Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea
not only can the _Nautilus_ disengage itself, but also that it can go
further still.”
“Further to the South?” I asked, looking at the Captain.
“Yes, sir; it shall go to the pole.”
“To the pole!” I exclaimed, unable to repress a gesture of incredulity.
“Yes,” replied the Captain, coldly, “to the Antarctic pole—to that
unknown point from whence springs every meridian of the globe. You know
whether I can do as I please with the _Nautilus!_”
Yes, I knew that. I knew that this man was bold, even to rashness. But
to conquer those obstacles which bristled round the South Pole,
rendering it more inaccessible than the North, which had not yet been
reached by the boldest navigators—was it not a mad enterprise, one
which only a maniac would have conceived? It then came into my head to
ask Captain Nemo if he had ever discovered that pole which had never
yet been trodden by a human creature?
“No, sir,” he replied; “but we will discover it together. Where others
have failed, I will not fail. I have never yet led my _Nautilus_ so far
into southern seas; but, I repeat, it shall go further yet.”
“I can well believe you, Captain,” said I, in a slightly ironical tone.
“I believe you! Let us go ahead! There are no obstacles for us! Let us
smash this iceberg! Let us blow it up; and, if it resists, let us give
the _Nautilus_ wings to fly over it!”
“Over it, sir!” said Captain Nemo, quietly; “no, not over it, but under
it!”
“Under it!” I exclaimed, a sudden idea of the Captain’s projects
flashing upon my mind. I understood; the wonderful qualities of the
_Nautilus_ were going to serve us in this superhuman enterprise.
“I see we are beginning to understand one another, sir,” said the
Captain, half smiling. “You begin to see the possibility—I should say
the success—of this attempt. That which is impossible for an ordinary
vessel is easy to the _Nautilus_. If a continent lies before the pole,
it must stop before the continent; but if, on the contrary, the pole is
washed by open sea, it will go even to the pole.”
“Certainly,” said I, carried away by the Captain’s reasoning; “if the
surface of the sea is solidified by the ice, the lower depths are free
by the Providential law which has placed the maximum of density of the
waters of the ocean one degree higher than freezing-point; and, if I am
not mistaken, the portion of this iceberg which is above the water is
as one to four to that which is below.”
“Very nearly, sir; for one foot of iceberg above the sea there are
three below it. If these ice mountains are not more than 300 feet above
the surface, they are not more than 900 beneath. And what are 900 feet
to the _Nautilus?_”
“Nothing, sir.”
“It could even seek at greater depths that uniform temperature of
sea-water, and there brave with impunity the thirty or forty degrees of
surface cold.”
“Just so, sir—just so,” I replied, getting animated.
“The only difficulty,” continued Captain Nemo, “is that of remaining
several days without renewing our provision of air.”
“Is that all? The _Nautilus_ has vast reservoirs; we can fill them, and
they will supply us with all the oxygen we want.”
“Well thought of, M. Aronnax,” replied the Captain, smiling. “But, not
wishing you to accuse me of rashness, I will first give you all my
objections.”
“Have you any more to make?”
“Only one. It is possible, if the sea exists at the South Pole, that it
may be covered; and, consequently, we shall be unable to come to the
surface.”
“Good, sir! but do you forget that the _Nautilus_ is armed with a
powerful spur, and could we not send it diagonally against these fields
of ice, which would open at the shocks.”
“Ah! sir, you are full of ideas to-day.”
“Besides, Captain,” I added, enthusiastically, “why should we not find
the sea open at the South Pole as well as at the North? The frozen
poles of the earth do not coincide, either in the southern or in the
northern regions; and, until it is proved to the contrary, we may
suppose either a continent or an ocean free from ice at these two
points of the globe.”
“I think so too, M. Aronnax,” replied Captain Nemo. “I only wish you to
observe that, after having made so many objections to my project, you
are now crushing me with arguments in its favour!”
The preparations for this audacious attempt now began. The powerful
pumps of the _Nautilus_ were working air into the reservoirs and
storing it at high pressure. About four o’clock, Captain Nemo announced
the closing of the panels on the platform. I threw one last look at the
massive iceberg which we were going to cross. The weather was clear,
the atmosphere pure enough, the cold very great, being 12° below zero;
but, the wind having gone down, this temperature was not so unbearable.
About ten men mounted the sides of the _Nautilus_, armed with pickaxes
to break the ice around the vessel, which was soon free. The operation
was quickly performed, for the fresh ice was still very thin. We all
went below. The usual reservoirs were filled with the newly-liberated
water, and the _Nautilus_ soon descended. I had taken my place with
Conseil in the saloon; through the open window we could see the lower
beds of the Southern Ocean. The thermometer went up, the needle of the
compass deviated on the dial. At about 900 feet, as Captain Nemo had
foreseen, we were floating beneath the undulating bottom of the
iceberg. But the _Nautilus_ went lower still—it went to the depth of
four hundred fathoms. The temperature of the water at the surface
showed twelve degrees, it was now only ten; we had gained two. I need
not say the temperature of the _Nautilus_ was raised by its heating
apparatus to a much higher degree; every manœuvre was accomplished with
wonderful precision.
“We shall pass it, if you please, sir,” said Conseil.
“I believe we shall,” I said, in a tone of firm conviction.
In this open sea, the _Nautilus_ had taken its course direct to the
pole, without leaving the fifty-second meridian. From 67° 30′ to 90
deg., twenty-two degrees and a half of latitude remained to travel;
that is, about five hundred leagues. The _Nautilus_ kept up a mean
speed of twenty-six miles an hour—the speed of an express train. If
that was kept up, in forty hours we should reach the pole.
For a part of the night the novelty of the situation kept us at the
window. The sea was lit with the electric lantern; but it was deserted;
fishes did not sojourn in these imprisoned waters; they only found
there a passage to take them from the Antarctic Ocean to the open polar
sea. Our pace was rapid; we could feel it by the quivering of the long
steel body. About two in the morning I took some hours’ repose, and
Conseil did the same. In crossing the waist I did not meet Captain
Nemo: I supposed him to be in the pilot’s cage. The next morning, the
19th of March, I took my post once more in the saloon. The electric log
told me that the speed of the _Nautilus_ had been slackened. It was
then going towards the surface; but prudently emptying its reservoirs
very slowly. My heart beat fast. Were we going to emerge and regain the
open polar atmosphere? No! A shock told me that the _Nautilus_ had
struck the bottom of the iceberg, still very thick, judging from the
deadened sound. We had in deed “struck,” to use a sea expression, but
in an inverse sense, and at a thousand feet deep. This would give three
thousand feet of ice above us; one thousand being above the water-mark.
The iceberg was then higher than at its borders—not a very reassuring
fact. Several times that day the _Nautilus_ tried again, and every time
it struck the wall which lay like a ceiling above it. Sometimes it met
with but 900 yards, only 200 of which rose above the surface. It was
twice the height it was when the _Nautilus_ had gone under the waves. I
carefully noted the different depths, and thus obtained a submarine
profile of the chain as it was developed under the water. That night no
change had taken place in our situation. Still ice between four and
five hundred yards in depth! It was evidently diminishing, but, still,
what a thickness between us and the surface of the ocean! It was then
eight. According to the daily custom on board the _Nautilus_, its air
should have been renewed four hours ago; but I did not suffer much,
although Captain Nemo had not yet made any demand upon his reserve of
oxygen. My sleep was painful that night; hope and fear besieged me by
turns: I rose several times. The groping of the _Nautilus_ continued.
About three in the morning, I noticed that the lower surface of the
iceberg was only about fifty feet deep. One hundred and fifty feet now
separated us from the surface of the waters. The iceberg was by degrees
becoming an ice-field, the mountain a plain. My eyes never left the
manometer. We were still rising diagonally to the surface, which
sparkled under the electric rays. The iceberg was stretching both above
and beneath into lengthening slopes; mile after mile it was getting
thinner. At length, at six in the morning of that memorable day, the
19th of March, the door of the saloon opened, and Captain Nemo
appeared.
“The sea is open!” was all he said.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SOUTH POLE
I rushed on to the platform. Yes! the open sea, with but a few
scattered pieces of ice and moving icebergs—a long stretch of sea; a
world of birds in the air, and myriads of fishes under those waters,
which varied from intense blue to olive green, according to the bottom.
The thermometer marked 3° C. above zero. It was comparatively spring,
shut up as we were behind this iceberg, whose lengthened mass was dimly
seen on our northern horizon.
“Are we at the pole?” I asked the Captain, with a beating heart.
“I do not know,” he replied. “At noon I will take our bearings.”
“But will the sun show himself through this fog?” said I, looking at
the leaden sky.
“However little it shows, it will be enough,” replied the Captain.
About ten miles south a solitary island rose to a height of one hundred
and four yards. We made for it, but carefully, for the sea might be
strewn with banks. One hour afterwards we had reached it, two hours
later we had made the round of it. It measured four or five miles in
circumference. A narrow canal separated it from a considerable stretch
of land, perhaps a continent, for we could not see its limits. The
existence of this land seemed to give some colour to Maury’s theory.
The ingenious American has remarked that, between the South Pole and
the sixtieth parallel, the sea is covered with floating ice of enormous
size, which is never met with in the North Atlantic. From this fact he
has drawn the conclusion that the Antarctic Circle encloses
considerable continents, as icebergs cannot form in open sea, but only
on the coasts. According to these calculations, the mass of ice
surrounding the southern pole forms a vast cap, the circumference of
which must be, at least, 2,500 miles. But the _Nautilus_, for fear of
running aground, had stopped about three cable-lengths from a strand
over which reared a superb heap of rocks. The boat was launched; the
Captain, two of his men, bearing instruments, Conseil, and myself were
in it. It was ten in the morning. I had not seen Ned Land. Doubtless
the Canadian did not wish to admit the presence of the South Pole. A
few strokes of the oar brought us to the sand, where we ran ashore.
Conseil was going to jump on to the land, when I held him back.
“Sir,” said I to Captain Nemo, “to you belongs the honour of first
setting foot on this land.”
“Yes, sir,” said the Captain, “and if I do not hesitate to tread this
South Pole, it is because, up to this time, no human being has left a
trace there.”
Saying this, he jumped lightly on to the sand. His heart beat with