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‘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 (#ulink_1c6aae0b-f910-5f0e-8437-699943e65ef0)
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.
CHAPTER 8 Mobilis in Mobile (#ulink_a8626cfd-afd9-54ae-80ca-cc0f99e88c61)
This abduction, so brutally executed, took place with the rapidity of lightning. I do not know what my companions felt at being introduced into this floating prison; but, for my own part, a rapid shudder froze my very veins. With whom had we to do? Doubtless with a new species of pirates, who made use of the sea in a way of their own.
The narrow panel had scarcely closed upon me when I was enveloped by profound darkness. My eyes, dazzled by the light outside, could distinguish nothing. I felt my naked feet touch the steps of an iron ladder. Ned Land and Conseil, firmly held, followed me. At the bottom of the ladder a door opened and closed again immediately with a sonorous bang.
We were alone. Where? I neither knew nor could I imagine. All was darkness, and such absolute darkness, that after some minutes I had not been able to make out even those faint glimmers of light which float in the darkest nights.
Meanwhile, Ned Land, furious at this manner of proceeding, gave free course to his indignation.
‘The people here,’ he cried, ‘could not be worse if they were cannibals. I shouldn’t be surprised if they were, but I declare they shan’t eat me without my protesting!’
‘Calm yourself, friend Ned; calm yourself,’ answered Conseil tranquilly. ‘Don’t get into a rage beforehand. We aren’t on the spit yet.’
‘No, but we’re in the oven. This hole’s as dark as one. Happily my “bowie-knife” is still on me, and I shall see well enough to use it. The first of these rascals that lays his hand on me—’
‘Don’t get irritated, Ned,’ then said I to the harpooner, ‘and do not compromise yourself by useless violence. Who knows that we are not overheard? Let us rather try to make out where we are.’
I groped my way about. When I had gone about five steps I came to an iron wall made of riveted plates. Then turning, I knocked against a wooden table, near which were several stools. The flooring of this prison was hidden under thick matting, which deadened the noise of our footsteps. The walls revealed no traces of either door or window. Conseil, going round the reverse way, met me, and we returned to the centre of the room, which measured about twenty feet by ten. As to its height, Ned Land, notwithstanding his tall stature, could not measure it.
Half an hour passed away without bringing any change in our position, when from the extreme of obscurity our eyes passed suddenly to the most violent light. Our prison was lighted up all at once – that is to say, it was filled with a luminous matter so intense that at first I could not bear its brilliancy. I saw from its whiteness and intensity that it was the same electric light that shone around the submarine boat like a magnificent phosphoric phenomenon. After having involuntarily closed my eyes I opened them again, and saw that the luminous agent was escaping from a polished half-globe, which was shining in the top part of the room.
‘Well, we can see at last!’ cried Ned Land, who, with his knife in hand, held himself on the defensive.
‘Yes,’ answered I, risking the antithesis, ‘but the situation is none the less obscure.’
