It is thither that the Nautilus, voluntarily or involuntarily, had been run by the captain.
It was describing a spiral, the circumference of which was lessening by degrees, and the boat, which was still fastened to its side, was carried along with giddy speed. I felt that sickly giddiness which arises from long-continued whirling round.
We were in dread. Our horror was at its height, circulation had stopped, all nervous influence was annihilated, and we were covered with cold sweat, like a sweat of agony! And what noise around our frail bark! What roarings repeated by the echo miles away! What an uproar was that of the waters broken on the sharp rocks at the bottom, where the hardest bodies are crushed, and trees worn away, “with all the fur rubbed off,” according to the Norwegian phrase!
What a situation to be in! We rocked frightfully. The Nautilus defended itself like a human being. Its steel muscles cracked. Sometimes it seemed to stand upright, and we with it!
“We must hold on,” said Ned, “and look after the bolts. We may still be saved if we stick to the Nautilus——”
He had not finished the words when we heard a crashing noise, the bolts gave way, and the boat, torn from its groove, was hurled like a stone from a sling into the midst of the whirlpool.
My head struck on a piece of iron, and with the violent shock I lost all consciousness.
Chapter XXIII
Conclusion
THUS ENDS THE VOYAGE under the seas. What passed during that night—how the boat escaped from the eddies of the Maelstrom, how Ned Land, Conseil, and myself ever came out of the gulf—I cannot tell. But when I returned to consciousness, I was lying in a fisherman’s hut, on the Lofoten Isles. My two companions, safe and sound, were near me holding my hands. We embraced each other heartily.
At that moment we could not think of returning to France. The means of communication between the north of Norway and the south are rare, and I am therefore obliged to wait for the steamboat running monthly from Cape North.
And among the worthy people who have so kindly received us I revise my record of these adventures once more. Not a fact has been omitted, not a detail exaggerated. It is a faithful narrative of this incredible expedition in an element inaccessible to man, but to which Progress will one day open a road.
Shall I be believed? I do not know. And it matters little, after all. What I now affirm is, that I have a right to speak of these seas, under which, in less than ten months, I have crossed 20,000 leagues in that submarine tour of the world which has revealed so many wonders.
But what has become of the Nautilus? Did it resist the pressure of the Maelstrom? Does Captain Nemo still live?ci And does he still follow under the ocean those frightful retaliations? Or did he stop after that last hecatomb?
Will the waves one day carry to him this manuscript containing the history of his life? Shall I ever know the name of this man? Will the missing vessel tell us by its nationality that of Captain Nemo?
I hope so. And I also hope that his powerful vessel has conquered the sea at its most terrible gulf, and that the Nautilus has survived where so many other vessels have been lost! If it be so, if Captain Nero still inhabits the ocean, his adopted country, may hatred be appeased in that savage heart! May the contemplation of so many wonders extinguish forever the spirit of vengeance! May the judge disappear, and the philosopher continue the peaceful exploration of the sea! If his destiny be strange, it is also sublime. Have I not understood it myself? Have I not lived ten months of this unnatural life? And to the question asked by Ecclesiastescj 3,000 years ago, “That which is far off and exceeding deep, who can find it out?” two men alone of all now living have the right to give an answer:CAPTAIN NEMO AND MYSELF.
Endnotes
1 (p. 5) “an enormous thing,” ... infinitely larger and more rapid in its movements than a whale: Verne did not fabricate this idea. Sea monsters large enough to be mistaken for an island had been reported as early as the mid-eighteenth century. In A Natural History of Norway (1752), Danish theologian Erik Pontoppidan claimed the existence of an animal as large as a floating island with tentacles strong enough to pull a ship to the bottom of the sea; he called the kraken “the largest and most surprising of all the animal creation.” These rumors were made credible by such discoveries as the washed-up corpse of a giant squid with 60-foot tentacles, found in the South Pacific in 1887 (Grann, “A Reporter at Large: The Squid Hunter”; see “For Further Reading”).
2 (p. 6) a distance of more than seven hundred nautical leagues: In nineteenth-century France, a league equaled about 2.16 miles, so 700 nautical leagues would have been 1,512 miles, and 20,000 leagues would have equaled 43,200 miles. Today the league has been standardized to equal 3 nautical miles.
3 . (p. 7) the white whale, the terrible “Moby Dick”: The “title character” of American writer Herman Melville’s 1851 novel, Moby Dick is a huge, ferocious white whale that is pursued by Ahab, the obsessed captain of the Pequod.
4 . (p. 7) Aristotle and Pliny ... who admitted the existence of these monsters: In History of Animals, Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), known for his writings on logic and natural science, mentions the existence of huge sea serpents that pull oxen from the shore and devour them. Roman naturalist and scholar Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79) wrote in Historia naturalis (book 9) about a 700-pound sea monster with arms 30 feet long that haunted the coast of Spain.
5 . (p. 8) Linnæus: Swedish naturalist and botanist Carolus Linnaeus (also known as Carl von Linné, 1707-1778) established the binomial system of scientific classification, in which species of plants and animals are identified by a two-part Latin name that includes their genus and their species.
6 . (p. 8) Hippolytus: In Greek mythology, Hippolytus, son of the Greek king Theseus, rejects the advances of Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and love. Seeking revenge, Aphrodite causes Hippolytus’ stepmother to fall in love with him, which leads Theseus to banish and curse him. As Hippolytus leaves the kingdom, his chariot is attacked by a sea monster, and his frightened horses drag him to his death.
7 . (p. 9) the Scotia, of the Cunard Company’s line: In 1863 the steamship Scotia set the record for the fastest journey between New York and Liverpool, England, when it made the trip in less than nine days. The Scotia was owned by Sir Samuel Cunard (1788-1865), British founder of the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, known as the Cunard Line. Cunard was one of the first to use steam to power a fleet of ships.
8 (p. 14) Commander Farragut: Admiral David Glasgow Farragut (1801-1870) was a hero of the American Civil War who defeated the Confederates at New Orleans.
9 . (p. 15) I no more thought of pursuing the unicorn than of attempting the passage of the North Sea: In 1867 European traders and navigators were seeking to navigate the dangerous Northwest Passage, a northern passage to India that would have considerably shortened the trading route between the two continents. Many renowned naval explorers died in the attempt. The Northwest Passage was first successfully navigated by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in 1906, just months after Verne’s death.