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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Chapter 9. NED LAND'S TEMPERS
How long we slept I don't know.
But our sleep must have lasted a long time, because it rested us completely from our tiredness.
I woke first, My companions hadn't moved and were still lying in their corner.
As I woke up from my rather hard bed, I felt my brain free and my mind clear.
I then began to examine our cell carefully.
Nothing inside had changed, the prison was still a prison, and the prisoners were still prisoners.
However, the steward had cleared the table while we slept.
I breathed with difficulty, the heavy air seemed to press on my lungs.
Although the cell was large, we had clearly used up a great part of the oxygen in it.
In fact, each person uses, in one hour, the oxygen in more than 176 pints of air.
And this air, filled with almost the same amount of carbonic acid, becomes impossible to breathe.
It became necessary to renew the air in our prison, and no doubt in the whole submarine boat.
That raised a question in my mind.
How would the commander of this floating home do it?
Would he get air by chemical means, using heat to get the oxygen from chlorate of potash, and absorbing carbonic acid with caustic potash?
Would he simply rise and take a breath at the surface of the water?
This would be more convenient, cheaper, and more likely.
Like a whale, he could renew his air supply for twenty-four hours.
In fact, I already had to breathe faster to use up the little oxygen left in this cell.
Then suddenly I was refreshed by a current of pure air, perfumed with salty smells.
It was a strong sea breeze, full of iodine.
I opened my mouth wide, and my lungs filled with fresh particles.
At the same time, I felt the boat rolling.
The iron-plated monster had clearly just risen to the surface of the ocean to breathe, like whales.
From that, I understood how the boat was ventilated.
When I had breathed this air freely, I looked for the pipe that brought us the good breeze.
I didn't take long to find it.
Above the door was a ventilator, through which streams of fresh air renewed the poor atmosphere of the cell.
I was making my observations when Ned and Conseil woke up almost at the same time, under the influence of this fresh air.
They rubbed their eyes, stretched themselves, and stood up in an instant.
"Did master sleep well?" asked Conseil, with his usual politeness.
"Very well, my brave boy. And you, Mr. Land?"
"Deeply, Professor. But I don't know if I'm right or not. There seems to be a sea breeze!"
A sailor couldn't be wrong, I told the Canadian everything that had happened during his sleep.
"Good!" he said.
"That explains those roaring sounds we heard when the supposed narwhal saw the Abraham Lincoln."
"Exactly, Master Land. It was taking a breath."
"Only, Mr. Aronnax, I have no idea what time it's, unless it's dinner time."
"Dinner time, my good fellow? Say rather breakfast time, because we've certainly started another day."
"So," said Conseil, "we've slept twenty-four hours?"
"That's my opinion."
"I won't argue with you," replied Ned Land.
"But dinner or breakfast, the steward will be welcome, whatever he brings."
"Master Land, we must follow the rules on board. I suppose our appetites are ahead of the dinner hour."
"That's just like you, friend Conseil," said Ned, impatiently.
"You're never angry, always calm. You'd give thanks before grace and die of hunger rather than complain!"
Time was passing, and we were terribly hungry.
And this time the steward didn't appear.
It was too long to leave us, if they really had good intentions toward us.
Ned Land, tortured by hunger, got even angrier.
And despite his promise, I feared an explosion when he found himself with one of the crew.
For two more hours Ned Land's temper grew worse.
He cried, he shouted, but in vain.
The walls were deaf, there was no sound to be heard in the boat.
Everything was still as death, it didn't move, because I'd have felt the shaking of the hull under the power of the screw.
Plunged in the depths of the waters, it no longer belonged to the earth, this silence was terrible.
I felt terrified, Conseil was calm, Ned Land roared.
Just then, a noise was heard outside.
Steps sounded on the metal floor, the locks were turned, the door opened, and the steward appeared.
Before I could rush forward to stop him, the Canadian had thrown him down and held him by the throat.
The steward was choking under the grip of his powerful hand.
Conseil was already trying to loosen the harpooner's hand from his half-suffocated victim.
I was going to help when suddenly I was frozen to the spot by hearing these words in French,
"Be quiet, Master Land. And you, Professor, would you be so kind as to listen to me?"