Jules Verne - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

Mobilis in Mobile.

N.

Mobile in a mobile element ! The letter N was doubtless the initial of the enigmatical person who commanded at the bottom of the sea.

Ned and Conseil did not observe so much. They devoured all before them, and I ended by imitating them.

But at last even our appetite was satisfied, and we felt overcome with sleep. A natural reaction after the fatigue of the interminable night during which we had struggled with death.

My two companions lay down on the carpet, and were soon fast asleep. I did not go so soon, for too many thoughts filled my brain; too many insoluble questions asked me for a solution; too many images kept my eyes open. Where were we? What strange power was bearing us along? I felt, or rather I thought I felt, the strange machine sinking down to the lowest depths of the sea. Dreadful nightmares took possession of me. I saw a world of unknown animals in these mysterious asylums, amongst which the submarine boat seemed as living, moving, and formidable as they. Then my brain grew calmer, my imagination melted into dreaminess, and I fell into a deep sleep.

I do not know how long our sleep lasted, but it must have been a long time, for it rested us completely from our fatigues. I awoke first. My companions had not yet moved.

I had scarcely risen from my rather hard couch when I felt all my faculties clear, and looked about me.

Nothing was changed in the room. The prison was still a prison, and the prisoners prisoners. The steward, profiting by our sleep, had cleared the supper things away. Nothing indicated an approaching change in our position, and I asked myself seriously if we were destined to live indefinitely in that cage.

This prospect seemed to me the more painful, because, though my head was clear, my chest was oppressed. The heavy air weighed upon my lungs. We had evidently consumed the larger part of the oxygen the cell contained, although it was large. One man consumes in one hour the oxygen contained in 176 pints of air, and this air, then loaded with an almost equal quantity of carbonic acid, becomes unbearable.

It was, therefore, urgent to renew the atmosphere of our prison, and most likely that of the submarine boat also. Thereupon a question came into my head, ‘How did the commander of this floating dwelling manage? Did he obtain air by chemical means, by evolving the heat of oxygen contained in chlorate of potassium, and by absorbing the carbonic acid with caustic potassium? In that case he must have kept up some relations with land in order to procure the materials necessary to this operation. Did he confine himself simply to storing up air under great pressure in reservoirs, and then let it out according to the needs of his crew? Perhaps. Or did he use the more convenient, economical, and consequently more probable means of contenting himself with returning to breathe on the surface of the water like a cetacean, and of renewing for twenty-four hours his provision of atmosphere? Whatever his method might be, it seemed to me prudent to employ it without delay.

I was reduced to multiplying my respirations to extract from our cell the small quantity of oxygen it contained, when, suddenly, I was refreshed by a current of fresh air, loaded with saline odours. It was a sea breeze, life-giving, and charged with iodine. I opened my mouth wide, and my lungs became saturated with fresh particles. At the same time I felt the boat roll, and the iron-plated monster had evidently just ascended to the surface of the ocean to breathe like the whales. When I had breathed fully, I looked for the ventilator which had brought us the beneficent breeze, and, before long, found it.

I was making these observations when my two companions awoke nearly at the same time, doubtless through the influence of the reviving air. They rubbed their eyes, stretched themselves, and were on foot instantly.

‘Did monsieur sleep well?’ Conseil asked me, with his usual politeness.

‘Very well. And you, Land?’

‘Soundly, Mr Professor. But if I am not mistaken, I am breathing a sea breeze.’

A seaman could not be mistaken in that, and I told the Canadian what had happened while he was asleep.

‘That accounts for the roarings we heard when the supposed narwhal was in sight of the Abraham Lincoln .’

‘Yes, Mr Land, that is its breathing.’

‘I have not the least idea what time it can be, M. Aronnax, unless it be dinner-time.’

‘Dinner time, Ned? Say breakfast time at least, for we have certainly slept something like twenty-four hours.’

‘I will not contradict you,’ answered Ned Land, ‘but dinner or breakfast, the steward would be welcome. I wish he would bring one or the other.’

‘The one and the other,’ said Conseil.

‘Certainly,’ answered the Canadian, ‘we have right to two meals, and, for my own part, I shall do honour to both.’

‘Well, Ned, we must wait,’ I answered. ‘It is evident that those two men had no intention of leaving us to die of hunger, for in that case there would have been no reason to give us dinner yesterday.’

‘Unless it is to fatten us!’ answered Ned.

‘I protest,’ I answered. ‘We have not fallen into the hands of cannibals.’

‘One swallow does not make a summer,’ answered the Canadian seriously. ‘Who knows if those fellows have not been long deprived of fresh meat, and in that case these healthy and well-constituted individuals like the professor, his servant, and me—’

‘Drive away such ideas, Land,’ I answered, ‘and above all do not act upon them to get into a rage with our hosts, for that would only make the situation worse.’

‘Any way,’ said the harpooner, ‘I am devilishly hungry, and, dinner or breakfast, the meal does not arrive!’

‘Land,’ I replied, ‘we must conform to the rule of the vessel, and I suppose that our stomachs are in advance of the steward’s bell.’

‘Well, then, we must put them right,’ answered Conseil tranquilly.

‘That is just like you, Conseil,’ answered the impatient Canadian. ‘You do not use up your bile or your nerves! Always calm, you would be capable of saying your grace before your Benedicite, and of dying of hunger before you complained.’

‘What is the use of complaining?’ asked Conseil.

‘It does one good to complain! It is something. And if these pirates – I say pirates not to vex the professor, who does not like to hear them called cannibals – and if these pirates think that they are going to keep me in this cage where I am stifled without hearing how I can swear, they are mistaken. Come, M. Aronnax, speak frankly. Do you think they will keep us long in this iron box?’

‘To tell you the truth, I know no more about it than you, friend Land.’

‘But what do you think about it?’

‘I think that hazard has made us masters of an important secret. If it is in the interest of the crew of this submarine vessel to keep it, and if this interest is of more consequence than the life of three men, I believe our existence to be in great danger. In the contrary case, on the first opportunity, the monster who has swallowed us will send us back to the world inhabited by our fellow men.’

‘Unless he enrols us amongst his crew,’ said Conseil, ‘and he keeps us thus—’

‘Until some frigate,’ replied Ned Land, ‘more rapid or more skilful than the Abraham Lincoln , masters this nest of plunderers, and sends its crew and us to breathe our last at the end of his mainyard.’

‘Well reasoned, Mr Land,’ I replied. ‘But I believe no proposition of the sort has yet been made to us, so it is useless to discuss what we should do in that case. I repeat, we must wait, take counsel of circumstances, and do nothing, as there is nothing to do.’