Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (20 page)

However, on the 26th, appeased by some presents, and understanding that they had no reprisals to fear, they led M. Jacquireot to the scene of the wreck.

There, in three or four fathoms of water, between the reefs of Pacou and Vanou, lay anchors, cannons, pigs of lead and iron, imbedded in the limy concretions. The large boat and the whaler belonging to the
Astrolabe
were sent to this place, and, not without some difficulty, their crews hauled up an anchor weighing 1,800 pounds, a brass gun, some pigs of iron, and two copper swivel-guns.

Dumont d’Urville, questioning the natives, learned, too, that La Perouse, after losing both his vessels on the reefs of this island, had constructed a smaller boat, only to be lost a second time. Where? No one knew.

But the French government, fearing that Dumont d’Urville was not acquainted with Dillon’s movements, had sent the sloop
Bayonnaise,
commanded by Legoarant de Tromelin, to Vanikoro, which had been stationed on the west coast of America. The
Bayonnaise
cast her anchor before Vanikoro some months after the departure of the
Astrolabe,
but found no new document; but stated that the savages had respected the monument to La Perouse. That is the substance of what I told to Captain Nemo.

“So,” he said, “no one knows now where the third vessel perished that was constructed by the castaways on the island of Vanikoro?”

“No one knows.”

Captain Nemo said nothing, but signed to me to follow him into the large saloon. The
Nautilus
sank several yards below the waves, and the panels were opened.

I hastened to the aperture, and under the crustations of coral, covered with fungi, syphonules, alcyons, madrepores, through myriads of charming fish—girelles, glyphisidri, pompherides, diacopes, and holocentres—I recognized certain debris that the drags had not been able to tear up: iron stirrups, anchors, cannons, bullets, capstan-fittings, the stem of a ship—all objects clearly proving the wreck of some vessel, and now carpeted with living flowers.

While I was looking on this desolate scene, Captain Nemo said, in a sad voice:

“Commander La Perouse set out December 7, 1785, with his vessels
La Boussole
and the
Astrolabe.
He first cast anchor at Botany Bay, visited the Friendly Isles, New Caledonia, then directed his course toward Santa Cruz, and put into Namouka, one of the Hapaï group. Then his vessel struck on the unknown reefs of Vanikoro. The
Boussole,
which went first, ran aground on the southerly coast. The Astrolabe went to its help, and ran aground too. The first vessel was destroyed almost immediately. The second, stranded under the wind, resisted some days. The natives made the castaways welcome. They installed themselves in the island, and constructed a smaller boat with the debris of the two large ones. Some sailors stayed willingly at Vanikoro; the others, weak and ill, set out with La Perouse. They directed their course toward the Solomon Isles, and there perished, with everything, on the westerly coast of the chief island of the group, between Capes Deception and Satisfaction.”

“How do you know that?”

“By this, that I found on the spot where was the last wreck.”

Captain Nemo showed me a tin-plate box, stamped with the French arms, and corroded by the salt water. He opened it, and I saw a bundle of papers, yellow but still readable.

They were the instructions of the naval minister to Commander La Perouse, annotated in the margin in Louis XVI’s handwriting.

“Ah! it is a fine death for a sailor!” said Captain Nemo, at last. “A coral tomb makes a quiet grave; and I trust that I and my comrades will find no other.”

DURING THE NIGHT OF the 27th or 28th of December, the
Nautilus
left the shores of Vanikoro with great speed. Her course was south-westerly, and in three days she had gone over the 750 leagues that separated it from La Perouse’s group and the southeast point of Papua.

Early on the 1st of January, 1863, Conseil joined me on the platform.

“Master, will you permit me to wish you a happy new year?”

“What! Conseil; exactly as if I was at Paris in my study at the Jardin des Plantes? Well, I accept your good wishes, and thank you for them. Only, I will ask you what you mean by a ‘happy new year,’ under our circumstances? Do you mean the year that will bring us to the end of our imprisonment, or the year that sees us continue this strange voyage?”

“Really, I do not know how to answer, master. We are sure to see curious things, and for the last two months we have not had time for
ennui.
The last marvel is always the most astonishing; and if we continue this progression, I do not know how it will end. It is my opinion that we shall never again see the like. I think, then, with no offense to master, that a happy year would be one in which we could see everything.”

On January 2, we had made 11,340 miles, or 5,250 French leagues, since our starting-point in the Japan seas. Before the ship’s head stretched the dangerous shores of the coral sea, on the northeast coast of Australia. Our boat lay along some miles from the redoubtable bank on which Cook’s vessel was lost, June 10, 1770. The boat in which Cook was struck on a rock, and if it did not sink, it was owing to a piece of the coral that was broken by the shock, and fixed itself in the broken keel.

I had wished to visit the reef, 360 leagues long, against which the sea, always rough, broke with great violence, with a noise like thunder. But just then the inclined planes drew the
Nautilus
down to a great depth, and I could see nothing of the high coral walls. I had to content myself with the different specimens of fish brought up by the nets. I remarked, among others, some germons, a species of mackerel as large as a tunny, with bluish sides, and striped with transverse bands, that disappear with the animal’s life. These fish followed us in shoals, and furnished us with very delicate food. We took also a large number of giltheads, about one and a half inches long, tasting like dorys; and flying pyrapeds like submarine swallows, which, in dark nights, light alternately the air and water with their phosphorescent light. Among the mollusks and zoöphytes, I found in the meshes of the net several species of alcyonarians, echini, hammers, spurs, dials, cerites, and hyalleæ. The flora was represented by beautiful floating seaweeds, laminariæ, and macrocystes, impregnated with the mucilage that transudes through their pores; and among which I gathered an admirable
Nemastoma Geliniarois,
that was classed among the natural curiosities of the museum.

Two days after crossing the coral sea, January 4, we sighted the Papuan coasts. On this occasion, Captain Nemo informed me that his intention was to get into the Indian Ocean by the Strait of Torres.
^as
His communication ended there.

The Torres Straits are nearly thirty-four leagues wide; but they are obstructed by an innumerable quantity of islands, islets, breakers, and rocks, that make its navigation almost impracticable, so that Captain Nemo took all needful precautions to cross them. The
Nautilus,
floating betwixt wind and water, went at a moderate pace. Her screw, like a cetacean’s tail, beat the waves slowly.

Profiting by this, I and my two companions went up on to the deserted platform. Before us was the steersman’s cage, and I expected that Captain Nemo was there directing the course of the
Nautilus.
I had before me the excellent charts of the Strait of Torres, made out by the hydrographical engineer Vincendon Dumoulin. These and Captain King’s are the best charts that clear the intricacies of this strait, and I consulted them attentively. Round the
Nautilus
the sea dashed furiously. The course of the waves, that went from southeast to northwest at the rate of two and a half miles, broke on the coral that showed itself here and there.

“This is a bad sea!” remarked Ned Land.

“Detestable indeed, and one that does not suit a boat like the
Nautilus.
”

“The captain must be very sure of his route, for I see there pieces of coral that would do for its keel if it only touched them slightly.”

Indeed the situation was dangerous, but the
Nautilus
seemed to slide like magic off these rocks. It did not follow the routes of the
Astrolabe
and the
Boussole
exactly, for they proved fatal to Dumont d’Urville. It bore more northward, coasted the island of Murray, and came back to the southwest toward Cumberland Passage. I thought it was going to pass it by, when, going back to northwest, it went through a large quantity of islands and islets little known, toward the Island Sound and Canal Mauvais.

I wondered if Captain Nemo, foolishly imprudent, would steer his vessel into that pass where Dumont d’Urville’s two corvettes touched; when, swerving again, and cutting straight through to the west, he steered for the island of Gilboa.

It was then three in the afternoon. The tide began to recede, being quite full. The
Nautilus
approached the island, that I still saw, with its remarkable border of screw-pines. He stood off it at about two miles distant. Suddenly a shock overthrew me. The
Nautilus
just touched a rock, and stayed immovable, laying lightly to port side.

When I rose, I perceived Captain Nemo and his lieutenant on the platform. They were examining the situation of the vessel, and exchanging words in their incomprehensible dialect.

She was situated thus: two miles, on the starboard side, appeared Gilboa, stretching from north to west like an immense arm; toward the south and east some coral showed itself, left by the ebb. We had run aground, and in one of those seas where the tides are middling—a sorry matter for the floating of the
Nautilus.
However, the vessel had not suffered, for her keel was solidly joined. But if she could neither glide off nor move, she ran the risk of being forever fastened to these rocks, and then Captain Nemo’s submarine vessel would be done for.

I was reflecting thus, when the captain, cool and calm, always master of himself, approached me.

“An accident?” I asked.

“No; an incident.”

“But an incident that will oblige you perhaps to become an inhabitant of this land from which you flee?”

Captain Nemo looked at me curiously, and made a negative gesture, as much as to say that nothing would force him to set foot on
terra firma
again. Then he said:

“Besides, M. Aronnax, the
Nautilus
is not lost; it will carry you yet into the midst of the marvels of the ocean. Our voyage is only begun, and I do not wish to be deprived so soon of the honor of your company.”

“However, Captain Nemo,” I replied, without noticing the ironical turn of his phrase, “the
Nautilus
ran aground in open sea. Now the tides are not strong in the Pacific; and if you cannot lighten the
Nautilus,
I do not see how it will be reinflated.”

“The tides are not strong in the Pacific: you are right there, professor; but in Torres Straits, one finds still a difference of a yard and a half between the level of high and low seas. To-day is January 4, and in five days the moon will be full. Now, I shall be very much astonished if that complaisant satellite does not raise these masses of water sufficiently, and render me a service that I should be indebted to her for.”

Having said this Captain Nemo, followed by his lieutenant, re-descended to the interior of the
Nautilus.
As to the vessel, it moved not, and was immovable, as if the coralline polypi had already walled it up with their indestructible cement.

“Well, sir?” said Ned Land, who came up to me after the departure of the captain.

“Well, friend Ned, we will wait patiently for the tide on the 9th instant; for it appears that the moon will have the goodness to put it off again.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And this captain is not going to cast anchor at all, since the tide will suffice?” said Conseil simply.

The Canadian looked at Conseil, then shrugged his shoulders.

“Sir, you may believe me when I tell you that this piece of iron will navigate neither on nor under the sea again; it is only fit to be sold for its weight. I think, therefore, that the time has come to part company with Captain Nemo.”

“Friend Ned, I do not despair of this stout
Nautilus,
as you do; and in four days we shall know what to hold to on the Pacific tides. Besides, flight might be possible if we were in sight of the English or Provençal coasts; but on the Papuan shores, it is another thing; and it will be time enough to come to that extremity if the
Nautilus
does not recover itself again, which I look upon as a grave event.”

“But do they know, at least, how to act circumspectly? There is an island; on that island there are trees; under those trees, terrestrial animals, bearers of cutlets and roast-beef, to which I would willingly give a trial.”

“In this, friend Ned is right,” said Conseil, “and I agree with him. Could not master obtain permission from his friend Captain Nemo to put us on land, if only so as not to lose the habit of treading on the solid parts of our planet?”

“I can ask him, but he will refuse.”

“Will master risk it?” asked Conseil. “And we shall know how to rely upon the captain’s amiability.”

To my great surprise Captain Nemo gave me the permission I asked for, and he gave it very agreeably, without even exacting from me a promise to return to the vessel; but flight across New Guinea might be very perilous, and I should not have counseled Ned Land to attempt it. Better to be a prisoner on board the
Nautilus
than to fall into the hands of the natives.

At eight o’clock, armed with guns and hatchets, we got off the
Nautilus.
The sea was pretty calm; a slight breeze blew on land. Conseil and I rowing, we sped along quickly, and Ned steered in the straight passage that the breakers left between them. The boat was well handled, and moved rapidly.