by Marie Sexton
“Positively, sir.”
“And just for one day, would it displease you to return to your fisherman’s trade and add this cetacean to the list of those you’ve already hunted down?”
“It wouldn’t displease me one bit.”
“All right, you can try your luck.”
“Thank you, sir,” Ned Land replied, his eyes ablaze.
“Only,” the captain went on, “I urge you to aim carefully at this animal, in your own personal interest.”
“Is the dugong dangerous to attack?” I asked, despite the Canadian’s shrug of the shoulders.
“Yes, sometimes,” the captain replied. “These animals have been known to turn on their assailants and capsize their longboats. But with Mr Land that danger isn’t to be feared. His eye is sharp, his arm is sure. If I recommend that he aim carefully at this dugong, it’s because the animal is justly regarded as fine game, and I know Mr Land doesn’t despise a choice morsel.”
“Aha!” the Canadian put in. “This beast offers the added luxury of being good to eat?”
“Yes, Mr Land. Its flesh is actual red meat, highly prized, and set aside throughout Malaysia for the tables of aristocrats. Accordingly, this excellent animal has been hunted so bloodthirstily that, like its manatee relatives, it has become more and more scarce.”
“In that case, Captain,” Conseil said in all seriousness, “on the off chance that this creature might be the last of its line, wouldn’t it be advisable to spare its life, in the interests of science?”
“Maybe,” the Canadian answered, “it would be better to hunt it down, in the interests of mealtime.”
I might have agreed with Conseil were it not for the excitement I saw in my lover’s eyes. I remembered his unsurety the night before. The way he’d laid trembling in my bed. He needed this thing. He had been denied any passion outside my chamber for too long. I was glad when Captain Nemo replied, “Then proceed, Mr Land.”
Just then, as mute and emotionless as ever, seven crewmen climbed onto the platform.
One carried a harpoon and line similar to those used in whale fishing. Its deck panelling opened, the skiff was wrenched from its socket and launched to sea. Six rowers sat on the thwarts, and the coxswain took the tiller. Ned, Conseil, and I found seats in the stern.
“Aren’t you coming, Captain?” I asked.
“No, sir, but I wish you happy hunting.”
The skiff pulled clear, and carried off by its six oars, it headed swiftly towards the dugong, which by then was floating two miles from the Nautilus.
Arriving within a few cable lengths of the cetacean, our longboat slowed down, and the sculls dipped noiselessly into the tranquil waters. Harpoon in hand, Ned Land went to take his stand in the skiff’s bow. Harpoons used for hunting whales are usually attached to a very long rope that pays out quickly when the wounded animal drags it with him. But this rope measured no more than about ten fathoms, and its end had simply been fastened to a small barrel that, while floating, would indicate the dugong’s movements beneath the waters.
I stood up and could clearly observe the Canadian’s adversary. This dugong—which also boasts the name halicore—closely resembled a manatee. Its oblong body ended in a very long caudal fin and its lateral fins in actual fingers. It differs from the manatee in that its upper jaw is armed with two long, pointed teeth that form diverging tusks on either side.
This dugong that Ned Land was preparing to attack was of colossal dimensions, easily exceeding seven metres in length. It didn’t stir and seemed to be sleeping on the surface of the waves, a circumstance that should have made it easier to capture.
The skiff approached cautiously to within three fathoms of the animal. The oars hung suspended above their rowlocks. I was crouching. His body leaning slightly back, Ned Land brandished his harpoon with expert hands.
Suddenly a hissing sound was audible, and the dugong disappeared. Although the harpoon had been forcefully hurled, it apparently had hit only water.
“Damnation,” exclaimed the furious Canadian. “I missed it.”
“No,” I said, “the animal’s wounded, there’s its blood, but your weapon didn’t stick in its body.”
“My harpoon! Get my harpoon,” Ned Land exclaimed.
The sailors went back to their sculling, and the coxswain steered the longboat towards the floating barrel. We fished up the harpoon, and the skiff started off in pursuit of the animal.
The latter returned from time to time to breathe at the surface of the sea. Its wound hadn’t weakened it because it went with tremendous speed. Driven by energetic arms, the longboat flew on its trail. Several times we got within a few fathoms of it, and the Canadian hovered in readiness to strike, but then the dugong would steal away with a sudden dive, and it proved impossible to overtake the beast.
I’ll let you assess the degree of anger consuming our impatient Ned Land. He hurled at the hapless animal the most potent swearwords in the English language. For my part, I was simply distressed to see this dugong outwit our every scheme.
We chased it unflaggingly for a full hour, and I’d begun to think it would prove too difficult to capture, when the animal got the untimely idea of taking revenge on us, a notion it would soon have cause to regret. It wheeled on the skiff, to assault us in its turn.
This manoeuvre did not escape the Canadian.
“Watch out,” he said.
The coxswain pronounced a few words in his bizarre language, and no doubt he alerted his men to keep on their guard.
Arriving within twenty feet of the skiff, the dugong stopped, sharply sniffing the air with its huge nostrils, pierced not at the tip of its muzzle but on its topside. Then it gathered itself and sprang at us.
The skiff couldn’t avoid the collision. Half overturned, it shipped a ton or two of water that we had to bail out. But thanks to our skilful coxswain, we were fouled on the bias rather than broadside, so we didn’t capsize. Clinging to the stempost, Ned Land thrust his harpoon again and again into the gigantic animal, which imbedded its teeth in our gunwale and lifted the longboat out of the water as a lion would lift a deer. We were thrown on top of each other, and I have no idea how the venture would have ended had not the Canadian, still thirsting for the beast’s blood, finally pierced it to the heart.
I heard its teeth grind on sheet iron, and the dugong disappeared, taking our harpoon along with it. But the barrel soon popped up on the surface, and a few moments later the animal’s body appeared and rolled over on its back. Our skiff rejoined it, took it in tow, and headed to the Nautilus.
It took pulleys of great strength to hoist this dugong onto the platform. The beast weighed five-thousand kilograms. It was carved up in sight of the Canadian, who remained to watch every detail of the operation. The pride on his face warmed my heart. At dinner the same day, my steward served us some slices of this flesh, skilfully dressed by the ship’s cook.
I found it excellent, even better than veal if not beef.
More thrilling than the hunt though was what came after. That night, I found myself once again pinned to my mattress, my wrists held tight while Ned fucked me from behind.
My wrists hurt where he held them in his strong hand. I panted and begged as his flesh smacked against mine. My aching cock rubbed against the bed, heightening my pleasure.
The globes of my ass ached from the stinging blows he’d placed there.
It was glorious. I practically sobbed from the pleasure of it as he held me captive, shafting me with a wild abandon that had long been lacking from our nights. Toward the end, his calloused hand wrapped around my cock and he stroked me to my fruition as he found his own release.
Afterward, he pulled me into his arms, where I lay trembling. His lips caressed my neck. His kisses were sweet and gentle. Always, he could go from such violent lust to such gentleness. I was once again reassured that he loved me. Nothing had been lost. I nearly wept with joy.
I love you, I wanted to say, but I knew if I did, I’d burst i
nto tears. I’d never be able to explain why.
But as so often happened, he seemed to sense the weight of my emotions. “Hush Professor,” he soothed. “I am yours, and you are mine.”
“Forever,” I said.
He chuckled as he nuzzled my neck. “Sleep now,” he said, “while you can.”
“While I can?”
“Yes,” he said, sliding his hand down to cup my ass. “There’s a long night ahead of us, and I’m not finished with you yet.”
The next morning, February 11, I found myself sore and aching, but in the most sensual way. My muscles felt too long for my body, my bones too pliant. Each step I took reminded me how well I’d been used. Each time I sat, I winced. But I did so with a smile. My memories of the night before warmed my flesh and sent my blood once again racing through my veins.
Conseil seemed to read the tale of slaked lust in my eyes. He winked at me knowingly, and I blushed. I was happier than I’d ever been.
The Nautilus’s pantry was also enriched by more dainty game that day. A covey of terns alighted on the Nautilus. They were a species of Sterna nilotica unique to Egypt, beak black, head grey and stippled, eyes surrounded by white dots, back, wings, and tail greyish, belly and throat white, feet red. Also caught were a couple dozen Nile duck, superior-tasting wildfowl whose neck and crown of the head are white speckled with black.
By then the Nautilus had reduced speed. It moved ahead at a saunter, so to speak. I observed that the Red Sea’s water was becoming less salty the closer we got to Suez.
Near five o’clock in the afternoon, we sighted Cape Ras Mohammed to the north. This cape forms the tip of Arabia Petraea, which lies between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba.
The Nautilus entered the Strait of Jubal, which leads to the Gulf of Suez. I could clearly make out a high mountain crowning Ras Mohammed between the two gulfs. It was Mt.
Horeb, that biblical Mt. Sinai on whose summit Moses met God face to face, that summit the mind’s eye always pictures as wreathed in lightning.
At six o’clock, sometimes afloat and sometimes submerged, the Nautilus passed well out from El Tur, which sat at the far end of a bay whose waters seemed to be dyed red, as Captain Nemo had already mentioned. Then night fell in the midst of a heavy silence occasionally broken by the calls of pelicans and nocturnal birds, by the sound of surf chafing against rocks, or by the distant moan of a steamer churning the waves of the gulf with noisy blades.
From eight to nine o’clock, the Nautilus stayed a few metres beneath the waters.
According to my calculations, we had to be quite close to Suez. Through the panels in the lounge, I spotted rocky bottoms brightly lit by our electric rays. It seemed to me that the strait was getting narrower and narrower.
At 9:15 when our boat returned to the surface, I climbed onto the platform. I was quite impatient to clear Captain Nemo’s tunnel, couldn’t sit still, and wanted to breathe the fresh night air.
Soon, in the shadows, I spotted a pale signal light glimmering a mile away, half discoloured by mist.
“A floating lighthouse,” said someone next to me.
I turned and discovered the captain.
“That’s the floating signal light of Suez,” he went on. “It won’t be long before we reach the entrance to the tunnel.”
“It can’t be very easy to enter it.”
“No, sir. Accordingly, I’m in the habit of staying in the pilothouse and directing manoeuvres myself. And now if you’ll kindly go below, Professor Aronnax, the Nautilus is about to sink beneath the waves, and it will only return to the surface after we’ve cleared the Arabian Tunnel.”
I followed Captain Nemo. The hatch closed, the ballast tanks filled with water, and the submersible sank some ten metres down.
Just as I was about to repair to my stateroom, the captain stopped me.
“Professor,” he said to me, “would you like to go with me to the wheelhouse?”
“I was afraid to ask,” I replied.
“Come along, then. This way, you’ll learn the full story about this combination underwater and underground navigating.”
Captain Nemo led me to the central companionway. In midstair he opened a door, went along the upper gangways, and arrived at the wheelhouse, which, as you know, stands at one end of the platform.
It was a cabin measuring six feet square and closely resembling those occupied by the helmsmen of steamboats on the Mississippi or Hudson rivers. In the centre stood an upright wheel geared to rudder cables running to the Nautilus’s stern. Set in the cabin’s walls were four deadlights, windows of biconvex glass that enabled the man at the helm to see in every direction.
The cabin was dark, but my eyes soon grew accustomed to its darkness and I saw the pilot, a muscular man whose hands rested on the pegs of the wheel. Outside, the sea was brightly lit by the beacon shining behind the cabin at the other end of the platform.
“Now,” Captain Nemo said, “let’s look for our passageway.”
Electric wires linked the pilothouse with the engine room, and from this cabin the captain could simultaneously signal heading and speed to his Nautilus. He pressed a metal button and at once the propeller slowed down significantly.
I stared in silence at the high, sheer wall we were skirting just then, the firm base of the sandy mountains on the coast. For an hour we went along it in this fashion, staying only a few metres away. Captain Nemo never took his eyes off the two concentric circles of the compass hanging in the cabin. At a mere gesture from him, the helmsman would instantly change the Nautilus’s heading.
Standing by the port deadlight, I spotted magnificent coral substructures, zoophytes, algae, and crustaceans with enormous quivering claws that stretched forth from crevices in the rock.
At 10:15 Captain Nemo himself took the helm. Dark and deep, a wide gallery opened ahead of us. The Nautilus was brazenly swallowed up. Strange rumblings were audible along our sides. It was the water of the Red Sea, hurled towards the Mediterranean by the tunnel’s slope. Our engines tried to offer resistance by churning the waves with propeller in reverse, but the Nautilus went with the torrent, as swift as an arrow.
Along the narrow walls of this passageway, I saw only brilliant streaks, hard lines, fiery furrows, all scrawled by our speeding electric light. With my hand I tried to curb the pounding of my heart.
At 10:35 Captain Nemo left the steering wheel and turned to me. “The Mediterranean,”
he told me.
In less than twenty minutes, swept along by the torrent, the Nautilus had just cleared the Isthmus of Suez.
Chapter Six
The Greek Islands
At sunrise the next morning, February 12, the Nautilus rose to the surface of the waves.
I left Ned just as I’d found him the night before, sound asleep in my bed, and rushed onto the platform. The hazy silhouette of Pelusium was outlined three miles to the south. A torrent had carried us from one sea to the other. But although that tunnel was easy to descend, going back up must have been impossible.
Near seven o’clock Ned and Conseil joined me. Those two companions had slept serenely, utterly unaware of the Nautilus’s feat.
“Well, Mr Naturalist,” the Canadian asked in a gently mocking tone, “and how about that Mediterranean?”
“We’re floating on its surface, Ned my friend.”
“What?” Conseil put in. “Last night…?”
“Yes, last night, in a matter of minutes, we cleared that insuperable isthmus.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” the Canadian replied.
“And you’re in the wrong, Mr Land,” I went on. “That flat coastline curving southward is the coast of Egypt.”
“Tell it to the marines, sir,” answered the stubborn Canadian.
“But if master says so,” Conseil told him, “then so be it.”
“What’s more, Ned,” I said, “Captain Nemo himself did the honours in his tunnel, and I stood beside him in the pilothouse while he steer
ed the Nautilus through that narrow passageway.”
“You hear, Ned?” Conseil said.
“And you, Ned, who have such good eyes,” I added, “you can spot the jetties of Port Said stretching out to sea.”
The Canadian looked carefully.
“Correct,” he said. “You’re right, Professor, and your captain’s a superman. We’re in the Mediterranean. Fine. So now let’s have a chat about our little doings, if you please, but in such a way that nobody overhears.”
I could easily see what the Canadian was driving at. In any event, I thought it best to let him have his chat, and we all three went to sit next to the beacon, where we were less exposed to the damp spray from the billows.
“Now, Ned, we’re all ears,” I said. “What have you to tell us?”
“What I’ve got to tell you is very simple,” the Canadian replied. “We’re in Europe, and before Captain Nemo’s whims take us deep into the polar seas or back to Oceania, I say we should leave this Nautilus.”
I confess that such discussions with the Canadian always distressed me. I didn’t want to restrict my friends’ freedom in any way, nor to lose their companionship, and yet I had no desire to leave Captain Nemo. Thanks to him and his submersible, I was finishing my undersea research by the day, and I was rewriting my book on the great ocean depths in the midst of its very element. Would I ever again have such an opportunity to observe the ocean’s wonders? Absolutely not. So I couldn’t entertain this idea of leaving the Nautilus before completing our course of enquiry. But I didn’t want to fight with Ned again. I didn’t want a repeat of our last argument. Even more so, I didn’t want to have any more days without him by my side.
“Ned, my love,” I said, “answer me honestly. Are you bored with this ship? Are you sorry that fate has cast you into Captain Nemo’s hands?”
The Canadian paused for a short while before replying. Then, crossing his arms,
“Honestly,” he said, “I’m not sorry about this voyage under the seas. I’m certainly not sorry about the time I’ve spent with you. But I’ll be glad to have done it, and in order to have done it, it has to finish. That’s my feeling.”
