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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Chapter 38. ACCIDENT OR INCIDENT?
The next day, the 22nd of March, at six in the morning, preparations for departure began.
The last gleams of twilight were melting into night.
The cold was great, and the stars shone with wonderful brightness.
In the sky above, the Southern Cross glittered like the polar bear of Antarctic regions.
The thermometer showed 12 below zero, and when the wind picked up, it was very biting.
Flakes of ice increased on the open water.
The sea seemed the same everywhere, Many blackish patches spread on the surface, showing that new ice was forming.
Clearly, the southern basin, frozen during the six winter months, was completely impossible to reach.
What happened to the whales during that time?
They probably went under the icebergs, looking for more open seas.
As for the seals and walruses, used to living in a hard climate, they stayed on these icy shores.
These creatures have the instinct to break holes in the ice and keep them open.
They come to these holes to breathe.
When the birds, driven away by the cold, have moved north, these sea mammals remain the only masters of the polar continent.
But the water tanks were filling, and the Nautilus was slowly going down, At 1,000 feet deep, it stopped.
Its propeller beat the waves, and it moved straight north at a speed of fifteen miles an hour.
By night, it was already floating under the huge body of the iceberg.
At three in the morning, I was woken by a violent shock.
I sat up in my bed and listened in the dark, when I was thrown into the middle of the room.
The Nautilus, after hitting something, had bounced back hard.
I felt my way along the wall and went by the stairs to the saloon, which was lit by the glowing ceiling.
The furniture was knocked over, Luckily, the windows were firmly set and had held.
Pictures on the right, crooked, were pressed against the wallpaper, those on the left hung at least a foot away from the wall.
The Nautilus was lying on its right side, completely still.
I heard footsteps and a confused noise of voices, but Captain Nemo didn't appear.
As I was leaving the saloon, Ned Land and Conseil came in.
"What's the matter?" I said at once.
"I came to ask you, sir," replied Conseil.
"Confound it!" shouted the Canadian.
"I know well enough!"
"The Nautilus has hit something."
"And judging by the way she's lying, I don't think she'll right herself like she did the first time in Torres Straits."
"But," I asked, "has she at least come to the surface of the sea?"
"We don't know," said Conseil.
"It's easy to find out," I answered.
I checked the pressure gauge, To my great surprise, it showed a depth of more than 180 fathoms.
"What does that mean?" I exclaimed.
"We have to ask Captain Nemo," said Conseil.
"But where will we find him?" said Ned Land.
"Follow me," I said to my companions.
We left the saloon, there was no one in the library.
At the center stairs, by the crew's cabins, there was no one.
I thought that Captain Nemo must be in the pilot's cage.
It was best to wait, we all went back to the saloon.
For twenty minutes we stayed like that, trying to hear the slightest noise that might be made on board the Nautilus, when Captain Nemo came in.
He seemed not to see us, his face, usually so calm, showed signs of worry.
He watched the compass silently, then the pressure gauge.
Then, going to the map, he placed his finger on a spot representing the southern seas, I didn't want to interrupt him.
But a few minutes later, when he turned toward me, I said, using one of his own expressions from the Torres Straits,
"An incident, Captain?"
"No, sir. An accident this time."
"Serious?"
"Perhaps."
"Is the danger immediate?"
"No."
"The Nautilus has run aground?"
"Yes."
"And this happened. how?"
"From a whim of nature, not from human ignorance."
"No mistake has been made in the operation."
"But we can't stop balance from having its effects."
"We can challenge human laws, but we can't resist natural ones."
Captain Nemo had chosen a strange moment for this philosophical thought.
Overall, his answer didn't help me much.
"May I ask, sir, the cause of this accident?"
"A huge block of ice, a whole mountain, has turned over," he replied.
"When icebergs are worn away at their base by warmer water or repeated shocks, their center of gravity rises, and the whole thing turns over."
"That's what happened."
"One of these blocks, as it fell, hit the Nautilus."
"Then, sliding under its hull, it lifted it with unstoppable force, bringing it into beds that aren't so thick, where it's lying on its side."
"But can't we get the Nautilus off by emptying its tanks, so it can regain its balance?"
"That, sir, is being done right now."
"You can hear the pump working."
"Look at the needle of the pressure gauge."
"It shows that the Nautilus is rising."
"But the block of ice is floating with it."
"And until some obstacle stops its upward movement, our position can't change."
Indeed, the Nautilus still held the same position on its right side.
It would probably right itself when the block stopped.
But at that moment, who knew if we might not be crushed between the two glassy surfaces?
I thought about all the possible results of our situation.
Captain Nemo never took his eyes off the pressure gauge.
Since the fall of the iceberg, the Nautilus had risen about a hundred and fifty feet.
But it still made the same angle with the vertical.
Suddenly, a slight movement was felt in the hold.
It was clearly straightening a little, Things hanging in the saloon were noticeably returning to their normal position.
The walls were getting closer to upright.
No one spoke, With beating hearts, we watched and felt the straightening.
The floor became horizontal under our feet, Ten minutes passed.
"At last we're straight!" I exclaimed.
"Yes," said Captain Nemo, going to the door of the saloon.
"But are we floating?" I asked.
"Certainly," he replied.
"Since the tanks aren't empty. And when they're empty, the Nautilus must rise to the surface of the sea."
We were in open sea, surrounded by walls of shining ice.
But at a distance of about ten yards on either side of the Nautilus, a shining wall of ice rose up.
Above and below, the same wall, Above, because the lower surface of the iceberg stretched over us like a huge ceiling.
Below, because the overturned block, having slid slowly, had found a resting place on the side walls, which kept it in that position.
The Nautilus was really trapped in a perfect tunnel of ice more than twenty yards wide, filled with still water.
It would be easy to get out by going forward or backward and pass freely under the iceberg, a few hundred yards deeper.
The glowing ceiling had gone out, but the saloon was still bright with strong light.
It was the powerful reflection from the glass wall sent back strongly to the lantern's sheets.
I can't describe the effect of the electric rays on the great blocks, so strangely cut.
On every angle, every ridge, every surface, a different light was thrown, depending on the nature of the veins running through the ice.
It was a dazzling mine of gems, especially sapphires, their blue rays crossing with the green of emeralds.
Here and there were opal shades of wonderful softness, running through bright spots like diamonds of fire, whose brightness the eye couldn't bear.
The power of the lantern seemed increased a hundred times, like a lamp through the lens plates of a first-class lighthouse.
"How beautiful! How beautiful!" cried Conseil.
"Yes," I said.
"It's a wonderful sight. Isn't it, Ned?"
"Yes, confound it! Yes," answered Ned Land.
"It's superb, I'm mad at having to admit it, no one has ever seen anything like it."
"But the sight may cost us dear, and frankly I think we're seeing things here that God never meant man to see," answered Ned Land.
Ned was right, it was too beautiful.
Suddenly, a cry from Conseil made me turn.
"What's it?" I asked.
"Shut your eyes, sir! Don't look, sir!" As he said this, Conseil put his hands over his eyes.
"But what's the matter, my boy?"
"I'm dazzled. I'm blinded."
My eyes turned without thinking toward the glass, but I couldn't stand the fire that seemed to burn them.
I understood what had happened, the Nautilus had put on full speed.
All the quiet brightness of the ice walls was suddenly changed into flashes of lightning.
The fire from these millions of diamonds was blinding.
It took some time to calm our troubled eyes.
At last, we took our hands down.
"Honestly, I'd never have believed it," said Conseil.
It was then five in the morning.
At that moment, a shock was felt at the front of the Nautilus.
I knew that its spur had hit a block of ice.
It must have been a wrong move, because this underwater tunnel, blocked by ice, wasn't easy to navigate.
I thought that Captain Nemo, by changing his course, would either turn around these obstacles or follow the turns of the tunnel.
In any case, the road ahead couldn't be completely blocked.
But, opposite to what I expected, the Nautilus started moving backward.
"We're going backward?" said Conseil.
"Yes," I replied.
"This end of the tunnel has no way out."
"And then?"
"Then," I said, "the operation is easy. We have to go back again and go out at the southern opening. That's all."
In speaking like this, I wanted to seem more confident than I really was.
But the backward movement of the Nautilus was increasing.
And, reversing the propeller, it carried us at great speed.
"This will be a delay," said Ned.
"What does it matter, a few hours more or less, as long as we get out at last?"
"Yes," repeated Ned Land.
"As long as we do get out at last!"
For a short time, I walked from the saloon to the library.
My companions were silent, I soon threw myself on a sofa and took a book, which my eyes scanned without thinking.
A quarter of an hour later, Conseil came near me and said, "Is what you're reading very interesting, sir?"
"Very interesting!" I replied.
"I should think so, sir. It's your own book you're reading."
"My book?"
And indeed, I was holding in my hand the work on the Great Submarine Depths.
I hadn't even noticed it, I closed the book and went back to my walk.
Ned and Conseil got up to leave.
"Stay here, my friends," I said, stopping them.
"Let's stay together until we're out of this block."
"As you wish, sir," Conseil replied.
Some hours passed, I often looked at the instruments hanging from the wall.
The pressure gauge showed that the Nautilus kept at a constant depth of more than three hundred yards, the compass still pointed south.
The speed indicator showed a speed of twenty miles an hour, which, in such a tight space, was very fast.
But Captain Nemo knew that he couldn't hurry too much, and that minutes were worth ages to us.
At twenty-five minutes past eight, a second shock happened, this time from behind.
I turned pale, My companions were close beside me.
I grabbed Conseil's hand, Our looks expressed our feelings better than words.
At that moment, the Captain entered the saloon, I went up to him.
"Our way is blocked to the south?" I asked.
"Yes, sir. The iceberg has shifted and closed every exit."
"So we're trapped?"
"Yes."