“It is only an agglomeration of phosphoric particles,” cried one of the officers.
“No, sir, certainly not,” I replied. “Never did pholades or salpæ produce such a powerful light. That brightness is of an essentially electrical nature. Besides, see, see! It moves; it is moving forward, backward, it is darting toward us!”
A general cry arose from the frigate.
“Silence!” said the captain. “Up with the helm, reverse the engines.”
The steam was shut off, and the Abraham Lincoln, beating to port, described a semicircle.
“Right the helm, go ahead,” cried the captain.
These orders were executed, and the frigate moved rapidly from the burning light.
I was mistaken. She tried to sheer off, but the supernatural animal approached with a velocity double her own.
We gasped for breath. Stupefaction more than fear made us dumb and motionless. The animal gained on us, sporting with the waves. It made the round of the frigate, which was then making fourteen knots, and enveloped it with its electric rings like luminous dust. Then it moved away two or three miles, leaving a phosphorescent track, like those volumes of steam that the express trains leave behind. All at once from the dark line of the horizon whither it retired to gain its momentum, the monster rushed suddenly toward the Abraham Lincoln with alarming rapidity, stopped suddenly about twenty feet from the hull, and died out—not diving under the water, for its brilliancy did not abate—but suddenly, and as if the source of this brilliant emanation was exhausted. Then it reappeared on the other side of the vessel, as if it had turned and slid under the hull. Any moment a collision might have occurred which would have been fatal to us. However, I was astonished at the maneuvers of the frigate. She fled and did not attack.
On the captain’s face, generally so impassive, was an expression of unaccountable astonishment.
“Mr. Aronnax,” he said, “I do not know with what formidable being I have to deal, and I will not imprudently risk my frigate in the midst of this darkness. Besides, how attack this unknown thing, how defend one’s self from it? Wait for daylight, and the scene will change.”
“You have no further doubt, captain, of the nature of the animal?”
“No, sir; it is evidently a gigantic narwhal, and an electric one.”
“Perhaps,” added I, “one can only approach it with a gymnotus or a torpedo.”
“Undoubtedly,” replied the captain, “if it possesses such dreadful power, it is the most terrible animal that ever was created. That is why, sir, I must be on my guard.”
The crew were on their feet all night. No one thought of sleep. The Abraham Lincoln, not being able to struggle with such velocity, had moderated its pace, and sailed at half speed. For its part, the narwhal, imitating the frigate, let the waves rock it at will, and seemed decided not to leave the scene of the struggle. Toward midnight, however, it disappeared, or, to use a more appropriate term, it “died out” like a large glow-worm. Had it fled? One could only fear, not hope it. But at seven minutes to one o’clock in the morning a deafening whistling was heard, like that produced by a body of water rushing with great violence.
The captain, Ned Land, and I were then on the poop, eagerly peering through the profound darkness.
“Ned Land,” asked the commander, “you have often heard the roaring of whales?”
“Often, sir; but never such whales the sight of which brought me in two thousand dollars. If I can only approach within four harpoon lengths of it!”
“But to approach it,” said the commander, “I ought to put a whaler at your disposal?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“That will be trifling with the lives of my men.”
“And mine too,” simply said the harpooner.
Toward two o’clock in the morning, the burning light reappeared, not less intense, about five miles to windward of the Abraham Lincoln. Notwithstanding the distance, and the noise of the wind and sea, one heard distinctly the loud strokes of the animal’s tail, and even its panting breath. It seemed that, at the moment that the enormous narwhal had come to take breath at the surface of the water, the air was ingulfed in its lungs, like the steam in the vast cylinders of a machine of two thousand horsepower.