Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (28 page)

Captain Nemo’s first care was to recall the unfortunate man to life again. I did not think he could succeed. I hoped so, for the poor creature’s immersion was not long; but the blow from the shark’s tail might have been his death-blow.

Happily, with the captain’s and Conseil’s sharp friction, I saw consciousness return by degrees. He opened his eyes. What was his surprise, his terror even, at seeing four great copper heads leaning over him! And, above all, what must he have thought when Captain Nemo, drawing from the pocket of his dress a bag of pearls, placed it in his hand! This munificent charity from the man of the waters to the poor Cingalese was accepted with a trembling hand. His wondering eyes showed that he knew not to what superhuman beings he owed both fortune and life.

At a sign from the captain we regained the bank, and following the road already traversed, came in about half an hour to the anchor which held the canoe of the
Nautilus
to the earth.

Once on board, we each, with the help of the sailors, got rid of the heavy copper helmets.

Captain Nemo’s first word was to the Canadian.

“Thank you, Master Land,” said he.

“It was in revenge, captain,” replied Ned Land. “I owed you that.”

A ghastly smile passed across the captain’s lips, and that was all.

“To the
Nautilus,”
said he.

The boat flew over the waves. Some minutes after we met the shark’s dead body floating. By the black marking of the extremity of its fins, I recognized the terrible melanopteron of the Indian seas, of the species of shark properly so called. It was more than twenty-five feet long; its enormous mouth occupied one-third of its body. It was an adult, as was known by its six rows of teeth placed in an isosceles triangle in the upper jaw.

Conseil looked at it with scientific interest, and I am sure that he placed it, and not without reason, in the cartilaginous class, of the chondropterygian order, with fixed gills, of the selacian family, in the genus of the sharks.

While I was contemplating this inert mass, a dozen of these voracious beasts appeared round the boat, and, without noticing us, threw themselves upon the dead body and fought with one another for the pieces.

At half-past eight we were again on board the
Nautilus.
There I reflected on the incidents which had taken place in our excursion to the Manaar Bank.

Two conclusions I must inevitably draw from it—one bearing upon the unparalleled courage of Captain Nemo, the other upon his devotion to a human being, a representative of that race from which he fled beneath the sea. Whatever he might say, this strange man had not yet succeeded in entirely crushing his heart.

When I made this observation to him, he answered in a slightly moved tone:

“That Indian, sir, is an inhabitant of an oppressed country; and I am still, and shall be, to my last breath, one of them!”

IN THE COURSE OF the day of the 29th of January, the island of Ceylon disappeared under the horizon, and the
Nautilus,
at a speed of twenty miles an hour, slid into the labyrinth of canals which separate the Maldives from the Laccadives. It coasted even the island of Kiltan, a land originally madreporic, discovered by Vasco da Gama in 1499, and one of the nineteen principal islands of the Laccadive Archipelago, situated between 10° and 14° 30’ north latitude, and 69° 50’ 72” east longitude.

We had made 16,220 miles, or 7,500 (French) leagues, from our starting-point in the Japanese seas.

The next day (30th of January), when the
Nautilus
went to the surface of the ocean, there was no land in sight. Its course was N.N.E., in the direction of the Sea of Oman, between Arabia and the Indian Peninsula, which serves as an outlet to the Persian Gulf. It was evidently a block without any possible egress. Where was Captain Nemo taking us to? I could not say. This, however, did not satisfy the Canadian, who that day came to me asking where we were going.

“We are going where our captain’s fancy takes us, Master Ned.”

“His fancy cannot take us far, then,” said the Canadian. “The Persian Gulf has no outlet; and if we do go in, it will not be long before we are out again.”

“Very well, then, we will come out again, Master Land; and if after the Persian Gulf the
Nautilus
would like to visit the Red Sea, the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb are there to give us entrance.”

“I need not tell you, sir,” said Ned Land, “that the Red Sea is as much closed as the gulf, as the Isthmus of Suez is not yet cut; and if it was, a boat as mysterious as ours would not risk itself in a canal cut with sluices. And again the Red Sea is not the road to take us back to Europe.”

“But I never said we were going back to Europe.”

“What do you suppose, then?”

“I suppose that after visiting the curious coasts of Arabia and Egypt, the
Nautilus
will go down the Indian Ocean again, perhaps cross the Channel of Mozambique, perhaps off the Mascarenhas, so as to gain the Cape of Good Hope.”

“And once at the Cape of Good Hope?” asked the Canadian, with peculiar emphasis.

“Well, we shall penetrate into that Atlantic which we do not yet know. Ah! friend Ned, you are getting tired of this journey under the sea: you are surfeited with the incessantly varying spectacle of submarine wonders. For my part, I shall be sorry to see the end of a voyage which it is given to so few men to make.”

For four days, till the 3d of February, the
Nautilus
scoured the Sea of Oman, at various speeds and at various depths. It seemed to go at random, as if hesitating as to which road it should follow, but we never passed the Tropic of Cancer.

In quitting this sea we sighted Muscat for an instant, one of the most important towns of the country of Oman. I admired its strange aspect, surrounded by black rocks upon which its white houses and forts stood in relief. I saw the rounded domes of its mosques, the elegant points of its minarets, its fresh and verdant terraces. But it was only a vision! The
Nautilus
soon sank under the waves of that part of the sea.

We passed along the Arabian coast of Mahrah and Hadramaut, for a distance of six miles, its undulating line of mountains being occasionally relieved by some ancient ruin. The 5th of February we at last entered the Gulf of Aden, a perfect funnel introduced into the neck of Bab-el-mandeb, through which the Indian waters entered the Red Sea.

The 6th of February, the
Nautilus
floated in sight of Aden, perched upon a promontory which a narrow isthmus joins to the mainland, a kind of inaccessible Gibraltar, the fortifications of which were rebuilt by the English after taking possession in 1839. I caught a glimpse of the octagon minarets of this town, which was at one time, according to the historian Edrisi, the richest commercial magazine on the coast.

I certainly thought that Captain Nemo, arrived at this point, would back out again; but I was mistaken, for he did no such thing, much to my surprise.

The next day, the 7th of February, we entered the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb, the name of which, in the Arab tongue, means “The gate of tears.”

To twenty miles in breadth, it is only thirty-two in length. And for the
Nautilus,
starting at full speed, the crossing was scarcely the work of an hour. But I saw nothing, not even the island of Perim, with which the British government has fortified the position of Aden. There were too many English or French steamers of the line of Suez to Bombay, Calcutta to Melbourne, and from Bourbon to the Mauritius, furrowing this narrow passage, for the
Nautilus
to venture to show itself. So it remained prudently below. At last, about noon, we were in the waters of the Red Sea.

I would not even seek to understand the caprice which had decided Captain Nemo upon entering the gulf. But I quite approved of the
Nautilus
entering it. Its speed was lessened: sometimes it kept on the surface, sometimes it dived to avoid a vessel, and thus I was able to observe the upper and lower parts of this curious sea.

The 8th of February, from the first dawn of day, Mocha came in sight, now a ruined town, whose walls would fall at a gunshot, yet which shelters here and there some verdant date-trees; once an important city, containing six public markets and twenty-six mosques, and whose walls, defended by fourteen forts, formed a girdle of two miles in circumference.

The
Nautilus
then approached the African shore, where the depth of the sea was greater. There, between two waters clear as crystal, through the open panels we were allowed to contemplate the beautiful bushes of brilliant coral, and large blocks of rock clothed with a splendid fur of green algæ and fuci. What an indescribable spectacle, and what variety of sites and landscapes along these sand-banks and volcanic islands which bound the Lybian coast! But where these shrubs appeared in all their beauty was on the eastern coast, which the
Nautilus
soon gained. It was on the coast of Tehama, for there not only did this display of zoöphytes flourish beneath the level of the sea, but they also formed picturesque interlacings which unfolded themselves about sixty feet above the surface, more capricious but less highly colored than those whose freshness was kept up by the vital power of the waters.

What charming hours I passed thus at the window of the saloon! What new specimens of submarine flora and fauna did I admire under the brightness of our electric lantern!

There grew sponges of all shapes, pediculated, foliated, globular, and digital. They certainly justified the names of baskets, cups, distaffs, elk‘s-horns, lion’s-feet, peacock‘s-tails, and Neptune’s-gloves, which have been given to them by the fishermen, greater poets than the savants.

Other zoöphytes which multiply near the sponges consist principally of medusæ of a most elegant kind. The mollusks were represented by varieties of the calmar (which, according to Orbigny, are peculiar to the Red Sea); and reptiles by the virgata turtle, of the genus of cheloniæ, which furnished a wholesome and delicate food for our table.

As to the fish, they were abundant and often remarkable. The following are those which the nets of the
Nautilus
brought more frequently on board:

Rays of a red-brick color, with bodies marked with blue spots, and easily recognizable by their double spikes; some superb caranxes, marked with seven transverse bands of jet-black, blue and yellow fins, and gold and silver scales; mullets with yellow heads; gobies, and a thousand other species, common to the ocean which we had just traversed.

The 9th of February, the
Nautilus
floated in the broadest part of the Red Sea, which is comprised between Souakin, on the west coast, and Koomfidah, on the east coast, with a diameter of ninety miles.

That day at noon, after the bearings were taken, Captain Nemo mounted the platform, where I happened to be, and I was determined not to let him go down again without at least pressing him regarding his ulterior projects. As soon as he saw me he approached, and graciously offered me a cigar.

“Well, sir, does this Red Sea please you? Have you sufficiently observed the wonders it covers, its fishes, its zoöphytes, its parterres of sponges, and its forests of coral? Did you catch a glimpse of the towns on its borders?”

“Yes, Captain Nemo,” I replied; “and the
Nautilus
is wonderfully fitted for such a study. Ah! it is an intelligent boat!”

“Yes, sir, intelligent and invulnerable. It fears neither the terrible tempests of the Red Sea, nor its currents, nor its sand-banks.”

“Certainly,” said I, “this sea is quoted as one of the worst, and in the time of the ancients, if I am not mistaken, its reputation was detestable.”

“Detestable, M. Aronnax. The Greek and Latin historians do not speak favorably of it, and Strabo
^aw
says it is very dangerous during the Etesian winds,
^ax
and in the rainy season. The Arabian Edrisi portrays it under the name of the Gulf of Colzoum, and relates that vessels perished there in great numbers on the sand-banks, and that no one would risk sailing in the night. It is, he pretends, a sea subject to fearful hurricanes, strewn with inhospitable islands, and ‘which offers nothing good either on its surface or in its depths.’ Such, too, is the opinion of Arrian, Agatharcides, and Artemidorus.”

“One may see,” I replied, “that these historians never sailed on board the
Nautilus.”

“Just so,” replied the captain, smiling; “and in that respect moderns are not more advanced than the ancients. It required many ages to find out the mechanical power of steam. Who knows if, in another hundred years, we may not see a second
Nautilus?
Progress is slow, M. Aronnax.”

“It is true,” I answered; “your boat is at least a century before its time, perhaps an era. What a misfortune that the secret of such an invention should die with its inventor!”

Captain Nemo did not reply. After some minutes’ silence he continued:

“You were speaking of the opinions of ancient historians upon the dangerous navigation of the Red Sea.”

“It is true,” said I; “but were not their fears exaggerated?”

“Yes and no, M. Aronnax,” replied Captain Nemo, who seemed to know the Red Sea by heart. “That which is no longer dangerous for a modern vessel, well rigged, strongly built, and master of its own course, thanks to obedient steam, offered all sorts of perils to the ships of the ancients. Picture to yourself those first navigators venturing in ships made of planks sewn with the cords of the palm trees, saturated with the grease of the seadog, and covered with powdered resin! They had not even instruments wherewith to take their bearings, and they went by guess among currents of which they scarcely knew anything. Under such conditions shipwrecks were, and must have been, numerous. But in our time, steamers running between Suez and the South Seas have nothing more to fear from the fury of this gulf, in spite of contrary trade winds. The captain and passengers do not prepare for their departure by offering propitiatory sacrifices; and, on their return, they no longer go ornamented with wreaths and gilt fillets to thank the gods in the neighboring temple.”