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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Chapter 23. THE CORAL KINGDOM
The next day I woke with my head strangely clear.
To my great surprise, I was in my own room.
My companions had probably been returned to their cabin without noticing it any more than I did.
Of what had happened during the night, they knew as little as I did.
To understand this mystery, I could only count on the chances of the future.
I then thought of leaving my room.
Was I free again or a prisoner?
Completely free, I opened the door, went to the half-deck, and went up the central stairs.
The panels, which were shut the evening before, were open, I went onto the platform.
Ned Land and Conseil were waiting there for me.
I questioned them, they knew nothing, they had been lost in a heavy sleep in which they were completely unconscious.
And they were surprised to find themselves in their cabin.
As for the Nautilus, it seemed quiet and mysterious as ever.
It floated on the surface of the waves at a moderate speed, Nothing seemed changed on board.
The second lieutenant then came onto the platform and gave the usual order below.
As for Captain Nemo, he didn't appear.
Of the people on board, I only saw the calm steward, who served me with his usual silent regularity.
About two o'clock, I was in the drawing-room, busy arranging my notes, when the Captain opened the door and appeared.
I bowed, he made a slight nod in return, without speaking.
I went back to my work, hoping that he'd perhaps give me some explanation of the events of the previous night.
He gave none, I looked at him.
He seemed tired, his heavy eyes hadn't been refreshed by sleep, his face looked very sad.
He walked back and forth, sat down and got up again.
He took a book at random, put it down, checked his instruments without taking his usual notes, and seemed restless and uneasy.
At last, he came up to me and said,
"Are you a doctor, M. Aronnax?"
I didn't expect such a question, so I stared at him for some time without answering.
"Are you a doctor?" he repeated.
"Several of your colleagues have studied medicine."
"Well," I said, "I'm a doctor and resident surgeon at the hospital. I practiced for several years before entering the museum."
"Very well, sir."
My answer had clearly satisfied the Captain.
But not knowing what he'd say next, I waited for other questions, keeping my answers ready depending on the situation.
"M. Aronnax, will you agree to treat one of my men?" he asked.
"Is he ill?"
"Yes."
"I'm ready to follow you."
"Come, then."
I admit my heart was beating, I don't know why.
I saw some connection between the illness of one of the crew and the events of the day before.
And this mystery interested me at least as much as the sick man.
Captain Nemo led me to the back of the Nautilus and took me into a cabin near the sailors' quarters.
There, on a bed, lay a man about forty years old, with a determined expression on his face, a true type of an Anglo-Saxon.
I leaned over him, he wasn't just ill.
He was wounded, his head, wrapped in bandages covered with blood, lay on a pillow.
I undid the bandages, and the wounded man looked at me with his large eyes and gave no sign of pain as I did it.
It was a horrible wound, his skull, broken by some deadly weapon, left the brain exposed, which was badly damaged.
Clots of blood had formed in the bruised and broken mass, colored like the dregs of wine.
There was both bruising and bleeding of the brain.
His breathing was slow, and some sudden movements of his muscles shook his face.
I felt his pulse, it was irregular.
The ends of his body were already growing cold, and I saw that death was unavoidable.
After dressing the poor man's wounds, I adjusted the bandages on his head again and turned to Captain Nemo.
"What caused this wound?" I asked.
"What does it matter?" he replied, avoiding the question.
"A shock broke one of the engine's levers, which hit me. But what's your opinion about his condition?"
I hesitated a moment before giving my opinion to him quietly.
"You can speak," said the Captain.
"This man doesn't understand French."
I took one last look at the wounded man.
"He'll be dead in two hours."
"Can nothing save him?"
"Nothing."
Captain Nemo's hand tightened, and some tears glistened in his eyes, which I thought couldn't shed any.
For some moments I still watched the dying man, whose life was slowly fading.
His paleness increased under the electric light that shone over his deathbed.
I looked at his intelligent forehead, marked with early wrinkles, probably caused by misfortune and sorrow.
I tried to learn the secret of his life from the last words that escaped his lips.
"You can go now, M. Aronnax," said the Captain.
I left him in the dying man's cabin and returned to my room, very affected by this scene.
During the whole day, I was haunted by uncomfortable suspicions.
At night I slept badly, and between my broken dreams I thought I heard distant sighs like the notes of a funeral song.
Were they the prayers of the dead, murmured in that language I couldn't understand?
The next morning I went onto the bridge.
Captain Nemo was there before me, As soon as he saw me, he came to me.
"Professor, would it be convenient for you to make a submarine trip today?"
"With my companions?" I asked.
"If they like."
"We obey your orders, Captain."
"Would you be so kind as to put on your cork jackets?"
It wasn't a question of dead or dying.
I joined Ned Land and Conseil and told them about Captain Nemo's offer.
Conseil quickly accepted it, and this time the Canadian seemed quite willing to follow our example.
It was eight o'clock in the morning.
At half past eight, we were equipped for this new trip and provided with two devices for light and breathing.
The double door stood open, letting a cool, salty breeze into the cabin.
Captain Nemo accompanied us, followed by a dozen of the crew.
We set foot on the solid bottom where the Nautilus rested, at a depth of about thirty feet.
A slight slope ended in an uneven bottom at fifteen fathoms deep.
This bottom was completely different from the one I had visited on my first trip under the waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Here, there was no fine sand, no underwater fields, no sea-forest.
I immediately recognized that marvelous region in which, on that day, the Captain showed us around, it was the coral kingdom.
The light produced a thousand charming varieties, playing in the middle of the branches that were so brightly colored.
I seemed to see the thin, tube-shaped forms tremble under the movement of the waters.
I wanted to pick their fresh petals with delicate tentacles, some open, others budding, while a small fish brushed them like a bird in flight.
But if my hand came near these living flowers, these sensitive plants, the whole colony became alarmed.
The white petals went back into their red cases, the flowers faded as I watched, and the bush changed into a block of stone-like knobs.
Chance had thrown me right by the most valuable specimens of the sea creatures.
This coral was more valuable than that found in the Mediterranean, on the coasts of France, Italy, and Barbary.
Its colors justified the poetic names "Flower of Blood" and "Froth of Blood" that trade has given to its most beautiful products.
Coral is sold for twenty pounds per ounce.
And in this place, the underwater beds would make the fortunes of a company of coral divers.
This precious matter, often confused with other polyps, formed the tangled plots called "macciota," on which I noticed several beautiful specimens of pink coral.
But soon the bushes became thicker, and the tree-like forms increased.
Real petrified thickets, long beams of fantastic architecture, appeared before us.
Captain Nemo placed himself under a dark gallery, where by a slight slope we reached a depth of a hundred yards.
Our lamps sometimes produced magical effects, tracing the arches' rough outlines and hanging formations like chandeliers tipped with points of fire.
After about two hours' walk, we reached roughly three hundred yards deep, the farthest limit where coral begins to form.
But there was no isolated bush or modest brushwood at the bottom of tall trees.
It was an immense forest of large mineral plants, enormous petrified trees, joined by garlands of elegant sea-bindweed, all decorated with clouds and reflections.
We passed freely under their high branches, lost in the shade of the waves.
Captain Nemo stopped, I and my companions halted.
Turning around, I saw his men forming a half-circle around their chief.
Watching carefully, I noticed that four of them carried on their shoulders an object of an oblong shape.
We were in the center of a large open space surrounded by the tall leaves of the underwater forest.
Our lamps threw over this place a kind of clear twilight that strangely stretched the shadows on the ground.
At the end of the open space, the darkness increased and was only broken by little sparks reflected by the points of coral.
Ned Land and Conseil were near me.
We watched, and I thought I was going to see a strange scene.
The ground was raised in places by small bumps of chalky deposits, arranged with a regularity showing man's hand.
In the middle of the open space, on a base of roughly piled rocks, stood a cross of coral.
It stretched out long arms that one might have thought were made of petrified blood.
At a sign from Captain Nemo, one of the men came forward.
A few feet from the cross, he began to dig a hole with a pickaxe he took from his belt, I understood everything!
This open space was a cemetery, this hole a tomb, this oblong object the body of the man who had died in the night!
The Captain and his men had come to bury their companion in this final resting place, at the bottom of this unreachable ocean!
The grave was being dug slowly, the fish fled in all directions while their retreat was disturbed.
I heard the strokes of the pickaxe, which sparked when it hit some flint lost at the bottom of the waters.
The hole was soon large and deep enough to receive the body.
Then the bearers came closer, the body, wrapped in a cloth of white linen, was lowered into the damp grave.
Captain Nemo, with his arms crossed on his chest, and all the friends of the one who had loved them, knelt in prayer.
Everyone fell to their knees in an attitude of prayer.
The grave was then filled with the rubbish taken from the ground, which formed a small mound.
When this was done, Captain Nemo and his men rose.
Then, approaching the grave, they knelt again, and all stretched out their hands in a sign of a final goodbye.
Then the funeral procession returned to the Nautilus, passing under the arches of the forest, through the thickets, along the coral bushes, and still going upward.
At last, the light of the ship appeared, and its bright path guided us to the Nautilus, At one o'clock, we had returned.
As soon as I had changed my clothes, I went up onto the platform.
A prey to conflicting emotions, I sat down near the binnacle.
Captain Nemo joined me, I rose and said to him,
"So, as I said he'd, this man died in the night?"
"Yes, M. Aronnax."
"And he rests now, near his companions, in the coral cemetery?"
"Yes, forgotten by everyone else, but not by us."
"We dug the grave, and the polyps will seal our dead for eternity."
And, burying his face quickly in his hands, he tried in vain to hold back a sob.
Then he added, "Our peaceful cemetery is there, some hundred feet below the surface of the waves."
"Your dead sleep quietly, at least, Captain, out of the reach of sharks."
"Yes, sir, of sharks and men," the Captain replied seriously.