Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea: Second Part: Chapters 15–23

As it was, in the five and a half months since fate had brought us on board, we had cleared 14,000 leagues, and over this track longer than the earth's equator, so many fascinating or frightening incidents had beguiled our voyage: that hunting trip in the Crespo forests, our running aground in the Torres Strait, the coral cemetery, the pearl fisheries of Ceylon, the Arabic tunnel, the fires of Santorini, those millions in the Bay of Vigo, Atlantis, the South Pole!

At three o'clock in the morning, I was awakened by a violent collision.

"An enormous block of ice, an entire mountain, has toppled over," he answered me.

Consequently, above, below, and around the Nautilus, there were impenetrable frozen walls.

"The first way," he went on, "is death by crushing. The second is death by asphyxiation. I don't mention the possibility of death by starvation because the Nautilus's provisions will certainly last longer than we will. Therefore, let's concentrate on our chances of being crushed or asphyxiated."

"My friends," I said, "we're in a serious predicament, but I'm counting on your courage and energy."

My face was purple, my lips blue, my faculties in abeyance.

Instead of breathing it themselves, they had saved it for me, and while they were suffocating, they poured life into me drop by drop!

Instantly there he was, thrown on his back, legs in the air, his body half paralyzed, and yelling: "Oh, sir, sir! Will you help me!"

"it was an electric ray that put you in this deplorable state."

Rotting weeds have poisoned the air, and this poisoned air causes the yellow fever that devastates these wonderful countries.

And if Professor Toussenel is correct, this plague is nothing compared to the scourge that will strike our descendants once the seas are depopulated of whales and seals.

It was about eleven o'clock when Ned Land drew my attention to a fearsome commotion out in this huge seaweed.

Our propeller is jammed. I think the horn–covered mandibles of one of these squid are entangled in the blades.

"Rise to the surface and slaughter the vermin."

Seized by the tentacle and glued to its suckers, the unfortunate man was swinging in the air at the mercy of this enormous appendage.

I'll hear his harrowing plea the rest of my life!

Brandishing its victim like a feather, one lone tentacle was writhing in the air.

Defeated, mutilated, battered to death, the monsters finally yielded to us and disappeared beneath the waves.

But how sad, despairing, and irresolute he must have felt, to judge from this ship whose soul he was, which reflected his every mood!

Unshaken by these squalls, Captain Nemo stationed himself on the platform.

And yet in the midst of this turmoil, the Nautilus lived up to that saying of an expert engineer: "A well–constructed hull can defy any sea!"

In the aftermath of this storm, we were thrown back to the east.

How many ships have perished in these waterways as they tried to get directions from the hazy lights on the coast!

the unexpectedness of this scene, first the biography of this patriotic ship, then the excitement with which this eccentric individual pronounced these last words—the name Avenger whose significance could not escape me—all this, taken together, had a profound impact on my mind.

It was no ordinary misanthropy that kept Captain Nemo and his companions sequestered inside the Nautilus's plating, but a hate so monstrous or so sublime that the passing years could never weaken it.

Just then a hollow explosion was audible.

Dreadful indeed, if, as we could assume, Captain Nemo had been using the Nautilus in works of vengeance!

And now, even though his identity was still unknown, at least the nations allied against him knew they were no longer hunting some fairy–tale monster, but a man who had sworn an implacable hate toward them!

Just then a shell hit the Nautilus's hull obliquely, failed to breach it, ricocheted near the captain, and vanished into the sea.

Thanks to them, I've witnessed the destruction of everything I loved, cherished, and venerated—homeland, wife, children, father, and mother!

But it was content to let its adversary approach, and then it would quickly resume its retreating ways.

We were prisoners once more, unwilling spectators at the performance of this gruesome drama.

This dreadful executioner, this true archangel of hate, was still staring.

I estimate—but perhaps I'm mistaken—that the Nautilus's haphazard course continued for fifteen or twenty days, and I'm not sure how long this would have gone on without the catastrophe that ended our voyage.

Was it a vow of repentance that had just escaped from this man's conscience . . . ?

They form a vortex from which no ship has ever been able to escape.

This was where the Nautilus had been sent accidentally—or perhaps deliberately—by its captain.

What I can now assert is that I've earned the right to speak of these seas, beneath which in less than ten months, I've cleared 20,000 leagues in this underwater tour of the world that has shown me so many wonders across the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the southernmost and northernmost seas!

If this is the case and Captain Nemo still inhabits the ocean—his adopted country—may the hate be appeased in that fierce heart!