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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Chapter 35. CACHALOTS AND WHALES
During the nights of the 13th and 14th of March, the Nautilus returned to its southerly course.
When we were level with Cape Horn, I expected Captain Nemo to turn west across the Pacific and complete our circumnavigation.
He did nothing of the kind but continued on his way to the southern regions.
Where was he going? To the pole?
It was madness! I began to think that the Captain's boldness justified Ned Land's fears.
For some time, the Canadian hadn't spoken to me about his plans to escape, he was less talkative, almost silent.
I could see that this long imprisonment was weighing on him, and I felt that anger was burning inside him.
When he met the Captain, his eyes lit up with hidden anger.
I feared that his natural violence would lead him to do something extreme.
That day, the 14th of March, Conseil and Ned came to me in my room.
I asked them why they had come.
"A simple question to ask you, sir," replied the Canadian.
"Speak, Ned."
"How many men are on board the Nautilus, do you think?"
"I can't tell, my friend."
"I'd say that its work doesn't need a large crew."
"Certainly, under these conditions, ten men at most should be enough."
"Well, why should there be any more?"
"Why?" I replied, looking directly at Ned Land, whose meaning was easy to guess.
"Because," I added, "if my guesses are correct and I have understood the Captain's life well, the Nautilus isn't just a ship."
"It's also a place of safety for those who, like its commander, have broken every tie on earth".
"Maybe so," said Conseil, "but in any case, the Nautilus can only hold a certain number of men. Couldn't you, sir, estimate their maximum?"
"How, Conseil?"
"By calculation".
You know the size of the ship, sir.
That tells us how much air it holds.
We also know how much air each man uses with each breath.
The Nautilus must go to the surface every twenty-four hours.
Conseil hadn't finished his sentence before I saw what he was getting at.
"I understand," I said, "but that calculation, though simple enough, can only give a very uncertain result."
"Never mind," said Ned Land urgently.
"Here it's, then," I said.
"In one hour, each man uses the oxygen in twenty gallons of air."
"In twenty-four hours, that's the oxygen in 480 gallons."
"So we must find how many times 480 gallons of air the Nautilus contains."
"Exactly," said Conseil.
"Or," I continued, "the size of the Nautilus is 1,500 tons, and one ton holds 200 gallons, so it contains 300,000 gallons of air."
"Divided by 480, that gives 625, that means the air would be enough for 625 men for twenty-four hours".
"Six hundred and twenty-five!" repeated Ned.
"But remember that all of us, passengers, sailors, and officers included, wouldn't form a tenth of that number."
"Still too many for three men," murmured Conseil.
The Canadian shook his head, passed his hand across his forehead, and left the room without answering.
"Will you allow me to make one observation, sir?" said Conseil.
"Poor Ned longs for everything he can't have."
"His past life is always in his mind."
"He regrets everything we're not allowed to do."
"His head is full of old memories."
"We must understand him, he has nothing to do here."
"He isn't learned like you, sir, doesn't share our taste for the sea, and would risk everything to go once more into a tavern in his country".
Certainly, the monotony on board must seem unbearable to the Canadian, who was used to a life of freedom and activity.
Events were rare that could make him show any excitement.
But that day, an event did happen which reminded him of the bright days of the harpooner.
About eleven in the morning, while on the surface of the ocean, the Nautilus met a group of whales.
This meeting didn't surprise me, because I knew that these creatures, hunted almost to death, had taken refuge in high latitudes.
We were seated on the platform with a calm sea.
The month of October in those latitudes gave us some lovely autumn days.
It was the Canadian, he couldn't be mistaken, who signaled a whale on the eastern horizon.
Looking carefully, one could see its black back rise and fall with the waves five miles from the Nautilus.
"Ah!" exclaimed Ned Land.
"If I were on a whaler now, such a meeting would give me pleasure."
"It's a large one."
"See how strongly its blowholes throw up columns of air and steam!"
"Confound it, why am I tied to these steel plates?"
"What, Ned," I said, "you haven't forgotten your old ideas about fishing?"
"Can a whale fisherman ever forget his old trade, sir? Can he ever get tired of the excitement caused by such a chase?"
"You've never fished in these seas, Ned?"
"Never, sir. Only in the northern seas, as much in Behring as in Davis Straits."
"Then the southern whale is still unknown to you."
"You've hunted the Greenland whale up to now, and it wouldn't risk passing through the warm waters of the equator."
"Whales are localized, according to their kinds, in certain seas which they never leave."
If one of these creatures went from Behring to Davis Straits, it must be because there's a passage between seas, on either the American or Asian side.
"In that case, since I've never fished in these seas, I don't know the kind of whale that lives here!"
"I've told you, Ned."
"All the more reason to get to know them," said Conseil.
"Look! Look!" exclaimed the Canadian.
"They're coming closer. They annoy me. They know I can't get at them!"
Ned stamped his feet, his hand trembled as he grasped an imaginary harpoon.
"Are these whales as large as those of the northern seas?" he asked.
"Very nearly, Ned."
"Because I've seen large whales, sir, whales measuring a hundred feet."
"I've even been told that those of Hullamoch and Umgallick, of the Aleutian Islands, are sometimes a hundred and fifty feet long."
"That seems like an exaggeration to me. These creatures are only balaenopterons, with dorsal fins. And like the cachalots, they're generally much smaller than the Greenland whale."
"Ah!" exclaimed the Canadian, whose eyes had never left the ocean.
"They're coming nearer. They're in the same water as the Nautilus."
Then, returning to the conversation, he said,
"You spoke of the cachalot as a small creature."
"I've heard of gigantic ones."
"They're intelligent whales."
"It's said that some cover themselves with seaweed and then are mistaken for islands."
"People camp on them and settle there."
"They light a fire."
"And build houses," said Conseil.
"Yes, joker," said Ned Land.
"And one fine day, the creature dives, carrying all the inhabitants to the bottom of the sea."
"Something like the travels of Sinbad the Sailor," I replied, laughing.
"Ah!" suddenly exclaimed Ned Land.
"It's not one whale. There are ten, there are twenty. It's a whole group! And I can't do anything! My hands and feet are tied!"
"But, friend Ned," said Conseil, "why don't you ask Captain Nemo's permission to chase them?"
Conseil hadn't finished his sentence when Ned Land lowered himself through the hatch to find the Captain.
A few minutes later, they both appeared on the platform.
Captain Nemo watched the group of whales playing in the water about a mile from the Nautilus.
"They're southern whales," he said.
"There goes the fortune of a whole fleet of whalers."
"Well, sir," asked the Canadian, "can't I chase them, if only to remind me of my old trade as a harpooner?"
"And for what purpose?" replied Captain Nemo.
"Only to destroy! We have nothing to do with whale oil on board."
"But, sir," continued the Canadian, "in the Red Sea, you allowed us to follow the dugong."
"That was to get fresh meat for my crew."
"Here, it would be killing for the sake of killing."
"I know that's a privilege reserved for man, but I don't approve of such murderous pastimes."
"In destroying the southern whale, like the Greenland whale, a harmless creature, your traders do a guilty act, Master Land."
"They've already emptied the whole of Baffin's Bay and are destroying a class of useful animals."
"Leave the unfortunate whales alone."
"They have plenty of natural enemies, cachalots, swordfish, and sawfish, without you troubling them."
The Captain was right, and his warning about the whalers filled us with dread.
The barbaric and thoughtless greed of these fishermen will one day cause the disappearance of the last whale in the ocean.
Ned Land whistled "Yankee-doodle" between his teeth, thrust his hands into his pockets, and turned his back on us.
But Captain Nemo watched the group of whales, and addressing me, said,
"I was right in saying that whales have enough natural enemies, without counting man."
"These will have plenty to do before long."
"Do you see, M."
"Aronnax, about eight miles downwind, those blackish moving points?"
"Yes, Captain," I replied.
"Those are cachalots, terrible animals, which I've met in groups of two or three hundred."
"As for those, they're cruel, mischievous creatures."
"It would be right to destroy them."
The Canadian turned quickly at the last words.
"Well, Captain," he said, "it's still time, in the interest of the whales."
"It's useless to put ourselves in danger, Professor. The Nautilus will scatter them. It's armed with a steel spur as good as Master Land's harpoon, I imagine."
The Canadian didn't bother to shrug his shoulders.
Attack whales with blows from a spur?
Who had ever heard of such a thing?
"Wait, M. Aronnax," said Captain Nemo.
"We'll show you something you've never seen before. We have no pity for these ferocious creatures. They're nothing but mouth and teeth."
Mouth and teeth! No one could better describe the macrocephalous cachalot, which is sometimes more than seventy-five feet long.
Its enormous head takes up one-third of its whole body.
Better armed than the whale, whose upper jaw has only whalebone, it has twenty-five large tusks eight inches long, each weighing two pounds.
In the upper part of this enormous head, cavities divided by cartilage contain six to eight hundred pounds of the oil called spermaceti.
The cachalot is a nasty creature, more like a tadpole than a fish, according to Fredol's description.
It's badly formed, with its whole left side being a "failure," and it can only see with its right eye.
But the frightening group was getting closer.
They had seen the whales and were preparing to attack them.
One could guess beforehand that the cachalots would win.
They were better built for attack than their harmless enemies, and they could stay underwater longer without coming to the surface.
There was only just enough time to go to the help of the whales, the Nautilus went underwater.
Conseil, Ned Land, and I took our places before the window in the saloon.
Captain Nemo joined the pilot in his cage to work his equipment as a weapon of destruction.
Soon I felt the beat of the propeller speed up, and our speed increased.
The battle between the cachalots and the whales had already begun when the Nautilus arrived.
They didn't show any fear at first at the sight of this new monster joining the fight.
But they soon had to guard against its blows.
What a battle! The Nautilus was nothing but a terrible harpoon, swung by the hand of its Captain.
It threw itself against the fleshy mass, passing through from one side to the other, leaving behind it two shaking halves of the animal.
It couldn't feel the terrible blows from their tails on its sides, nor the shock that it produced itself, which was much stronger.
One cachalot was killed, the ship then ran at the next whale.
It turned on the spot so it wouldn't miss its prey.
It went forward and backward, answering to its rudder.
It dove when the whale dived into deep waters.
It came up with the whale when it returned to the surface.
The ship struck from the front or side, cutting or tearing in all directions.
It pierced the whale with its terrible spur.
What a slaughter! What a noise on the surface of the waves!
What sharp hissing, and what snorting, special to these angry animals!
In the middle of these waters, usually so calm, their tails made huge waves.
For one hour, this mass killing continued, and the cachalots couldn't escape.
Several times, ten or twelve of them united to try to crush the Nautilus with their weight.
From the window, we could see their enormous mouths, full of tusks, and their frightening eyes.
Ned Land couldn't control himself, he threatened and cursed them.
We could feel them clinging to our ship like dogs attacking a wild boar in a forest.
But the Nautilus, working its propeller, carried them here.
There, or to the upper levels of the ocean, without caring about their enormous weight or the powerful strain on the ship.
At last, the mass of cachalots broke up.
The waves became calm, and I felt that we were rising to the surface.
The hatch opened, and we hurried onto the platform.
The sea was covered with broken bodies.
A huge explosion couldn't have split and torn this fleshy mass with more violence.
We were floating among giant bodies, blue on the back and white underneath, covered with huge bumps.
Some terrified cachalots were fleeing toward the horizon.
The waves were dyed red for several miles, and the Nautilus floated in a sea of blood, Captain Nemo joined us.
"Well, Master Land?" he said.
"Well, sir," replied the Canadian, whose excitement had calmed a little.
"It's a terrible sight, certainly. But I'm not a butcher. I'm a hunter, and I call this a butchery."
"It's a massacre of harmful creatures," replied the Captain.
"And the Nautilus isn't a butcher's knife."
"I like my harpoon better," said the Canadian.
"Each to his own," answered the Captain, looking directly at Ned Land.
I feared he'd do something violent, which would end in sad results.
But his anger was turned away by the sight of a whale that the Nautilus had just caught up with.
The creature hadn't quite escaped the cachalot's teeth.
I recognized the southern whale by its flat head, which is completely black.
Anatomically, it's different from the white whale and the North Cape whale by its seven neck bones.
And it has two more ribs than its relatives.
The unfortunate whale was lying on its side, full of holes from the bites, and quite dead.
From its damaged fin still hung a young whale that it couldn't save from the massacre.
Its open mouth let the water flow in and out, murmuring like waves breaking on the shore.
Captain Nemo steered close to the body of the creature.
Two of his men climbed onto its side.
And I saw, not without surprise, that they were drawing from its breasts all the milk that they contained, which was about two or three tons.
The Captain offered me a cup of the milk, which was still warm.
I couldn't help showing my dislike for the drink.
But he assured me that it was excellent and couldn't be told apart from cow's milk.
I tasted it, and I agreed with him.
It was a useful supply for us, because as salt butter or cheese, it would give us a nice change from our usual food.
From that day, I noticed with worry that Ned Land's bad feelings toward Captain Nemo were growing.
And I decided to watch the Canadian's actions closely.