The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures (36 page)

“I know nothing of that,”
Walker answered. “There are a lot of bad men out there, Captain, but we are not
among them. Our goal is noble. We will bring order to a chaotic world, and said
world will thank us.”

“You will annihilate the
world,” Captain Nemo charged. “The transmutation of iron into gold releases a
dangerous amount of energy. I suggest you burn whatever notes you took from my
father and forget you ever heard of the process.”

“Oh, why, yes, of
course!” Walker said with a hearty laugh. “Sure, we’ll just throw this miracle
away and simply forget about the possibility of creating our own wealth and
power. Good god, Captain, you would do better to tell a rooster to ignore a
henhouse!”

“What is your plan for
us?” Ludovico demanded.

“Treat you as guests, of
course,” Walker replied, “for a while. Our workers are now inside the volcano
on this island, preparing to make the first transmutation. You, gentlemen, will
be privileged to watch. Until then, however, you will be held in the brig, for
everyone’s safety. Take them away.”

Guards took us to a tiny
cell in another part of the ship and locked us in. The captain sat quietly and
I sat frightened, but Ludovico paced as best he could in the small quarters. “Why
could not Father have left well enough alone?” he raged. “We would not
be
in
here if he had never made that discovery.”

“Neither would we be
here if you had been able to keep quiet about it,” the captain rejoined. “Since
the ability to achieve a great discovery at the exact moment the world is ready
for is a matter of chance, not genius, I can forgive Father.”

“So I am to blame for
this? I, who nearly lost my life aboard that damned iron barrel of yours?”

“I have lost more
because of you and your reckless tongue than you will ever know, Ludovico!”

For a moment I feared
the two men would come to blows, but after a few tense and hot moments, both
slumped down. “What’s done is done,” the captain conceded. “We must direct our
energies toward finding a solution.”

“There is only one
solution, Cesaré, you know that,” Ludovico replied. “Let them conduct the
experiment and blow themselves into oblivion.”

“And what of us?” I
asked, but neither had an answer.

None of us slept that
night. Shortly after dawn, Walker and two of his crew appeared to open the
doors of the cell and free us — at least as free as one can be with pistols
directed at their hearts. We were led to a lifeboat, lowered and rowed to the
edge of Rakata Island and then marched up to an entrance to what looked like a
small tunnel in the side of the volcanic cone. Walker lit a lantern and entered
first, and the guards beckoned us to follow.

After squeezing inside,
we descended over an incline of roughly two metres and landed on a natural
trail, which we followed downward through heat and closeness that increased
with each step. Eventually we came to a gigantic natural chamber inside the
cone, on the floor of which was a solid, white hot, steaming line — a crack in
the surface of the earth, through which could be seen the magma flow! Saldana
and a gathering of workmen were already down there, as close to the crack as
they dared get, sweltering, some even staggering, in heavy protective outfits
that in some measure resembled diving suits. Surrounding them were hundreds of
bars of pure iron. “They are attempting too much, far too much,” the captain
uttered. “Neither Father nor I ever attempted more than a few ounces at a time,
and that offered danger enough.”

Marching past us now
came the other members of the One World League, each one holding a small box,
which they lowered down to the workmen. “What are the boxes holding?” I asked.

“It can only be an
element called
cerilium,
Louis,” Captain Nemo replied. “Its molecular
structure is highly unstable. It is the trigger for the transmutation.”
[Editor: 
There is no such element as cerilium, but in the interests of safety, the
true name and nature of the element used to transmute iron into gold is being
withheld from this record.
]

Walker gave the signal
to begin, and Saldana instructed the workmen to edge the iron bars closer to
the crack in the earth, which was steaming like a locomotive engine, making the
air almost too sultry to breathe. The members of the League looked on intently
as the bars and began to soften and glow red, then white. Then in an instant,
the iron melted completely, creating a pool of molten metal. With a gasp, I
watched as the pool actually caught fire!

Now the heat inside the
volcano was almost too intense to bear. “It is time!”, Walker shouted. “Throw
on the cerilium!” Beside me, Captain Nemo tensed. Under his breath, he said: “The
first concussion will likely result in total chaos and that will be our chance
to flee and escape ... providing we survive the blast.”

We did not have long to
wait. One workman opened his box and threw the contents into the pool of molten
iron, and what happened next I can only describe in terms of abject horror. An
explosion shook the very walls of the cone and a pillar of fire — for that is
the only way to describe it — rose up from the floor and consumed two of the
workmen, reducing them to bones in seconds, and within another second reduced
the bones to ashes. The remaining workmen

leapt back in terror, as
did Walker and the members of the League. “Now!” Captain Nemo shouted, and the
three of us turned and ran back up the trail to the tunnel opening. The path
was slick and ashy, making it hard to climb, though I was spurred on by the
memory of the workmen’s annihilation. Ludovico, the strongest of us, had the
least problem, and once we had reached the steep incline leading out, was able
to push the captain and I upwards to safety, after which the two of us hauled
him through the opening from the outside.

Salt air never smelled
so welcoming!

As we raced for the boat
to take us off the island, a cloud of steam rose from the volcano. We leapt
into the boat and Ludovico took the oars, rowing like a madman until we reached
the
Argonaut.
Behind us, a white plume of smoke — this one shaped like a
toadstool — emerged from the volcano. “They will not be emerging,” Captain Nemo
said, climbing on to the deck of the
Argonaut.

Ludovico went into the
submersible first and I followed next. No sooner had I set foot on the bottom
when I heard the crack of a gunshot and saw Captain Nemo plummet through the
hatch and crash to the floor below! “Captain!” I cried, attempting to sit him
up, and discovering with horror the spreading bloodstain on the back of his
jacket.

“The damnable cowards!”
Ludovico cried, climbing back on deck, while I attended to the wounded captain.
I heard another gun retort, followed by a mighty curse from Ludovico. He sprang
back down into the
Argonaut
bleeding from his shoulder.

“There is still a man on
board that damned ship!” he cried, fingering his wound, which was but
superficial. Then looking at his brother, he asked: “How is he?”

“I’m afraid . . .” was
all I could get out.

Captain Nemo opened his
eyes and looked at Ludovico. “A brother shall die for a brother,” he uttered. “It
is the law of the
Nautilus.”
With his eyes still on Ludovico, he smiled
wanly . . . then he breathed his last. Cesaré Divenchy, scion of the house of
da Vinci, alias Captain Nemo, lay dead.

Ludovico appeared at
first to be in a state of shock. Then he rose with a look of determination so
fierce that it made my skin turn cold. “How do you operate this bucket?” he
demanded.

I led him to the control
instruments in the captain’s cabin and attempted to explain their operation, as
best I could. At a glance he absorbed their workings, and immediately took
charge of
Argonaut,
pushing it into full speed. “Hold on to something,
boy,” was all he said, and, sensing what he was about to do, secured myself as
best I could.

Seconds later we rammed
into the hull of the schooner, and despite my best efforts, the impact knocked
me to the floor. Ludovico reversed direction enough to turn the submersible
around, travelled back to where he had started, and then charged and rammed the
ship again. It took three punishing impacts before the schooner of the One
World League had a hole in its hull large enough to send it, and whoever
remained on board, to the bottom.

When he had finished, he
ordered me to take over control of the
Argonaut.
“Where do you wish to
go?” I asked, tentatively.

“First, back to the
Nautilus,”
he said. “Then you may drop me off on land anywhere, and do with this ship
as you wish.”

“I believe the captain
would have wanted you to take it.”

“The sea holds no
interest for me,” Ludovico Divenchy said. “I look upwards into the clouds. It
is there I wish to be, and now it appears that I must.”

“You must?”

“What if some of these
wretches survived? What if this blasted League of theirs still exists somewhere
else in the world? What if they once more attempt to use my Father’s discovery?
The world may never be ready for this knowledge. Cesaré was correct in blaming
me. I
am
responsible for this business, so it is now up to me to end it.
I must patrol the earth, looking for signs of its misuse. I may have to visit
every volcano on the planet to make certain this does not happen again. But for
now I must rest. Let me know when we have arrived at the
Nautilus.”
He
strode into the closest cabin — the one that had been occupied by Willett — and
I did not see nor hear from him again for nearly two days.

When we had reached the
site of the
Nautilus,
I alerted him, and he emerged from the cabin,
asking, “Where is he?” I had placed the body of Captain Nemo in his study, and
told Ludovico so. “Get us beside the
Nautilus,
so close that I can step
from one deck to the other,” he instructed, as he went into the study. Once I
had so positioned the
Argonaut,
Ludovico Divenchy reappeared carrying
the body of his brother in his arms. He refused any help in lifting the body
through the hatch of the
Argonaut
and down into the
Nautilus,
where
he lay Captain Nemo down to rest with their father. He then opened the
reservoirs’ stopcocks and sent the
Nautilus
back to the realm for which
it was designed for the last time, a uniquely fitting sarcophagus for its
creator. From there we travelled to the coast of New Guinea, where Ludovico
Divenchy muttered a terse goodbye to me and strode out on to land without so
much as a backwards glance. I never saw him again.

The
Argonaut
was
now mine, and even though I grew more experienced in its operation, I began to
long for life once more on land. I decided to retire the submersible
permanently near the Samoan Islands, and after a brief stay there, took a
conventional ship back to Scotland (a journey paid for through the discovery of
Captain Nemo’s treasury). Years later I returned to Samoa, and it is from here
that I write this history.

The world at large
continues to endure chaos, strife and war, but remains innocently ignorant of
the devilish plot of “President” Walker and his One World League to “solve” the
problems. Some years after this adventure, however, the world most definitely
heard about the isle of Rakata, which in 1883 was virtually wiped from the map
through the violent explosion of its primary volcano, Krakatau. Whether this
globe-affecting event was an act of nature, a whim of the Almighty, or the
effect of the remaining quantities of cerilium finally reaching that pool of
molten iron, I have no clue. All I can state with certainty is that not long
after Krakatau’s eruption, the world began to hear reports of an amazing man
flying about in a “cloud clipper.” No one knew the true identity of the
mysterious genius who called himself Captain Robur . . . no one except me.

I conclude this
testimony in the hopes that, for the sake of mankind, this self-professed “conqueror”
will be successful in his mission. It is unlikely I will ever know for certain
for even now, as I pen these words in my beloved paradise, surrounded by loved
ones, I can feel the night coming. I am spending my remaining time in prayer,
not for my own soul, but for that of the blustery genius who was the brother of
the most remarkable man I have ever known.

Here he lies where he longed to be, Home is the sailor, home from
the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.

The sailor is indeed
home, though the hunter will maintain his vigil over the hills. I pray the hunt
be successful.