The Gulf Stream
:
PART TWO
This terrible scene of the 20th of April none of us can ever forget. I
have written it under the influence of violent emotion. Since then I
have revised the recital; I have read it to Conseil and to the
Canadian. They found it exact as to facts, but insufficient as to
effect. To paint such pictures, one must have the pen of the most
illustrious of our poets, the author of The Toilers of the Deep.
I ha
e said that Captain Nemo wept while watching the waves; his grief
was great. It was the second companion he had lost since our arrival
on board, and what a death! That friend, crushed, stifled, bruised by
the dreadful arms of a poulp, pounded by his iron jaws, would not rest
with his comrades in the peaceful coral cemetery! In the midst of the
struggle, it was the despairing cry uttered by the unfortunate man that
had torn my heart. The poor Frenchman, forgetting his conventional
language, had taken to his own mother tongue, to utter a last appeal!
Amongst the crew of the Nautilus, associated with the body and soul of
the Captain, recoiling like him from all contact with men, I had a
fellow-countryman. Did he alone represent France in this mysterious
association, evidently composed of individuals of divers nationalities?
It was one of these insoluble problems that rose up unceasingly before
my mind!
Captain Nemo entered his room, and I saw him no more for some time.
But that he was sad and irresolute I could see by the vessel, of which
he was the soul, and which received all his impressions. The Nautilus
did not keep on in its settled course; it floated about like a corpse
at the will of the waves. It went at random. He could not tear
himself away from the scene of the last struggle, from this sea that
had devoured one of his men. Ten days passed thus. It was not till
the 1st of May that the Nautilus resumed its northerly course, after
having sighted the Bahamas at the mouth of the Bahama Canal. We were
then following the current from the largest river to the sea, that has
its banks, its fish, and its proper temperatures. I mean the Gulf
Stream. It is really a river, that flows freely to the middle of the
Atlantic, and whose waters do not mix with the ocean waters. It is a
salt river, salter than the surrounding sea. Its mean depth is 1,500
fathoms, its mean breadth ten miles. In certain places the current
flows with the speed of two miles and a half an hour. The body of its
waters is more considerable than that of all the rivers in the globe.
It was on this ocean river that the Nautilus then sailed.
I must add that, during the night, the phosphorescent waters of the
Gulf Stream rivalled the electric power of our watch-light, especially
in the stormy weather that threatened us so frequently. May 8th, we
were still crossing Cape Hatteras, at the height of the North Caroline.
The width of the Gulf Stream there is seventy-five miles, and its depth
210 yards. The Nautilus still went at random; all supervision seemed
abandoned. I thought that, under these circumstances, escape would be
possible. Indeed, the inhabited shores offered anywhere an easy
refuge. The sea was incessantly ploughed by the steamers that ply
between New York or Boston and the Gulf of Mexico, and overrun day and
night by the little schooners coasting about the several parts of the
American coast. We could hope to be picked up. It was a favourable
opportunity, notwithstanding the thirty miles that separated the
Nautilus from the coasts of the Union. One unfortunate circumstance
thwarted the Canadian's plans. The weather was very bad. We were
nearing those shores where tempests are so frequent, that country of
waterspouts and cyclones actually engendered by the current of the Gulf
Stream. To tempt the sea in a frail boat was certain destruction. Ned
Land owned this himself. He fretted, seized with nostalgia that flight
only could cure.
"Master," he said that day to me, "this must come to an end. I must
make a clean breast of it. This Nemo is leaving land and going up to
the north. But I declare to you that I have had enough of the South
Pole, and I will not follow him to the North."
"What is to be done, Ned, since flight is impracticable just now?"
"We must speak to the Captain," said he; "you said nothing when we were
in your native seas. I will speak, now we are in mine. When I think
that before long the Nautilus will be by Nova Scotia, and that there
near New foundland is a large bay, and into that bay the St. Lawrence
empties itself, and that the St. Lawrence is my river, the river by
Quebec, my native town--when I think of this, I feel furious, it makes
my hair stand on end. Sir, I would rather throw myself into the sea!
I will not stay here! I am stifled!"
The Canadian was evidently losing all patience. His vigorous nature
could not stand this prolonged imprisonment. His face altered daily;
his temper became more surly. I knew what he must suffer, for I was
seized with home-sickness myself. Nearly seven months had passed
without our having had any news from land; Captain Nemo's isolation,
his altered spirits, especially since the fight with the poulps, his
taciturnity, all made me view things in a different light.
"Well, sir?" said Ned, seeing I did not reply.
"Well, Ned, do you wish me to ask Captain Nemo his intentions
concerning us?"
"Yes, sir."
"Although he has already made them known?"
"Yes; I wish it settled finally. Speak for me, in my name only, if you
like."
"But I so seldom meet him. He avoids me."
"That is all the more reason for you to go to see him."
I went to my room. From thence I meant to go to Captain Nemo's. It
would not do to let this opportunity of meeting him slip. I knocked at
the door. No answer. I knocked again, then turned the handle. The
door opened, I went in. The Captain was there. Bending over his
work-table, he had not heard me. Resolved not to go without having
spoken, 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 am busy, sir; I am working. I leave you at liberty to shut
yourself up; cannot I be allowed the same?"
This reception was not encouraging; but I was determined to hear and
answer everything.
"Sir," I said coldly, "I have to speak to you on a matter that admits
of no delay."
"What is that, sir?" he replied, ironically. "Have you discovered
something that has escaped me, or has the sea delivered up any new
secrets?"
We were at cross-purposes. 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 please God, it shall not
perish with me. This manuscript, signed with my name, complete with
the history of my life, will be shut up in a little floating case. The
last survivor of all of us on board the Nautilus will throw this case
into the sea, and it will go whither it is borne by the waves."
This man's name! his history written by himself! His mystery would
then be revealed some day.
"Captain," I said, "I can but approve of the idea that makes you act
thus. The result of your studies must not be lost. But the means you
employ seem to me to be primitive. Who knows where the winds will
carry this case, and in whose hands it will fall? Could you not use
some other means? Could not you, or one of yours----"
"Never, sir!" he said, hastily interrupting me.
"But I and my companions are ready to keep this manuscript in store;
and, if you will put us at liberty----"
"At liberty?" said the Captain, rising.
"Yes, sir; that is the subject on which I wish to question you. For
seven months we have been here on board, and I ask you to-day, in the
name of my companions and in my own, if your intention is to keep us
here always?"
"M. Aronnax, I will answer you to-day as I did seven months ago:
Whoever enters the Nautilus, must never quit it."
"You impose actual slavery upon us!"
"Give it what name you please."
"But everywhere the slave has the right to regain his liberty."
"Who denies you this right? Have I ever tried to chain you with an
oath?"
He looked at me with his arms crossed.
"Sir," I said, "to return a second time to this subject will be neither
to your nor to my taste; but, as we have entered upon it, let us go
through with it. I repeat, it is not only myself whom it concerns.
Study is to me a relief, a diversion, a passion that could make me
forget everything. Like you, I am willing to live obscure, in the
frail hope of bequeathing one day, to future time, the result of my
labours. But it is otherwise with Ned Land. Every man, worthy of the
name, deserves some consideration. Have you thought that love of
liberty, hatred of slavery, can give rise to schemes of revenge in a
nature like the Canadian's; that he could think, attempt, and try----"
I was silenced; Captain Nemo rose.
"Whatever Ned Land thinks of, attempts, or tries, what does it matter
to me? I did not seek him! It is not for my pleasure that I keep him
on board! As for you, M. Aronnax, you are 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 treat of this subject be the
last, for a second time I will not listen to you."
I retired. Our situation was critical. I related my conversation to
my two companions.
"We know now," said Ned, "that we can expect nothing from this man.
The Nautilus is nearing Long Island. We will escape, whatever the
weather may be."
But the sky became more and more threatening. Symptoms of a hurricane
became manifest. The atmosphere was becoming white and misty. On the
horizon fine streaks of cirrhous clouds were succeeded by masses of
cumuli. Other low clouds passed swiftly by. The swollen sea rose in
huge billows. The birds disappeared with the exception of the petrels,
those friends of the storm. The barometer fell sensibly, and indicated
an extreme extension of the vapours. The mixture of the storm glass
was decomposed under the influence of the electricity that pervaded the
atmosphere. The tempest burst on the 18th of May, just as the Nautilus
was floating off Long Island, some miles from the port of New York. I
can describe this strife of the elements! for, instead of fleeing to
the depths of the sea, Captain Nemo, by an unaccountable caprice, would
brave it at the surface. The wind blew from the south-west at first.
Captain Nemo, during the squalls, had taken his place on the platform.
He had made himself fast, to prevent being washed overboard by the
monstrous waves. I had hoisted myself up, and made myself fast also,
dividing my admiration between the tempest and this extraordinary man
who was coping with it. The raging sea was swept by huge cloud-drifts,
which were actually saturated with the waves. The Nautilus, sometimes
lying on its side, sometimes standing up like a mast, rolled and
pitched terribly. About five o'clock a torrent of rain fell, that
lulled neither sea nor wind. The hurri cane blew nearly forty leagues
an hour. It is under these conditions that it overturns houses, breaks
iron gates, displaces twenty-four pounders. However, the Nautilus, in
the midst of the tempest, confirmed the words of a clever engineer,
"There is no well-constructed hull that cannot defy the sea." This was
not a resisting rock; it was a steel spindle, obedient and movable,
without rigging or masts, that braved its fury with impunity. However,
I watched these raging waves attentively. They measured fifteen feet
in height, and 150 to 175 yards long, and their speed of propagation
was thirty feet per second. Their bulk and power increased with the
depth of the water. Such waves as these, at the Hebrides, have
displaced a mass weighing 8,400 lb. They are they which, in the
tempest of December 23rd, 1864, after destroying the town of Yeddo, in
Japan, broke the same day on the shores of America. The intensity of
the tempest increased with the night. The barometer, as in 1860 at
Reunion during a cyclone, fell seven-tenths at the close of day. I saw
a large vessel pass the horizon struggling painfully. She was trying
to lie to under half steam, to keep up above the waves. It was
probably one of the steamers of the line from New York to Liverpool, or
Havre. It soon disappeared in the gloom. At ten o'clock in the
evening the sky was on fire. The atmosphere was streaked with vivid
lightning. I could not bear the brightness of it; while the captain,
looking at it, seemed to envy the spirit of the tempest. A terrible
noise filled the air, a complex noise, made up of the howls of the
crushed waves, the roaring of the wind, and the claps of thunder. The
wind veered suddenly to all points of the horizon; and the cyclone,
rising in the east, returned after passing by the north, west, and
south, in the inverse course pursued by the circular storm of the
southern hemisphere. Ah, that Gulf Stream! It deserves its name of
the King of Tempests. It is that which causes those formidable
cyclones, by the difference of temperature between its air and its
currents. A shower of fire had succeeded the rain. The drops of water
were changed to sharp spikes. One would have thought that Captain Nemo
was courting a death worthy of himself, a death by lightning. As the
Nautilus, pitching dreadfully, raised its steel spur in the air, it
seemed to act as a conductor, and I saw long sparks burst from it.
Crushed and without strength I crawled to the panel, opened it, and
descended to the saloon. The storm was then at its height. It was
impossible to stand upright in the interior of the Nautilus. Captain
Nemo came down about twelve. I heard the reservoirs filling by
degrees, and the Nautilus sank slowly beneath the waves. Through the
open windows in the saloon I saw large fish terrified, passing like
phantoms in the water. Some were struck before my eyes. The Nautilus
was still descending. I thought that at about eight fathoms deep we
should find a calm. But no! the upper beds were too violently agitated
for that. We had to seek repose at more than twenty-five fathoms in
the bowels of the deep. But there, what quiet, what silence, what
peace! Who could have told that such a hurricane had been let loose on
the surface of that ocean?