Never before had I been given the chance to glimpse these animals alive and at large in their native element.
Given such a complete collection from the seas of j.a.pan and China, I won"t mention every variety that pa.s.sed before our dazzled eyes.
More numerous than birds in the air, these fish raced right up to us, no doubt attracted by the brilliant glow of our electric beacon.
Suddenly daylight appeared in the lounge. The sheet-iron panels slid shut. The magical vision disappeared. But for a good while I kept dreaming away, until the moment my eyes focused on the instruments hanging on the wall. The compa.s.s still showed our heading as east-northeast, the pressure gauge indicated a pressure of five atmospheres (corresponding to a depth of fifty meters), and the electric log gave our speed as fifteen miles per hour.
I waited for Captain Nemo. But he didn"t appear. The clock marked the hour of five.
Ned Land and Conseil returned to their cabin. As for me, I repaired to my stateroom. There I found dinner ready for me.
It consisted of turtle soup made from the daintiest hawksbill, a red mullet with white, slightly flaky flesh, whose liver, when separately prepared, makes delicious eating, plus loin of imperial angelfish, whose flavor struck me as even better than salmon.
I spent the evening in reading, writing, and thinking.
Then drowsiness overtook me, I stretched out on my eelgra.s.s mattress, and I fell into a deep slumber, while the Nautilus glided through the swiftly flowing Black Current.
CHAPTER 15
An Invitation in Writing
THE NEXT DAY, November 9, I woke up only after a long, twelve-hour slumber. Conseil, a creature of habit, came to ask "how master"s night went," and to offer his services.
He had left his Canadian friend sleeping like a man who had never done anything else.
I let the gallant lad babble as he pleased, without giving him much in the way of a reply. I was concerned about Captain Nemo"s absence during our session the previous afternoon, and I hoped to see him again today.
Soon I had put on my clothes, which were woven from strands of seash.e.l.l tissue. More than once their composition provoked comments from Conseil. I informed him that they were made from the smooth, silken filaments with which the fan mussel, a type of seash.e.l.l quite abundant along Mediterranean beaches, attaches itself to rocks.
In olden times, fine fabrics, stockings, and gloves were made from such filaments, because they were both very soft and very warm.
So the Nautilus"s crew could dress themselves at little cost, without needing a thing from cotton growers, sheep, or silkworms on sh.o.r.e.
As soon as I was dressed, I made my way to the main lounge.
It was deserted.
I dove into studying the conchological treasures ama.s.sed inside the gla.s.s cases. I also investigated the huge plant alb.u.ms that were filled with the rarest marine herbs, which, although they were pressed and dried, still kept their wonderful colors.
Among these valuable water plants, I noted various seaweed: some Cladostephus verticillatus, peac.o.c.k"s tails, fig-leafed caulerpa, grain-bearing beauty bushes, delicate rosetangle tinted scarlet, sea colander arranged into fan shapes, mermaid"s cups that looked like the caps of squat mushrooms and for years had been cla.s.sified among the zoophytes; in short, a complete series of algae.
The entire day pa.s.sed without my being honored by a visit from Captain Nemo. The panels in the lounge didn"t open.
Perhaps they didn"t want us to get tired of these beautiful things.
The Nautilus kept to an east-northeasterly heading, a speed of twelve miles per hour, and a depth between fifty and sixty meters.
Next day, November 10: the same neglect, the same solitude.
I didn"t see a soul from the crew. Ned and Conseil spent the better part of the day with me. They were astonished at the captain"s inexplicable absence. Was this eccentric man ill?
Did he want to change his plans concerning us?
But after all, as Conseil noted, we enjoyed complete freedom, we were daintily and abundantly fed. Our host had kept to the terms of his agreement. We couldn"t complain, and moreover the very uniqueness of our situation had such generous rewards in store for us, we had no grounds for criticism.
That day I started my diary of these adventures, which has enabled me to narrate them with the most scrupulous accuracy; and one odd detail: I wrote it on paper manufactured from marine eelgra.s.s.
Early in the morning on November 11, fresh air poured through the Nautilus"s interior, informing me that we had returned to the surface of the ocean to renew our oxygen supply.
I headed for the central companionway and climbed onto the platform.
It was six o"clock. I found the weather overcast, the sea gray but calm.
Hardly a billow. I hoped to encounter Captain Nemo there--would he come?
I saw only the helmsman imprisoned in his gla.s.s-windowed pilothouse.
Seated on the ledge furnished by the hull of the skiff, I inhaled the sea"s salty aroma with great pleasure.
Little by little, the mists were dispersed under the action of the sun"s rays. The radiant orb cleared the eastern horizon.
Under its gaze, the sea caught on fire like a trail of gunpowder.
Scattered on high, the clouds were colored in bright, wonderfully shaded hues, and numerous "ladyfingers" warned of daylong winds.*
*Author"s Note: "Ladyfingers" are small, thin, white clouds with ragged edges.
But what were mere winds to this Nautilus, which no storms could intimidate!
So I was marveling at this delightful sunrise, so life-giving and cheerful, when I heard someone climbing onto the platform.
I was prepared to greet Captain Nemo, but it was his chief officer who appeared--whom I had already met during our first visit with the captain. He advanced over the platform, not seeming to notice my presence. A powerful spygla.s.s to his eye, he scrutinized every point of the horizon with the utmost care.
Then, his examination over, he approached the hatch and p.r.o.nounced a phrase whose exact wording follows below. I remember it because, every morning, it was repeated under the same circ.u.mstances.
It ran like this:
"Nautron respoc lorni virch."
What it meant I was unable to say.