by Marie Sexton
“Curse the beast!” Commander Farragut shouted.
The hunt was on again, and Commander Farragut leaned over to me, saying, “I’ll chase that animal till my frigate explodes!”
“Yes,” I replied, “and nobody would blame you!”
We could still hope that the animal would tire out and not be as insensitive to exhaustion as our steam engines. But no such luck. Hour after hour went by without it showing the least sign of weariness.
However, to the Abraham Lincoln’s credit, it must be said that we struggled on with tireless persistence. I estimate that we covered a distance of at least five-hundred kilometres during this ill-fated day of November 6. But night fell and wrapped the surging ocean in its shadows.
By then I thought our expedition had come to an end, that we would never see this fantastic animal again. I was mistaken.
At 10:50 in the evening, that electric light reappeared three miles to windward of the frigate, just as clear and intense as the night before.
The narwhale seemed motionless. Was it asleep perhaps, weary from its workday, just riding with the waves? This was our chance, and Commander Farragut was determined to take full advantage of it.
He gave his orders. The Abraham Lincoln stayed at half steam, advancing cautiously so as not to awaken its adversary. In midocean it’s not unusual to encounter whales so sound asleep they can successfully be attacked, and Ned Land had harpooned more than one in its slumber. The Canadian went to resume his post on the bobstays under the bowsprit.
The frigate approached without making a sound, stopped two cable lengths from the animal and coasted. Not a soul breathed on board. A profound silence reigned over the deck.
We were not one-hundred feet from the blazing core of light, whose glow grew stronger and dazzled the eyes.
Just then, leaning over the forecastle railing, I saw Ned Land below me, one hand grasping the martingale, the other brandishing his dreadful harpoon. Barely twenty feet separated him from the motionless animal.
All at once his arm shot forward and the harpoon was launched. I heard the weapon collide resonantly, as if it had hit some hard substance.
The electric light suddenly went out, and two enormous waterspouts crashed onto the deck of the frigate, racing like a torrent from stem to stern, toppling crewmen, breaking spare masts and yardarms from their lashings.
A hideous collision occurred, and thrown over the rail with no time to catch hold of it, I was hurled into the sea.
Chapter Seven
A Whale of Unknown Species
Although I was startled by this unexpected descent, I at least have a very clear recollection of my sensations during it.
At first I was dragged about twenty feet under. I’m a good swimmer, without claiming to equal such other authors as Byron and Edgar Allan Poe, who were master divers, and I didn’t lose my head on the way down. With two vigorous kicks of the heel, I came back to the surface of the sea.
My first concern was to look for the frigate. Had the crew seen me go overboard? Was the Abraham Lincoln tacking about? Would Commander Farragut put a longboat to sea?
Could I hope to be rescued?
The gloom was profound. I glimpsed a black mass disappearing eastward, where its running lights were fading out in the distance. It was the frigate. I felt I was done for.
“Help! Help!” I shouted, swimming desperately towards the Abraham Lincoln.
My clothes were weighing me down. The water glued them to my body, they were paralysing my movements. I was sinking! I was suffocating…!
“Help!”
This was the last shout I gave. My mouth was filling with water. I struggled against being dragged into the depths…
Suddenly my clothes were seized by energetic hands, I felt myself pulled abruptly back to the surface of the sea, and yes, I heard these words pronounced in my ear, “If master would oblige me by leaning on my shoulder, master will swim with much greater ease.”
With one hand I seized the arm of my loyal Conseil.
“You!” I said. “You!”
“Myself,” Conseil replied, “and at master’s command.”
“That collision threw you overboard along with me?”
“Not at all. But being in master’s employ, I followed master.”
The fine lad thought this only natural.
“What about the frigate?” I asked.
“The frigate?” Conseil replied, rolling over on his back. “I think master had best not depend on it to any great extent!”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that just as I jumped overboard, I heard the men at the helm shout, ‘Our propeller and rudder are smashed’!”
“Smashed?”
“Yes, smashed by the monster’s tusk! I believe it’s the sole injury the Abraham Lincoln has sustained. But most inconveniently for us, the ship can no longer steer.”
“Then we’re done for!”
“Perhaps,” Conseil replied serenely. “However, we still have a few hours before us, and in a few hours one can do a great many things.”
Conseil’s unflappable composure cheered me up. I swam more vigorously, but hampered by clothes that were as restricting as a cloak made of lead, I was managing with only the greatest difficulty. Conseil noticed as much.
“Master will allow me to make an incision,” he said.
And he slipped an open clasp knife under my clothes, slitting them from top to bottom with one swift stroke. Then he briskly undressed me while I swam for us both.
I then did Conseil the same favour, and we continued to ‘navigate’ side by side.
But our circumstances were no less dreadful. Perhaps they hadn’t seen us go overboard, and even if they had, the frigate—being undone by its rudder—couldn’t return to leeward after us. So we could count only on its longboats.
Conseil had coolly reasoned out this hypothesis and laid his plans accordingly. An amazing character, this boy, in midocean, this stoic lad seemed right at home.
So, having concluded that our sole chance for salvation lay in being picked up by the Abraham Lincoln’s longboats, we had to take steps to wait for them as long as possible.
Consequently, I decided to divide our energies so we wouldn’t both be worn out at the same time, and this was the arrangement—while one of us lay on his back, staying motionless with arms crossed and legs outstretched, the other would swim and propel his partner forward.
This towing role was to last no longer than ten minutes, and by relieving each other in this way, we could stay afloat for hours, perhaps even until daybreak.
Slim chance, but hope springs eternal in the human breast. Besides, there were two of us. Lastly, I can vouch—as improbable as it seems—that even if I had wanted to destroy all my illusions, even if I had been willing to ‘give in to despair’, I could not have done so.
The cetacean had rammed our frigate at about eleven o’clock in the evening. I therefore calculated on eight hours of swimming until sunrise. A strenuous task, but feasible, thanks to our relieving each other. The sea was pretty smooth and barely tired us. Sometimes I tried to peer through the dense gloom, which was broken only by the phosphorescent flickers coming from our movements. I stared at the luminous ripples breaking over my hands, shimmering sheets spattered with blotches of bluish grey. It seemed as if we’d plunged into a pool of quicksilver.
Near one o’clock in the morning, I was overcome with tremendous exhaustion. My limbs stiffened in the grip of intense cramps. Conseil had to keep me going, and attending to our self-preservation became his sole responsibility. I soon heard the poor lad gasping, his breathing became shallow and quick. I didn’t think he could stand such exertions for much longer.
“Go on! Go on!” I told him.
“Leave master behind?” he replied. “Never! I’ll drown before he does!”
Just then, past the fringes of a large cloud that the wind was driving eastward, the moon appeared. The surface of the sea glistened under i
ts rays. That kindly light rekindled our strength. I held up my head again. My eyes darted to every point of the horizon. I spotted the frigate. It was five miles from us and formed no more than a dark, barely perceptible mass. But as for longboats, not a one in sight.
I tried to call out. What was the use at such a distance? My swollen lips wouldn’t let a single sound through. Conseil could still articulate a few words, and I heard him repeat at intervals, “Help! Help!”
Ceasing all movement for an instant, we listened. And it may have been a ringing in my ear, from this organ filling with impeded blood, but it seemed to me that Conseil’s shout had received an answer back.
“Did you hear that?” I muttered.
“Yes, yes!”
And Conseil hurled another desperate plea into space.
This time there could be no mistake. A human voice had answered us. Was it the voice of some poor devil left behind in midocean, some other victim of that collision suffered by our ship? Or was it one of the frigate’s longboats, hailing us out of the gloom?
Conseil made one final effort, and bracing his hands on my shoulders, while I offered resistance with one supreme exertion, he raised himself half out of the water, then fell back exhausted.
“What did you see?”
“I saw…” he muttered, “I saw…but we mustn’t talk…save our strength…!”
What had he seen? Then, Lord knows why, the thought of the monster came into my head for the first time. But even so, that voice…? Gone are the days when Jonahs took refuge in the bellies of whales.
Nevertheless, Conseil kept towing me. Sometimes he looked up, stared straight ahead, and shouted a request for directions, which was answered by a voice that was getting closer and closer. I could barely hear it. I was at the end of my strength. My fingers gave out. My hands were no help to me. My mouth opened convulsively, filling with brine. Its coldness ran through me, I raised my head one last time, then I collapsed…
Just then something hard banged against me. I clung to it. Then I felt myself being pulled upwards, back to the surface of the water. My chest caved in, and I fainted.
For certain, I came to quickly, because someone was massaging me so vigorously it left furrows in my flesh. I half opened my eyes…
“Conseil!” I muttered.
“Did master ring for me?” Conseil replied.
Just then, in the last light of a moon settling on the horizon, I spotted a face that wasn’t Conseil’s but which I recognised at once.
“Ned!” I exclaimed.
“In person, sir, and much relieved to find you alive.”
Relief flooded through me. To be so near death, and suddenly plucked from the sea! To find myself in Ned’s arms again, safe, if only for the moment! I was overwhelmed. For some indeterminable amount of time, I could do nothing cling to him, shaking while he soothed me.
“Hush, Professor,” he whispered in my ear as my trembling subsided. “We’re together now.”
I finally recovered my wits enough to ask, “You were thrown overboard after the frigate’s collision?”
“Yes, Professor, but I was luckier than you, and right away I was able to set foot on this floating islet.”
“Islet?”
“Or in other words, on our gigantic narwhale.”
“Explain yourself, Ned.”
“It’s just that I soon realised why my harpoon got blunted and couldn’t puncture its hide.”
“Why, Ned, why?”
“Because, Professor, this beast is made of boilerplate steel!”
At this point in my story, I need to get a grip on myself, reconstruct exactly what I experienced, and make doubly sure of everything I write.
The Canadian’s last words caused a sudden upheaval in my brain. I swiftly hoisted myself to the summit of this half-submerged creature or object that was serving as our refuge. I tested it with my foot. Obviously it was some hard, impenetrable substance, not the soft matter that makes up the bodies of our big marine mammals.
But this hard substance could have been a bony carapace, like those that covered some prehistoric animals, and I might have left it at that and classified this monster among such amphibious reptiles as turtles or alligators.
Well, no. The blackish back supporting me was smooth and polished with no overlapping scales. On impact, it gave off a metallic sonority, and as incredible as this sounds, it seemed, I swear, to be made of riveted plates.
No doubts were possible. This animal, this monster, this natural phenomenon that had puzzled the whole scientific world, that had muddled and misled the minds of seamen in both hemispheres, was, there could be no escaping it, an even more astonishing phenomenon—a phenomenon made by the hand of man.
Even if I had discovered that some fabulous, mythological creature really existed, it wouldn’t have given me such a terrific mental jolt. It’s easy enough to accept that prodigious things can come from our Creator. But to find, all at once, right before your eyes, that the impossible had been mysteriously achieved by man himself, this staggers the mind.
But there was no question now. We were stretched out on the back of some kind of underwater boat that, as far as I could judge, boasted the shape of an immense steel fish. Ned Land had clear views on the issue. Conseil and I could only line up behind him.
“But then,” I said, “does this contraption contain some sort of locomotive mechanism, and a crew to run it?”
“Apparently,” the harpooner replied. “And yet for the three hours I’ve lived on this floating island, it hasn’t shown a sign of life.”
“This boat hasn’t moved at all?”
“No, Professor Aronnax. It just rides with the waves, but otherwise it hasn’t stirred.”
“But we know that it’s certainly gifted with great speed. Now then, since an engine is needed to generate that speed, and a mechanic to run that engine, I conclude we’re saved.”
“Humph!” Ned Land put in, his tone denoting reservations.
Just then, as if to take my side in the argument, a bubbling began astern of this strange submersible—whose drive mechanism was obviously a propeller—and the boat started to move. We barely had time to hang on to its topside, which emerged about eighty centimetres above water. Fortunately its speed was not excessive.
“So long as it navigates horizontally,” Ned Land muttered, “I’ve no complaints. But if it gets the urge to dive, I wouldn’t give $2.00 for my hide.”
The Canadian might have quoted a much lower price. So it was imperative to make contact with whatever beings were confined inside the plating of this machine. I searched its surface for an opening or a hatch, a ‘manhole’, to use the official term, but the lines of rivets had been firmly driven into the sheet-iron joins and were straight and uniform.
Moreover, the moon then disappeared and left us in profound darkness. We had to wait for daylight to find some way of getting inside this underwater boat.
So our salvation lay totally in the hands of the mysterious helmsmen steering this submersible, and if it made a dive, we were done for! But aside from this occurring, I didn’t doubt the possibility of our making contact with them. In fact, if they didn’t produce their own air, they inevitably had to make periodic visits to the surface of the ocean to replenish their oxygen supply. Hence the need for some opening that put the boat’s interior in contact with the atmosphere.
As for any hope of being rescued by Commander Farragut, that had to be renounced completely. We were being swept westward, and I estimate that our comparatively moderate speed reached twelve miles per hour. The propeller churned the waves with mathematical regularity, sometimes emerging above the surface and throwing phosphorescent spray to great heights.
Near four o’clock in the morning, the submersible picked up speed. We could barely cope with this dizzying rush, and the waves battered us at close range. Fortunately Ned’s hands came across a big mooring ring fastened to the topside of this sheet-iron back, and we all held on for dear life.
&n
bsp; Finally this long night was over. My imperfect memories won’t let me recall my every impression of it. A single detail comes back to me. Several times, during various lulls of wind and sea, I thought I heard indistinct sounds, a sort of elusive harmony produced by distant musical chords. What was the secret behind this underwater navigating, whose explanation the whole world had sought in vain? What beings lived inside this strange boat? What mechanical force allowed it to move about with such prodigious speed?
Daylight appeared. The morning mists surrounded us, but they soon broke up. I was about to proceed with a careful examination of the hull, whose topside formed a sort of horizontal platform, when I felt it sinking little by little.
“Oh, damnation!” Ned Land shouted, stamping his foot on the resonant sheet iron.
“Open up there, you antisocial navigators!”
But it was difficult to make yourself heard above the deafening beats of the propeller.
Fortunately this submerging movement stopped.
From inside the boat, there suddenly came noises of iron fastenings pushed roughly aside. One of the steel plates flew up, a man appeared, gave a bizarre yell, and instantly disappeared.
A few moments later, eight strapping fellows appeared silently, their faces like masks, and dragged us down into their fearsome machine.
Chapter Eight
‘Mobilis in Mobili’
This brutally executed capture was carried out with lightning speed. My companions and I had no time to collect ourselves. I don’t know how they felt about being shoved inside this aquatic prison, but as for me, I was shivering all over. With whom were we dealing?
Surely with some new breed of pirates, exploiting the sea after their own fashion.
The narrow hatch had barely closed over me when I was surrounded by profound darkness. Saturated with the outside light, my eyes couldn’t make out a thing. I felt my naked feet clinging to the steps of an iron ladder. Forcibly seized, Ned Land and Conseil were behind me. At the foot of the ladder, a door opened and instantly closed behind us with a loud clang.
We were alone. Where? I couldn’t say, could barely even imagine. All was darkness, but such utter darkness that after several minutes, my eyes were still unable to catch a single one of those hazy gleams that drift through even the blackest nights.
