 CHAPTER XIII The Nautilus Resumed Its Unruffled Southbound It went along the 50th Meridian with considerable speed. Would it go to the pole? I don't think so, because every previous attempt to reach this spot on the globe had failed. Besides, the season was already quite advanced, since March 13th on Antarctic Shores corresponds with September 13th in the northernmost regions, which marks the beginning of the Equinoctial Period. On March 14th, at latitude 55 degrees, I spotted floating ice, plain pale bits of rubble 20 to 25 feet long, which formed reefs over which the sea burst into foam. The Nautilus stayed on the surface of the ocean. Having fished in the Arctic Seas, Ned land was already familiar with the site of icebergs. Konsei and I were marveling at them for the first time. In the sky toward the southern horizon, there stretched a dazzling white band. English whalers had given this the name Ice Blank. No matter how heavy the clouds may be, they can't obscure this phenomenon. It announces the presence of a pack or shawl of ice. Indeed, larger blocks of ice soon appeared, their brilliance varying at the whim of the mists. Some of these masses displayed green veins as if scrawled with undulating lines of copper sulfate. Others looked like enormous amethysts, letting the light penetrate their insides. The latter reflected the sun's rays from the thousand facets of their crystals. The former, tinted with a bright limestone sheen, would have supplied enough building material to make a whole marble town. The farther down south we went, the more these floating islands grew in numbers and prominence. Polar birds nested on them by the thousands. These were petrels, cake pigeons, or puffins, and their calls were deafening. Mistaking the Nautilus for the corpse of a whale, some of them alighted on it and prodded its resonance sheet iron with pecks of their beaks. During this navigating in the midst of the ice, Captain Nemo often stayed on the platform. He observed these deserted waterways carefully. I saw his calm eyes sometimes perk up. In these polar seas forbidden to man, did he feel right at home, the lord of these unreachable regions? Perhaps. But he didn't say. He stood still, reviving only when his pilot's instincts took over. Then, steering his Nautilus with consummate dexterity, he skillfully dodged the masses of ice, some of which measured several miles in length, their heights varying from 70 to 80 meters. Often the horizon seemed completely closed off. A breast of latitude 60 degrees, every passageway had disappeared. Searching with care, Captain Nemo soon found a narrow opening into which he brazenly slipped, well aware, however, that it would close behind him. Guided by his skillful hands, the Nautilus passed by all these different masses of ice, which are classified by size and shape, with a precision that enraptured Konsei. Icebergs or mountains, ice fields or smooth limitless tracks, drift ice or floating flows, packs or broken tracks, called patches when they're circular and streams when they form long strips. The temperature was fairly low, exposed to the outside air the thermometer marked minus 2 degrees to minus 3 degrees centigrade. But we were warmly dressed in furs, for which seals and aquatic bears had paid the price. Evenly heated by all its electric equipment, the Nautilus's interior defied the most intense cold. Moreover, to find a bearable temperature, the ship had only to sink just a few meters beneath the waves. Two months earlier, we would have enjoyed perpetual daylight in this latitude, but night already fell for three or four hours, and later would cast six months of shadow over these circumpolar regions. On March 15th, we passed beyond the latitude of the South Shetland and South Orkney Islands. The captain told me that many tribes of seals used to inhabit these shores, but English and American whalers in a frenzy of destruction slaughtered all the adults, including pregnant females, and where life and activity once existed, those fishermen left behind only silence and death. Going along the 55th Meridian, the Nautilus cut the Antarctic Circle on March 16th near 8 o'clock in the morning. Ice completely surrounded us and closed off the horizon. Nevertheless, Captain Nemo went from passageway to passageway, always preceding south. But where's he going? I asked. Straight ahead, Konsei replied. Ultimately, when he can't go any farther, he'll stop. I wouldn't bet on it, I replied. And in all honesty, I confess that this venturesome excursion was far from displeasing to me. I can't express the intensity of my amazement at the beauties of these new regions. The ice struck superb poses. Here, its general effect suggested in an oriental town with countless minarets and mosques. There, a city in ruins flung to the ground by convulsions in the earth. These views were varied continuously by the sun's oblique rays, or were completely swallowed up by gray mists in the middle of blizzards. Then explosions, cave-ins, and great iceberg somersaults would occur all around us, altering the scenery like the changing landscape in a diorama. If the Nautilus was submerged during these losses of balance, we heard the resulting noises spread under the waters with frightful intensity, and the collapse of these masses created daunting eddies down to the ocean's lower strata. The Nautilus then rolled and pitched like a ship left to the fury of the elements. Often, no longer seeing any way out, I thought we were imprisoned for good, but Captain Nemo, guided by his instincts, discovered new passageways from the tiniest indications. He was never wrong when he observed slender threads of bluish water streaking through these ice fields. Accordingly, I was sure that he had already risked his Nautilus in the midst of the Antarctic seas. However, during the day of March 16th, these tracks of ice completely barred our path. It wasn't the ice bank as yet, just huge ice fields cemented together by the cold. This obstacle couldn't stop Captain Nemo, and he launched his ship against the ice fields with hideous violence. The Nautilus went into these brittle masses like a wedge, splitting them with dreadful cracklings. It was an old-fashioned battering ram propelled with infinite power. Hurl the loft. Ice rubble fell back around us like hail. Through brute force alone, the submersible carved out a channel for itself. Carried away by its momentum, the ship sometimes mounted on top of these tracks of ice and crushed them with its weight, or at other times when cooped up between the ice fields, it split them with simple pitching movements, creating wide punctures. Violent squalls assaulted us during the daytime. Thanks to certain heavy mists, we couldn't see from one end of the platform to the other. The wind shifted abruptly to every point on the compass. The snow was piling up in such packed layers. It had to be chipped loose with blows from picks. Even in a temperature of merely minus 5 degrees centigrade, every outside part of the Nautilus was covered with ice. A ship's rigging would have been unusable because all its tackle would have jammed in the grooves of the pulleys. Only a craft without sails, driven by an electric motor that needed no coal, could face such high latitudes. Under these conditions, the barometer generally stayed quite low. It fell as far as 73.5 cm. Our compass indications no longer offered any guarantees. The deranged needles would mark contradictory directions as we approached the southern magnetic pole, which doesn't coincide with the south pole proper. In fact, according to the astronomer Hans Steen, this magnetic pole is located fairly close to latitude 70 degrees and longitude 130 degrees, or abiding by the observations of Louis Isidore du Père, in longitude 135 degrees and latitude 70 degrees 30 minutes. Hence, we had to transport compasses to different parts of the ship, take many readings, and strike an average. Often, we could chart our course only by guesswork. A less than satisfactory method in the midst of these winding passageways whose landmarks changed continuously. At last, on March 18th, after 20 futile assaults, the Nautilus was decisively held in check. Longer was it an ice-stream patch or field. It was an endless, immovable barrier formed by ice mountains fused to each other. The ice bank, the Canadian told me. For Ned Land, as well as for every navigator before us, I knew that this was the great insurmountable obstacle. When the sun appeared for an instant near noon, Captain Nemo took a reasonably accurate sight and gave our position as longitude 51 degrees 30 minutes and latitude 67 degrees 39 minutes south. This was a position already well along in these Antarctic regions. As for the liquid surface of the sea, there was no longer any semblance of it before our eyes. Before the Nautilus' spur, there lay vast broken plains, a tangle of confused chunks with all the helter-skelter unpredictability typical of a river's surface, a short while before its ice breakup. But in this case, the proportions were gigantic. Here and there stood sharp peaks, lean spires that rose as high as 200 feet, farther off, a succession of steeply cut cliffs sporting a grayish tint, huge mirrors that reflected the sparse rays of a sun half-drowned and mist. Beyond, a stark silence reigned in this desolate natural setting, a silence barely broken by the flapping wings of petrels or puffins. By this point, everything was frozen, even sound. So the Nautilus had to halt its venturesome course among these tracks of ice. Sir, Nedland told me that day, if your captain goes any farther, yes, he'll be a Superman. How so, Ned? Because nobody can clear the ice bank. Your captain's a powerful man, but damn nation, he isn't more powerful than nature. If she draws a boundary line, there you stop, like it or not. Correct, Nedland, but I still want to know what's behind this ice bank. Behold my greatest source of irritation, a wall. Master is right, Konsei said. Walls were invented simply to frustrate scientists. All walls should be banned. Fine, the Canadian put in, but we already know what's behind this ice bank. What? I asked. Ice, ice, and more ice. You may be sure of that, Ned, I answered, but I'm not. That's why I want to see it for myself. Well, Professor, the Canadian replied, you can just drop that idea. You've made it to the ice bank, which is already far enough, but you won't get any farther. Neither your captain Nemo or his Nautilus. And whether he wants to or not will head north again, in other words, to the land of sensible people. I had to agree that Nedland was right, and until ships are built to navigate over tracks of ice, they'll have to stop at the ice bank. Indeed, despite its efforts, despite the powerful methods it used to split this ice, the Nautilus was reduced to immobility. Ordinarily, when someone can't go any farther, he still has the option of returning in his tracks. But here it was just as impossible to turn back as to go forward, because every passageway had closed behind us. And if our submersible remained even slightly stationary, it would be frozen in without delay, which is exactly what happened near 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and fresh ice kept forming over the ship's sides with astonishing speed. I had to admit that Captain Nemo's leadership had proven most injudicious. Just then I was on the platform, observing the situation for some while, the captain said to me, Well, Professor, what think you? I think we're trapped, Captain. Trapped? What do you mean? I mean, we can't go forward, backward, or sideways. I think that's the standard definition of trapped, at least in the civilized world. So, Professor Aranax, you think the Nautilus won't be able to float clear? Only with the greatest difficulty, Captain, since the season is already too advanced for you to depend on an ice breakup. Oh, Professor! Captain Nemo replied in an ironic tone, You never change. You see only impediments and obstacles. I promise you, not only will the Nautilus float clear, it will go farther still. Farther south, I asked, gaping at the captain. Yes, sir, it will go to the pole. To the pole, I exclaimed, unable to keep back a movement of disbelief. Yes, the captain replied coolly, the Antarctic pole, that unknown spot crossed by every meridian on the globe. As you know, I do whatever I like with my Nautilus. Yes, I did know that. I knew this man was daring to the point of being full hearty. But to overcome all the obstacles around the south pole, even more unattainable than the north pole, which still hadn't been reached by the boldest navigators, wasn't this an absolutely insane undertaking? One that could occur only in the brain of a madman? It then dawned on me to ask Captain Nemo if he had already discovered this pole, which no human being had ever trod underfoot. No, sir, he answered me, but we'll discover it together. Where others have failed, all succeed. Never before has my Nautilus cruised so far into these southernmost seas, but I repeat, it will go farther still. I'd like to believe you, Captain. I went on in a tone of some sarcasm. Oh, I do believe you. Let's forge ahead. There are no obstacles for us. Let's shatter this ice bank. Let's blow it up. And if it still resists, let's put wings on the Nautilus and fly over it. Over it, Professor? Captain Nemo replied serenely. No, not over it, but under it. Under it, I exclaimed. A sudden insight into Captain Nemo's plans had just flashed through my mind. I understood. The marvelous talents of his Nautilus would be put to work once again in this superhuman undertaking. I can see we're starting to understand each other, Professor. Captain Nemo told me with a half-smile, you already glimpsed the potential. Myself, I'd say the success of this attempt. Maneuvers that aren't feasible for an ordinary ship are easy for the Nautilus. If a continent emerges at the pole, we'll stop at that continent. But on the other hand, if open sea washes the pole, we'll go to that very place. Right, I said carried away by the Captain's logic. Even though the surface of the sea has solidified into ice, its lower strata are still open thanks to that divine justice that puts the maximum density of salt water one degree above its freezing point. And if I'm not mistaken, the submerged part of this ice bank is in a 4-to-1 ratio to its emerging part. Very nearly, Professor. For each foot of iceberg above the sea, there are three more below. Now then, since these ice mountains don't exceed a height of 100 meters, they sink only to a depth of 300 meters. And what are 300 meters to the Nautilus? A mere nothing, sir. We could even go to greater depths and find that temperature layer common to all ocean water. And there we'd brave with impunity the minus 30 degree or minus 40 degree cold on the surface. True, sir, very true, I replied with growing excitement. Our sole difficulty Captain Nemo went on lies in our staying submerged for several days without renewing our air supply. That's all, I answered. The Nautilus has huge air tanks. We'll fill them up and they'll supply all the oxygen we need. Good thinking, Professor Aronax, the Captain replied with a smile. But since I don't want to be accused of foolhardiness, I'm giving you all my objections in advance. You have more? Just one. If a sea exists at the south pole, it's possible this sea may be completely frozen over, so we couldn't come up to the surface. My dear sir, have you forgotten that the Nautilus is armed with a fearsome spur? Couldn't it be launched diagonally against those tracks of ice, which would break open from the impact? Ah, Professor, you're full of ideas today. Besides, Captain, I added with still greater enthusiasm. Why wouldn't we find open sea at the south pole just as at the north pole? The cold temperature poles and the geographical poles don't coincide in either the northern or southern hemispheres. And until proof to the contrary, we can assume these two spots on the earth feature either a continent or an ice-free ocean. I think as you do, Professor Aronax, Captain Nemo replied, I'll only point out that after raising so many objections against my plan, you're now crushing me under arguments in its favor. Captain Nemo was right. I was outdoing him and daring. It was I who was sweeping him to the pole. I was leading the way. I was out in front. But no, you silly fool. Captain Nemo already knew the pros and cons of this question and it amused him to see you flying off into impossible fantasies. Nevertheless, he didn't waste an instant. At his signal, the chief officer appeared. The two men held a quick exchange in their incomprehensible language and either the chief officer had been alerted previously or he found the plan feasible because he showed no surprise. But, as unemotional as he was, he couldn't have been more impeccably emotionless than constay when I told the fine land our intention of pushing on to the south pole. He greeted my announcement with the usual, as master wishes, and I had to be content with that. As for Ned Land, no human shoulders ever executed a higher shrug than the pair belonging to our Canadian. Honestly, sir, he told me, you and your Captain Nemo, I pity you both. But we will go to the pole, Mr. Land. Maybe, but you won't come back. And Ned Land re-entered his cabin. To keep from doing something desperate, he said as he left me. Meanwhile, preparations for this daring attempt were getting underway. The Nautilus' powerful pumps forced air down into the tanks and started under high pressure. Near four o'clock, Captain Nemo informed me that the platform hatches were about to be closed. I took a last look at the dense ice bank we were going to conquer. The weather was fair, the skies reasonably clear, the cold quite brisked. Namely, minus 12 degrees centigrade. But after the wind had lulled, this temperature didn't seem too unbearable. Equipped with picks, some 10 men climbed onto the Nautilus' sides and cracked loose the ice around the ship's lower plating, which was soon set free. This operation was swiftly executed because the fresh ice was still thin. We all re-entered the interior. The main ballast tanks were filled with the water that hadn't yet congealed at our line of flotation. The Nautilus' submerged without delay. I took a seat in the lounge with conce. Through the open window we stared at the lower strata of this southernmost ocean. The thermometer rose again. The needle on the pressure gauge swerved over its dial. About 300 meters down, just as Captain Nemo had predicted, we cruised beneath the undulating surface of the ice bank. But the Nautilus sank deeper still. It reached a depth of 800 meters. At the surface, this water gave a temperature of minus 12 degrees centigrade, but now it gave no more than minus 10 degrees. Two degrees had already been gained. Thanks to its heating equipment, the Nautilus' temperature, needless to say, stayed at a much higher degree. Every maneuver was accomplished with extraordinary precision. With all due respect, master, conce told me, well, pass it by. I fully expect to. I replied in a tone of deep conviction. Now in open water, the Nautilus took a direct course to the pole, without fearing from the 52nd meridian. From 67 degrees 30 minutes to 90 degrees, 22 and a half of latitude were left across. In other words, slightly more than 500 leagues. The Nautilus adopted an average speed of 26 miles per hour, the speed of an express train. If it kept up this pace, 40 hours would do it for reaching the pole. For part of the night, the novelty of our circumstances kept conce and me at the lounge window. The sea was lit by our beacons' electric rays, but the depths were deserted. Fish didn't linger in these imprisoned waters. Here they found merely a passageway for going from the Antarctic Ocean to open sea at the pole. Our progress was swift. You could feel it in the vibrations of the long steel hull. Nearly two o'clock in the morning, I went to snatch a few hours of sleep. Consay did likewise. I didn't encounter Captain Nemo while going down the gangways. I assumed that he was keeping to the pilot house. The next day, March 19th, at five o'clock in the morning, I was back at my post in the lounge. The electric log indicated that Nautilus had reduced speed. By then, it was rising to the surface, but cautiously, while slowly emptying its ballast tanks. My heart was pounding. Would we emerge into the open and find Polarare again? No, a jolt told me that the Nautilus had bumped into the underbelly of the ice bank, still quite thick to judge from the hollowness of the accompanying noise. Indeed, we had struck bottom to use nautical terminology, but in the opposite direction and at a depth of 3,000 feet. That gave us 4,000 feet of ice overhead, of which 1,000 feet emerged above water. So the ice bank was higher here than we had found it on the outskirts, a circumstance less than encouraging. Several times that day, the Nautilus repeated the same experiment, and always it bumped against this surface that formed a ceiling above it. At certain moments, the ship encountered ice at a depth of 900 meters, denoting a thickness of 1,200 meters, of which 300 meters rose above the level of the ocean. This height had tripled since the moment the Nautilus had dived beneath the waves. I meticulously noted these different depths, obtaining the underwater profile of this upside-down mountain chain that stretched beneath the sea. By evening, there was still no improvement in our situation. The ice stayed between 400 and 500 meters deep. It was obviously shrinking, but what a barrier still lay between us and the surface of the ocean. By then it was 8 o'clock. The air inside the Nautilus should have been renewed 4 hours earlier following daily practice on board, but I didn't suffer very much, although Captain Nemo hadn't yet made demands on the supplementary oxygen in his air tanks. That night my sleep was fitful. Hope and fear besieged me by turns. I got up several times. The Nautilus continued groping. Near 3 o'clock in the morning, I observed that we encountered the ice banks underbelly at a depth of only 50 meters. So, only 150 feet separated us from the surface of the water. Little by little, the ice bank was turning into an ice field again. The mountains were changing back into planes. My eyes didn't leave the pressure gauge. We kept rising on a diagonal, going along this shiny surface that sparkled beneath our electric rays. Above and below, the ice bank was subsiding in long gradients, mile after mile. It was growing thinner. Finally, at 6 o'clock in the morning on that memorable day of March 19th, the lounge door opened. Captain Nemo appeared. Open sea, he told me. End of Section 2, Chapter 13 Recorded by Sean McGahey This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Meredith Hughes, Cambridge, Massachusetts 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne Part 2, Chapter 14 The South Pole I rushed up onto the platform. Yes, open sea! Barely a few sparse flows, some moving icebergs, a sea stretching into the distance, hosts of birds in the air, and myriads of fish under the waters, which varied from intense blue to olive green, depending on the depth. The thermometer marked a three-degrees centigrade. It was as if a comparative springtime had been locked up behind that ice bank, whose distant masses were outlined on the northern horizon. Are we at the pole? I asked the captain, my heart pounding. I've no idea, he answered me. At noon we'll fix our position. But will the sun show through this mist, I said, staring at the grayish sky? No matter how faintly it shines, it will be enough for me, the captain replied. To the south, ten miles from the Nautilus, a solitary islet rose to a height of two hundred meters. We proceeded toward it, but cautiously because this sea could have been strewn with reefs. In an hour we had reached the islet. Two hours later we had completed a full circle around it. It measured four to five miles in circumference. A narrow channel separated it from a considerable shore, perhaps a continent whose limits we couldn't see. The existence of this shore seemed to bear out Commander Moray's hypotheses. In essence, this ingenious American has noted that between the south pole and the sixtieth parallel the sea is covered with floating ice of dimensions much greater than any found in the North Atlantic. From this fact he drew the conclusion that the Antarctic Circle must contain considerable shores since icebergs can't form on the high seas but only along coastlines. According to his calculations this frozen mass enclosing the southernmost pole forms a vast ice cap whose width must reach four thousand kilometers. Meanwhile, to avoid running aground the Nautilus halted three cable lengths from a strand crowned by superb piles of rocks. The skiff was launched to sea. Two crewmen carrying instruments, the Captain, Consail, and I were on board. It was ten o'clock in the morning. I hadn't seen Ned Land. No doubt in the presence of the south pole the Canadian hated having to eat his words. A few strokes of the ore brought the skiff to the sand where it ran aground. Just as Consail was about to jump ashore I held him back. Sir, I told Captain Nemo, to you belongs the honour of first setting foot on this shore. Yes, sir, the Captain replied, and if I have no hesitation in treading this polar soil it's because no human being until now has left a footprint here. So saying he leaped lightly on to the sand. His heart must have been throbbing with intense excitement. He scaled an overhanging rock embedded in a small promontory and there, mute and motionless with crossed arms and blazing eyes he seemed to be laying claim to these southernmost regions. After spending five minutes in this trance he turned to us. Whenever you're ready, sir, he called to me. I got out, Consail at my heels leaving the two men in the skiff. Over an extensive area the soil consisted of that igneous gravel called tough reddish in colour which we've made from crushed bricks. The ground was covered with slag, lava flows and pumice stones. Its volcanic origin was unmistakable. In certain localities thin smoke holes gave off a sulfurous odor showing that the inner fires still kept their wide-ranging power. Nevertheless, when I scaled a high escarpment I could see no volcanoes within a radius of several miles. In these Antarctic districts, as is well known, sir James Clark Ross found craters of Mount Erebus and Mount Terror in fully active condition on the 167th meridian at latitude 77°32 minutes. The vegetation on this desolate continent struck me as quite limited. A few lichens of the species Usnea melanosanthra sprawled over the black rocks. The whole meager flora of this region consisted of certain microscopic buds, rudimentary diatoms made up of a type of cell positioned between two quartz-rich shells, plus long purple and crimson fucous plants, buoyed by small air-bladders and washed up on the coast by the surf. The beach was strewn with mollusks, small mussels, limpets, smooth, heart-shaped cockles, and especially some sea butterflies with oblong, membrane-filled bodies whose heads are formed from two rounded lobes. I also saw myriads of those northernmost sea butterflies three centimetres long, which a baleen whale can swallow by the thousands in one gulp. The open waters at the shoreline were alive with these delightful pteropods, true butterflies of the sea. Among other zuophytes present in these shallows, there were a few coral tree-forms that, according to Sir James Clark Ross, live in these Antarctic seas at depths as great as 1,000 metres, then small ocean coral belonging to the species prosolaria pelagica, also a large number of starfish unique to these climes, plus some feather-stars spangling the sand. But it was in the air that life was super-abundant. There various species of birds flew and fluttered by the thousands, deafening us with their calls. Crowding the rocks, other fowl watched without fear as we passed and pressed familiarly against our feet. These were ox as agile and supple in water where they are sometimes mistaken for fast bonito, as they are clumsy and heavy on land. They uttered outlandish calls and participated in numerous public assemblies that featured much noise but little action. Among other fowl I noted some sheath-bills from the wading bird-family, the size of pigeons, white in colour, the beak short and conical, the eyes framed by red circles. Conceal laid in a supply of them because when they're properly cooked these winged creatures make a pleasant dish. In the air there passed Suri albatross with four-metre wingspans, birds aptly dubbed vultures of the ocean. Also gigantic petrels including several with arching wings, enthusiastic eaters of seal that are known as Quebranta huesos and Kate pigeons, a sort of small duck the tops of their bodies black and white. In short, a whole series of petrels, some whitish with white wings, trimmed in brown, others blue and exclusive to these Antarctic seas. The former so oily, I told Conceal, that inhabitants of the Faroe Islands simply fit the birds with a wick then light it up. With that minor addition, Conceal replied, these fowl would make perfect lamps. After this we should insist that nature equip them with wicks in advance. Half a mile farther on the ground was completely riddled with penguin nests, egg-laying burrows from which numerous birds emerged. Later Captain Nemo had hundreds of them hunted because their black flesh is highly edible. They braided like donkeys. The size of a goose with slate-colored bodies, white undersides, and lemon-colored neck-bands, these animals let themselves be stoned to death without making any effort to get away. Meanwhile the mists didn't clear and by eleven o'clock the sun still hadn't made an appearance. Its absence disturbed me. Without it no sites were possible. Then how could we tell whether we had reached the pole? When I rejoined Captain Nemo I found him leaning silently against a piece of rock and staring at the sky. He seemed impatient, baffled. But what could we do? This daring and powerful man couldn't control the sun as he did the sea. Noon arrived without the orb of day appearing for a single instant. You couldn't even find its hiding-place behind the curtain of mist. And soon this mist began to condense into snow. Until to-morrow the Captain said simply and we went back to the Nautilus amid flurries in the air. During our absence the nets had been spread and I observed with fascination the fish just hauled on board. The Antarctic seas serve as a refuge for an extremely large number of migratory fish that flee from storms in the sub-polar zones in truth only to slide down the gullets of porpoises and seals. I noted some one decimetre southern bull-head, a species of whitest cartilaginous fish overrun with bluish-gray stripes and armed with stings. Then, some Antarctic rabbit-fish three feet long, the body varies lender, the skin a smooth silver-white, the head rounded, the top side furnished with three fins, the snout ending in a trunk that curved back toward the mouth. I sampled its flesh, but found it tasteless, despite Consale's views, which were largely approving. The blizzard lasted until the next day. It was impossible to stay on the platform. From the lounge, where I was writing up the incidence of this excursion to the polar continent, I could hear the calls of Petrel and Albatross cavorting in the midst of the turmoil. The Nautilus didn't stay idle, and cruising along the coast, it advanced some ten miles farther south amid the half-light left by the sun as it skimmed the edge of the horizon. The next day, March 20th, it stopped snowing. The cold was a little more brisk. The thermometer marked minus two degrees centigrade. The mist had cleared, and on that day I hoped our noon sights could be accomplished. Since Captain Nemo hadn't yet appeared, only Consale and I were taken ashore by the skiff. The soil's nature was still the same, volcanic. Chases of lava, slag, and basaltic rock were everywhere, but I couldn't find the crater that had vomited them up. There, as yonder, myriads of birds enlivened this part of the polar continent. But they had to share their dominion with huge herds of marine mammals that looked at us with gentle eyes. These were seals of various species. Some stretched out on the ground, others lying on drifting ice-flows, several leaving or re-entering the sea. Having never dealt with man, they didn't run off at our approach, and counted enough of them, their abouts, to provision a couple hundred ships. He gods, Consale said. It's a fortune that Nedland didn't come with us. Why so, Consale? Because that madcap hunter would kill every animal here. Every animal may be overstating it, but in truth I doubt we could keep our Canadian friend from harpooning some of these magnificent cetaceans, which would be in affront to Captain Nemo as he hates to slay harmless beasts needlessly. He's right. Certainly, Consale, but tell me, haven't you finished classifying these superb specimens of marine fauna? Master is well aware, Consale replied, that I'm not seasoned in practical application when Master has told me these animals' names. They're seals and wallresses. Two genera are scholarly Consale, hasten to say, that belong to the family Pinipedia, order Carnivora, group on Guiculata, subclass Monodelfia, class Mamelia, branch Verdebrata. Very nice, Consale, I replied, but these two genera of seals and wallresses are each divided into species, and if I'm not mistaken, we now have a chance to actually look at them. Let's. It was eight o'clock in the morning. We had four hours to ourselves before the sun could be productively observed. I guided our steps toward a huge bay that made a crescent-shaped incision into the granite cliffs along the beach. There, all about us, I swear that the shores and ice-flows were crowded with marine mammals as far as the eye could see, and I involuntarily looked around for old Proteus, that mythological shepherd who guarded King Neptune's immense flocks. To be specific, these were seals. They formed distinct male and female groups, the father watching over his family, the mother suckling her little ones. The stronger youngsters emancipated a few paces away. When these mammals wanted to relocate, they moved in little jumps made by contracting their bodies, clumsily helped by their imperfectly developed flippers, which, as with their manatee relatives, form actual forearms. In the water, their ideal element, I must say, these animals swim wonderfully thanks to their flexible backbones, narrow pelvises, close-cropped hair, and webbed feet. Resting on shore, they assumed extremely graceful positions. Consequently, their gentle features, their sensitive expressions equal to those of the loveliest women, their soft, limpid eyes, their charming poses, led the ancients to glorify them by metamorphosing the males into sea-gods and the females into mermaids. I drew Consale's attention to the considerable growth of the cerebral loaves found in these intelligent cetaceans. No mammal except man has more abundant cerebral matter. Accordingly, seals are quite capable of being educated. They make good pets, and together with certain other naturalists, I think these animals can be properly trained to perform yeoman service as hunting dogs for fishermen. Most of these seals were sleeping on the rocks or the sand. Among those properly termed seals, which have no external ears unlike sea lions whose ears protrude, I observed several varieties of the species Stenorhincus, three meters long with white hair, bulldog heads, and armed with ten teeth in each jaw, forehand-sizers in both the upper and lower, plus two big canines shaped like the fleur-de-lis. Among them slithered some sea elephants, a type of seal with a short, flexible trunk. These are the giants of the species with a circumference of twenty feet and a length of ten meters. They didn't move as we approached. Are these animals dangerous? Consale asked me. Only if they're attacked, I replied. But when these giant seals defend their little ones, their fury is dreadful, and it isn't rare for them to smash a fisherman's longboat to bits. They're within their rights, Consale answered. I don't say nay. Two miles farther on we were stopped by a promontory that screened the bay from southerly winds. It dropped straight down to the sea and surf foamed against it. From beyond this ridge there came fearsome bellows such as a herd of cattle might produce. Gracious, Consale put in, a choir of bulls. No, I said, a choir of walruses. Are they fighting with each other? Either fighting or playing. With all due respect, Master, this we must see. Then see it we must, Consale. And there we were, blackish rocks amid sudden landslides and over stones slippery with ice. More than once I took a tumble at the expense of my backside. Consale, more cautious or more stable, barely faltered and would help me up, saying, if Master's legs would kindly adopt a wider stance Master will keep his balance. Arriving at the topmost ridge of this promontory I could see vast white plains covered with walruses. These animals were playing among themselves. They were howling not in anger, but in glee. Walruses resemble seals in the shape of their bodies and the arrangement of their limbs. But their lower jaws lack canines and incisors and as for their upper canines they consist of two tusks 80 centimeters long with a circumference of 33 centimeters at the socket. Made of solid ivory without striations harder than elephant tusks and less prone to yellowing these teeth are in great demand. Accordingly walruses are the victims of a mindless hunting that soon will destroy them all since their hunters indiscriminately slaughter pregnant females and youngsters and over 4,000 individuals are destroyed annually. Passing near these unusual animals I could examine them at my leisure since they didn't stir. Their hides were rough and heavy a tan color leaning toward a reddish brown. Their coats were short and less than abundant. Some were four meters long and some were little and less fearful than their northern relatives. They posted no sentinels on guard duty at the approaches to their campsite. After examining this community of walruses I decided to return in my tracks. It was eleven o'clock and if Captain Nemo found conditions favorable for taking his sights I wanted to be present at the operation. But I held no hopes that the sun would make an appearance that day. It was hidden from our eyes by clouds squeezed together on the horizon. Apparently the jealous orb didn't want to reveal this inaccessible spot on the globe to any human being. Yet I decided to return to the Nautilus. We went along a steep, narrow path that ran over the cliff's summit. By eleven thirty we had arrived at our landing place. The beached skiff had brought the captain ashore. I spotted him standing on a chunk of basalt. His instruments were beside him. His eyes were focused on the northern horizon along which the sun was sweeping in its extended arc. I found a place near him and waited without speaking. noon arrived and just as on the day before the sun didn't put in an appearance. It was sheer bad luck. Our noon sights were still lacking. If we couldn't obtain them tomorrow we would finally have to give up any hope of fixing our position. In essence it was precisely March twentieth. Tomorrow the twenty-first was the day of the equinox. The sun would disappear below the horizon for six months not counting refraction and after its disappearance the long polar night would begin. Following the September equinox the sun had emerged above the northerly horizon rising in long spirals until December twenty-first. At that time the summer solstice of these southernmost districts the sun had started back down and tomorrow it would cast its last rays. I shared my thoughts and fears with Captain Nemo. You're right, Professor Aranax, he told me. If I can't take the sun's altitude tomorrow I won't be able to try again for another six months. But precisely because sailor's luck has led me into these seas on March twenty-first it will be easy to get our bearings if the noon day sun does appear before our eyes. Why easy, Captain? Because when the orb of day sweeps in such long spirals it's difficult to measure its exact altitude above the horizon and our instruments are open to committing serious errors. Then what can you do? I use only my chronometer, Captain Nemo answered me. At noon tomorrow, March twenty-first if after accounting for refraction the sun's disk is cut exactly in half by the northern horizon that will mean I'm at the south pole. Right, I said. Nevertheless it isn't a mathematically exact proof because the equinoxes needn't fall precisely at noon. No doubt, sir, but the error will be under one hundred meters and that's close enough for us. Until tomorrow, then. Captain Nemo went back on board. Consail and I stayed behind until five o'clock surveying the beach, observing and studying. The only unusual object I picked up was an ox egg of remarkable size for which a collector would have paid more than a thousand francs. Its cream-coloured tint plus the streaks and markings that decorated it like so many hieroglyphics made it a rare trinket. I placed it in Consail's hands and holding it like a precious porcelain from China that cautious, sure-footed lad got it back to the nautilus in one piece. There I put this rare egg inside one of the glass cases in the museum. I ate supper, feasting with an appetite of an excellent piece of seal-liver whose flavour reminded me of pork. Then I went to bed, but not without praying like a good Hindu, for the favours of the radiant orb. The next day, March 21st, bright and early at five o'clock in the morning, I climbed onto the platform. I found Captain Nemo there. The weather is clearing a bit, he told me. I have high hopes. After breakfast we'll make our way ashore and choose an observation post. This issue settled, I went to find Ned Land. I wanted to take him with me. The obstinate Canadian refused and I could clearly see that his tight-lipped mood and his bad temper were growing by the day. Under the circumstances I ultimately wasn't sorry that he refused. In truth there were too many seals ashore and it would never do to expose this impulsive fisherman to such temptations. Breakfast over I made my way ashore. The Nautilus had gone a few more miles during the night. It lay well out, a good league from the coast, which was crowned by a sharp peak four hundred to five hundred metres high. In addition to me, the skiff carried Captain Nemo, two crewmen and the instruments, in other words a chronometer, a spyglass and a barometer. During our crossing I saw numerous baleen whales belonging to the three species unique to these southernmost seas, the bowhead whale or right whale according to the English, which has no dorsal fin, the humpback whale from the genus Baleonoptera, in other words winged whales, beasts with wrinkled bellies and huge whitish fins that genus name regardless do not yet form wings, and the finback whale, yellowish-brown, the swiftest of all cetaceans. This powerful animal is audible from far away when it sends up towering spouts of air and steam that resemble swirls of smoke. Herds of these different mammals were playing about in the tranquil waters and I could easily see that this Antarctic polar basin now served as a refuge for those cetaceans too relentlessly pursued by hunters. I also noted long whitish strings of salps, a type of mollusk found in clusters, and some jellyfish of large size that swayed in the eddies of the billows. By nine o'clock we had pulled up to shore. The sky was growing brighter, clouds were fleeing to the south, mists were rising from the cold surface of the water. Captain Nemo headed toward the peak, which he no doubt planned to make his observatory. It was an arduous climb over sharp lava and pumice stones in the midst of air often reeking with sulfurous fumes from the smoke holes. For a man out of practice at treading land, the captain scaled the steepest slopes with a supple agility I couldn't equal and which would have been envied by hunters of Pyrenees mountain goats. It took us two hours to reach the summit of this half-crystal, half-basalt peak. From there our eyes scanned a vast sea which scrawled its boundary line firmly against the background of the northern sky. At our feet dazzling tracts of white, over our heads a pale azure clear of mists. North of us the sun's disc, like a ball of fire already cut into by the edge of the horizon. From the heart of the waters jets of liquid rising like hundreds of magnificent bouquets, far off like a sleeping cetacean, the Nautilus. Behind us to the south and east an immense shore, a chaotic heap of rocks and ice whose limits we couldn't see. Arriving at the summit of this peak, Captain Nemo carefully determined its elevation by means of his barometer since he had to take this factor into account in his noon sights. At eleven forty-five the sun, by then seen only by refraction, looked like a golden disc dispersing its last rays over this deserted continent and down to these seas not yet plowed by the ships of man. Captain Nemo had brought a spyglass with a reticular eyepiece which corrected the sun's refraction by means of a mirror and he used it to observe the orb sinking little by little along a very extended diagonal that reached below the horizon. I held the chronometer. My heart was pounding mightily. If the lower half of the sun's disc disappeared just as the chronometer said noon, we were right at the pole. Noon, I called. The south pole, Captain Nemo replied in a solemn voice, handing me the spyglass which showed the orb of day cut into two exactly equal parts by the horizon. I stared at the last rays, breathing this peak, while shadows were gradually climbing its gradients. Just then, resting his hand on my shoulder, Captain Nemo said to me, In 1600, sir, the Dutchman, Garrick, was swept by storms and currents reaching latitude 64 degrees south and discovering the South Shetland Islands. On January 17th, 1773, the famous Captain Cook went along the 38th Meridian arriving at latitude 67 degrees 30 minutes and on January 30th, 1774, along the 109th Meridian, he reached latitude 71 degrees 15 minutes. In 1819, the Russian Bellinghausen lay on the 69th parallel and in 1821, on the 66th, at longitude 111 degrees west. In 1820, the Englishman Brandsfield stopped at 65 degrees. That same year, the American, Morrill, whose reports are dubious, went along the 42nd Meridian, finding open sea at latitude 70 degrees 14 minutes. In 1825, the Englishman Powell was unable to get beyond 62 degrees. That same year, a humble seal fisherman, the Englishman Weddle, went as far as latitude 72 degrees 14 minutes on the 35th Meridian and as far as 74 degrees 15 minutes on the 36th. In 1829, the Englishman Forester, commander of the Chanticleer, laid claim to the Antarctic continent in latitude 63 degrees 26 minutes and longitude 66 degrees 26 minutes. On February 1st, 1831, the Englishman Biscoe discovered Enderby land at latitude 68 degrees 15 minutes, Adelaide land at latitude 67 degrees on February 5th, 1832, and Graham land at latitude 64 degrees 45 minutes on February 21st. In 1838, the Frenchman Dumont-Durville stopped at the Ice Bank in latitude 62 degrees 57 minutes, citing the Louis-Philippe Peninsula. On January 21st, two years later, at a new southerly position of 66 degrees 30 minutes, he named the Adelaide coast and eight days later the Clayee coast at 64 degrees 40 minutes. In 1838, the American Wilkes advanced as far as the 69th parallel on the 100th Meridian. In 1839, the Englishman Baloney discovered the Sabrina coast at the edge of the Polar Circle. Lastly, on January 12th, 1842, with his ships the Erebus and the Terror, the Englishman Sir James Clark Ross found Victoria land in latitude 70 degrees 56 minutes and longitude 171 degrees 7 minutes east. On the 23rd of that same month, he reached the 74th parallel, a position denoting the farthest south until then. On the 27th, he lay at 76 degrees 8 minutes. On the 28th, at 77 degrees 32 minutes. On February 2nd, at 78 degrees 4 minutes. And late in 1842, he returned to 71 degrees but couldn't get beyond it. Well now, in 1868, on this 21st day of March, I myself, Captain Nemo, have reached the South Pole at 90 degrees and I hereby claim this entire part of the globe equal to one sixth of the known continents. In the name of which sovereign, Captain? In my own name, Sir. So saying, Captain Nemo unfurled a black flag bearing a gold N on its quartered bunting. Then, turning toward the orb of day whose last rays were licking at the sea's horizon. Farewell, O sun, he called. Disappear, O radiant orb. Retire beneath this open sea and let six months of night spread their shadows over my new domains. End of Chapter 14. Part 2, Chapter 15 Accident or Incident The next day, March 22nd, at 6 o'clock in the morning, preparations for departure began. The last gleams of twilight were melting into the night. The cold was brisk. The constellations were glittering with startling intensity. The wonderful southern cross, the star of the Antarctic regions twinkled at its zenith. The thermometer marked minus 12 degrees centigrade and a fresh breeze left a sharp nip in the air. Ice flows were increasing over the open water. The sea was starting to congeal everywhere. Numerous blackish patches were spreading over its surface, announcing the imminent formation of fresh ice. Obviously, this southernmost basin froze over during its six month winter and became utterly inaccessible. What happened to the whales during this period? No doubt they went beneath the ice bank to find more feasible seas. As for seals and walruses, they were accustomed to living in the harshest climates and stayed in these icy waterways. These animals know by instinct how to gouge holes in the ice fields and keep them continually open. They go to these holes to breathe. Once the birds have migrated northward to escape the cold, these marine mammals remain the sole lords of the polar continent. Meanwhile, the ballast tanks filled with water and the nautilus sank slowly. At a depth of 1,000 feet it stopped. Its propellers churned the waves and it headed due north at a speed of 15 miles per hour. Near the afternoon, it was already cruising under the immense frozen carapace of the ice bank. As a precaution, the panels in the lounge stayed closed because the nautilus's hull could run afoul of some submerged block of ice. So I spent the day putting my notes into final form. My mind was completely wrapped up in my memories of the pole. We had reached that inaccessible spot without facing exhaustion or danger as if our sea-going passenger carriage had glided there on railroad tracks. And now we had actually started our return journey. Did it still have comparable surprises in store for me? I felt sure it did. So inexhaustible is a series of underwater wonders. As it was in five and a half months since fate had brought us on board, we had cleared 14,000 leagues and over this track, longer than the Earth's equator, so many fascinating or frightening incidents had beguiled our voyage. The hunting trip in Crespo forests are running aground in the Torres Strait, the Coral Cemetery, the Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon, the Arabic Tunnel, the fires of Santorini, those millions in the Bay of Vigo, Atlantis, the South Pole. During the night, all these memories crossed from one dream to the next, not giving my brain a moment's rest. At three o'clock in the morning, I was awakened by a violent collision. I sat up in bed, listening in the darkness, and then was suddenly hurled into the middle of my state room. Apparently, the nautilus had gone aground, then healed over sharply. Looking against the walls, I dragged myself down the gangways to the lounge, whose ceiling lights were on. The furniture had been knocked over. Fortunately, the glass cases were solidly secured at the base, and it stood fast. Since we were no longer vertical, the starboard pictures were glued to the tapestries, while those to port had their lower edges hanging a foot away from the wall. So the nautilus was lying on its starboard side, completely stationary to boot. In its interior, I heard the sound of footsteps and muffled voices, but Captain Nemo didn't appear. Just as I was about to leave the lounge, Nedlan and Conceal entered. What happened, I instantly said to them. I came to ask Master that, Conceal replied. Damnation, the Canadian explained. I know full well what happened. The nautilus has gone aground. And judging from the way it's listing, I don't think it'll pull through like the first time in the tourist straight. But, I asked, are we at least back on the surface of the sea? We have no idea, Conceal replied. It's easy to find out, I answered. I consulted the pressure gauge. Much to my surprise, it indicated a depth of 360 meters. What's the meaning of this, I exclaimed. We must confer with Captain Nemo, Conceal said. But where do we find him? Nedlan asked. Follow me, I told my two companions. We left the lounge. Nobody in the library, nobody by the central companion way or the cruise quarters. I assumed that Captain Nemo was stationed in the pilot house. Best to wait. The three of us returned to the lounge. I'll skip over the Canadian's complaints. He had good grounds for an outburst. I didn't answer him back. He was letting him blow off all the steam he wanted. We had been left to ourselves for 20 minutes, trying to detect the tiniest noises inside the Nautilus when Captain Nemo entered. He didn't seem to see us. His facial features, usually so emotionless, revealed a certain uneasiness. He studied the compass and the pressure gauge in silence. Then went and put his fingers on the world map at a spot in the sector depicting the southernmost seas. I hesitated to interrupt him, but some moments later, when he turned to me, I threw back at him a phrase he had used in the Taurus Strait. An incident, Captain? No, sir, he replied. This time an accident. Serious? Perhaps. Is there any immediate danger? No. The Nautilus has run aground? Yes. And this accident came about through nature's unpredictability, not man's incapacity. No errors were committed in our maneuvers. Nevertheless, we can't prevent a loss of balance from taking its toll. One may defy human laws, but no one can withstand the laws of nature. Captain Nemo had picked an odd time to philosophize. All in all, this reply told me nothing. May I learn, sir? I asked him. What caused this accident? An enormous block of ice. An entire mountain has toppled over. He answered me. When an iceberg is eroded at the base by warmer waters or by repeated collisions, its center of gravity rises. Then, its somersaults. It turns completely upside down. That's what happened here. When it overturned, one of these blocks hit the Nautilus as it was cruising under the waters. Sliding under the hull, this block then raised us with irresistible power, lifting us into less congested strata that we now lie on our side. But can't we float the Nautilus clear by emptying its balance tanks to regain our balance? That, sir, is being done right now. You can hear the pumps working. Look at the needle on the pressure gauge. It indicates that the Nautilus is rising, but this block of ice is rising with us, and until some obstacle halts its upward movement, our position won't change. Indeed, the Nautilus kept the same heel to starboard. No doubt it would straighten up as the block came to a halt. But before that happened, who knew if we might not hit the underbelly of the ice bank and be hideously squeezed between two frozen surfaces? I'm used in all the consequences of this situation. Captain Nemo didn't stop studying the pressure gauge. Since the toppling of this iceberg, the Nautilus had risen about 150 feet. Suddenly, a slight movement could be felt over the hull. Obviously, the Nautilus was straightening a bit. Objects hanging in the lounge were visibly returning to their normal positions. The walls were approaching the vertical. Nobody said a word. Hearts pounding, we could see and feel the ship writing itself. The floor was becoming horizontal beneath our feet. Ten minutes went by. Finally, we're upright, I exclaimed. Yes, Captain Nemo said, heading to the lounge door. But will we float off, I asked him. Certainly, he replied, since the ballast tanks aren't empty yet, and when they are, the Nautilus must rise to the surface of the sea. The captain went out, and soon I saw that at his orders the Nautilus had halted its upward movement. In fact, it soon would have hit the underbelly of the ice bank, but it had stopped in time and was floating in mid-water. That was a close call, Conceal said. Yes. We could have been crushed between these masses of ice or at least imprisoned between them, and then with no way to renew our air supply. Yes, that was a close call. If it's over worth, Ned Land muttered. I was unwilling to get into a pointless argument with the Canadian and didn't reply. Moreover, the panels opened just then and the outside light burst through the uncovered windows. We were fully afloat, as I've said, but on both sides of the Nautilus, about 10 meters away, there rose dazzling walls of ice. There also were walls above and below, above because the ice bank's underbelly spread over us like an immense ceiling, below because the somersalting block, shifting little by little, had found points of purchase on the both side walls and had gotten jammed between them. The Nautilus was imprisoned in a genuine tunnel of ice, about 20 meters wide and filled with quiet water. So the ship could easily exit by going either ahead or astern, sinking a few hundred meters deeper and then taking an open passageway beneath the ice bank. The ceiling lights were off, yet the lounge was still brightly lit. This was due to the reflecting power of the walls of ice, which threw the beams of our beacon right back at us. Words cannot describe the effects produced by our galvanic rays on these huge, whimsically sculptured blocks, whose every angle, ridge, and facet gave off a different glow, depending upon the nature of the veins running inside the ice. It was a dazzling mine of gems, in particular sapphires and emeralds, whose jets of blue and green crisscrossed. Here and there, opaline hues of infinite subtlety raced among sparks of light that were like so many fiery diamonds, their brilliance more than any eye could stand. The power of our beacon was increased a hundredfold, like a lamp shining through Baikonvex lenses of a world-class lighthouse. How beautiful, Consale explained. Yes, I said, it's a wonderful sight, isn't it, Ned? Oh damnation, yes, Ned landshot back. It's superb. I'm furious that I have to admit it. No one has ever seen the like. But this sight could cost us dearly. And in all honesty, I think we're looking at things God never intended for human eyes. Ned was right. It was too beautiful. All at once, a yell from Consale made me turn around. What is it, I asked. Master must close his eyes, master mustn't look. With that, Consale clapped his hands over his eyes. But what's wrong, my boy? I've been dazzled, struck blind. Involuntarily, my eyes flew to the window, but I couldn't stand the fire devouring it. I realized what had happened. The Nautilus had just started off at great speed. All the tranquil glimmers of the ice walls had then changed into blazing streaks. The sparkles from these myriad of diamonds were merging with each other. Swept along by its propeller, the Nautilus was traveling through a sheath of flashing light. Then the panels in the lounge closed. We kept our hands over our eyes, which were utterly saturated with those concentric gleams that swirl before the retina when the sunlight strikes too intensely. It took some time to calm our troubled vision. Finally, we lowered our hands. Ye gods, I never would have believed it, Consale said. And I still don't believe it, the Canadian shot back. When we returned ashore, jaded from all these wonders, Consale added, think how we'll look down on those pitiful land masses, those puny works of man. No, the civilized world won't be good enough for us. Such words from the lips of this emotionless, Flemish boy showed that our enthusiasm was near the boiling point. But the Canadian didn't fail to throw his dram of cold water over us. The civilized world, he said, shaking his head, don't worry, Consale, my friend, we're never going back to that world. By this point it was five o'clock in the morning. Just then there was a collision in the Nautilus's bow. I realized that its spur had just bumped a block of ice. It must have been a faulty maneuver because this underwater tunnel was obstructed by such blocks and didn't make for easy navigating. So I had assumed that Captain Nemo, in adjusting his course, would go around each obstacle or would hug the walls and follow the winding of the tunnel. In either case, our forward motion wouldn't receive an absolute check. Nevertheless, contrary to my expectations, the Nautilus definitely began to move backwards. We're going astern, Consale said. Yes, I replied. Apparently the tunnel has no way out at this end. And so... So I said, our maneuvers are quite simple. We'll return in our tracks and go out the southern opening. That's all. As I spoke, I tried to sound more confident than I really felt. Meanwhile, the Nautilus accelerated its backward movement and running with propeller in reverse, it swept us along at great speed. This'll mean a delay, Ned said. What are a few hours, more or less, so long as we get out? Yes, Ned Land repeated, so long as we get out. I strolled for a little while from the lounge into the library. My companions kept their seats and didn't move. Soon I threw myself down on a couch and picked up a book, which my eyes skimmed mechanically. A quarter of an hour later, Consale approached me saying, Is it deeply fascinating, this volume Master is reading? Tremendously fascinating, I replied. I believe it. Master is reading his own book, my own book. Indeed, my hands were holding my own work on the great ocean depths. I hadn't even suspected. I closed the book and resumed my strolling. Ned and Consale stood up to leave. Stay here, my friends, I said, stopping them. Let's stay together until we're out of this blind alley, as Master wishes, Consale replied. The hours passed. I often studied the instruments hanging on the lounge wall. The pressure gauge indicated that the nautilus stayed at a constant depth of 300 meters, the compass that it kept heading south, the log that it was traveling at a speed of 20 miles per hour, an excessive speed in such a cramped area. But Captain Nemo knew that by this point there was no such thing as too fast, since minutes were now worth centuries. At 8.25, a second collision took place, this time a stern. I grew pale. My companions came over. I clutched Consale's hand. Our eyes questioned each other, and more directly than if our thoughts had been translated into words. Just then, Captain entered the lounge. I went to him. Our path is barred to the south, I asked him. Yes, sir. When it overturned, that iceberg closed off every exit. Were boxed in? Yes. End of Chapter 15, recorded by Michael Procopio, Long Beach, California, September 1, 2006. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Twenty Thousand Leagues, Under the Seas, by Jules Verne. Second Part. Chapter 16. Shortage of Air. Consequently, above, below, and around the Nautilus, there were impenetrable frozen walls. We were the iceberg's prisoners. The Canadian banged a table with his fearsome fist. Consale kept still. I stared at the Captain. He resumed its usual emotionlessness. He crossed his arms. He pondered. The Nautilus did not stir. The Captain then broke into speech. Gentlemen, he said, in a calm voice. There are two ways of dying under the conditions in which we are placed. This inexplicable individual acted like a mathematics professor working out a problem for his pupils. The first way, he went on, is death by crushing. The second is death by asphyxiation. I don't mention the possibility of death by starvation because the Nautilus's provisions will certainly last longer than we will. Therefore, let's concentrate on our chances of being crushed or asphyxiated. As for asphyxiation, Captain, I replied, that isn't a cause for alarm because the air tanks are full. True, Captain Nemo went on. But they'll supply air for only two days. Now, then, we've been buried beneath the waters for thirty-six hours, and the Nautilus's heavy atmosphere already needs renewing. In another forty-eight hours our reserve air will be used up. Well then, Captain, let's free ourselves within forty-eight hours. We'll try to, at least, by cutting through one of these walls surrounding us. Which one, I asked? I'm going to ground the Nautilus on the lower shelf. Then my men will put on their diving suits and attack the thinnest of these ice-walls. Can the panels in the lounge be left open? Without ill effect. We're no longer in motion. Captain Nemo went out. Hissing sounds soon told me that water was being admitted into the ballast tanks. The Nautilus slowly settled and rested on the icy bottom at a depth of three hundred fifty metres. The depth at which the lower shelf of ice lay submerged. My friends, I said, we are in a serious predicament, but I'm counting on your courage and energy. Sir, the Canadian replied, this is no time to bore you with my complaints. I am ready to do anything I can for the common good. Excellent Ned, I said, extending my hand to the Canadian. I might add, he went on, that I'm as handy with a pick as a harpoon. If I can be helpful to the captain, he can use me any way he wants. He won't turn down your assistance. Come along, Ned. I led the Canadian to the room where the Nautilus's men were putting on their diving suits. I informed the captain of Ned's proposition, which was promptly accepted. The Canadian got into his underwater costume and was ready as soon as his fellow workers. Each of them carried on his back a rock-wear-all device that the air-tanks had supplied with a generous allowance of fresh oxygen. A considerable but necessary drain on the Nautilus's reserves. As for the rum-core flamps, they were unnecessary in the midst of these brilliant waters saturated with our electric rays. After Ned was dressed, I re-entered the lounge, whose windows had been uncovered. Stationed next to Conceal, I examined the stratus surrounding and supporting the Nautilus. Some moments later we saw a dozen crewmen set foot on the shelf of ice, among them, Ned Land, easily recognized by his tall figure. Captain Nemo was with them. Before digging into the ice, the captain had to obtain borings to ensure working in the best direction. Long bores were driven into the side walls, but after fifteen meters the instruments were still impeded by the thickness of those walls. It was futile to attack the ceilings since that surface was the ice-bank itself, more than four hundred meters high. Captain Nemo then boarded into the lower surface. There we were separated from the sea by a ten-meter barrier. That's how thick the iceberg was. From this point on it was an issue of cutting out a piece equal in surface area to the Nautilus's waterline. This meant detaching about six thousand five hundred cubic meters, to dig a hole through which the ship could descend below this tract of ice. Work began immediately and was carried on with tireless tenacity. Instead of digging all around the Nautilus, which would have entailed even greater difficulties, Captain Nemo had an immense trench outlined on the ice, eight meters from our port-quarter. Then his men simultaneously staked it off at several points around its circumference. Soon their picks were vigorously attacking this compact matter, and huge chunks were loosened from its mass. These chunks weighed less than the water, and by an unusual effect of specific gravity each chunk took wing, as it were, to the roof of the tunnel, which thickened above by as much as it was diminished below. But this hardly mattered so long as the lower surface kept growing thinner. After two hours of energetic work Ned Land re-entered, exhausted. He and his companions were replaced by new workmen, including Conceal and me. The Nautilus's chief officer supervised us. The water struck me as unusually cold, but I warmed up promptly while wielding my pick. My movements were quite free, although they were executed under a pressure of thirty atmospheres. After two hours of work, re-entering to snatch some food and rest, I found a noticeable difference between the clean elastic fluid supplied me by the rockware old device and the Nautilus's atmosphere, which was already charged with carbon dioxide. The air hadn't been renewed in forty-eight hours, and its life-giving qualities were considerably weakened. Meanwhile, after twelve hours had gone by, we had removed from the outlined surface area a slice of ice only one meter thick, hence about six hundred cubic meters. Assuming the same work would be accomplished every twelve hours, it would still take five nights and four days to see the undertaking through to completion. Five nights and four days, I told my companions, and we have oxygen in the air-tanks for only two days. Without taking into account, Ned answered, that once we're out of this damned prison we'll still be cooped up beneath the ice-bank without any possible contact with the open air. An apt remark, for who could predict the minimum time we would need to free ourselves? Before the Nautilus could return to the surface of the waves, couldn't we all die of asphyxiation? Were this ship and everyone on board doomed to perish in this tomb of ice? It was a dreadful state of affairs, but we faced it head-on, each one of us determined to do his duty to the end. During the night, in line with my forecasts, a new one-meter slice was removed from this immense socket. But in the morning, wearing my diving suit, passing through the liquid mass in a temperature of minus six degrees to minus seven degrees centigrade, when I noted that little by little the side walls were closing in on each other. The liquid strata farthest from the trench, not warmed by the movements of workmen and tools, were showing a tendency to solidify. In the face of this imminent new danger, what would happen to our chances for salvation, and how could we prevent this liquid medium from solidifying, and cracking the nautilus's hull like glass? I didn't tell my two companions about this new danger. There was no point in dampening the energy they were putting into our arduous rescue work. But when I returned on board, I mentioned this serious complication to Captain Nemo. I know, he told me, in that calm tone, the most dreadful outlook couldn't change. It's one more danger, but I don't know any way of warding it off. Our sole chance of salvation is to work faster than the water solidifies. We've got to get there first, that's all. Get there first. By then I should have been used to this type of talk. For several hours that day I wielded my pick doggedly. The work kept me going. Besides, working meant leaving the nautilus, which meant breathing the clean oxygen drawn from the air tanks, and supplied by our equipment, which meant leaving the thin, foul air behind. Near evening one more meter had been dug from the trench. When I returned on board, I was well niasphyxiated by the carbon dioxide saturating the air. Oh, if only we had the chemical methods that would enable us to drive out this noxious gas. There was no lack of oxygen. All this water contained a considerable amount, and after it was decomposed by our powerful batteries, this life-giving elastic fluid could have been restored to us. I had thought it all out, but to no avail because the carbon dioxide produced by our breathing permeated every part of the ship. To absorb it we would need to fill containers with potassium hydroxide and shake them continually. But this substance was missing on board, and nothing else could replace it. That evening Captain Nemo was forced to open the spigots of his air tanks and shoot a few spouts of fresh oxygen through the Nautilus's interior. Without this precaution we wouldn't have awakened the following morning. The next day, March 26, I returned to my miner's trade, working to remove the fifth meter. The ice-banks, side-walls, and underbelly had visibly thickened. Obviously they would come together before the Nautilus could break free. For an instant I was gripped by despair. My pick nearly slipped from my hands. What was the point of this digging if I was to die smothered and crushed by this water turning to stone, a torture undreamed of by even the wildest savages? I felt like I was lying in the jaws of a fearsome monster, jaws irresistibly closing. Supervising our work, working himself, Captain Nemo passed near me just then, I touched him with my hand and pointed to the walls of our prison. The starboard wall had moved forward to a point less than four metres from the Nautilus's hull. The Captain understood and gave me a signal to follow him. We returned on board. My diving suit removed, I went with him to the lounge. Professor Aranax he told me, this calls for heroic measures, or will be sealed up in this solidified water as if it were cement? Yes, I said, but what can we do? Oh! he exclaimed, if only my Nautilus were strong enough to stand that much pressure without being crushed. Well, I asked, not catching the Captain's meaning. Don't you understand, he went on, that the congealing of this water could come to our rescue? Don't you see that by solidifying it could burst these tracts of ice imprisoning us just as its freezing can burst the hardest stones? Aren't you aware that this force could be the instrument of our salvation rather than our destruction? Yes, Captain, maybe so, but whatever resistance to crushing the Nautilus may have it still couldn't stand such dreadful pressures and it would be squashed as flat as a piece of sheet iron. I know it, sir. So we can't rely on nature to rescue us, only our own efforts. We must counteract the solidification. We must hold it in check. Not only are the sidewalls closing in, but there aren't ten feet of water ahead or astern of the Nautilus. All around us this freeze is gaining fast. How long, I asked, will the oxygen in the air tanks enable us to breathe on board? The Captain looked me straight in the eye. After tomorrow, he said, the air tanks will be empty. I broke out in a cold sweat, but why should I have been startled by this reply? On March 22 the Nautilus had dived under the open waters at the pole. It was now the 26th. We had lived off the ship's doors for five days, and all remaining breathable air had to be saved for the workmen. Even today, as I write these lines, my sensations are so intense that an involuntary terror sweeps over me and my lungs still seem short of air. Meanwhile, motionless and silent Captain Nemo stood lost in thought. An idea visibly crossed his mind, but he seemed to brush it aside. He told himself, no. At last these words escaped his lips. Boiling water, he muttered. Boiling water, I exclaimed. Yes, sir. We're shut up in a relatively confined area if the Nautilus's pumps continually injected streams of boiling water into this space. Wouldn't that raise its temperature and delay its freezing? It's worth trying, I said resolutely. So let's try it, Professor. By then the thermometer gave minus seven degrees centigrade outside. Captain Nemo led me to the galley where a huge distilling mechanism was at work, supplying drinking water via evaporation. The mechanism was loaded with water and the full electric heat of our batteries was thrown into coils of wash in liquid. In a few minutes the water reached 100 degrees centigrade. It was sent to the pumps while new water replaced it in the process. The heat generated by our batteries was so intense that after simply going through the mechanism water drawn cold from the sea arrived, boiling hot at the body of the pump. The steaming water was injected into the icy water outside and after three hours had passed the thermometer gave the exterior temperature as minus six degrees centigrade. That was one degree gained. Two hours later the thermometer gave only minus four degrees. After I monitored the operation's progress, double-checking it with many inspections, I told the Captain, It's working. I think so, he answered me. We've escaped being crushed. Now we have only asphyxiation to fear. During the night the water temperature rose to minus one degrees centigrade. The injections couldn't get it to go a single degree higher. But since salt water freezes only at minus two degrees, I was finally assured that there was no danger of it solidifying. By the next day, March 27, six meters of ice had been torn from the socket. Only four meters were left to be removed. That still meant 48 hours of work. The air couldn't be renewed in the nautilus's interior. Accordingly, that day it kept getting worse. An unbearable heaviness weighed me down. Near three o'clock in the afternoon this agonizing sensation affected me to an intense degree. Yawns dislocated my jaws. My lungs were gasping in their quest for that enkindling elastic fluid required for breathing, now growing scarcer and scarcer. My mind was in a daze. I lay outstretched, strength gone, nearly unconscious. My gallant conceal felt the same symptoms, suffered the same sufferings, yet never left my side. He held my hand, he kept encouraging me, and I even heard him mutter, oh, if only I didn't have to breathe to leave more air for master. It brought tears to my eyes to hear him say these words. Since conditions inside were universally unbearable, how eagerly, how happily, we put on our diving suits to take turns working. Picks rang out on that bed of ice. Arms grew weary, hands were rubbed raw, but who cared about exhaustion? What difference were wounds? Life-sustaining air reached our lungs. We could breathe. We could breathe. And yet nobody prolonged his underwater work beyond the time allotted him. His shift over, each man surrendered to a gasping companion, the air tank that would revive him. Captain Nemo set the example and was foremost in submitting to this strict discipline. When his time was up, he yielded his equipment to another and re-entered the foul air on board, always calm, unflinching, and uncomplaining. That day the usual work was accomplished with even greater energy. Over the whole surface area only two metres were left to be removed, only two metres separated us from the open sea, but the ship's air tanks were nearly empty. The little air that remained had to be saved for the workman, not an atom for the nautilus. When I returned on board, I felt half-suffocated. What a night! I'm unable to depict it. Such sufferings are indescribable. The next day I was short-winded. Headaches and staggering fits of dizziness made me real like a drunk. My companions were experiencing the same symptoms. Some crewmen were at their last gasp. That day, the sixth of our imprisonment, Captain Nemo concluded that pics and matics were too slow to deal with the ice layers still separating us from open water. And he decided to crush this layer. The man had kept his energy and composure. He had subdued physical pain with moral strength. He could still think, plan, and act. At his orders the craft was eased off. In other words, it was raised from its icy bed by a change in its specific gravity. When it was afloat, the crew towed it, leading it right above the immense trench outline to match the ship's waterline. Next the ballast tanks filled with water. The boat sank and was fitted into its socket. Just then the whole crew returned on board and the double outside door was closed. By this point the Nautilus was resting on a bed of ice only one meter thick and drilled by bores in a thousand places. The stop cocks of the ballast tanks were then opened wide and one hundred cubic meters of water rushed in, increasing the Nautilus's weight by one hundred thousand kilograms. We waited, we listened, we forgot our sufferings, we hoped once more we had staked our salvation on this one last gamble. Despite the buzzing in my head I soon could hear vibrations under the Nautilus's hull. We tilted. The ice cracked with an odd ripping sound like paper tearing and the Nautilus began settling downward. We're going through, Conceal muttered in my ear. I couldn't answer him. I clutched his hand. I squeezed it in an involuntary convulsion. All at once carried away by its frightful excess load the Nautilus sank into the waters like a cannon-ball, in other words dropping as if in a vacuum. Our full electric power was then put on the pumps which instantly began to expel water from the ballast tanks. After a few minutes we had checked our fall. The pressure gauge soon indicated an ascending movement. Brought to full speed the propeller made the sheet iron hull tremble down to its rivets and we sped northward. But how long would it take to navigate under the ice bank to the open sea? Another day? I would be dead first. Half lying on a couch in the library I was suffocating. My face was purple. My lips blue. My faculties in abeyance. I could no longer see or hear. I had lost all sense of time. My muscles had no power to contract. I'm unable to estimate the hours that passed in this way, but I was aware that my death-throws had begun. I realized that I was about to die. Suddenly I regained consciousness. A few whiffs of air had entered my lungs. Had we risen to the surface of the waves? Had we cleared the ice bank? No. Ned and Conceal, my two gallant friends, were sacrificing themselves to save me. A few atoms of air were still left in the depths of one requeral device. Instead of breathing it themselves they had saved it for me, and while they were suffocating they poured life into me drop by drop. I tried to push the device away. They held my hands and for a few moments I could breathe luxuriously. My eyes flew toward the clock. It was eleven in the morning. It had to be March twenty-eight. The Nautilus was travelling at the frightful speed of forty miles per hour. It was writhing in the waters. Where was Captain Nemo? Had he perished? Had his companions died with him? Just then the pressure gauge indicated that we were no more than twenty feet from the surface. Separating us from the open air was a mere tract of ice. Could we break through it? Perhaps. In any event the Nautilus was going to try. In fact I could feel it assuming an oblique position, lowering its stern and raising its spur. The admission of additional water was enough to shift its balance. Then, driven by its powerful propeller, it attacked this ice field from below like a fearsome battering ram. It split the barrier little by little, backing up, then putting on full speed against the punctured tract of ice, and finally carried away by its supreme momentum it lunged through and on to this frozen surface, crushing the ice beneath its weight. The hatches were opened, or torn off if you prefer, and waves of clean air were admitted into every part of the Nautilus.