Ned Land and Conseil returned to their cabin, and I retired to my chamber. My dinner was ready. It was composed of turtle soup made of the most delicate hawksbills, of a surmullet served with puff paste (the liver of which, prepared by itself, was most delicious), and fillets of the emperor-holocanthus, the savor of which seemed to me superior even to salmon.
I passed the evening reading, writing, and thinking. Then sleep overpowered me, and I stretched myself on my couch of zostera, and slept profoundly, while the Nautilus was gliding rapidly through the current of the Black River.
A Note of Invitation
The next day was the 9th of November. I awoke after a long sleep of twelve hours. Conseil came, according to custom, to know “how had I passed the night,” and to offer his services. He had left his friend the Canadian sleeping like a man who had never done anything else all his life. I let the worthy fellow chatter as he pleased, without caring to answer him. I was preoccupied by the absence of the captain during our sitting of the day before, and hoping to see him to-day.
As soon as I was dressed I went into the saloon. It was deserted.
I plunged into the study of the conchological treasures hidden behind the glasses. I reveled also in great herbals filled with the rarest marine plants, which, although dried up, retained their lovely colors. Among these precious hydrophytes I remarked some vorticellæ, pavonariæ, delicate ceramies with scarlet tints, some fan-shaped agari, and some natabuli like flat mushrooms, which at one time used to be classed as zoöphytes; in short, a perfect series of algæ.
The whole day passed without my being honored by a visit from Captain Nemo. The panels of the saloon did not open. Perhaps they did not wish us to tire of these beautiful things.
The course of the Nautilus was E.N.E., her speed twelve knots, the depth below the surface between twenty-five and thirty fathoms.
The next day, 10th of November, the same desertion, the same solitude. I did not see one of the ship’s crew; Ned and Conseil spent the greater part of the day with me. They were astonished at the inexplicable absence of the captain. Was this singular man ill? Had he altered his intentions with regard to us?
After all, as Conseil said, we enjoyed perfect liberty, we were delicately and abundantly fed. Our host kept to his terms of the treaty. We could not complain, and, indeed, the singularity of our fate reserved such wonderful compensation for us that we had no right to accuse it as yet.
That day I commenced the journal of these adventures which has enabled me to relate them with more scrupulous exactitude and minute detail. I wrote it on paper made from the zostera marina.
November 11th, early in the morning. The fresh air spreading over the interior of the Nautilus told me that we had come to the surface of the ocean to renew our supply of oxygen. I directed my steps to the central staircase, and mounted the platform.
It was six o’clock, the weather was cloudy, the sea gray but calm. Scarcely a billow. Captain Nemo, whom I hoped to meet, would he be there? I saw no one but the steersman imprisoned in his glass cage. Seated upon the projection formed by the hull of the pinnace, I inhaled the salt breeze with delight.
By degrees the fog disappeared under the action of the sun’s rays, the radiant orb rose from behind the eastern horizon. The sea flamed under its glance like a train of gunpowder. The clouds scattered in the heights were colored with lively tints of beautiful shades, and numerous “mare’s tails,” which betokened wind for that day. But what was wind to this Nautilus, which tempests could not frighten!
I was admiring this joyous rising of the sun, so gay, and so life-giving, when I heard steps approaching the platform. I was prepared to salute Captain Nemo, but it was his second (whom I had already seen on the captain’s first visit) who appeared. He advanced on the platform, not seeming to see me. With his powerful glass to his eye he scanned every point of the horizon with great attention. This examination over, he approached the panel and pronounced a sentence in exactly these terms. I have remembered it, for every morning it was repeated under exactly the same conditions. It was thus worded: