Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (30 page)

This maneuver did not escape the Canadian.

“Look out!” he cried.

The coxswain said some words in his outlandish tongue, doubtless warning the men to keep on their guard.

The dugong came within twenty feet of the boat, stopped, sniffed the air briskly with its large nostrils (not pierced at the extremity, but in the upper part of its muzzle). Then taking a spring he threw himself upon us.

The pinnace could not avoid the shock, and half upset, shipped at least two tons of water, which had to be emptied; but thanks to the coxswain, we caught it sideways, not full front, so we were not quite overturned. While Ned Land, clinging to the bows, belabored the gigantic animal with blows from his harpoon, the creature’s teeth were buried in the gunwale, and it lifted the whole thing out of the water, as a lion does a roebuck. We were upset over one another, and I know not how the adventure would have ended, if the Canadian, still enraged with the beast, had not struck it to the heart.

I heard its teeth grind on the iron plate, and the dugong disappeared, carrying the harpoon with him. But the barrel soon returned to the surface, and shortly after the body of the animal, turned on its back. The boat came up with it, took it in tow, and made straight for the
Nautilus.

It required tackle of enormous strength to hoist the dugong on to the platform. It weighed 10,000 lbs.

The next day, February 11th, the larder of the
Nautilus
was enriched by some more delicate game. A flight of sea-swallows rested on the
Nautilus.
It was a species of the
Sterna nilotica,
peculiar to Egypt; its beak is black, head gray and pointed, the eye surrounded by white spots, the back, wings, and tail of a grayish color, the belly and throat white, and claws red. They also took some dozen of Nile ducks, a wild bird of high flavor, its throat and upper part of the head white with black spots.

About five o’clock in the evening we sighted to the north the Cape of Ras-Mohammed. This cape forms the extremity of Arabia Petræa, comprised between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Acabah.

The
Nautilus
penetrated into the Strait of Jubal, which leads to the Gulf of Suez. I distinctly saw a high mountain, towering between the two gulfs of Ras-Mohammed. It was Mount Horeb, that Sinai at the top of which Moses saw God face to face.

At six o’clock the
Nautilus,
sometimes floating, sometimes immersed, passed some distance from Tor, situated at the end of the bay, the waters of which seemed tinted with red, an observation already made by Captain Nemo. Then night fell in the midst of a heavy silence, sometimes broken by the cries of the pelican and other night-birds, and the noise of the waves breaking upon the shore, chafing against the rocks, or the panting of some far-off steamer beating the waters of the gulf with its noisy paddles.

From eight to nine o’clock the
Nautilus
remained some fathoms under the water. According to my calculation we must have been very near Suez. Through the panel of the saloon I saw the bottom of the rocks brilliantly lit up by our electric lamp. We seemed to be leaving the straits behind us more and more.

At a quarter past nine, the vessel having returned to the surface, I mounted the platform. Most impatient to pass through Captain Nemo’s tunnel, I could not stay in one place, so came to breathe the fresh night-air.

Soon in the shadow I saw a pale light, half discolored by the fog, shining about a mile from us.

“A floating lighthouse!” said someone near me.

I turned, and saw the captain.

“It is the floating light of Suez,” he continued. “It will not be long before we gain the entrance of the tunnel.”

“The entrance cannot be easy?”

“No, sir; and for that reason I am accustomed to go into the steersman s cage, and myself direct our course. And now if you will go down, M. Aronnax, the
Nautilus
is going under the waves, and will not return to the surface until we have passed through the Arabian Tunnel.”

Captain Nemo led me toward the central staircase; halfway down he opened a door, traversed the upper deck, and landed in the pilot’s cage, which it may be remembered rose at the extremity of the platform. It was a cabin measuring six feet square, very much like that occupied by the pilot on the steamboats of the Mississippi or Hudson. In the midst worked a wheel, placed vertically, and caught to the tiller-rope, which ran to the back of the
Nautilus.
Four light-ports with lenticular glasses, let in a groove in the partition of the cabin, allowed the man at the wheel to see in all directions.

This cabin was dark, but soon my eyes accustomed themselves to the obscurity, and I perceived the pilot, a strong man, with his hands resting on the spokes of the wheel. Outside, the sea appeared vividly lit up by the lantern, which shed its rays from the back of the cabin to the other extremity of the platform.

“Now,” said Captain Nemo, “let us try to make our passage.”

Electric wires connected the pilot’s cage with the machinery-room, and from there the captain could communicate simultaneously to his
Nautilus
the direction and the speed. He pressed a metal knob, and at once the speed of the screw diminished.

I looked in silence at the high straight wall we were running by at this moment, the immovable base of a massive sandy coast. We followed it thus for an hour only some few yards off.

Captain Nemo did not take his eye from the knob, suspended by its two concentric circles in the cabin. At a simple gesture the pilot modified the course of the
Nautilus
every instant.

I had placed myself at the port scuttle, and saw some magnificent substructures of coral, zoöphytes, seaweed, and fucus, agitating their enormous claws, which stretched out from the fissures of the rock.

At a quarter past ten, the captain himself took the helm. A large gallery, black and deep, opened before us. The
Nautilus
went boldly into it. A strange roaring was heard round its sides. It was the waters of the Red Sea, which the incline of the tunnel precipitated violently toward the Mediterranean. The
Nautilus
went with the torrent, rapid as an arrow, in spite of the efforts of the machinery, which, in order to offer more effective resistance, beat the waves with reversed screw.

On the walls of the narrow passage I could see nothing but brilliant rays, straight lines, furrows of fire, traced by the great speed, under the brilliant electric light. My heart beat fast.

At thirty-five minutes past ten, Captain Nemo quitted the helm; and, turning to me, said:

“The Mediterranean!”

In less than twenty minutes, the
Nautilus,
carried along by the torrent, had passed through the Isthmus of Suez.

THE NEXT DAY, THE 12th of February, at the dawn of day, the
Nautilus
rose to the surface. I hastened on to the platform. Three miles to the south the dim outline of Pelusium was to be seen. A torrent had carriedus from one sea to the other. About seven o’clock Ned and Conseil joined me.

“Well, Sir Naturalist,” said the Canadian, in a slightly jovial tone, “and the Mediterranean?”

“We are floating on its surface, friend Ned.”

“What!” said Conseil. “This very night?”

“Yes, this very night; in a few minutes we have passed this impassable isthmus.”

“I do not believe it,” replied the Canadian.

“Then you are wrong, Master Land,” I continued; “this low coast which rounds off to the south is the Egyptian coast. And you, who have such good eyes, Ned, you can see the jetty of Port Said stretching into the sea.”

The Canadian looked attentively.

“Certainly you are right, sir, and your captain is a first-rate man. We are in the Mediterranean. Good! Now, if you please, let us talk of our own little affair, but so that no one hears us.”

I saw what the Canadian wanted, and, in my case, I thought it better to let him talk, as he wished it; so we all three went and sat down near the lantern, where we were less exposed to the spray of the blades.

“Now, Ned, we listen; what have you to tell us?”

“What I have to tell you is very simple. We are in Europe; and before Captain Nemo’s caprices drag us once more to the bottom of the Polar seas, or lead us into Oceania,
^bb
I ask to leave the
Nautilus.”

I wished in no way to shackle the liberty of my companions, but I certainly felt no desire to leave Captain Nemo.

Thanks to him, and thanks to his apparatus, I was each day nearer the completion of my submarine studies; and I was rewriting my book of submarine depths in its very element. Should I ever again have such an opportunity of observing the wonders of the ocean? No, certainly not! And I could not bring myself to the idea of abandoning the Nautilus before the cycle of investigation was accomplished.

“Friend Ned, answer me frankly, are you tired of being on board? Are you sorry that destiny has thrown us into Captain Nemo’s hands?”

The Canadian remained some moments without answering. Then crossing his arms, he said:

“Frankly, I do not regret this journey under the seas. I shall be glad to have made it; but now that it is made, let us have done with it. That is my idea.”

“It will come to an end, Ned.”

“Where and when?”

“Where I do not know, when I cannot say; or, rather, I suppose it will end when these seas have nothing more to teach us.”

“Then what do you hope for?” demanded the Canadian.

“That circumstances may occur as well six months hence as now by which we may and ought to profit.”

“Oh,” said Ned Land, “and where shall we be in six months, if you please, Sir Naturalist?”

“Perhaps in China; you know the
Nautilus
is a rapid traveler. It goes through water as swallows through the air, or as an express on the land. It does not fear frequented seas; who can say that it may not beat the coasts of France, England, or America, on which flight may be attempted as advantageously as here.”

“M. Aronnax,” replied the Canadian, “your arguments are rotten at the foundation. You speak in the future, ‘We shall be there! We shall be here!’ I speak in the present, ‘We are here, and we must profit by it.’ ”

Ned Land’s logic pressed me hard, and I felt myself beaten on that ground. I knew not what argument would now tell in my favor.

“Sir,” continued Ned, “let us suppose an impossibility; if Captain Nemo should this day offer you your liberty, would you accept it?”

“I do not know,” I answered.

“And if,” he added, “the offer he made you this day was never to be renewed, would you accept it?”

“Friend Ned, this is my answer. Your reasoning is against me. We must not rely on Captain Nemo’s goodwill. Common prudence forbids him to set us at liberty. On the other side, prudence bids us profit by the first opportunity to leave the
Nautilus.”

“Well, M. Aronnax, that is wisely said.”

“Only one observation—just one. The occasion must be serious, and our first attempt must succeed; if it fails, we shall never find another, and Captain Nemo will never forgive us.”

“All that is true,” replied the Canadian. “But your observation applies equally to all attempts at flight, whether in two years’ time, or in two days. But the question is still this: if a favorable opportunity presents itself, it must be seized.”

“Agreed! And now, Ned, will you tell me what you mean by a favorable opportunity?”

“It will be that which, on a dark night, will bring the Nautilus a short distance from some European coast.”

“And you will try and save yourself by swimming?”

“Yes, if we were near enough to the bank, and if the vessel was floating at the time. Not if the bank was far away, and the boat was under the water.”

“And in that case?”

“In that case, I should seek to make myself master of the pinnace. I know how it is worked. We must get inside, and the bolts once drawn, we shall come to the surface of the water, without even the pilot, who is in the bows, perceiving our flight.”

“Well, Ned, watch for the opportunity; but do not forget that a hitch will ruin us.”

“I will not forget, sir.”

“And now, Ned, would you like to know what I think of your project?”

“Certainly, M. Aronnax.”

“Well, I think—I do not say I hope—I think that this favorable opportunity will never present itself.”

“Why not?”

“Because Captain Nemo cannot hide from himself that we have not given up all hope of regaining our liberty, and he will be on his guard, above all, in the seas, and in the sight of European coasts.”

“We shall see,” replied Ned Land, shaking his head determinedly.

“And now, Ned Land,” I added, “let us stop here. Not another word on the subject. The day that you are ready, come and let us know, and we will follow you. I rely entirely upon you.”

Thus ended a conversation which, at no very distant time, led to such grave results. I must say here that facts seemed to confirm my foresight, to the Canadian’s great despair. Did Captain Nemo distrust us in these frequented seas, or did he only wish to hide himself from the numerous vessels of all nations, which plowed the Mediterranean? I could not tell; but we were oftener between waters, and far from the coast. Or, if the
Nautilus
did emerge, nothing was to be seen but the pilot’s cage; and sometimes it went to great depths, for, between the Grecian Archipelago and Asia Minor, we could not touch the bottom by more than a thousand fathoms.

Thus I only knew we were near the island of Carpathos, one of the Sporades, by Captain Nemo reciting these lines from Virgil: as he pointed to a spot on the planisphere.