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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Chapter 14. A NOTE OF INVITATION
The next day was the 9th of November.
I awoke after a long sleep of twelve hours.
Conseil came, as usual, to know "how I had passed the night," and to offer his services.
He had left his friend the Canadian sleeping like a man who had never done anything else all his life.
I let the good fellow talk as he pleased, without caring to answer him.
I was worried by the Captain's absence during our meeting the day before, and I hoped to see him today.
As soon as I was dressed I went into the saloon, it was empty.
I started studying the shell treasures behind the glass.
I also enjoyed looking at the large books filled with the rarest sea plants, which, although dried, still kept their beautiful colors.
Among water plants I noticed vorticellae, pavonariae, delicate ceramies with red tints, fan-shaped agari, and natabuli like flat mushrooms, once classed as zoophytes.
In short, a perfect collection of algae.
The whole day passed without a visit from Captain Nemo.
The panels of the saloon didn't open.
Perhaps they didn't want us to get tired of these beautiful things.
The Nautilus's course was E.N.E. its speed twelve knots, and the depth below the surface between twenty-five and thirty fathoms.
The next day, the 10th of November, the same emptiness, the same solitude.
I didn't see any of the crew.
Ned and Conseil spent most of the day with me.
They were surprised by the Captain's strange absence.
Was this unusual man ill? Had he changed his plans for us?
After all, as Conseil said, we had complete freedom, and we were fed well and carefully.
Our host kept to the terms of our agreement.
We couldn't complain, and really, the strangeness of our situation promised such wonderful things for us that we had no right to blame it yet.
That day I started the journal of these adventures, which has let me tell them with more careful exactness and detail.
I wrote it on paper made from zostera marina.
On the 11th of November, early in the morning.
The fresh air spreading through the inside of the Nautilus told me that we had come to the surface of the ocean to get more oxygen.
I walked to the central staircase and went up to the platform.
It was six o'clock, the weather was cloudy, the sea was gray but calm.
There was hardly a wave, Would Captain Nemo, whom I hoped to meet, be there?
I saw no one except the steersman locked in his glass cage.
Sitting on the edge of the small boat's hull, I breathed in the salty breeze with pleasure.
Slowly, the fog disappeared under the sun's rays.
The bright sun rose from behind the eastern horizon.
The sea shone under its light like a trail of gunpowder.
The clouds scattered in the sky were colored with bright shades of beautiful colors, and many "mare's tails," which meant wind for that day.
But what was wind to this Nautilus, which storms couldn't scare!
I was enjoying this happy sunrise, so bright and life-giving, when I heard steps coming onto the platform.
I was ready to greet Captain Nemo.
But it was his second officer, whom I had already seen on the Captain's first visit, who appeared.
He came onto the platform, not seeming to see me.
With his strong telescope to his eye, he looked at every point of the horizon very carefully.
After this check, he went to the panel and said a sentence in exactly these words.
I have remembered it, because every morning it was repeated under the same conditions, it was worded like this,
"Nautron respoc lorni virch."
I couldn't say exactly what those strange words were intended to mean.
After saying these words, the officer went down.
I thought that the Nautilus was about to return to its underwater travel.
I went back to the panel and returned to my room.
Five days passed like this, with no change in our situation.
Every morning I went up to the platform.
The same phrase was said by the same person, but Captain Nemo didn't appear.
I had decided that I'd never see him again.
On the 16th of November, returning to my room with Ned and Conseil, I found a note addressed to me on my table.
I opened it impatiently, it was written in a bold, clear hand, the letters rather pointed, like the German type.
The note was worded as follows, in a bold clear hand with pointed letters,
16th of November, 1867. Dated aboard the Nautilus, early morning, clear and cool.
TO PROFESSOR ARONNAX, On board the Nautilus.
Captain Nemo invites Professor Aronnax to a hunting party, which will take place tomorrow morning in the forests of the island of Crespo.
He hopes that nothing will stop the Professor from coming, and he'll be happy to see him joined by his companions.
CAPTAIN NEMO, Commander of the Nautilus, was written at the end of the invitation.
"A hunt!" shouted Ned.
"And in the forests of the island of Crespo!" added Conseil.
"Oh! So the gentleman is going on dry land?" replied Ned Land.
"That seems quite clear," I said, reading the letter again.
"Well, we must accept," said the Canadian.
"But once we're on dry ground, we'll know what to do. I won't be sorry to eat a piece of fresh venison."
Without trying to explain the contradiction between Captain Nemo's clear dislike of islands and continents and his invitation to hunt in a forest, I just replied,
"Let's first see where the island of Crespo is."
I looked at the map, At 3240' north latitude and 15750' west longitude, I found a small island.
It was discovered in 1801 by Captain Crespo.
Old Spanish maps marked it as Rocca de la Plata, which means "The Silver Rock."
We were then about eighteen hundred miles from our starting point, and the Nautilus's course, a little changed, was bringing it back towards the southeast.
I showed this small rock, lost in the middle of the North Pacific, to my companions.
"If Captain Nemo does sometimes go on dry ground," I said, "he at least chooses empty islands."
Ned Land shrugged his shoulders without speaking, and he and Conseil left me.
After supper, which was served by the silent, expressionless steward, I went to bed, not without some worry.
The next morning, the 17th of November, when I woke up, I felt that the Nautilus was completely still.
I dressed quickly and entered the saloon.
Captain Nemo was there, waiting for me.
He stood up, bowed, and asked if it was convenient for me to go with him.
Since he didn't mention his absence during the last eight days, I didn't bring it up, and simply answered that my companions.
I was ready to follow him, and my companions were prepared to do the same.
We entered the dining room, where breakfast was served.
"Professor Aronnax," said the Captain.
"Please share my breakfast without ceremony."
"We'll talk as we eat."
"Though I promised you a walk in the forest, I didn't promise to find hotels there."
"So eat breakfast like a man who will probably not have his dinner until very late."
I did justice to the meal, eating heartily and savoring every delicate morsel served.
It was made of several kinds of fish, slices of holothuridae, excellent zoophytes, and different sorts of seaweed.
Our drink was pure water, to which the Captain added drops of a fermented beverage made by Kamschatcha method from seaweed Rhodomenia palmata.
Captain Nemo ate at first without saying a word, then he began,
"Sir, when I invited you to hunt in my underwater forest of Crespo, you clearly thought I was mad. Sir, you should never judge anyone lightly."
"But Captain, believe me."
"Please listen, and you'll see whether you have any reason to call me foolish or contradictory."
"I'm listening."
"You know as well as I do, Professor, that man can live underwater, as long as he carries enough breathable air."
"In underwater work, the worker, dressed in a waterproof suit, with his head in a metal helmet, gets air from above through pumps and regulators."
"That's a diving apparatus," I said.
"Exactly, but under those conditions the man isn't free."
"He's tied to the pump that sends him air through a rubber tube."
"If we had to be tied to the Nautilus like that, we couldn't go far."
"And how do you get free?" I asked.
"We use the Rouquayrol apparatus, invented by two of your countrymen, which I have improved for my own use."
"It'll let you go into these new conditions without any harm to your body."
"It consists of a tank of thick iron plates, in which I store air at a pressure of fifty atmospheres."
"This tank is fixed on the back with straps, like a soldier's backpack."
"Its upper part forms a box where the air is kept by a bellows, so it can't escape unless at normal pressure."
"In the Rouquayrol apparatus as we use it, two rubber pipes leave this box and connect to a kind of tent that covers the nose and mouth."
"One pipe brings in fresh air, the other lets out the bad air, and the tongue closes one or the other as needed."
"But I, when facing great pressures at the bottom of the sea, had to close my head, like a diver in a copper ball."
"And it's to this copper ball that the two pipes, the in and out pipes, are connected."
"Perfect, Captain Nemo. But the air you carry will soon be used up. When it contains only fifteen percent oxygen, it's no longer fit to breathe."
"Right! But I told you, Professor Aronnax, that the pumps of the Nautilus let me store air at very high pressure."
"Under these conditions, the tank of the apparatus can provide breathable air for nine or ten hours."
"I have no more objections," I answered.
"I'll only ask you one thing, Captain. How can you light your way at the bottom of the sea?"
"With the Ruhmkorff apparatus, Professor Aronnax."
"One part is carried on the back, the other is fastened to the waist."
"It's made of a Bunsen pile, which I don't work with bichromate of potash, but with sodium."
"A wire collects the electricity and directs it to a specially made lantern."
"In this lantern is a spiral glass that contains a small amount of carbonic gas."
"When the apparatus is working, this gas becomes bright, giving out a white and continuous light."
"So equipped, I can breathe and I can see."
"Captain Nemo, you give such strong answers to all my objections that I no longer dare to doubt."
"But if I must accept the Rouquayrol and Ruhmkorff apparatus, I must have some doubts about the gun I'm to carry."
"But it isn't a gun for gunpowder," answered the Captain.
"Then it's an air gun."
"Certainly! How would I make gunpowder on board, without saltpetre, sulfur, or charcoal?"
"Besides," I added, "to fire underwater in a medium eight hundred and fifty-five times denser than air, we must overcome very strong resistance."
"That's no problem."
"There are guns, according to Fulton, improved in England by Philip Coles and Burley, in France by Furcy, and in Italy by Landi, said the Captain."
"They have a special closing system and can fire under these conditions."
"But I repeat, since I have no powder, I use air at high pressure, which the pumps of the Nautilus provide in large amounts."
"But this air must be used up quickly?"
"Well, don't I have my Rouquayrol tank, which can provide it when needed?"
"A tap is all that's required."
"Besides, Professor Aronnax, you'll see that during our underwater hunt, we'll use little air and few bullets."
"But it seems to me that in this dim light, and in this fluid which is very dense compared to the air, shots couldn't go far, nor be easily deadly."
"Sir, on the contrary, with this gun every shot is deadly. However lightly the animal is touched, it falls as if struck by lightning."
"Why?"
"Because the bullets fired by this gun aren't ordinary bullets, but small glass cases, invented by Leniebroek, an Austrian chemist, of which I have a large supply."
"These glass cases are covered with a steel case and weighted with a lead pellet."
"They're real Leyden bottles, into which electricity is forced to a very high tension."
"With the slightest shock, they discharge, and the animal, however strong it's, falls dead."
"I must tell you that these cases are size number four, and that the charge for an ordinary gun would be ten."
"I'll argue no longer," I replied, rising from the table.
"I have nothing left but to take my gun. In any case, I'll go where you go."
Captain Nemo then led me to the back of the ship.
As I passed Ned's and Conseil's cabin, I called my two companions, who followed immediately.
We then came to a kind of room near the engine room, where we were to put on our walking clothes.