Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

by Marie Sexton

They’ve existed for two-thousand or three-thousand years, and I mix them up in my mind.

  The masters are ageless.”

  “What about these composers?” I said, pointing to sheet music by Weber, Rossini, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Meyerbeer, Hérold, Wagner, Auber, Gounod, Victor Massé, and a number of others scattered over a full size piano-organ, which occupied one of the wall panels in this lounge.

  “These composers,” Captain Nemo answered me, “are the contemporaries of Orpheus, because in the annals of the dead, all chronological differences fade, and I’m dead, Professor, quite as dead as those friends of yours sleeping six feet under.”

  Captain Nemo fell silent and seemed lost in reverie. I regarded him with intense excitement, silently analysing his strange facial expression. Leaning his elbow on the corner of a valuable mosaic table, he no longer saw me, he had forgotten my very presence.

  I didn’t disturb his meditations but continued to pass in review the curiosities that enriched this lounge.

  After the works of art, natural rarities predominated. They consisted chiefly of plants, shells, and other exhibits from the ocean that must have been Captain Nemo’s own personal finds. In the middle of the lounge, a jet of water, electrically lit, fell back into a basin made from a single giant clam. The delicately festooned rim of this shell, supplied by the biggest mollusc in the class Acephala, measured about six metres in circumference, so it was even bigger than those fine giant clams given to King François I by the Republic of Venice, and which the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris has made into two gigantic holy-water fonts.

  Around this basin, inside elegant glass cases fastened with copper bands, there were classified and labelled the most valuable marine exhibits ever put before the eyes of a naturalist. My professorial glee may easily be imagined.

  An excitable conchologist would surely have fainted dead away before other, more numerous glass cases in which were classified specimens from the mollusc branch. There I saw a collection of incalculable value that I haven’t time to describe completely.

  Aside and in special compartments, strings of supremely beautiful pearls were spread out, the electric light flecking them with little fiery sparks—pink pearls pulled from saltwater fan shells in the Red Sea, green pearls from the rainbow abalone, yellow, blue, and black pearls, the unusual handiwork of various molluscs from every ocean and of certain mussels from rivers up north—in short, several specimens of incalculable worth that had been oozed by the rarest of shellfish. Some of these pearls were bigger than a pigeon egg—they more than equalled the one that the explorer Tavernier sold the Shah of Persia for three-million francs, and they surpassed that other pearl owned by the Imam of Muscat, which I had believed to be unrivalled in the entire world.

  Consequently, to calculate the value of this collection was, I should say, impossible.

  Captain Nemo must have spent millions in acquiring these different specimens, and I was wondering what financial resources he tapped to satisfy his collector’s fancies, when these words interrupted me, “You’re examining my shells, Professor? They’re indeed able to fascinate a naturalist, but for me they have an added charm, since I’ve collected every one of them with my own two hands, and not a sea on the globe has escaped my investigations.”

  “I understand, Captain, I understand your delight at strolling in the midst of this wealth. You’re a man who gathers his treasure in person. No museum in Europe owns such a collection of exhibits from the ocean. But if I exhaust all my wonderment on them, I’ll have nothing left for the ship that carries them. I have absolutely no wish to probe those secrets of yours. But I confess that my curiosity is aroused to the limit by this Nautilus, the motor power it contains, the equipment enabling it to operate, the ultra powerful force that brings it to life.

  I see some instruments hanging on the walls of this lounge whose purposes are unknown to me. May I learn—”

  “Professor Aronnax,” Captain Nemo answered me, “I’ve said you’d be free aboard my vessel, so no part of the Nautilus is off-limits to you. You may inspect it in detail, and I’ll be delighted to act as your guide.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you, sir, but I won’t abuse your good nature. I would only ask you about the uses intended for these instruments of physical measure—”

  “Professor, these same instruments are found in my stateroom, where I’ll have the pleasure of explaining their functions to you. But beforehand, come inspect the cabin set aside for you. You need to learn how you’ll be lodged aboard the Nautilus.”

  I followed Captain Nemo, who, via one of the doors cut into the lounge’s canted corners, led me back down the ship’s gangways. He took me to the bow, and there I found not just a cabin but an elegant stateroom with a bed, a washstand, and various other furnishings.

  I could only thank my host.

  “Your stateroom adjoins mine,” he told me, opening a door, “and mine leads into that lounge we’ve just left.”

  I entered the captain’s stateroom. It had an austere, almost monastic appearance. An iron bedstead, a worktable, some washstand fixtures. Subdued lighting. No luxuries. Just the bare necessities.

  Captain Nemo showed me to a bench.

  “Kindly be seated,” he told me.

  I sat, and he began speaking as follows:

  Chapter Twelve

  Everything through Electricity

  “Sir,” Captain Nemo said, showing me the instruments hanging on the walls of his stateroom, “these are the devices needed to navigate the Nautilus. Here, as in the lounge, I always have them before my eyes, and they indicate my position and exact heading in the midst of the ocean.”

  I was familiar with most of the instruments—thermometer, barometer, and humidistat.

  A storm glass to foretell the arrival of tempests. A compass, a sextant, wand several chronometers. There were also spyglasses for both day and night, and a pressure gage. There were some, however, that I didn’t recognise.

  “And these other instruments?” I asked

  “Here, Professor. First, I need to give you some background information, so kindly hear me out.”

  He fell silent for some moments, then he said, “There’s a powerful, obedient, swift, and effortless force that can be bent to any use and which reigns supreme aboard my vessel. It does everything. It lights me, it warms me, it is the soul of my mechanical equipment. This force is electricity.”

  “Electricity?” I exclaimed in some surprise.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But how?”

  “At the bottom of the sea there exist veins of zinc, iron, silver, and gold whose mining would quite certainly be feasible. But I’ve tapped none of these land-based metals, and I wanted to make demands only on the sea itself for the sources of my electricity.”

  “The sea itself?”

  “Yes, Professor, and there was no shortage of such sources. In fact, by establishing a circuit between two wires immersed to different depths, I’d be able to obtain electricity through the diverging temperatures they experience, but I preferred to use a more practical procedure.”

  “And that is?”

  “I use coal from the ocean’s floor to extract sodium from salt water, and with this, I compose my electric cells.”

  “And you can mine these veins of underwater coal?”

  “You’ll watch me work them, Professor Aronnax.” He gestured around him, at the wonders of the Nautilus. “I owe everything to the ocean, it generates electricity, and electricity gives us heat, light, and motion. In a word, life itself.”

  “But not the air you breathe?”

  “Oh, I could produce the air needed on board, but it would be pointless, since I can rise to the surface of the sea whenever I like. However, even though electricity doesn’t supply me with breathable air, it at least operates the powerful pumps that store it under pressure in special tanks, which, if need be, allows me to extend my stay in the lower strata for as long as I want.”

  “And it propel
s the Nautilus?”

  “It does.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking sir, how fast can the Nautilus travel?”

  “We can attain a speed of fifty miles per hour.”

  I was amazed. “Captain,” I replied, “I’ll rest content with marvelling. You’ve obviously found what all mankind will surely find one day, the true dynamic power of electricity.”

  “I’m not so certain they’ll find it,” Captain Nemo replied icily. “But be that as it may, you’re already familiar with the first use I’ve found for this valuable force. It lights us, and with a uniformity and continuity not even possessed by sunlight.”

  “It’s perfect,” I conceded.

  “Would you like to see more?”

  I could not contain my enthusiasm. “Absolutely, sir!”

  “Then if you’d care to follow me, we’ll inspect the Nautilus’s stern.”

  I was already familiar with the whole forward part of this underwater boat, and here are its exact subdivisions going from amidships to its spur. The dining room, five metres long and separated from the library by a watertight bulkhead, the library, five metres long, the main lounge, ten metres long, separated from the captain’s stateroom by a second watertight bulkhead, the aforesaid stateroom, five metres long, mine, two-point-five metres long, and finally, air tanks seven-point-five metres long and extending to the stempost. Total, a length of thirty-five metres. Doors were cut into the watertight bulkheads and were shut hermetically by means of india-rubber seals, which insured complete safety aboard the Nautilus in the event of a leak in any one section.

  I followed Captain Nemo down gangways located for easy transit, and I arrived amidships. There I found a sort of shaft heading upward between two watertight bulkheads.

  An iron ladder, clamped to the wall, led to the shaft’s upper end. I asked the Captain what this ladder was for.

  “It goes to the skiff,” he replied.

  “What? You have a skiff?” I replied in some astonishment.

  “Surely. An excellent longboat, light and unsinkable, which is used for excursions and fishing trips.”

  We continued on. After passing the well of the companionway that led to the platform, I saw a cabin two metres long in which Conseil and Ned Land, enraptured with their meal, were busy devouring it to the last crumb. Ned winked at me as I passed, but went quickly back to his meal. I would have loved to have him with me for this amazing tour, but I knew he was far more interested in eating than sightseeing.

  Then a door opened into the galley, three metres long and located between the vessel’s huge storage lockers. There, even more powerful and obedient than gas, electricity did most of the cooking and heated a distilling mechanism that, via evaporation, supplied excellent drinking water. Next to this galley was a bathroom, conveniently laid out, with faucets supplying hot or cold water at will.

  After the galley came the crew’s quarters, five metres long. But the door was closed and I couldn’t see its accommodations, which might have told me the number of men it took to operate the Nautilus.

  At the far end stood a fourth watertight bulkhead, separating the crew’s quarters from the engine room. A door opened, and I stood in the compartment where Captain Nemo, indisputably a world-class engineer, had set up his locomotive equipment.

  “And now you’ve seen as much of the Nautilus as I’ll allow,” the Captain said, “but since you’ll never leave this underwater boat, come into the lounge and I’ll tell you a bit about the Nautilus.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Some Figures

  A moment later we were seated on a couch, cigars between our lips. The Captain placed before my eyes a working drawing that gave the ground plan, cross section, and side view of the Nautilus.

  “Here, Professor Aronnax, are the different dimensions of this boat now transporting you. It’s a very long cylinder with conical ends. It noticeably takes the shape of a cigar. The length of this cylinder from end to end is exactly seventy metres, and its maximum breadth of beam is eight metres.

  “The Nautilus is made up of two hulls, one inside the other, both made of boilerplate steel. Between them, joining them together, are iron T-bars that give this ship the utmost rigidity. In fact, thanks to this cellular arrangement, it has the resistance of a stone block, as if it were completely solid. Its plating can’t give way, it’s self-adhering and not dependent on the tightness of its rivets, and due to the perfect union of its materials, the solidarity of its construction allows it to defy the most violent seas. When the Nautilus surfaces, one-tenth of it does emerge above water.”

  “How is this achieved?” I asked in wonderment.

  “I use ballast tanks.”

  “Where are the tanks? They must be near the belly of the vessel?”

  “Indeed. They’re in the lower reaches of the Nautilus. I open some stopcocks, the tanks fill, and the boat sinks. I also have supplementary ballast tanks which allow me to descend to considerable depths. When I want to rise again and lie flush with the surface, all I have to do is expel that water, and if I desire that the Nautilus emerge above the waves to one-tenth of its total capacity, I empty all the ballast tanks completely.”

  “When you’re at a depth of one-thousand metres, the Nautilus’s plating must bear a pressure of nearly one-hundred atmospheres. If at this point you want to empty the ballast tanks in order to lighten your boat and rise to the surface, your pumps must overcome that pressure of one-hundred atmospheres, which is one-hundred kilograms per each square centimetre. This demands a strength—”

  “That electricity alone can give me,” Captain Nemo said swiftly. “Sir, I repeat—the dynamic power of my engines is nearly infinite. The Nautilus’s pumps have prodigious strength, as you must have noticed when their waterspouts swept like a torrent over the Abraham Lincoln. Besides, I use my supplementary ballast tanks only to reach an average depth of one-thousand five-hundred to two-thousand metres, and that with a view to conserving my machinery. Accordingly, when I have a mind to visit the ocean depths two or three vertical leagues beneath the surface, I use manoeuvres that are more time-consuming but no less infallible.”

  “It’s truly a marvel,” I exclaimed. “But in the midst of the waters, how can your helmsman follow the course you’ve given him?”

  “My helmsman is stationed behind the windows of a pilothouse, which protrudes from the topside of the Nautilus’s hull and is fitted with biconvex glass.”

  “Is glass capable of resisting such pressures?”

  “Perfectly capable. Though fragile on impact, crystal can still offer considerable resistance. I use glass windows measuring no less than twenty-one centimetres at their centres.

  “Fair enough, Captain, but if we’re going to see, we need light to drive away the dark, and in the midst of the murky waters, I wonder how your helmsman can—”

  “Set astern of the pilothouse is a powerful electric reflector whose rays light up the sea for a distance of half a mile.”

  “Oh, bravo. Bravo three times over, Captain. That explains the phosphorescent glow from this so-called narwhale that so puzzled us scientists. Pertinent to this, I’ll ask you if the Nautilus’s running afoul of the Scotia, which caused such a great uproar, was the result of an accidental encounter?”

  “Entirely accidental, sir. I was navigating two metres beneath the surface of the water when the collision occurred. However, I could see that it had no dire consequences.”

  “None, sir. But as for your encounter with the Abraham Lincoln…?”

  “Professor, that troubled me, because it’s one of the best ships in the gallant American navy, but they attacked me and I had to defend myself. All the same, I was content simply to put the frigate in a condition where it could do me no harm, it won’t have any difficulty getting repairs at the nearest port.”

  “Ah, Commander,” I exclaimed with conviction, “your Nautilus is truly a marvellous boat.”

  “Yes, Professor,” Captain Nemo replied with genuine excitem
ent, “and I love it as if it were my own flesh and blood. Aboard a conventional ship, facing the ocean’s perils, danger lurks everywhere, on the surface of the sea, your chief sensation is the constant feeling of an underlying chasm, as the Dutchman Jansen so aptly put it, but below the waves aboard the Nautilus, your heart never fails you. There are no structural deformities to worry about, no rigging to be worn out by rolling and pitching on the waves, no sails for the wind to carry off, no boilers for steam to burst open. No fires to fear, because this submersible is made of sheet iron not wood, no coal to run out of, since electricity is its mechanical force, no collisions to fear, because it navigates the watery deep all by itself. No storms to brave, because just a few metres beneath the waves, it finds absolute tranquillity. There, sir. There’s the ideal ship. And if it’s true that the engineer has more confidence in a craft than the builder, and the builder more than the captain himself, you can understand the utter abandon with which I place my trust in this Nautilus, since I’m its captain, builder, and engineer all in one.”

  Captain Nemo spoke with winning eloquence. The fire in his eyes and the passion in his gestures transfigured him. Yes, he loved his ship the same way a father loves his child.

  But one question, perhaps indiscreet, naturally popped up, and I couldn’t resist asking it.

  “You’re an engineer, then, Captain Nemo?”

  “Yes, Professor,” he answered me. “I studied in London, Paris, and New York back in the days when I was a resident of the Earth’s continents.”

  “But how were you able to build this wonderful Nautilus in secret?”

  “Each part of it, Professor Aronnax, came from a different spot on the globe and reached me at a cover address. I set up my workshops on a deserted islet in midocean.”

  “I assume that such a boat costs a fortune?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re rich, then?”

  “Infinitely rich, sir, and without any trouble, I could pay off the ten-billion-franc French national debt.”

  I gaped at the bizarre individual who had just spoken these words. Was he playing on my credulity? Time would tell.