Chapter-5
“You mean we’re not going on land to hunt,” cried Ned angrily, “Then I refuse to go.”
Conseil, however, followed me everywhere, so he fell in behind me as Captain Nemo led us to a small dressing room. Two crewmen helped us on with our heavy rubber waterproof diving suits and thick shoes weighted with lead. Next, they screwed large metal and glass helmets onto the threaded collars of our suits and strapped air tanks to our backs. We began to breathe easily. Last, they hooked electric lamps onto our belts and placed air guns in our hands. These guns shot tiny glass bullets containing powerful electrical charges.
We moved to a small compartment next to the dressing room, and a watertight door was sealed. Soon I felt cold water rising from my feet to my chest to my head. When the compartment was completely flooded, a door in the hull of the Nautilus opened. A moment later, Captain Nemo led us out onto the ocean floor.
We started walking along a sandy plain towards a group of rocks covered with many varieties and colours of zoophytes, which are tiny sea animals that look like plants and flowers. Overhead, schools of fish swam by. It was a marvellous feast for my eyes.
After we had been walking for an hour, the ground began to slope sharply downward. Ahead of us lay a narrow valley between two high walls. This valley, five hundred feet beneath the surface, contained large tree-like plants whose branches rose straight up. The valley floor was covered with sharp rocks and shadowy plants which did not flower in these dark depths of the ocean.
This was the forest of Crespo Island. We went deeper into it for the next several hours until we came to a huge wall of rock the edge of the island itself. This was as far as Captain Nemo would go, for this wall of rock was dry land, and he had sworn never to set foot on dry land again.
As we turned to head back to the Nautilus, Captain Nemo suddenly stopped and raised his gun. I heard a faint hissing sound and saw an animal fall dead a few feet away.
It was magnificent sea otter whose brown and silver fur was worth hundreds of dollars on land. It was a strange-looking animal with its round head, short ears, cat-like whiskers, clawed webbed feet, and furry tail. One of the crewmen lifted the five-foot-long creature on his shoulder and carried it with us back to the Nautilus.
Once we were inside the compartment, Captain Nemo pressed a button. The outside door closed and the pumps began lowering the water level. Soon the compartment was dry and we stepped into the dressing room.
During the days and weeks that followed, I hardly saw Captain Nemo. The panels in the lounge were kept open, so Ned, Conseil and I could watch the mysteries of underwater life. The first mate marked our position on the chart, so I was able to follow our course. We had just passed the Hawaiian Islands and were heading southeast in the Pacific Ocean. We had already travelled 4,860 leagues, or 14,580 miles, from our starting point off the coast of Japan.
On the night of December 11, the Nautilus lay motionless at a depth of 3,000 feet. I was in the lounge reading when Conseil called to me in a strange voice.
“Monsieur, please come to the window.”
I went over to where Conseil stood and saw an enormous black mass outside. Was it some kind of gigantic whale? Then suddenly, I realized “A ship!” I cried.
“Yes, Professor,” said Ned, who was also gazing out, “It’s a sunken ship.”
It obviously had sunk only hours earlier for there hadn’t even been time for any sea life to start clinging to it. It was sad sight. But its deck was even sadder. Four men their bodies twisted horribly were tied to the masts. A woman, half out of a hatch, was lifting a child over her head as its arms clutched her neck. The helmsman was frozen at the wheel of the ship, his hair stuck to his forehead by the water. He seemed to be steering his ghost ship through the ocean depths.
Our hearts were beating fast, but none of us could utter a word. Then I saw several huge sharks moving towards the wreck. The scent of human flesh blazed fire in their eyes.
The Nautilus sped away, but the three of us sat frozen for several hours afterwards.
On January 2, we entered Torres Strait the body of water separating Australia from the island of New Guinea. Torres Strait is one of the most dangerous straits on earth to sail through, not only because of its reefs and rocks, but also because of the cannibals who live along its coast.
“What an awful stretch of water!” cried Ned as he, Conseil, and I stood on the platform on the deck of the Nautilus.
With Captain Nemo at the helm, however, the Nautilus cruised slowly past most of the terrible reefs. But just as we were nearing the end of the strait, a sudden blow knocked us off our feet. The Nautilus had struck a reef and had gone aground!
Captain Nemo came out onto the platform to reassure us that no damage had been done. However, we would be grounded on the reef until the tide rose. And that would be in five days when the full moon came out.
As soon as Captain Nemo went below, Ned exclaimed excitedly, “This is our chance to escape. We’re only two miles from land.”
“The land you see, Ned, is New Guinea,” I replied, “And the natives are cannibals.”
“But couldn’t we at least get over there and hunt some animals? I’m dying to sink my teeth into some meat after months of fish.”
I went below to ask Captain Nemo if we could go ashore to hunt and, to my great surprise, he agreed.
So the following morning, we loaded our guns and axes on the dinghy and set off. After two months at sea, we were overjoyed at being on dry land again.
We ran from tree to bush, picking and eating bananas, pineapples, coconuts, mangoes, cabbage, beans, and yams. We stuffed ourselves as much as we could, then loaded the rest of our supply on board the dinghy.
Then we returned to the forest to hunt for our main course, the meat.
By late afternoon, we came upon a wild boar which Ned killed with one shot. He then skinned it and cleaned it, cutting its meat into several fine chops.
We returned to the beach and soon had a fire going. Our roasting chops filled the air with a delicious smell. Even I had to admit how much I missed the taste of meat.
We sat down to start our feast. A chop was in my hand, halfway to my mouth, when a shower of stones and arrows came at us from the edge of the forest.
“It’s the cannibals!” cried Conseil, “Head for the dinghy at once!”
Hundreds of savages were on our heels as we raced to the dinghy. Stones and arrows fell all around us as we jumped in and began rowing. Luckily, there were no canoes on shore in which the savages could fellow us.
We reached the Nautilus safely, and I hurried below to find Captain Nemo. He was in the lounge, playing the magnificent organ.
“Ah, it’s you, Professor,” he said, looking up, “How was your hunting expedition?”
“We were attacked by savages,” I cried.
Captain Nemo didn’t seem surprised. “Anywhere you set foot on land, Professor, you will find savages here as well as in your part of the world.”
“But what if they come out to attack us?”
Captain Nemo began playing again as he calmly answered, “Even if all the savages on New Guinea came out to attack us, the Nautilus would have nothing to fear.”
Feeling a little more assured by the captain’s words, I went to my cabin to rest.
At six the next morning, I went up to the platform and looked towards the shore. The sea was filled with dugout canoes and hundreds of savages paddling towards the ship.
I ran below to warn Captain Nemo. I knocked at his cabin door and rushed in.
“You are disturbing me,” said Captain Nemo as he sat at his work table with piles of papers in front of him, “But I imagine you have some serious reason for doing so.”
“Very serious sir,” I said. “We’re being attacked by hundreds of savages!”
“Oh no” said the captain calmly. “Then all we need to do is close the hatches. See, I press this button and it’s done. Surely, Professor, you can’t think that these gentlemen could damage our hull with their arrows when the cannon balls from your warship could not even dent it.”
Then he returned to his work and I to my cabin. All day and all night, I could hear the savages walking about on the platform, letting out bloodcurdling yells.
At 2:30 the next afternoon, Captain Nemo came into the lounge and announced that the tide had risen and freed us from the reef. We would renew our air supply and set off.
“But what about the savages?” I asked, “Won’t they come below when you open the hatch?”
“Monsieur Aronnax, no one can get down that hatch if I do not want them to. But of course, you don’t understand. Come with me.”
I followed the captain along the gangway to the ladder leading up to the hatch. We stood looking up as the hatch sprang open. Immediately, twenty horrible faces glared down at us. One of the savages grabbed onto the ladder to start down, but he was thrown back by some strange force. He ran off cursing and jumping about wildly.
Ten more savages tried grabbing the ladder and ran off screaming the same way.
I realized then that this was not just a plain iron ladder. It was an electrically charged one. And anybody touching it against the captain’s wishes would get a powerful shock. No wonder they ran off screaming.
And so the Nautilus, free of savages and freed from the reef, began moving once again.
Two weeks later, we were in the Indian Ocean, six hundred miles west of Australia.
One morning when we surfaced for air, I went up on the platform. The first mate was there scanning the horizon as he did every morning. Suddenly, he called down the hatch in an excited voice. Almost instantly, Captain Nemo appeared on deck. He began looking at something on the horizon through his telescope.
I put my own telescope to my eye, but before I had the chance to focus the lens, it was abruptly snatched out of my hands.
I turned around and saw Captain Nemo standing before me. His eyes were flshing angrily, his body was rigid, and his fists were clenched. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was gazing at something on the horizon.
After several minutes, his usual calm returned and he spoke, “Monsieur Aronnax, I must lock you and your companions in the cell for a while.”
“Can you tell me why?” I asked, puzzled.
“No, Monsieur, I cannot.”
Five minutes later, Ned, Conseil and I found ourselves locked in the cell where we had spent our first night on board. Our lunch was brought in, and since we had nothing else to do, we ate. Ned and Conseil ate well, but I only picked at my food. I was much too confused to think of eating.
No sooner had Ned and Conseil finished their meal than they put their heads down on the table and fell into a deep sleep. I felt my brain become drowsy, but I tried hard to keep my eyes open. A painful thought suddenly crossed my mind. Some sort of sleeping powder had been mixed with our food. Locking us in this cell wasn’t enough to keep us from knowing Captain Nemo’s secrets. We had to be put to sleep too.
My eyelids closed like leads weights. I fell into a deathlike sleep filled with wild terrifying dreams.
