All Chapters of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

AT SUNRISE the next morning, February 12, the Nautilus rose to the surface of the waves.I rushed onto the platform. The hazy silhouette of Pelusium was outlined three miles to the south. A torrent had carried us from one sea to the other. But although that tunnel was easy to descend, going back up must have been impossible.Near seven o’clock Ned and Conseil joined me. Those two inseparable companions had slept serenely, utterly unaware of the Nautilus’s feat.“Well, Mr. Naturalist,” the Canadian asked in a gently mocking tone, “and how about that Mediterranean?”“We’re floating on its surface, Ned my friend.”“What!” Conseil put in. “Last night . . . ?”“Yes, last night, in a matter of minutes, we cleared that insuperable isthmus.”“I don’t believe a word of it,” the Canadian replied.“And you’re in the wrong, Mr. Land,” I went on. “That flat coastline curving southward is the coast of Egypt.”“Tell it to the marines, sir,” answered the stubborn Canadian.“But if master say

THE ATLANTIC! A vast expanse of water whose surface area is 25,000,000 square miles, with a length of 9,000 miles and an average width of 2,700. A major sea nearly unknown to the ancients, except perhaps the Carthaginians, those Dutchmen of antiquity who went along the west coasts of Europe and Africa on their commercial junkets! An ocean whose parallel winding shores form an immense perimeter fed by the world’s greatest rivers: the St. Lawrence, Mississippi, Amazon, Plata, Orinoco, Niger, Senegal, Elbe, Loire, and Rhine, which bring it waters from the most civilized countries as well as the most undeveloped areas! A magnificent plain of waves plowed continuously by ships of every nation, shaded by every flag in the world, and ending in those two dreadful headlands so feared by navigators, Cape Horn and the Cape of Tempests!The Nautilus broke these waters with the edge of its spur after doing nearly 10,000 leagues in three and a half months, a track longer than a great circle of the

THE NEXT DAY, February 20, I overslept. I was so exhausted from the night before, I didn’t get up until eleven o’clock. I dressed quickly. I hurried to find out the Nautilus’s heading. The instruments indicated that it was running southward at a speed of twenty miles per hour and a depth of 100 meters.Conseil entered. I described our nocturnal excursion to him, and since the panels were open, he could still catch a glimpse of this submerged continent.In fact, the Nautilus was skimming only ten meters over the soil of these Atlantis plains. The ship scudded along like an air balloon borne by the wind over some prairie on land; but it would be more accurate to say that we sat in the lounge as if we were riding in a coach on an express train. As for the foregrounds passing before our eyes, they were fantastically carved rocks, forests of trees that had crossed over from the vegetable kingdom into the mineral kingdom, their motionless silhouettes sprawling beneath the waves. There also

DURING THE NIGHT of March 13-14, the Nautilus resumed its southward heading. Once it was abreast of Cape Horn, I thought it would strike west of the cape, make for Pacific seas, and complete its tour of the world. It did nothing of the sort and kept moving toward the southernmost regions. So where was it bound? The pole? That was insanity. I was beginning to think that the captain’s recklessness more than justified Ned Land’s worst fears.For a good while the Canadian had said nothing more to me about his escape plans. He had become less sociable, almost sullen. I could see how heavily this protracted imprisonment was weighing on him. I could feel the anger building in him. Whenever he encountered the captain, his eyes would flicker with dark fire, and I was in constant dread that his natural vehemence would cause him to do something rash.That day, March 14, he and Conseil managed to find me in my stateroom. I asked them the purpose of their visit.“To put a simple question to you,

I RUSHED UP onto the platform. Yes, open sea! Barely a few sparse floes, 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 3 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 200 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