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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Chapter 42. THE GULF STREAM
None of us can ever forget that terrible scene of April 20th.
I wrote it under the influence of violent emotion.
Since then I have revised the story.
I have read it to Conseil and to the Canadian.
They found it exact in facts, but not strong enough in effect.
To paint such pictures, one must have the pen of our greatest poet, the author of The Toilers of the Deep.
I have said that Captain Nemo wept while watching the waves.
His grief was great, it was the second companion he had lost since we arrived on board, and what a death!
That friend, crushed and choked by a poulp and pounded by its iron jaws, would not rest with comrades in the coral cemetery.
In the middle of the struggle, the desperate cry of the unfortunate man tore my heart.
The poor Frenchman, forgetting his usual language, had used his mother tongue to make a last appeal.
Among the crew of the Nautilus, devoted to the Captain and avoiding contact with men like him, I had a fellow countryman.
Did he alone represent France in this mysterious group, which was clearly made up of people from different nations?
It was one of those unsolvable problems that kept appearing in my mind.
Captain Nemo entered his room, and I didn't see him for some time.
But I could tell that he was sad and uncertain from the ship, which was his soul and which received all his feelings.
The Nautilus didn't stay on its usual course.
It floated like a dead body at the mercy of the waves, it moved without direction.
He couldn't tear himself away from the scene of the last struggle, from this sea that had eaten one of his men.
Ten days passed like this, each one heavy with grief and silent routine.
It wasn't until May 1st that the Nautilus took up its northern course again, after seeing the Bahamas at the mouth of the Bahama Canal.
We were then following the current from the largest river to the sea, which has its own banks, its fish, and its proper temperatures.
I mean the Gulf Stream, that great warm ocean current flowing toward the North Atlantic.
It's really a river that flows freely into the middle of the Atlantic, and its waters don't mix with the ocean waters.
It's a salt river, saltier than the surrounding sea.
Its average depth is 1,500 fathoms, its average width ten miles.
In some places the current flows at a speed of two and a half miles an hour.
The amount of its water is greater than that of all the rivers in the world.
It was on this ocean river that the Nautilus then sailed.
I must add that, during the night, the glowing waters of the Gulf Stream competed with the electric power of our watch-light.
This was especially so in the stormy weather that threatened us so often.
On May 8th, we were still crossing Cape Hatteras, at the height of North Carolina.
The width of the Gulf Stream there's seventy-five miles, and its depth 210 yards.
The Nautilus still moved without direction, All control seemed abandoned.
I thought that, under these conditions, escape would be possible.
Indeed, the inhabited shores offered an easy refuge anywhere.
The sea was constantly crossed by steamers traveling between New York, Boston, and the Gulf of Mexico.
It was also covered day and night by small schooners sailing along the American coast.
We could hope to be picked up.
It was a good opportunity, even though the Nautilus was thirty miles from the coasts of the Union.
One unfortunate thing stopped the Canadian's plans, the weather was very bad.
We were getting near those shores where storms are so common, that country of waterspouts and cyclones actually created by the current of the Gulf Stream.
To risk the sea in a small boat was certain death.
Ned Land admitted this himself, he was angry, seized by homesickness that only escape could cure.
"Master," he said to me that day, "this has to end. I have to speak honestly."
"This Nemo is leaving land for the north. I have had enough of the South Pole and won't follow him there".
"What can we do, Ned, since escape is impossible right now?"
"We have to speak to the Captain," he said.
"You said nothing when we were in your home waters. I'll speak now we're in mine."
"I think soon the Nautilus will be near Nova Scotia, near Newfoundland, where there is a large bay."
"The St. Lawrence River flows into that bay, the St. Lawrence is my river, the river by Quebec, my home town."
"When I think of this, I feel furious and it makes my hair rise. Sir, I'd rather throw myself into the sea. I won't stay. I'm choking"!
The Canadian was clearly losing all patience.
His strong nature couldn't stand this long imprisonment.
His face changed every day, his mood became more angry.
I knew what he must be suffering, because I was also seized with homesickness.
Nearly seven months had passed without us having any news from land.
Captain Nemo's isolation, his changed mood, especially since the fight with the poulps, his silence, all made me see things differently.
"Well, sir?" said Ned, seeing that I didn't reply.
"Well, Ned, do you want me to ask Captain Nemo his plans for us?"
"Yes, sir."
"Even though he has already told us?"
"Yes. I want it settled for good. Speak for me, in my name only, if you like."
"But I rarely meet him. He avoids me."
"That's even more reason for you to go and see him."
I went to my room, From there I planned to go to Captain Nemo's.
I couldn't let this chance to meet him pass.
I knocked at the door, No answer.
I knocked again, then turned the handle.
The door opened, and I went in.
The Captain was there, he was leaning over his work-table and hadn't heard me.
Determined not to leave without speaking, I approached him.
He raised his head quickly, frowned, and said roughly, "You here! What do you want?"
"To speak to you, Captain."
"But I'm busy, sir. I'm working. I allow you to lock yourself away. Can't I be allowed the same?"
This welcome wasn't encouraging, but I was determined to hear and answer everything.
"Sir," I said coldly, "I have to speak to you about something that can't wait."
"What's that, sir?" he replied, with irony.
"Have you discovered something that I missed, or has the sea given up any new secrets?"
We still weren't understanding each other at all, and confusion grew between us.
But before I could reply, he showed me an open manuscript on his table and said, in a more serious tone, "Here, M."
"Aronnax, is a manuscript written in several languages."
"It contains the sum of my studies of the sea."
"And, if it pleases God, it won't die with me."
"This manuscript, signed with my name and complete with the story of my life, will be put in a small floating case."
"The last survivor of all of us on board the Nautilus will throw this case into the sea, and it'll go wherever the waves carry it."
This man's name! His story written by himself!
His mystery would then be revealed one day.
"Captain," I said, "I can only approve of the idea that makes you act like this."
"The result of your studies mustn't be lost."
"But isn't your method primitive, and who knows where the winds will carry the case or whose hands will hold it, couldn't you or your men try another"?
"Never, sir!" he said, quickly interrupting me.
"But I and my companions are ready to keep this manuscript safe. And if you'll set us free, "
"Free?" said the Captain, rising.
"Yes, sir. That's the subject I want to ask you about. For seven months we have been here on board,"
"And I ask you today, in the name of my companions and my own, if you intend to keep us here forever?"
"M. Aronnax, I'll answer you today as I did seven months ago. Whoever enters the Nautilus must never leave it."
"You're putting us in actual slavery!"
"Call it whatever you like."
"But everywhere, a slave has the right to regain his freedom."
"Who denies you this right? Have I ever tried to bind you with an oath?"
He looked at me with his arms crossed.
"Sir," I said, "to return to this subject a second time won't be pleasant for you or for me."
"But since we have started it, let us finish it. I repeat, it isn't only myself that it concerns."
"Study is a relief, a distraction, a passion that could make me forget everything."
"Like you, I can live in obscurity with the weak hope of leaving my work to the future, but Ned Land is different."
"Every man who deserves the name deserves consideration, have you thought that love of freedom and hatred of slavery could make the Canadian plan, think, and try revenge?"
I was stopped by his interruption, and Captain Nemo rose from his seat.
"Whatever Ned Land thinks, tries, or attempts, what does it matter to me?"
"I didn't look for him!"
"It isn't for my pleasure that I keep him on board!"
"As for you, M."
"Aronnax, you're one of those who can understand everything, even silence."
"I have nothing more to say to you."
"Let this first time you have come to discuss this subject be the last, because a second time I won't listen to you."
I left, Our situation was serious, I told my two companions about our conversation.
"Now we know," said Ned.
"That we can expect nothing from this man. The Nautilus is getting near Long Island. We'll escape, no matter what the weather is."
But the sky became more and more threatening.
Signs of a hurricane appeared, the air was becoming white and misty.
On the horizon, thin streaks of cirrus clouds were followed by masses of cumulus.
Other low clouds passed quickly by, the swollen sea rose in huge waves.
The birds disappeared, except for the petrels, those friends of the storm.
The barometer fell noticeably and showed an extreme tension in the air.
The mixture in the storm glass broke down under the influence of the electricity that filled the atmosphere.
The storm broke on May 18th, just as the Nautilus was floating off Long Island, a few miles from the port of New York.
I can describe this battle of the elements!
Because, instead of fleeing to the depths of the sea, Captain Nemo, by an unexplainable whim, chose to face it at the surface.
The wind blew from the southwest at first.
During the squalls, Captain Nemo had taken his place on the platform.
He had tied himself down to avoid being washed overboard by the huge waves.
I had climbed up and tied myself down too, dividing my admiration between the storm and this extraordinary man who was fighting it.
The raging sea was swept by large cloud-drifts that were actually soaked with the waves.
The Nautilus, sometimes lying on its side, sometimes standing up like a mast, rolled and pitched terribly.
Around five o'clock, a torrent of rain fell, which calmed neither the sea nor the wind.
The hurricane blew nearly forty leagues an hour.
Under these conditions, it overturns houses, breaks iron gates, and moves twenty-four-pound cannons.
However, the Nautilus, in the middle of the storm, confirmed the words of a clever engineer, "There's no well-built ship that can't defy the sea."
This wasn't a rock that resisted the storm's force, but a living engine of steel.
It was a steel spindle, obedient and movable, without rigging or masts, that faced the storm's fury without harm.
Still, I watched these raging waves carefully.
They were fifteen feet high and 150 to 175 yards long, and their speed of movement was thirty feet per second.
Their size and power increased with the depth of the water.
Such waves, at the Hebrides, have moved a mass weighing 8,400 pounds.
They were the waves that, in the storm of December 23, 1864, after destroying Yeddo, Japan, broke on America's shores that day.
The strength of the storm increased with the night.
The barometer, as in 1860 at Reunion during a cyclone, fell seven-tenths at the end of the day.
I saw a large ship pass on the horizon, struggling painfully.
It was trying to stay steady under half steam to keep above the waves.
It was probably one of the steamers on the line from New York to Liverpool or Havre.
It soon disappeared in the darkness, At ten o'clock in the evening, the sky was on fire.
The air was streaked with bright lightning.
I couldn't bear its brightness, while the Captain, looking at it, seemed to envy the spirit of the storm.
A terrible noise filled the air, the howls of crushed waves, the roar of the wind, and claps of thunder.
The wind suddenly changed to all points of the horizon.
The cyclone, rising in the east, returned after sweeping north, west, and south, opposite to the circular storms of the southern hemisphere.
Ah, that Gulf Stream! It deserves its name of the King of Storms.
It's that which creates those terrible cyclones, because of the difference in temperature between its air and its currents.
A shower of fire had followed the rain.
The drops of water changed into sharp spikes.
One would have thought that Captain Nemo was looking for a death worthy of him, a death by lightning.
As the Nautilus, pitching dreadfully, raised its steel spur into the air, it seemed to act as a lightning rod.
And I saw long sparks burst from it.
Crushed and without strength, I crawled to the panel, opened it, and went down to the saloon.
The storm was then at its peak.
It was impossible to stand upright inside the Nautilus.
Captain Nemo came down around twelve, I heard the tanks filling little by little, and the Nautilus sank slowly beneath the waves.
Through the open windows in the saloon, I saw large fish terrified, passing like ghosts in the water.
Some were struck before my eyes, the Nautilus was still going down.
I thought that at about eight fathoms deep we'd find calm.
But no! The upper layers were too violently disturbed for that.
We had to find rest at more than twenty-five fathoms in the depths of the sea.
But there, what quiet, what silence, what peace!
Who could have known that such a hurricane had been set loose on the surface of that ocean?