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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Chapter 7. AN UNKNOWN SPECIES OF WHALE
This unexpected fall stunned me so much that I have no clear memory of my feelings at the time.
I was first pulled down to a depth of about twenty feet.
I'm a good swimmer, though I would not pretend to be as good as Byron or Edgar Poe, who were masters of art.
In that fall I didn't lose my presence of mind.
Two strong strokes brought me to the surface of the water.
My first concern was to look for the frigate.
Had the crew seen me disappear? Had the Abraham Lincoln turned around?
Would the captain send out a boat? Could I hope to be saved?
The darkness was intense, I caught a glimpse of a black mass disappearing in the east, its lights dying out in the distance.
It was the frigate! I was lost.
"Help, help!" I shouted, swimming towards the Abraham Lincoln in desperation.
My clothes weighed me down, they seemed stuck to my body and stopped my movements.
I was sinking and suffocating, cold water filling my mouth and choking my chest.
"Help!"
This was my last cry, My mouth filled with water.
I struggled against being pulled down into the deep.
A strong hand grabbed my clothes, I felt myself pulled up to the sea's surface.
Then I heard words spoken in my ear.
"If master would lean on my shoulder, master would swim much easier."
I grabbed my faithful Conseil's arm with one hand.
"Is it you?" I said, "you?"
"Myself," answered Conseil, "and waiting for master's orders."
"Did that shock throw you into the sea as well as me?"
"No, but since I'm in my master's service, I followed him."
The good fellow thought that was only natural.
"And the frigate?" I asked.
"The frigate?" replied Conseil, turning on his back, "I think that master had better not count on her too much."
"You think so?"
"I say that, when I threw myself into the sea, I heard the men at the wheel say, 'The screw and the rudder are broken.'"
"Broken?"
"Yes, broken by the monster's teeth."
"It's the only damage the Abraham Lincoln has suffered."
"But it's a bad situation for us, she no longer responds to her helm."
"Then we're lost!"
"Perhaps so," calmly answered Conseil.
"However, we still have several hours before us, and one can do a lot in some hours."
Conseil's calm coolness lifted my spirits and gave me courage to keep swimming.
I swam more strongly, but, held back by my clothes, which stuck to me like a heavy weight, I had great difficulty staying afloat.
Conseil saw this and calmly noted it without showing any surprise.
"Will master let me make a cut?" he said, and, slipping an open knife under my clothes, he ripped them up from top to bottom very quickly.
Then he cleverly slipped them off me, while I swam for both of us.
Then I did the same for Conseil, and we continued to swim near each other.
Still, our situation was no less terrible.
Maybe our disappearance hadn't been noticed, and if it had been, the frigate couldn't turn, since it had no helm.
Conseil argued on this idea and made his plans accordingly.
This calm young man was completely in control of himself.
We decided that, since our only chance was being picked up by the Abraham Lincoln's boats, we should wait as long as possible.
I decided then to save our strength.
This way, we wouldn't both get tired at the same time.
While one of us lay on our back, completely still, the other would swim and push us forward.
This towing didn't last more than ten minutes each, and by taking turns like this, we could swim on for some hours, maybe until daybreak.
A poor chance! But hope is so firmly rooted in the human heart! Besides, there were two of us.
Indeed I declare, though it may seem unlikely, if I tried to destroy all hope, if I wished to despair, I couldn't.
The crash of the frigate with the whale had happened about eleven o'clock the evening before.
I figured then we'd have eight hours to swim before sunrise, a task quite possible if we took turns.
The sea, very calm, was in our favor.
Sometimes I tried to see through the deep darkness that was only broken by the glow caused by our movements.
I watched the bright waves that broke over my hand, whose mirror-like surface was covered with silver rings.
You might have said that we were in a bath of quicksilver.
Near one o'clock in the morning, I was overcome with terrible tiredness.
My limbs stiffened under the strain of violent cramps.
Conseil had to keep me up, and our survival depended on him alone.
I heard the poor boy breathe heavily, his breathing became short and fast.
I realized that he couldn't keep going much longer.
"Leave me! Leave me!" I said to him.
"Leave my master? Never!" he replied.
"I'd drown first."
Just then the moon appeared through the edges of a thick cloud that the wind was driving to the east.
The surface of the sea shone with its rays.
This kind light revived us, My head cleared again.
I looked at all points of the horizon.
I saw the frigate! She was five miles from us, and looked like a dark mass, hardly visible, but no boats!
I'd have shouted, but what good would it have done at such a distance!
My swollen lips couldn't make any sounds.
Conseil could say some words, and I heard him repeat at intervals, "Help! Help!"
We stopped moving for a moment, we listened.
It might be only a ringing in the ear, but it seemed to me as if a cry answered Conseil's cry.
"Did you hear?" I whispered.
"Yes! Yes!"
And Conseil gave one more desperate call.
This time there was no mistake! A human voice answered ours!
Was it the voice of another poor soul, abandoned in the middle of the ocean, some other victim of the crash that hit the ship?
Or was it a boat from the frigate, calling to us in the darkness?
Conseil made a last effort, leaning on my shoulder while I swam, raised himself half out of the water, then fell back exhausted.
"What did you see?"
"I saw," he whispered, "I saw, but don't talk, save all your strength!"
What had he seen? Then, I don't know why, the thought of the monster came into my head for the first time!
But that voice! The time is past for Jonahs to take shelter in whales' bellies! However, Conseil was towing me again.
He raised his head sometimes, looked ahead of us, and gave a cry of recognition, which was answered by a voice that came closer and closer.
I hardly heard it over the pounding of waves and my failing strength.
My strength was gone, my fingers were stiff, my hand no longer supported me, my mouth, opening uncontrollably, filled with salt water.
Cold crept over me, I raised my head for the last time, then I sank.
At that moment a hard body hit me.
I held onto it, felt myself pulled up to the surface, my chest collapsed, and I fainted.
It's certain that I soon came to, thanks to the strong rubbing that I received, I half opened my eyes.
"Conseil!" I whispered.
"Does master call me?" asked Conseil.
Then, by the moon's fading light, I saw a face that wasn't Conseil's and immediately recognized.
"Ned!" I cried.
"The same, sir, who's looking for his prize!" replied the Canadian.
"Were you thrown into the sea by the crash with the frigate?"
"Yes, Professor, but luckier than you, I was able to find a footing almost right away on a floating island."
"An island?"
"Or, more correctly speaking, on our giant narwhal."
"Explain yourself, Ned!"
"Only I soon found out why my harpoon hadn't gone into its skin and was blunted."
"Why, Ned, why?"
"Because, Professor, that beast is made of sheet iron."
The Canadian's last words caused a sudden change in my brain.
I quickly pulled myself to the top of the being, or object, half out of the water, which served us as a shelter.
I kicked it hard with my boot, testing the metallic surface's stubborn resistance.
It was clearly a hard, solid body, and not the soft substance that forms the bodies of the great sea mammals.
But this hard body could be a bony shell, like that of the ancient animals.
And I could be free to classify this monster among water reptiles, such as turtles or alligators.
Well, no! The blackish back that supported me was smooth, polished, without scales.
The blow made a metallic sound, and incredible as it may be, it seemed, I might say, as if it was made of riveted plates.
There was no doubt about it! This monster had confused the learned world.
It had overturned and misled the imagination of sailors in both hemispheres.
It was an even more astonishing wonder, it was simply a human construction.
We had no time to waste, however.
We were lying on the back of a kind of submarine boat, which appeared, as far as I could judge, like a huge fish of steel.
Ned Land's mind was made up on this point.
Conseil and I could only agree with him.
Just then a bubbling began at the back of this strange thing, which was clearly driven by a screw, and it began to move.
We had barely enough time to grab the upper part, which rose seven feet out of the water, and its speed wasn't great.
"As long as it sails flat," muttered Ned Land, "I don't mind, but if it decides to dive, I wouldn't give two straws for my life."
The Canadian might have said even less.
It became really necessary to communicate with the beings, whatever they were, shut up inside the machine.
I searched all over the outside for an opening.
I looked for a panel or a manhole, to use a technical term.
But the lines of iron rivets were clear and even.
They were firmly driven into the joints of the iron plates.
Besides, the moon disappeared then and left us in total darkness.
At last this long night passed, My unclear memory prevents me from describing all the impressions it made.
I can only recall one thing clearly from that night, a faint, distant song.
During some quiet moments of wind and sea, I thought I heard several times unclear sounds, a kind of passing harmony produced by words of command.
What was then the mystery of this submarine craft, of which the whole world vainly sought an explanation?
What kind of beings lived in this strange boat?
What mechanical power caused its amazing speed?
Daybreak came, the morning mists surrounded us, but they soon cleared off.
I was about to examine the hull, which formed on deck a kind of flat platform, when I felt it slowly sinking.
"Oh! Confound it!" cried Ned Land, kicking the noisy plate.
"Open up, you unfriendly rascals!"
Luckily the sinking stopped, Suddenly a noise, like iron work being pushed aside violently, came from the inside of the boat.
One iron plate was moved, a man appeared, gave a strange cry, and disappeared right away.
Some moments later, eight strong men, with masked faces, appeared silently and pulled us down into their terrifying machine.