“Yes, confound it! Yes,” answered Ned Land, “it is superb! I am mad at being obliged to admit it. No one has ever seen anything like it; but the sight may cost us dear. And if I must say all, I think we are seeing here things which God never intended man to see.”
Ned was right, it was too beautiful. Suddenly a cry from Conseil made me turn.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Shut your eyes, sir! Do not look, sir!” Saying which, Conseil clapped his hands over his eyes.
“But what is the matter, my boy?”
“I am dazzled, blinded.”
My eyes turned involuntarily toward the glass, but I could not stand the fire which seemed to devour them. I understood what had happened. The Nautilus had put on full speed. All the quiet luster of the ice-walls was at once changed into flashes of lightning. The fire from these myriads of diamonds was blinding. It required some time to calm our troubled looks. At last the hands were taken down.
“Faith, I should never have believed it,” said Conseil.
It was then five in the morning; and at that moment a shock was felt at the bows of the Nautilus. I knew that its spur had struck a block of ice. It must have been a false maneuver, for this submarine tunnel, obstructed by blocks, was not very easy navigation. I thought that Captain Nemo, by changing his course, would either turn these obstacles, or else follow the windings of the tunnel. In any case, the road before us could not be entirely blocked. But, contrary to my expectations, the Nautilus took a decided retrograde motion.
“We are going backward?” said Conseil.
“Yes,” I replied. “This end of the tunnel can have no egress.”
“And then?”
“Then,” said I, “the working is easy. We must go back again, and go out at the southern opening. That is all.”
In speaking thus, I wished to appear more confident than I really was. But the retrograde motion of the Nautilus was increasing: and, reversing the screw, it carried us at great speed.
“It will be a hindrance,” said Ned.
“What does it matter, some hours more or less, provided we get out at last?”
“Yes,” repeated Ned Land, “provided we do get out at last!”
For a short time I walked from the saloon to the library. My companions were silent. I soon threw myself on an ottoman, and took a book, which my eyes overran mechanically. A quarter of an hour after, Conseil, approaching me, said, “Is what you are reading very interesting, sir?”
“Very interesting!” I replied.
“I should think so, sir. It is your own book you are reading.”
“My book?”
And indeed I was holding in my hand the work on the Great Submarine Depths. I did not even dream of it. I closed the book, and returned to my walk. Ned and Conseil rose to go.
“Stay here, my friends,” said I, detaining them. “Let us remain together until we are out of this block.”
“As you please, sir,” Conseil replied.
Some hours passed. I often looked at the instruments hanging from the partition. The manometer showed that the Nautilus kept at a constant depth of more than three hundred yards; the compass still pointed to the south; the log indicated a speed of twenty miles an hour, which, in such a cramped space, was very great. But Captain Nemo knew that he could not hasten too much, and that minutes were worth ages to us. At twenty-five minutes past eight a second shock took place, this time from behind. I turned pale. My companions were close by my side. I seized Conseil’s hand. Our looks expressed our feelings better than words. At this moment the captain entered the saloon. I went up to him.
“Our course is barred southward?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. The iceberg has shifted, and closed every outlet.”
“We are blocked up, then?”
“Yes.”
Want of Air
Thus, around the Nautilus, above and below, was an impenetrable wall of ice. We were prisoners to the iceberg. I watched the captain. His countenance had resumed its habitual imperturbability.
“Gentlemen,” he said calmly, “there are two ways of dying in the circumstances in which we are placed.” (This inexplicable person had the air of a mathematical professor lecturing to his pupils.) “The first is to be crushed; the second is to die of suffocation. I do not speak of the possibility of dying of hunger, for the supply of provisions in the Nautilus will certainly last longer than we shall. Let us then calculate our chances.”