At the far end was a fourth partition, which separated this room from the engine-room. A door opened, and I entered the compartment where Captain Nemo – certainly a first-rate engineer – had arranged his locomotive machinery. It was well lighted, and did not measure less than sixty-five feet. It was naturally divided into two parts; the first contained the materials for producing electricity, and the second the machinery that moved the screw. I was at first surprised at a smell sui generis which filled the compartment. The captain saw that I perceived it.

‘It is only a slight escape of gas produced by the use of the sodium, and not much inconvenience, as every morning we purify the vessel by ventilating it in the open air.’

In the meantime I was examining the machinery with great interest.

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

‘What speed do you obtain from it?’

‘About fifty miles an hour.’

Here was a mystery, but I did not press for a solution of it. How could electricity act with so much power? Where did this almost unlimited force originate? Was it in the excessive tension obtained by some new kind of spools? Was it by its transmission that a system of unknown lever could infinitely increase? (And by a remarkable coincidence, a discovery of this kind is talked of in which a new arrangement of levers produces considerable force. Can the inventor have met with Captain Nemo?).

‘Captain Nemo,’ I replied, ‘I recognise the results, and do not seek to explain them. I saw the Nautilus worked in the presence of the Abraham Lincoln, and I know what to think of its speed. But it is not enough to be able to walk; you must see where you are going; you must be able to direct yourself to the right or left, above or below. How do you reach the great depths, where you find an increasing resistance, which is rated by hundreds of atmospheres? How do you return to the surface of the ocean, or maintain yourself at the proper depth? Am I indiscreet in asking you this question?’

‘Not at all, professor,’ answered the captain, after a slight hesitation. ‘As you are never to leave this submarine boat, come into the saloon – it is our true study – and there you shall learn all you want to know about the Nautilus.’

CHAPTER 13 Figures

A moment afterwards we were seated on a divan in the saloon, with our cigars. The captain spread out a diagram that gave the plan of the Nautilus. Then he began his description in these terms: –

‘Here, M. Aronnax, are the different dimensions of the vessel you are in. It is a very elongated cylinder, with conical ends much like a cigar in shape. The length of this cylinder is exactly 232 feet, and its maximum breadth is 26 feet. Its lines are sufficiently long, and its slope lengthened out to allow the displaced water to escape easily, and opposes no obstacle to its speed. Its surface is 1011 metres and 45 centimetres; its volume, 1500 cubic metres and two-tenths, which is the same as saying that it is entirely immersed. It displaces 50,000 feet of water, and weighs 1500 tons.

‘When I made the plans for this vessel – destined for submarine navigation – I wished that when it was in equilibrium nine-tenths of it should be under water, and one-tenth only should emerge. Consequently, under these conditions, it only ought to displace nine-tenths of its volume, or 1356 cubic metres and 48 centimetres – that is to say, it only ought to weigh the same number of tons. I therefore did not exceed this weight in constructing it according to the above-named dimensions.

‘The Nautilus is composed of two hulls, one inside the other, and joined by T-shaped irons, which make it very strong. Owing to this cellular arrangement it resists as if it were solid. Its sides cannot yield; they adhere spontaneously, and not by the closeness of their rivets; and the homogeneity of their construction, due to the perfect union of the materials, enables my vessel to defy the roughest seas.

‘Then when the Nautilus is afloat, one-tenth is out of the water. I have placed reservoirs of a size equal to this tenth capable of holding 150.72 tons, and when I fill them with water the vessel becomes completely immersed. These reservoirs exist in the lowest parts of the Nautilus. I turn on taps, they fill, and the vessel sinks just below the surface of the water.’

‘Well, captain, I can understand your being able to keep just level with the surface of the ocean. But lower down, when you plunge below that surface, does not your submarine apparatus meet with a pressure from below, which must be equal to one atmosphere for every thirty feet of water?’

‘True, sir.’

‘Then unless you fill the Nautilus entirely, I do not see how you can draw it down into the bosom of the liquid mass.’

‘Professor,’ answered Captain Nemo, ‘you must not confound statics with dynamics, or you will expose yourself to grave errors. There is very little work necessary to reach the lowest depths of the ocean, for bodies have a tendency “to sink.” Follow my reasoning.’

‘I am listening to you, captain.’

‘When I wished to determine the increase of weight that must be given to the Nautilus to sink it, I had only to occupy myself with the reduction in volume which sea-water experiences as it becomes deeper and deeper.

‘Now if water is not absolutely incompressible, it is, at least, very slightly compressible – in fact, according to the most recent calculations .0000436 in an atmosphere or in each thirty feet of depth. If I wish to go to the depth of 1000 metres, I take into account the reduction of volume under a pressure of 100 atmospheres. I ought, therefore, to increase the weight so as to weigh 1513.79 tons instead of 1507.2 tons. The augmentation will only be 6.77 tons. Now I have supplementary reservoirs capable of embarking 100 tons. When I wish to remount to the surface, I have only to let out this water, and empty all the reservoirs, if I desire that the Nautilus should emerge one tenth of its total capacity.’

To this reasoning, founded upon figures, I had nothing to object.

‘I admit your calculations, captain,’ I replied, ‘and I should be foolish to dispute them, as experience proves them every day, but I foresee a real difficulty.’

‘What is that, sir?’

‘When you are at the depth of 1000 yards the sides of the Nautilus support a pressure of 100 atmospheres. If, therefore, at this moment, you wish to empty the supplementary reservoirs to lighten your vessel and ascend to the surface, the pumps must conquer this pressure of 100 atmospheres, which is that of 100 kilogrammes for every square centimetre. Hence a power –’

‘Which electricity alone can give me,’ hastened to say Captain Nemo. ‘The dynamic power of my machines is nearly infinite. The pumps of the Nautilus have prodigious force, which you must have seen when their columns of water were precipitated like a torrent over the Abraham Lincoln. Besides, I only use supplementary reservoirs to obtain middle depths of 1500 to 2000 metres, and that in order to save my apparatus. When the fancy takes me to visit the depths of the ocean at two or three leagues below its surface, I use longer means, but no less infallible.’

‘What are they, captain?’ I asked.

‘That involves my telling you how the Nautilus is worked.’

‘I am all impatience to hear it.’

‘In order to steer my vessel horizontally I use an ordinary rudder, worked by a wheel and tackle. But I can also move the Nautilus by a vertical movement, by means of two inclined planes fastened to the sides and at the centre of flotation, planes that can move in every direction, and are worked from the interior by means of powerful levers. When these planes are kept parallel with the boat it moves horizontally; when slanted, the Nautilus, according to their inclination, and under the influence of the screw, either sinks according to an elongated diagonal, or rises diagonally as it suits me. And even when I wish to rise more quickly to the surface I engage the screw, and the pressure of the water causes the Nautilus to rise vertically like a balloon into the air.’

‘Bravo! captain,’ I cried. ‘But how can the helmsman follow the route you give him in the midst of the waters?’

‘The helmsman is placed in a glass cage jutting from the top of the Nautilus and furnished with lenses.’

‘Capable of resisting such pressure?’

‘Perfectly. Glass, which a blow can break, offers, nevertheless, considerable resistance. During some fishing experiments we made in 1864, by electric light, in the Northern Seas, we saw plates less than a third of an inch thick resist a pressure of sixteen atmospheres. Now the glass that I use is not less than thirty times thicker.’

‘I see now. But, after all, it is dark under water; how do you see where you are going?’

‘There is a powerful electric reflector placed behind the helmsman’s cage, the rays from which light up the sea for half a mile in front.’

‘Ah, now I can account for the phosphorescence in the supposed narwhal that puzzled me so. May I now ask you if the damage you did to the Scotia was due to an accident?’

‘Yes, it was quite accidental. I was sailing only one fathom below the surface when the shock came. Had it any bad result?’

‘None, sir. But how about the shock you gave the Abraham Lincoln?’

‘Professor, it was a great pity for one of the best ships in the American navy; but they attacked me and I had to defend myself! Besides, I contented myself with putting it out of the power of the frigate to harm me; there will be no difficulty in getting her repaired at the nearest port.’

‘Ah, commander!’ I cried, with conviction, ‘your Nautilus is certainly a marvellous boat.’

‘Yes, professor,’ answered Captain Nemo, with real emotion, ‘and I love it as if it were flesh of my flesh! Though all is danger on one of your ships in subjection to the hazards of the ocean, though on this sea the first impression is the sentiment of unfathomable depth, below and on board the Nautilus the heart of man has nothing to dread. There is no deformation to fear, for the double hull of this vessel is as rigid as iron; no rigging to be injured by rolling and pitching; no sails for the wind to carry away; no boilers for steam to blow up; no fire to dread, as the apparatus is made of iron and not of wood; no coal to get exhausted, as electricity is its mechanical agent; no collision to fear, as it is the only vessel in deep waters; no tempests to set at defiance, as there is perfect tranquillity at some yards below the surface of the sea! The Nautilus is the ship of ships, sir. And if it is true that the engineer has more confidence in the vessel than the constructor, and the constructor more than the captain himself, you will understand with what confidence I trust to my Nautilus, as I am at the same time captain, constructor, and engineer.’

Captain Nemo spoke with captivating eloquence. His fiery look and passionate gestures transfigured him. Yes! he did love his vessel like a father loves his child.

‘But how could you construct this admirable Nautilus in secret?’

‘I had each separate portion made in different parts of the globe, and it reached me through a disguised address. The keel was forged at Creuzot, the shaft of the screw at Penn and Co.’s, of London; the iron plates of the hull at Laird’s, of Liverpool; the screw itself at Scott’s, of Glasgow. Its reservoirs were made by Cail and Co., of Paris; the engine by the Prussian Krupp; the prow in Motala’s workshop in Sweden; the mathematical instruments by Hart Brothers, of New York, etc.; all of these people had my orders under different names.’

‘But how did you get all the parts put together?’

‘I set up a workshop upon a desert island in the ocean. There, my workmen – that is to say, my brave companions whom I instructed – and I put together our Nautilus. When the work was ended, fire destroyed all trace of our proceedings on the island, which I should have blown up if I could.’

‘It must have cost you a great deal.’

‘An iron vessel costs £45 a ton. The Nautilus weighs 1500 tons. It came, therefore, to £67,500, and £80,000 more for fitting up; altogether, with the works of art and collections it contains, it cost about £200,000.’

‘You must be rich?’

‘Immensely rich, sir; I could, without missing it, pay the English national debt.’

I stared at the singular person who spoke. Was he taking advantage of my credulity?

CHAPTER 14 The Black River

The Pacific Ocean extends from north to south between the two polar circles, and from west to east between Asia and America over an extent of 145° of longitude. It is the smoothest of all seas; its currents are wide and slow, its tides slight, its rains abundant. Such was the ocean that my destiny called upon me to go over under such strange conditions.

‘Now, professor,’ said Captain Nemo, ‘we will, if you please, take our bearings and fix the starting-point of this voyage. It wants a quarter to twelve. I am going up to the surface of the water.’

The captain pressed an electric bell three times. The pumps began to drive the water out of the reservoirs; the needle of the manometer marked by the different pressures the ascensional movement of the Nautilus, then it stopped.

‘We have arrived,’ said the captain.

We went to the central staircase which led up to the platform, climbed the iron steps, and found ourselves on the top of the Nautilus.

The platform was only three feet out of the water. The front and back of the Nautilus were of that spindle shape which caused it justly to be compared to a cigar. I noticed that its iron plates slightly overlaid each other, like the scales on the body of our large terrestrial reptiles. I well understood how, in spite of the best glasses, this boat should have been taken for a marine animal.

Towards the middle of the platform, the boat, half sunk in the vessel, formed a slight excrescence. Fore and aft rose two cages of medium height, with inclined sides, and partly enclosed by thick lenticular glasses. In the one was the helmsman who directed the Nautilus; and in the other a powerful electric lantern that lighted up his course.

The sea was beautiful, the sky pure. The long vessel could hardly feel the broad undulations of the ocean. A slight breeze from the east rippled the surface of the water. The horizon was quite clear, making observation easy. There was nothing in sight – not a rock nor an island, no Abraham Lincoln, nothing but a waste of waters.

Captain Nemo took the altitude of the sun with his sextant to get his latitude. He waited some minutes till the planet came on a level with the edge of the horizon. Whilst he was observing, not one of his muscles moved, and the instrument would not have been more motionless in a hand of marble.

‘It is noon. Professor, when you are ready –’

I cast a last look at the sea, slightly yellowed by the Japanese coast, and went down again to the saloon.

There the captain made his point, and calculated his longitude chronometrically, which he controlled by preceding observations of horary angles. Then he said to me, –

‘M. Aronnax, we are in west longitude 137° 15.’

‘By what meridian?’ I asked quickly, hoping that the captain’s answer might indicate his nationality.

‘Sir,’ he answered, ‘I have different chronometers regulated on the meridians of Paris, Greenwich, and Washington. But, in your honour, I will use the Paris one.’

This answer taught me nothing. I bowed, and the commander continued, –

‘Thirty-seven degrees and fifteen minutes longitude west of the Paris meridian, and thirty degrees and seven minutes north latitude – that is to say, about three hundred miles from the coasts of Japan. Today, the 8th of November, at noon, our voyage of exploration under the waters begins.’

‘God preserve us!’ I answered.

‘And now, professor,’ added the captain, ‘I leave you to your studies. I have given ENE. as our route at a depth of fifty yards. Here are maps on which you can follow it. The saloon is at your disposition, and I ask your permission to withdraw.’

Captain Nemo bowed to me. I remained alone, absorbed in my thoughts. All of them referred to the commander of the Nautilus. Should I ever know to what nation belonged the strange man who boasted of belonging to none? This hatred which he had vowed to humanity – this hatred which perhaps sought terrible means of revenge – what had provoked it? I, whom hazard had just cast upon his vessel – I, whose life he held in his hands, he had received me coldly, but with hospitality. Only he had never taken the hand I had held out to him. He had never held out his to me.

For a whole hour I remained buried in these reflections, seeking to pierce the mystery that interested me so greatly. Then my eyes fell upon the vast planisphere on the table, and I placed my finger on the very spot where the given latitude and longitude crossed.

The sea has its large rivers like continents. They are special currents, known by their temperature and colour. The most remarkable is known under the name of the Gulf Stream. Science has found out the direction of five principal currents – one in the North Atlantic, a second in the South Atlantic, a third in the North Pacific, a fourth in the South Pacific, and a fifth in the South Indian Ocean. It is probable that a sixth current formerly existed in the North Indian Ocean, when the Caspian and Aral Seas, united to the great Asiatic lakes, only formed one vast sheet of water.

At the point on the planisphere where my finger lay, one of these currents was rolling – the Black River of the Japanese, which, leaving the Gulf of Bengal, where the perpendicular rays of a tropical sun warm it, crosses the Straits of Malacca, runs along the coast of Asia, turns into the North Pacific as far as the Aleutian Islands, carrying with it the trunks of camphor-trees and other indigenous productions, contrasting by the pure indigo of its warm waters with the waves of the ocean. It was this current that the Nautilus was going to follow. I saw that it lost itself in the immensity of the Pacific, and felt myself carried along by it. Just then Ned Land and Conseil appeared at the door of the saloon.

My companions were petrified at the sight of the marvels spread out before their eyes.

‘Where are we – where are we?’ cried the Canadian. ‘At the Quebec Museum?’

‘If monsieur allows me to say so,’ replied Conseil, ‘it is more like the Hotel du Sommerard.’

‘My friends,’ said I, ‘you are neither in Canada nor France, but on board the Nautilus, and at more than twenty-five fathoms below the sea-level.’

‘We believe what monsieur says,’ replied Conseil, ‘but really this saloon is enough to astonish even a Dutchman like me.’

During this time Ned Land, who was not much interested in conchology, questioned me about my interview with Captain Nemo. Had I discovered who he was, whence he came, whither he was going, to what depths he was dragging us? – in short, a thousand questions, to which I had not time to answer.

I told him all I knew, or rather all I did not know, and I asked him what he had heard or seen on his side.

‘I have seen nothing, heard nothing,’ answered the Canadian. ‘I have not even perceived the ship’s crew. Is it by chance, or can it be electric too?’

‘Electric!’

‘Faith, any one would think so. But you, M. Aronnax,’ said Ned Land, who stuck to his idea, ‘can you tell me how many men there are on board? Are there twenty, fifty, a hundred?’

‘I know no more than you, Land; abandon at present all idea of either taking the Nautilus or escaping from it. This vessel is a masterpiece of modern industry, and I should regret not to have seen it. Many people would accept our position only to move amidst such marvels. The only thing to do is to keep quiet and watch what passes.’

‘Watch!’ exclaimed the harpooner, ‘but there’s nothing to watch; we can’t see anything in this iron prison. We are moving along blindfolded.’

Ned Land had scarcely uttered these words when it became suddenly dark. The light in the ceiling went out, and so rapidly that my eyes ached with the change, in the same way as they do after passage from profound darkness to the most brilliant light.

We remained mute and did not stir, not knowing what surprise, agreeable or disagreeable, awaited us. But a sliding noise was heard. It was like as if panels were being drawn back in the sides of the Nautilus.

‘It is the end of all things!’ said Ned Land.

Suddenly light appeared on either side of the saloon, through two oblong openings. The liquid mass appeared vividly lighted up by the electric effluence.

Two crystal panes separated us from the sea. At first I shuddered at the thought that this feeble partition might break, but strong copper bands bound it, giving an almost infinite power of resistance.

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

The transparency of the sea is well known, and its limpidity is far greater than that of fresh water. The mineral and organic substances which it holds in suspension increase its transparency. In certain parts of the ocean at the Antilles, under seventy-five fathoms of water, the sandy bottom can be seen with clearness, and the penetrating strength of the sun’s rays only appears to stop at 150 fathoms. But in this fluid medium through which the Nautilus was travelling, the electric light was produced in the very bosom of the waves. It was not luminous water, but liquid light.

If phosphorescent illumination in the submarine depths is admitted, Nature has reserved to the inhabitants of the sea one of her most marvellous spectacles, and I could judge of it by the effect of the thousand rays of this light. On either side I had a window opening on these unexplored depths. The darkness in the saloon made the exterior light seem greater, and we could see the same as if the pure crystal had been the panes of an immense aquarium.

The Nautilus did not seem to be moving. It was because there were no landmarks. Sometimes, however, the lines of water, furrowed by her prow, flowed before our eyes with excessive speed.

Lost in wonder, we stood before these windows, and none of us had broken this silence of astonishment when Conseil said, –

‘Well, friend Ned, you wanted to look; well, now you see!’

‘It is curious!’ exclaimed the Canadian, who, forgetting his anger and projects of flight, was under the influence of irresistible attraction. ‘Who wouldn’t come for the sake of such a sight?’

‘Now I understand the man’s life,’ I exclaimed. ‘He has made a world of marvels for himself?’

‘But I don’t see any fish,’ said the Canadian.

‘What does it matter to you, friend Ned,’ answered Conseil, ‘since you know nothing about them?’

‘I! A fisherman!’ cried Ned Land.

And thereupon a dispute arose between the two, for each had some knowledge of fish, though in a very different way.

Perhaps Conseil knew much more, and now that he had made friends with Ned, he could not allow himself to seem less learned than he. He accordingly said to him, –

‘Ned, you are a killer of fish – a very skilful fisher. You have taken a great number of these interesting animals. But I wager that you do not know how they are classified.’

‘Yes, I do,’ answered the harpooner. ‘They are classified into fish that are good for food and fish that are not.’

‘That is a greedy distinction,’ answered Conseil. ‘But do you know the difference between bony and cartilaginous fish?’

‘Perhaps I do, Conseil.’

‘And the subdivision of these two grand classes?’

‘I dare say I do,’ answered the Canadian.

‘Well, listen and remember! The bony fish are sub-divided into six orders. First, the acanthopterygians, of which the upper jaw is complete, mobile with gills in the form of a comb. This order comprises fifteen families – that is to say, the three-fourths of known fish. Type: the common perch.’

‘Perch!’ said the Canadian disdainfully; ‘fresh-water fish!’

‘Second,’ continued Conseil, ‘the abdominals, an order of fish whose ventral fins are placed behind the pectoral, without being attached to the shoulder-bones – an order which is divided into five families, and comprises most fresh-water fish. Type: the carp, roach, salmon, pike, etc.’

‘Pretty good eating,’ answered Ned Land.

‘Third,’ said Conseil, ‘the subrachians, with ventral fins under the pectoral, and fastened to the shoulder-bones. This order contains four families. Type: plaice, mud-fish, turbots, brills, soles, etc.’

‘Excellent!’ cried the harpooner, who would only think of them from their eatable point of view.

‘Fourth,’ said Conseil, nowise confused, ‘the apods with long bodies and no ventral fins, covered with a thick and often sticky skin – an order that only comprises one family. Type: the eel, wolffish, sword-fish, lance, etc.’

‘Middling! – only middling!’ answered Ned Land.

‘Fifth,’ said Conseil, ‘the lophiadae, distinguished by the bones of the carpus being elongated, and forming a kind of arm, which supports the pectoral fins. Type: the angler, or fishing-frog.’

‘Bad!’ – replied the harpooner.

‘Sixth and last,’ said Conseil, ‘the plectognathes, which include those which have the maxillary bones anchylosed to the sides of the intermaxillaries, which alone form the jaws – an order which has no real ventral fins, and is composed of two families. Type: the sun-fish.’

‘Which any saucepan would be ashamed of!’ cried the Canadian.

‘Did you understand, friend Ned?’ asked the learned Conseil.

‘Not the least, friend Conseil,’ answered the harpooner. ‘But go on, you are very interesting.’

‘As to the cartilaginous fish,’ continued the imperturbable Conseil, ‘they only include three orders.’

‘So much the better,’ said Ned.

‘First, the cyclostomes, with circular mouths and gills opening by numerous holes – an order including only one family. Type: the lamprey.’

‘You must get used to it to like it,’ answered Ned Land.

‘Second, the selachü, with gills like the cyclostomes, but whose lower jaw is mobile. This order, which is the most important of the class, includes two families. Type: sharks and rays.’

‘What!’ cried Ned; ‘rays and sharks in the same order? Well, friend Conseil, I should not advise you to put them in the same jar.’

‘Third,’ answered Conseil, ‘the sturiones, with gills opened as usual by a single slit, furnished with an operaculum – an order which includes four genera. Type: the sturgeon.’

‘Well, friend Conseil, you have kept the best for the last, in my opinion. Is that all?’

‘Yes, Ned,’ answered Conseil; ‘and remark that even when you know that you know nothing, for the families are subdivided into genera, sub-genera, species, varieties.’

‘Well, friend Conseil,’ said the harpooner, leaning against the glass of the panel, ‘there are some varieties passing now.’

‘Yes! – some fish,’ cried Conseil. ‘It is like being at an aquarium.’

‘No,’ I answered, ‘for an aquarium is only a cage, and those fish are as free as birds in the air.’

‘Well, now, Conseil, tell me their names! – tell me their names!’ said Ned Land.

‘I?’ answered Conseil; ‘I could not do it; that is my master’s business.’

And, in fact, the worthy fellow, though an enthusiastic classifier, was not a naturalist, and I do not know if he could have distinguished a tunny-fish from a bonito. The Canadian, on the contrary, named them all without hesitation.

‘A balister,’ said I.

‘And a Chinese balister too!’ answered Ned Land.

‘Genus of the balisters, family of the scleroderms; order of the plectognaths,’ muttered Conseil.

Decidedly, between them, Ned Land and Conseil would have made a distinguished naturalist.

The Canadian was not mistaken. A shoal of balisters with fat bodies, grained skins, armed with a spur on their dorsal fin, were playing round the Nautilus and agitating the four rows of quills bristling on either side of their tails. Nothing could be more admirable than their gray backs, white stomachs, and gold spots that shone amidst the waves. Amongst them undulated skates like a sheet abandoned to the winds, and with them I perceived, to my great joy, the Chinese skate, yellow above, pale pink underneath, with three darts behind the eye – a rare species.

For two hours a whole aquatic army escorted the Nautilus. Amidst their games and gambols, whilst they rivalled each other in brilliancy and speed, I recognised the green wrasse, the surmullet, marked with a double black stripe; the goby, with its round tail, white with violet spots; the Japanese mackerel, with blue body and silver head; gilt heads with a black band down their tails; aulostones with flute-like noses, real sea-woodcocks, of which some specimens attain a yard in length; Japanese salamanders; sea-eels, serpents six feet long with bright little eyes and a huge mouth bristling with teeth.

Our admiration was excited to the highest pitch. Ned named the fish, Conseil classified them, and I was delighted with their vivacity and the beauty of their forms. It had never been my lot to see these animals living and free in their natural element. I shall not cite all the varieties that passed before our dazzled eyes, all that collection from the Japanese and Chinese seas. More numerous than the birds of the air, these fish swam round us, doubtless attracted by the electric light.

Suddenly light again appeared in the saloon. The iron panels were again closed. The enchanting vision disappeared. But long after that I was dreaming still, until my eyes happened to fall on the instruments hung on the partition. The compass still indicated the direction of NNE., the manometer indicated a pressure of five atmospheres, corresponding to a depth of 100 fathoms, and the electric log gave a speed of fifteen miles an hour.

I expected Captain Nemo, but he did not appear. The clock was on the stroke of five. Ned Land and Conseil returned to the cabin, and I regained my room. My dinner was laid there. It consisted of turtle soup made of the most delicate imbricated hawksbill turtle, of a delicate white surmullet, slightly crimped, of which the liver, cooked by itself, made a delicious dish, and fillets of the emperor-holocanthus, the flavour of which appeared to me superior even to salmon.

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

CHAPTER 15 A Written Invitation

The next day, the 9th of November, I awoke after a long sleep that had lasted twelve hours. Conseil came, as was his custom, to ask ‘how monsieur had passed the night,’ and to offer his services. He had left his friend the Canadian sleeping like a man who had never done anything else in his life.

I let the brave fellow chatter on in his own fashion, without troubling to answer him much. I was anxious about the absence of Captain Nemo during our spectacle of the evening before, and hoped to see him again that day.

I was soon clothed in my byssus garments. Their nature provoked many reflections from Conseil. I told him they were manufactured with the lustrous and silky filaments which fasten a sort of shell, very abundant on the shores of the Mediterranean, to the rocks. Formerly beautiful materials – stockings and gloves – were made from it, and they were both very soft and very warm. The crew of the Nautilus could, therefore, be clothed at a cheap rate, without help of either cotton-trees, sheep, or silkworms of the earth.

When I was dressed I went in to the saloon. It was deserted.

The whole day passed without my being honoured with a visit from Captain Nemo. The panels of the saloon were not opened. Perhaps they did not wish us to get tired of such beautiful things.

The direction of the Nautilus kept NNE., its speed at twelve miles, its depth between twenty-five and thirty fathoms.

The next day the same desertion, the same solitude. I did not see one of the ship’s crew. Ned and Conseil passed the greater part of the day with me. They were astonished at the absence of the captain. Was the singular man ill? Did he mean to alter his plans about us?

After all, as Conseil said, we enjoyed complete liberty; we were delicately and abundantly fed. Our host kept to the terms of his treaty. We could not complain, and, besides, the singularity of our destiny reserved us such great compensations that we had no right to accuse it.

That day I began the account of these adventures, which allowed me to relate them with the most scrupulous exactness, and, curious detail, I wrote it on paper made with marine zostera.

Early in the morning of November 11, the fresh air spread over the interior of the Nautilus told me that we were again on the surface to renew our supply of oxygen. I went to the central staircase and ascended it to the platform. It was 6 a.m. The weather was cloudy, the sea gray, but calm. There was scarcely any swell. I hoped to meet Captain Nemo there. Would he come? I only saw the helmsman in his glass cage. Seated on the upper portion of the hull, I drank in the sea-breeze with delight.

Little by little the clouds disappeared under the action of the sun’s rays. The clouds announced wind for all that day. But the wind was no concern to the Nautilus. I was admiring this joyful sunrise, so gay and reviving, when I heard some one coming up to the platform. I prepared to address Captain Nemo, but it was his mate – whom I had already seen during the captain’s first visit – who appeared. He did not seem to perceive my presence, and with his powerful glass he swept the horizon, after which he approached the stair-head and called out some words which I reproduce exactly, for every morning they were uttered under the same conditions. They were the following: –

‘Nautron respoc lorni virch.’

What those words meant I know not.

After pronouncing them the mate went below again, and I supposed that the Nautilus was going to continue her submarine course. I therefore followed the mate and regained my room.

Five days passed thus and altered nothing in our position. Each morning I ascended to the platform. The same sentence was pronounced by the same individual. Captain Nemo did not appear.

I had made up my mind that I was not going to see him again, when on the 16th of November, on entering my room with Ned Land and Conseil, I found a note directed to me upon the table.

I opened it. It was written in a bold, clear hand, of Gothic character, something like the German types. The note contained the following: –

‘To Professor Aronnax, on board the Nautilus.

‘Captain Nemo invites Professor Aronnax to a hunt tomorrow morning in the forest of the island of Crespo. He hopes nothing will prevent the professor joining it, and he will have much pleasure in seeing his companions also.’

‘A hunt!’ cried Ned.

‘And in the forests of Crespo Island,’ added Conseil.

‘Then that fellow does land sometimes,’ said Ned Land.

‘It looks like it,’ said I, reading the letter again.

‘Well, we must accept,’ replied the Canadian. ‘Once on land we can decide what to do. Besides, I shall not be sorry to eat some fresh meat.’

I consulted the planisphere as to the whereabouts of the island of Crespo, and in 32° 40’ north lat. and 167° 50’ west long. I found a small island, reconnoitred in 1801 by Captain Crespo, and marked in old Spanish maps as Rocca de la Plata, or ‘Silver Rock.’ We were then about 1800 miles from our starting-point, and the course of the Nautilus, a little changed, was bringing it back towards the south-east. I pointed out to my companions the little rock lost in the midst of the North Pacific.

‘If Captain Nemo does land sometimes,’ I said, ‘he at least chooses quite desert islands.’

Ned Land shrugged his shoulders without speaking, and he and Conseil left me. After supper, which was served by the mute and impassible steward, I went to bed, not without some anxiety.

The next day, when I awoke, I felt that the Nautilus was perfectly still. I dressed quickly and went to the saloon.

Captain Nemo was there waiting for me. He rose, bowed, and asked me if it was convenient for me to accompany him.

‘May I ask you, captain,’ I said, ‘how it is that, having broken all ties with earth, you possess forests in Crespo Island?’

‘Professor,’ answered the captain, ‘my forests are not terrestrial forests but submarine forests.’

‘Submarine!’ I exclaimed.

‘Yes, professor.’

‘And you offer to take me to them?’

‘Yes, and dry footed too.’

‘But how shall we hunt? – with a gun?’

‘Yes, with a gun.’

I thought the captain was gone mad, and the idea was expressed on my face, but he only invited me to follow him like a man resigned to anything. We entered the dining-room, where breakfast was laid.

‘M. Aronnax,’ said the captain, ‘will you share my breakfast without ceremony? We will talk as we eat. You will not find a restaurant in our walk, though you will a forest. Breakfast like a man who will probably dine late.’

I did honour to the meal. It was composed of different fish and slices of holithuria, excellent zoophytes, cooked with different sea-weeds. We drank clear water, and, following the captain’s example, I added a few drops of some fermented liquor, extracted by the Kamschatchan method from a sea-weed known under the name of Rhodomenia, palmata. Captain Nemo went on eating at first without saying a word. Then he said to me, –

‘When I invited you to hunt in my submarine forests, you thought I was mad. You judged me too lightly. You know as well as I do that man can live under water, providing he takes with him a provision of air to breathe. When submarine work has to be done, the workman, clad in an impervious dress, with his head in a metal helmet, receives air from above by means of pumps and regulators.’

‘Then it is a diving apparatus?’

‘Yes, but in one that enables him to get rid of the india-rubber tube attached to the pump. It is the apparatus, invented by two of your countrymen, but which I have brought to perfection for my own use, and which will allow you to risk yourself in the water without suffering. It is composed of a reservoir of thick iron plates, in which I store the air under a pressure of fifty atmospheres. This reservoir is fastened on to the back by means of braces, like a soldier’s knapsack; its upper part forms a box, in which the air is kept by means of bellows, and which cannot escape except at its normal tension. Two india-rubber pipes leave this box and join a sort of tent, which imprisons the nose and mouth; one introduces fresh air, the other lets out foul, and the tongue closes either according to the needs of respiration. But I, who encounter great pressure at the bottom of the sea, am obliged to shut my head in a globe of copper, into which the two pipes open.’

‘Perfectly, Captain Nemo; but the air that you carry with you must soon be used up, for as soon as it only contains fifteen per cent, of oxygen, it is no longer fit to breathe.’

‘I have already told you, M. Aronnax, that the pumps of the Nautilus allow me to store up air under considerable pressure, and under these conditions the reservoir of the apparatus can furnish breathable air for nine or ten hours.’

‘I have no other objection to make,’ I answered. ‘I will only ask you one thing, captain. How do you light your road at the bottom of the ocean?’

‘With the Ruhmkorff apparatus, M. Aronnax. It is composed of a Bunsen pile, which I work with sodium. A wire is introduced, which collects the electricity produced, and directs it towards a particularly-made lantern. In this lantern is a spiral glass which contains a small quantity of carbonic gas. When the apparatus is at work the gas becomes luminous, and gives out a white and continuous light. Thus provided, I breathe and see.’

‘But, Captain Nemo, what sort of a gun do you use?’

‘It is not a gun for powder, but an air-gun. How could I manufacture gunpowder on board without either saltpetre, sulphur, or charcoal?’

‘Besides,’ I added, ‘to fire under water in a medium 855 times denser than air, very considerable resistance would have to be conquered.’

‘That would be no difficulty. There exist certain Felton guns, furnished with a system of closing, which can be fired under these conditions. But, I repeat, having no powder, I use air under great pressure, which the pumps of the Nautilus furnish.’

‘But this air must be rapidly consumed.’

‘Well, have I not my Rouquayrol reservoir, which can furnish me with what I need? Besides, you will see for yourself, M. Aronnax, that during these submarine shooting excursions you do not use much air or bullets.’

‘But it seems to me that in the half-light, and amidst a liquid so much more dense than the atmosphere, bodies cannot be projected far, and are not easily mortal.’

‘Sir, with these guns every shot is mortal, and as soon as the animal is touched, however slightly, it falls.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they are not ordinary bullets. We use little glass percussion-caps, of which I have a considerable provision. These glass caps, covered with steel, and weighted with a leaden bottom, are little Leyden bottles, in which electricity is forced to a high tension. At the slightest shock they go off, and the animal, however powerful, falls dead. These caps are not larger than the No. 4, and the charge of an ordinary gun could contain ten.’

‘I will argue no longer,’ I replied, rising from the table. ‘The only thing left me is to take my gun. Where you go I will follow.’

Captain Nemo then led me aft of the Nautilus, and I called my two companions, who followed me immediately. Then we came to a kind of cell, situated near the engine-room, in which we put on our walking dress.

CHAPTER 16 At the Bottom of the Sea

This cell was the arsenal and wardrobe of the Nautilus. A dozen diving apparatus, hung from the wall, awaited our use.

Ned Land, seeing them, manifested evident repugnance to put one on.

‘But, my worthy Ned,’ I said, ‘the forests of Crespo Island are only submarine forests!’

The disappointed harpooner saw his dreams of fresh meat fade away.

‘And you, M. Aronnax, are you going to put one on?’

‘I must, Master Ned.’

‘You can do as you please, sir,’ replied the harpooner, shrugging his shoulders, ‘but as for me, unless I am forced, I will never get into one.’

‘No one will force you,’ said Captain Nemo.

‘Does Conseil mean to risk it?’ said Ned.

‘I shall follow monsieur wherever he goes,’ answered Conseil.

Two of the ship’s crew came to help us on the call of the captain, and we donned the heavy and impervious clothes made of seamless india-rubber, and constructed expressly to resist considerable pressure. They looked like a suit of armour, both supple and resisting, and formed trousers and coat; the trousers were finished off with thick boots, furnished with heavy leaden soles. The texture of the coat was held together by bands of copper, which crossed the chest, protecting it from the pressure of the water, and leaving the lungs free to act; the sleeves ended in the form of supple gloves, which in no way restrained the movements of the hands.

Captain Nemo and one of his companions – a sort of Hercules, who must have been of prodigious strength – Conseil, and myself, were soon enveloped in these dresses. There was nothing left but to put our heads into the metallic globes. But before proceeding with this operation I asked the captain’s permission to examine the guns we were to take.

One of the crew gave me a simple gun, the butt end of which, made of steel and hollowed in the interior, was rather large; it served as a reservoir for compressed air, which a valve, worked by a spring, allowed to escape into a metal tube. A box of projectiles, fixed in a groove in the thickness of the butt end, contained about twenty electric bullets, which, by means of a spring, were forced into the barrel of the gun. As soon as one shot was fired another was ready.

‘Captain Nemo,’ said I, ‘this arm is perfect and easily managed; all I ask now is to try it. But how shall we gain the bottom of the sea?’

‘At this moment, professor, the Nautilus is stranded in five fathoms of water, and we have only to start.’

‘But how shall we get out?’

‘You will soon see.’

Captain Nemo put on his helmet. Conseil and I did the same, not without hearing an ironical ‘Good sport’ from the Canadian. The upper part of our coat was terminated by a copper collar, upon which the metal helmet was screwed. As soon as it was in position the apparatus on our backs began to act, and, for my part, I could breathe with ease.

I found when I was ready, lamp and all, that I could not move a step. But this was foreseen. I felt myself pushed along a little room contiguous to the wardrobe-room. My companions, tugged along in the same way, followed me. I heard a door, furnished with obturators, close behind us, and we were wrapped in profound darkness.

After some minutes I heard a loud whistling, and felt the cold mount from my feet to my chest. It was evident that they had filled the room in which we were with sea-water by means of a tap. A second door in the side of the Nautilus opened then. A faint light appeared. A moment after, our feet were treading the bottom of the sea.

And now, how could I retrace the impression made upon me by that walk under the sea? Words are powerless to describe such marvels. When the brush itself is powerless to depict the particular effects of the liquid element, how can the pen reproduce them?

Captain Nemo walked on in front, and his companion followed us some steps behind. Conseil and I remained near one another, as if any exchange of words had been possible through our metallic covering. I no longer felt the weight of my clothes, shoes, air-reservoir, nor of that thick globe in the midst of which my head shook like an almond in its shell.

The light which lighted up the ground at thirty feet below the surface of the ocean astonished me by its power. The solar rays easily pierced this watery mask and dissipated its colour. One easily distinguished objects 120 yards off. Beyond that the tints faded into fine gradations of ultra-marine, and became effaced in a vague obscurity. The water around me only appeared a sort of air, denser than the terrestrial atmosphere, but nearly as transparent. Above me I perceived the calm surface of the sea.

We were walking on fine even sand, not wrinkled, as it is on a flat shore which keeps the imprint of the billows. This dazzling carpet reflected the rays of the sun with surprising intensity. At that depth of thirty feet I saw as well as in open daylight!

For a quarter of an hour I trod on this shining sand, sown with the impalpable dust of tinted shells. The hull of the Nautilus, looking like a long rock, disappeared by degrees; but its lantern, when night came, would facilitate our return on board. I put back with my hands the liquid curtains which closed again behind me, and the print of my steps was soon effaced by the pressure of the water.

I soon came to some magnificent rocks, carpeted with splendid zoophytes, and I was at first struck by a special effect of this medium.

It was then 10 a.m. The rays of the sun struck the surface of the waves at an oblique angle, and at their contact with the light, composed by a refraction as through a prism, flowers, rocks, plants, and polypi were shaded at their edges by the seven solar colours; it was a grand feast for the eyes this complication of tints, a veritable kaleidoscope of green, yellow, orange, violet, indigo, and blue – in a word, all the palette of an enthusiastic colourist.

Before this splendid spectacle Conseil and I both stopped. Variegated isis, clusters of pure tuffed coral, prickly fungi and anemones adhering by their muscular disc, made perfect flower-beds, enamelled with porphitae, decked with their azure tentacles, sea-stars studding the sand, and warted asterophytons, like fine lace embroidered by the hands of Naüads, whose festoons waved in the gentle undulations caused by our walk. It was quite a grief to me to crush under my feet the brilliant specimens of mulluscs which lay on the ground by thousands, the concentric combs, the hammerheads, the donaces, real bounding shells, the broques, the red helmets, the angel-winged strombes, the aphysies, and many other products of the inexhaustible ocean. But we were obliged to keep on walking, whilst above our heads shoals of physalia, letting their ultramarine tentacles float after them, medusae, with their rose-pink opaline parasols festooned with an azure border, sheltered us from the solar rays, and panophyrian pelegies, which, had it been dark, would have showered their phosphorescent gleams over our path.

All these wonders I saw in the space of a quarter of a mile. Soon the nature of the soil changed; to the sandy plains succeeded an extent, of slimy mud composed of equal parts of siliceous and calcareous shells. Then we travelled over meadows of seaweed so soft to the foot that they would rival the softest carpet made by man. And at the same time that verdure was spread under our feet, marine plants were growing on the surface of the ocean. I saw long ribbons of fucus floating, some globular and others tubulous; laurenciae and cladostephi, of most delicate foliage, and some rhodomeniae and palmatae resembling the fan of a cactus. I noticed that the green plants kept near the surface, whilst the red occupied a middle depth, leaving to the black or brown hydrophytes the care of forming gardens and flower-beds in the remote depths of the ocean. The family of seaweeds produces the largest and smallest vegetables of the globe.

We had left the Nautilus about an hour and a half. It was nearly twelve o’clock; I knew that by the perpendicularity of the sun’s rays, which were no longer refracted. The magical colours disappeared by degrees, and the emerald and sapphire tints died out. We marched along with a regular step which rang upon the ground with astonishing intensity; the slightest sound is transmitted with a speed to which the ear is not accustomed on the earth – in fact, water is a better conductor of sound than air in the ratio of four to one.

The ground gradually sloped downwards, and the light took a uniform tint. We are at a depth of more than a hundred yards, and bearing a pressure of ten atmospheres. But my diving apparatus was so small that I suffered nothing from this pressure. I merely felt a slight discomfort in my finger-joints, and even that soon disappeared. As to the fatigue that this walk in such unusual harness might be expected to produce, it was nothing. My movements, helped by the water, were made with surprising facility.

At this depth of three hundred feet I could still see the rays of the sun, but feebly. To their intense brilliancy had succeeded a reddish-twilight, middle term between day and night. Still we saw sufficiently to guide ourselves, and it was not yet necessary to light our lamps.

At that moment Captain Nemo stopped. He waited for me to come up to him, and with his finger pointed to some obscure masses which stood out of the shade at some little distance.

‘It is the forest of Crespo Island,’ I thought, and I was not mistaken.

CHAPTER 17 A Submarine Forest

We had at last arrived on the borders of this forest, doubtless one of the most beautiful in the immense domain of Captain Nemo. He looked upon it as his own, and who was there to dispute his right? This forest was composed of arborescent plants, and as soon as we had penetrated under its vast arcades, I was struck at first by the singular disposition of their branches, which I had not observed before.

None of those herbs which carpeted the ground – none of the branches of the larger plants, were either bent, drooped, or extended horizontally. There was not a single filament, however thin, that did not keep as upright as a rod of iron. The fusci and llianas grew in rigid perpendicular lines, commanded by the density of the element which had produced them. When I bent them with my hand these plants immediately resumed their first position. It was the reign of perpendicularity.

I soon accustomed myself to this fantastic disposition of things, as well as to the relative obscurity which enveloped us. The soil of the forest seemed covered with sharp blocks difficult to avoid. The submarine flora appeared to me very perfect, and richer than it would have been in the Arctic or tropical zones, where these productions are less numerous. But for some minutes I involuntarily confounded the genera, taking zoophytes for hydrophytes, animals for plants. And who would not have been mistaken? The fauna and flora are so nearly allied in this submarine world.

I noticed that all these productions of the vegetable kingdom had no roots, and only held on to either sand, shell, or rock. These plants drew no vitality from anything but the water. The greater number, instead of leaves, shot forth blades of capricious shapes, comprised within a scale of colours – pink, carmine, red, olive, fawn, and brown.

Amongst these different shrubs, as large as the trees of temperate zones, and under their humid shade, were massed veritable bushes of living flowers, hedges of zoophytes, on which blossomed meandrina with tortuous stripes, yellow cariophylles with transparent tentacles, grassy tufts of zoantharia, and, to complete the illusion, the fish-flies flew from branch to branch like a swarm of humming birds, whilst yellow lepisacomthi, with bristling jaws, dactylopteri, and monocentrides rose at our feet like a flight of snipes.

About one o’clock Captain Nemo gave the signal to halt. I, for my part, was not sorry, and we stretched ourselves under a thicket of alariae, the long thin blades of which shot up like arrows.

This short rest seemed delicious to me. Nothing was wanting but the charm of conversation, but it was impossible to speak – I could only approach my large copper head to that of Conseil. I saw the eyes of the worthy fellow shine with contentment, and he moved about in his covering in the most comical way in the world.

After this four hours’ walk I was much astonished not to find myself violently hungry, and I cannot tell why, but instead I was intolerably sleepy, as all divers are. My eyes closed behind their thick glass, and I fell into an unavoidable slumber, which the movement of walking had alone prevented up till then. Captain Nemo and his robust companion, lying down in the clear crystal, set us the example.

How long I remained asleep I cannot tell, but when I awoke the sun seemed sinking towards the horizon. Captain Nemo was already on his feet, and I was stretching myself when an unexpected apparition brought me quickly to my feet.

A few steps off an enormous sea-spider, more than a yard high, was looking at me with his squinting eyes, ready to spring upon me. Although my dress was thick enough to defend me against the bite of this animal, I could not restrain a movement of horror. Conseil and the sailor of the Nautilus awoke at that moment. Captain Nemo showed his companions the hideous crustacean, and a blow from the butt-end of a gun killed it, and I saw its horrible claws writhe in horrible convulsions.

This accident reminded me that other animals, more to be feared, might haunt these obscure depths, and that my diver’s dress would not protect me against their attacks. I had not thought of that before, and resolved to be on my guard. I supposed that this halt marked the limit of our excursion, but I was mistaken, and instead of returning to the Nautilus, Captain Nemo went on.

The ground still inclined and took us to greater depths. It must have been about three o’clock when we reached a narrow valley between two high cliffs, situated about seventy-five fathoms deep. Thanks to the perfection of our apparatus, we were forty-five fathoms below the limit which Nature seems to have imposed on the submarine excursions of man.

I knew how deep we were because the obscurity became so profound – not an object was visible at ten paces. I walked along groping when I suddenly saw a white light shine out. Captain Nemo had just lighted his electric lamp. His companion imitated him. Conseil and I followed their example. By turning a screw I established the communication between the spool and the glass serpentine, and the sea, lighted up by our four lanterns, was illuminated in a radius of twenty-five yards.

Captain Nemo still kept on plunging into the dark depths of the forest, the trees of which were getting rarer and rarer. I remarked that the vegetable life disappeared sooner than the animal. The medusae had already left the soil, which had become arid, whilst a prodigious number of animals, zoophytes, articu-lata, molluscs, and fish swarmed there still.

As we walked I thought that the light of our apparatus could not fail to draw some inhabitants from these sombre depths. But if they did approach us they at least kept a respectable distance. Several times I saw Captain Nemo stop and take aim; then, after some minutes’ observation, he rose and went on walking.

At last, about four o’clock, this wonderful excursion was ended. A wall of superb rocks rose up before us, enormous granite cliffs impossible to climb. It was the island of Crespo. Captain Nemo stopped suddenly. We stopped at a sign from him. Here ended the domains of the captain.

The return began. Captain Nemo again kept at the head of his little band, and directed his steps without hesitation. I thought I perceived that we were not returning to the Nautilus by the road we had come. This new one was very steep, and consequently very painful. We approached the surface of the sea rapidly. But this return to the upper beds was not so sudden as to produce the internal lesions so fatal to divers. Very soon light reappeared and increased, and as the sun was already low on the horizon refraction edged the different objects with a spectral ring.

At a depth of ten yards we were walking in a swarm of little fish of every sort, more numerous than birds in the air, and more agile too. But no aquatic game worthy of a shot had as yet met our gaze.

At that moment I saw the captain put his gun to his shoulder and follow a moving object into the shrubs. He fired, I heard a feeble hissing, and an animal fell a few steps from us.

It was a magnificent sea-otter, the only quadruped which is exclusively marine. This otter was five feet long, and must have been very valuable. Its skin, chestnut-brown above and silvery underneath, would have made one of those beautiful furs so sought after in the Russian and Chinese markets; the fineness and lustre of its coat was certainly worth eighty pounds. I admired this curious mammal – its rounded head and short ears, round eyes and white whiskers, like those of a cat, with webbed feet and claws and tufted tail. This precious animal, hunted and tracked by fishermen, is becoming very rare, and it takes refuge principally in the northern parts of the Pacific, where it is likely that its race will soon become extinct. Captain Nemo’s companion took up the animal and threw it over his shoulders, and we continued our route.

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