Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea
words, spoken in French, startled me! I had a fellow-countryman on
board, perhaps several! That heart-rending cry! I shall hear it all my
life. The unfortunate man was lost. Who could rescue him from that
powerful pressure? However, Captain Nemo had rushed to the poulp, and
with one blow of the axe had cut through one arm. His lieutenant
struggled furiously against other monsters that crept on the flanks of
the _Nautilus_. The crew fought with their axes. The Canadian, Conseil,
and I buried our weapons in the fleshy masses; a strong smell of musk
penetrated the atmosphere. It was horrible!
For one instant, I thought the unhappy man, entangled with the poulp,
would be torn from its powerful suction. Seven of the eight arms had
been cut off. One only wriggled in the air, brandishing the victim like
a feather. But just as Captain Nemo and his lieutenant threw themselves
on it, the animal ejected a stream of black liquid. We were blinded
with it. When the cloud dispersed, the cuttlefish had disappeared, and
my unfortunate countryman with it. Ten or twelve poulps now invaded the
platform and sides of the _Nautilus_. We rolled pell-mell into the
midst of this nest of serpents, that wriggled on the platform in the
waves of blood and ink. It seemed as though these slimy tentacles
sprang up like the hydra’s heads. Ned Land’s harpoon, at each stroke,
was plunged into the staring eyes of the cuttle fish. But my bold
companion was suddenly overturned by the tentacles of a monster he had
not been able to avoid.
Ah! how my heart beat with emotion and horror! The formidable beak of a
cuttlefish was open over Ned Land. The unhappy man would be cut in two.
I rushed to his succour. But Captain Nemo was before me; his axe
disappeared between the two enormous jaws, and, miraculously saved, the
Canadian, rising, plunged his harpoon deep into the triple heart of the
poulp.
“I owed myself this revenge!” said the Captain to the Canadian.
Ned bowed without replying. The combat had lasted a quarter of an hour.
The monsters, vanquished and mutilated, left us at last, and
disappeared under the waves. Captain Nemo, covered with blood, nearly
exhausted, gazed upon the sea that had swallowed up one of his
companions, and great tears gathered in his eyes.
CHAPTER XIX
THE GULF STREAM
This terrible scene of the 20th of April none of us can ever forget. I
have written it under the influence of violent emotion. Since then I
have revised the recital; I have read it to Conseil and to the
Canadian. They found it exact as to facts, but insufficient as to
effect. To paint such pictures, one must have the pen of the most
illustrious of our poets, the author of The Toilers of the Deep.
I have said that Captain Nemo wept while watching the waves; his grief
was great. It was the second companion he had lost since our arrival on
board, and what a death! That friend, crushed, stifled, bruised by the
dreadful arms of a poulp, pounded by his iron jaws, would not rest with
his comrades in the peaceful coral cemetery! In the midst of the
struggle, it was the despairing cry uttered by the unfortunate man that
had torn my heart. The poor Frenchman, forgetting his conventional
language, had taken to his own mother tongue, to utter a last appeal!
Amongst the crew of the _Nautilus_, associated with the body and soul
of the Captain, recoiling like him from all contact with men, I had a
fellow-countryman. Did he alone represent France in this mysterious
association, evidently composed of individuals of divers nationalities?
It was one of these insoluble problems that rose up unceasingly before
my mind!
Captain Nemo entered his room, and I saw him no more for some time. But
that he was sad and irresolute I could see by the vessel, of which he
was the soul, and which received all his impressions. The _Nautilus_
did not keep on in its settled course; it floated about like a corpse
at the will of the waves. It went at random. He could not tear himself
away from the scene of the last struggle, from this sea that had
devoured one of his men. Ten days passed thus. It was not till the 1st
of May that the _Nautilus_ resumed its northerly course, after having
sighted the Bahamas at the mouth of the Bahama Canal. We were then
following the current from the largest river to the sea, that has its
banks, its fish, and its proper temperatures. I mean the Gulf Stream.
It is really a river, that flows freely to the middle of the Atlantic,
and whose waters do not mix with the ocean waters. It is a salt river,
salter than the surrounding sea. Its mean depth is 1,500 fathoms, its
mean breadth ten miles. In certain places the current flows with the
speed of two miles and a half an hour. The body of its waters is more
considerable than that of all the rivers in the globe. It was on this
ocean river that the _Nautilus_ then sailed.
I must add that, during the night, the phosphorescent waters of the
Gulf Stream rivalled the electric power of our watch-light, especially
in the stormy weather that threatened us so frequently. May 8th, we
were still crossing Cape Hatteras, at the height of North Carolina. The
width of the Gulf Stream there is seventy-five miles, and its depth
210 yards. The _Nautilus_ still went at random; all supervision seemed
abandoned. I thought that, under these circumstances, escape would be
possible. Indeed, the inhabited shores offered anywhere an easy refuge.
The sea was incessantly ploughed by the steamers that ply between New
York or Boston and the Gulf of Mexico, and overrun day and night by
the little schooners coasting about the several parts of the American
coast. We could hope to be picked up. It was a favourable opportunity,
notwithstanding the thirty miles that separated the _Nautilus_ from
the coasts of the Union. One unfortunate circumstance thwarted the
Canadian’s plans. The weather was very bad. We were nearing those
shores where tempests are so frequent, that country of waterspouts and
cyclones actually engendered by the current of the Gulf Stream. To
tempt the sea in a frail boat was certain destruction. Ned Land owned
this himself. He fretted, seized with nostalgia that flight only could
cure.
“Master,” he said that day to me, “this must come to an end. I must
make a clean breast of it. This Nemo is leaving land and going up to
the north. But I declare to you that I have had enough of the South
Pole, and I will not follow him to the North.”
“What is to be done, Ned, since flight is impracticable just now?”
“We must speak to the Captain,” said he; “you said nothing when we were
in your native seas. I will speak, now we are in mine. When I think
that before long the _Nautilus_ will be by Nova Scotia, and that there
near New foundland is a large bay, and into that bay the St. Lawrence
empties itself, and that the St. Lawrence is my river, the river by
Quebec, my native town—when I think of this, I feel furious, it makes
my hair stand on end. Sir, I would rather throw myself into the sea! I
will not stay here! I am stifled!”
The Canadian was evidently losing all patience. His vigorous nature
could not stand this prolonged imprisonment. His face altered daily;
his temper became more surly. I knew what he must suffer, for I was
seized with home-sickness myself. Nearly seven months had passed
without our having had any news from land; Captain Nemo’s isolation,
his altered spirits, especially since the fight with the poulps, his
taciturnity, all made me view things in a different light.
“Well, sir?” said Ned, seeing I did not reply.
“Well, Ned, do you wish me to ask Captain Nemo his intentions
concerning us?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Although he has already made them known?”
“Yes; I wish it settled finally. Speak for me, in my name only, if you
like.”
“But I so seldom meet him. He avoids me.”
“That is all the more reason for you to go to see him.”
I went to my room. From thence I meant to go to Captain Nemo’s. It
would not do to let this opportunity of meeting him slip. I knocked at
the door. No answer. I knocked again, then turned the handle. The door
opened, I went in. The Captain was there. Bending over his work-table,
he had not heard me. Resolved not to go without having spoken, I
approached him. He raised his head quickly, frowned, and said roughly,
“You here! What do you want?”
“To speak to you, Captain.”
“But I am busy, sir; I am working. I leave you at liberty to shut
yourself up; cannot I be allowed the same?”
This reception was not encouraging; but I was determined to hear and
answer everything.
“Sir,” I said coldly, “I have to speak to you on a matter that admits
of no delay.”
“What is that, sir?” he replied, ironically. “Have you discovered
something that has escaped me, or has the sea delivered up any new
secrets?”
We were at cross-purposes. But, before I could reply, he showed me an
open manuscript on his table, and said, in a more serious tone, “Here,
M. Aronnax, is a manuscript written in several languages. It contains
the sum of my studies of the sea; and, if it please God, it shall not
perish with me. This manuscript, signed with my name, complete with the
history of my life, will be shut up in a little floating case. The last
survivor of all of us on board the _Nautilus_ will throw this case into
the sea, and it will go whither it is borne by the waves.”
This man’s name! his history written by himself! His mystery would then
be revealed some day.
“Captain,” I said, “I can but approve of the idea that makes you act
thus. The result of your studies must not be lost. But the means you
employ seem to me to be primitive. Who knows where the winds will carry
this case, and in whose hands it will fall? Could you not use some
other means? Could not you, or one of yours——”
“Never, sir!” he said, hastily interrupting me.
“But I and my companions are ready to keep this manuscript in store;
and, if you will put us at liberty——”
“At liberty?” said the Captain, rising.
“Yes, sir; that is the subject on which I wish to question you. For
seven months we have been here on board, and I ask you to-day, in the
name of my companions and in my own, if your intention is to keep us
here always?”
“M. Aronnax, I will answer you to-day as I did seven months ago:
Whoever enters the _Nautilus_, must never quit it.”
“You impose actual slavery upon us!”
“Give it what name you please.”
“But everywhere the slave has the right to regain his liberty.”
“Who denies you this right? Have I ever tried to chain you with an
oath?”
He looked at me with his arms crossed.
“Sir,” I said, “to return a second time to this subject will be neither
to your nor to my taste; but, as we have entered upon it, let us go
through with it. I repeat, it is not only myself whom it concerns.
Study is to me a relief, a diversion, a passion that could make me
forget everything. Like you, I am willing to live obscure, in the frail
hope of bequeathing one day, to future time, the result of my labours.
But it is otherwise with Ned Land. Every man, worthy of the name,
deserves some consideration. Have you thought that love of liberty,
hatred of slavery, can give rise to schemes of revenge in a nature like
the Canadian’s; that he could think, attempt, and try——”
I was silenced; Captain Nemo rose.
“Whatever Ned Land thinks of, attempts, or tries, what does it matter
to me? I did not seek him! It is not for my pleasure that I keep him on
board! As for you, M. Aronnax, you are one of those who can understand
everything, even silence. I have nothing more to say to you. Let this
first time you have come to treat of this subject be the last, for a
second time I will not listen to you.”
I retired. Our situation was critical. I related my conversation to my
two companions.