Kitabı oku: «20,000 Leagues Under The Sea»
Collins Classics
History of Collins
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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.
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