During the nineteen days mentioned above,no incident of any kind happened to signalise our voyage.Isaw little of the Captain;he was at work.In the library Ioften found his books left open,especially those on natural history.
My work on submarine depths,conned over by him,was covered with marginal notes,often contradicting my theories and systems;but the Captain contented himself with thus purging my work;it was very rare for him to discuss it with me.
Sometimes Iheard the melancholy tones of his organ;but only at night,in the midst of the deepest obscurity,when the Nautilus slept upon the deserted ocean.During this part of our voyage we sailed whole days on the surface of the waves.
The sea seemed abandoned.Afew sailing-vessels,on the road to India,were making for the Cape of Good Hope.
One day we were followed by the boats of a whaler,who,no doubt,took us for some enormous whale of great price;but Captain Nemo did not wish the worthy fellows to lose their time and trouble,so ended the chase by plunging under the water.
Our navigation continued until the 13th of March;that day the Nautilus was employed in taking soundings,which greatly interested me.We had then made about 13,000leagues since our departure from the high seas of the Pacific.
The bearings gave us 45@37'S.lat.,and 37@53'W.long.
It was the same water in which Captain Denham of the Herald sounded 7,000fathoms without finding the bottom.
There,too,Lieutenant Parker,of the American frigate Congress,could not touch the bottom with 15,140fathoms.
Captain Nemo intended seeking the bottom of the ocean by a diagonal sufficiently lengthened by means of lateral planes placed at an angle of 45@with the water-line of the Nautilus.
Then the screw set to work at its maximum speed,its four blades beating the waves with in describable force.
Under this powerful pressure,the hull of the Nautilus quivered like a sonorous chord and sank regularly under the water.
At 7,000fathoms Isaw some blackish tops rising from the midst of the waters;but these summits might belong to high mountains like the Himalayas or Mont Blanc,even higher;and the depth of the abyss remained incalculable.
The Nautilus descended still lower,in spite of the great pressure.
Ifelt the steel plates tremble at the fastenings of the bolts;its bars bent,its partitions groaned;the windows of the saloon seemed to curve under the pressure of the waters.And this firm structure would doubtless have yielded,if,as its Captain had said,it had not been capable of resistance like a solid block.We had attained a depth of 16,000yards (four leagues),and the sides of the Nautilus then bore a pressure of 1,600atmospheres,that is to say,3,200lb.
to each square two-fifths of an inch of its surface.
"What a situation to be in!"Iexclaimed."To overrun these deep regions where man has never trod!Look,Captain,look at these magnificent rocks,these uninhabited grottoes,these lowest receptacles of the globe,where life is no longer possible!What unknown sights are here!
Why should we be unable to preserve a remembrance of them?""Would you like to carry away more than the remembrance?"said Captain Nemo.
"What do you mean by those words?"
"Imean to say that nothing is easier than to make a photographic view of this submarine region."Ihad not time to express my surprise at this new proposition,when,at Captain Nemo's call,an objective was brought into the saloon.
Through the widely-opened panel,the liquid mass was bright with electricity,which was distributed with such uniformity that not a shadow,not a gradation,was to be seen in our manufactured light.The Nautilus remained motionless,the force of its screw subdued by the inclination of its planes:
the instrument was propped on the bottom of the oceanic site,and in a few seconds we had obtained a perfect negative.
But,the operation being over,Captain Nemo said,"Let us go up;we must not abuse our position,nor expose the Nautilus too long to such great pressure.""Go up again!"Iexclaimed.
"Hold well on."
Ihad not time to understand why the Captain cautioned me thus,when Iwas thrown forward on to the carpet.At a signal from the Captain,its screw was shipped,and its blades raised vertically;the Nautilus shot into the air like a balloon,rising with stunning rapidity,and cutting the mass of waters with a sonorous agitation.
Nothing was visible;and in four minutes it had shot through the four leagues which separated it from the ocean,and,after emerging like a flying-fish,fell,making the waves rebound to an enormous height.