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Nautilus was cruising in the waters of Crete.
CHAPTER IX. A VANISHED CONTINENT
The next morning, the 19th of February, I saw the Canadian enter my room. I
expected this visit. He looked very disappointed.
"Well, sir?" said he.
"Well, Ned, fortune was against us yesterday."
"Yes; that Captain must needs stop exactly at the hour we intended leaving his
vessel."
"Yes, Ned, he had business at his bankers."
"His bankers!"
"Or rather his bankinghouse; by that I mean the ocean, where his riches are
safer than in the chests of the
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State."
I then related to the Canadian the incidents of the preceding night, hoping to
bring him back to the idea of not abandoning the Captain; but my recital had
no other result than an energetically expressed regret from Ned that he had
not been able to take a walk on the battlefield of Vigo on his own account.
"However," said he, "all is not ended. It is only a blow of the harpoon lost.
Another time we must succeed;
and tonight, if necessary"
"In what direction is the Nautilus going?" I asked.
"I do not know," replied Ned.
"Well, at noon we shall see the point."
The Canadian returned to Conseil. As soon as I was dressed, I went into the
saloon. The compass was not reassuring. The course of the Nautilus was S.S.W.
We were turning our backs on Europe.
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I waited with some impatience till the ship's place was pricked on the chart.
At about halfpast eleven the reservoirs were emptied, and our vessel rose to
the surface of the ocean. I rushed towards the platform. Ned
Land had preceded me. No more land in sight. Nothing but an immense sea. Some
sails on the horizon, doubtless those going to San Roque in search of
favourable winds for doubling the Cape of Good Hope. The weather was cloudy. A
gale of wind was preparing. Ned raved, and tried to pierce the cloudy horizon.
He still hoped that behind all that fog stretched the land he so longed for.
At noon the sun showed itself for an instant. The second profited by this
brightness to take its height. Then, the sea becoming more billowy, we
descended, and the panel closed.
An hour after, upon consulting the chart, I saw the position of the Nautilus
was marked at 16@ 17' long., and
33@ 22' lat., at 150 leagues from the nearest coast. There was no means of
flight, and I leave you to imagine the rage of the Canadian when I informed
him of our situation.
For myself, I was not particularly sorry. I felt lightened of the load which
had oppressed me, and was able to return with some degree of calmness to my
accustomed work.
That night, about eleven o'clock, I received a most unexpected visit from
Captain Nemo. He asked me very graciously if I felt fatigued from my watch of
the preceding night. I answered in the negative.
"Then, M. Aronnax, I propose a curious excursion."
"Propose, Captain?"
"You have hitherto only visited the submarine depths by daylight, under the
brightness of the sun. Would it suit you to see them in the darkness of the
night?"
"Most willingly."
"I warn you, the way will be tiring. We shall have far to walk, and must climb
a mountain. The roads are not well kept."
"What you say, Captain, only heightens my curiosity; I am ready to follow
you."
"Come then, sir, we will put on our divingdresses."
Arrived at the robingroom, I saw that neither of my companions nor any of the
ship's crew were to follow us on this excursion. Captain Nemo had not even
proposed my taking with me either Ned or Conseil.
In a few moments we had put on our divingdresses; they placed on our backs the
reservoirs, abundantly filled with air, but no electric lamps were prepared. I
called the Captain's attention to the fact.
"They will be useless," he replied.
I thought I had not heard aright, but I could not repeat my observation, for
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the Captain's head had already disappeared in its metal case. I finished
harnessing myself. I felt them put an ironpointed stick into my hand, and some
minutes later, after going through the usual form, we set foot on the bottom
of the Atlantic at a depth of 150 fathoms. Midnight was near. The waters were
profoundly dark, but Captain Nemo pointed out in the distance a reddish spot,
a sort of large light shining brilliantly about two miles from the Nautilus.
What this fire might be, what could feed it, why and how it lit up the liquid
mass, I could not say. In any case, it did light our way, vaguely, it is true,
but I soon accustomed myself to the peculiar darkness, and I understood,
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119
under such circumstances, the uselessness of the Ruhmkorff apparatus.
As we advanced, I heard a kind of pattering above my head. The noise
redoubling, sometimes producing a continual shower, I soon understood the
cause. It was rain falling violently, and crisping the surface of the waves.
Instinctively the thought flashed across my mind that I should be wet through!
By the water! in the midst of the water! I could not help laughing at the odd
idea. But, indeed, in the thick divingdress, the liquid element is no longer
felt, and one only seems to be in an atmosphere somewhat denser than the
terrestrial atmosphere. Nothing more.
After half an hour's walk the soil became stony. Medusae, microscopic
crustacea, and pennatules lit it slightly with their phosphorescent gleam. I
caught a glimpse of pieces of stone covered with millions of zoophytes and
masses of sea weed. My feet often slipped upon this sticky carpet of sea weed,
and without my irontipped stick I should have fallen more than once. In
turning round, I could still see the whitish lantern of the Nautilus beginning
to pale in the distance.
But the rosy light which guided us increased and lit up the horizon. The
presence of this fire under water puzzled me in the highest degree. Was I
going towards a natural phenomenon as yet unknown to the savants of the earth?
Or even (for this thought crossed my brain) had the hand of man aught to do
with this conflagration? Had he fanned this flame? Was I to meet in these
depths companions and friends of Captain
Nemo whom he was going to visit, and who, like him, led this strange
existence? Should I find down there a whole colony of exiles who, weary of the
miseries of this earth, had sought and found independence in the deep ocean?
All these foolish and unreasonable ideas pursued me. And in this condition of
mind, overexcited by the succession of wonders continually passing before my
eyes, I should not have been surprised to meet at the bottom of the sea one of
those submarine towns of which Captain Nemo dreamed.
Our road grew lighter and lighter. The white glimmer came in rays from the
summit of a mountain about 800
feet high. But what I saw was simply a reflection, developed by the clearness
of the waters. The source of this inexplicable light was a fire on the
opposite side of the mountain.
In the midst of this stony maze furrowing the bottom of the Atlantic, Captain
Nemo advanced without hesitation. He knew this dreary road. Doubtless he had
often travelled over it, and could not lose himself. I
followed him with unshaken confidence. He seemed to me like a genie of the
sea; and, as he walked before me, I could not help admiring his stature, which
was outlined in black on the luminous horizon.
It was one in the morning when we arrived at the first slopes of the mountain;
but to gain access to them we must venture through the difficult paths of a
vast copse.
Yes; a copse of dead trees, without leaves, without sap, trees petrified by
the action of the water and here and there overtopped by gigantic pines. It
was like a coalpit still standing, holding by the roots to the broken soil,
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and whose branches, like fine black paper cuttings, showed distinctly on the
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