Bab Bab 42 · THE GULF STREAM

ULF STREAM

This terrible scene of the 20th of April none of us can ever forget. I

have written it under the influence of violent emotion. Since then I

have revised the recital; I have read it to Conseil and to the

Canadian. They found it exact as to facts, but insufficient as to

effect. To paint such pictures, one must have the pen of the most

illustrious of our poets, the author of The Toilers of the Deep.

I have said that Captain Nemo wept while watching the waves; his grief

was great. It was the second companion he had lost since our arrival on

board, and what a death! That friend, crushed, stifled, bruised by the

dreadful arms of a poulp, pounded by his iron jaws, would not rest with

his comrades in the peaceful coral cemetery! In the midst of the

struggle, it was the despairing cry uttered by the unfortunate man that

had torn my heart. The poor Frenchman, forgetting his conventional

language, had taken to his own mother tongue, to utter a last appeal!

Amongst the crew of the _Nautilus_, associated with the body and soul

of the Captain, recoiling like him from all contact with men, I had a

fellow-countryman. Did he alone represent France in this mysterious

association, evidently composed of individuals of divers nationalities?

It was one of these insoluble problems that rose up unceasingly before

my mind!

Captain Nemo entered his room, and I saw him no more for some time. But

that he was sad and irresolute I could see by the vessel, of which he

was the soul, and which received all his impressions. The _Nautilus_

did not keep on in its settled course; it floated about like a corpse

at the will of the waves. It went at random. He could not tear himself

away from the scene of the last struggle, from this sea that had

devoured one of his men. Ten days passed thus. It was not till the 1st

of May that the _Nautilus_ resumed its northerly course, after having

sighted the Bahamas at the mouth of the Bahama Canal. We were then

following the current from the largest river to the sea, that has its

banks, its fish, and its proper temperatures. I mean the Gulf Stream.

It is really a river, that flows freely to the middle of the Atlantic,

and whose waters do not mix with the ocean waters. It is a salt river,

salter than the surrounding sea. Its mean depth is 1,500 fathoms, its

mean breadth ten miles. In certain places the current flows with the

speed of two miles and a half an hour. The body of its waters is more

considerable than that of all the rivers in the globe. It was on this

ocean river that the _Nautilus_ then sailed.

I must add that, during the night, the phosphorescent waters of the

Gulf Stream rivalled the electric power of our watch-light, especially

in the stormy weather that threatened us so frequently. May 8th, we

were still crossing Cape Hatteras, at the height of North Carolina. The

width of the Gulf Stream there is seventy-five miles, and its depth

210 yards. The _Nautilus_ still went at random; all supervision seemed

abandoned. I thought that, under these circumstances, escape would be

possible. Indeed, the inhabited shores offered anywhere an easy refuge.

The sea was incessantly ploughed by the steamers that ply between New

York or Boston and the Gulf of Mexico, and overrun day and night by

the little schooners coasting about the several parts of the American

coast. We could hope to be picked up. It was a favourable opportunity,

notwithstanding the thirty miles that separated the _Nautilus_ from

the coasts of the Union. One unfortunate circumstance thwarted the

Canadian’s plans. The weather was very bad. We were nearing those

shores where tempests are so frequent, that country of waterspouts and

cyclones actually engendered by the current of the Gulf Stream. To

tempt the sea in a frail boat was certain destruction. Ned Land owned

this himself. He fretted, seized with nostalgia that flight only could

cure.

“Master,” he said that day to me, “this must come to an end. I must

make a clean breast of it. This Nemo is leaving land and going up to

the north. But I declare to you that I have had enough of the South

Pole, and I will not follow him to the North.”

“What is to be done, Ned, since flight is impracticable just now?”

“We must speak to the Captain,” said he; “you said nothing when we were

in your native seas. I will speak, now we are in mine. When I think

that before long the _Nautilus_ will be by Nova Scotia, and that there

near New foundland is a large bay, and into that bay the St. Lawrence

empties itself, and that the St. Lawrence is my river, the river by

Quebec, my native town—when I think of this, I feel furious, it makes

my hair stand on end. Sir, I would rather throw myself into the sea! I

will not stay here! I am stifled!”

The Canadian was evidently losing all patience. His vigorous nature

could not stand this prolonged imprisonment. His face altered daily;

his temper became more surly. I knew what he must suffer, for I was

seized with home-sickness myself. Nearly seven months had passed

without our having had any news from land; Captain Nemo’s isolation,

his altered spirits, especially since the fight with the poulps, his

taciturnity, all made me view things in a different light.

“Well, sir?” said Ned, seeing I did not reply.

“Well, Ned, do you wish me to ask Captain Nemo his intentions

concerning us?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Although he has already made them known?”

“Yes; I wish it settled finally. Speak for me, in my name only, if you

like.”

“But I so seldom meet him. He avoids me.”

“That is all the more reason for you to go to see him.”

I went to my room. From thence I meant to go to Captain Nemo’s. It

would not do to let this opportunity of meeting him slip. I knocked at

the door. No answer. I knocked again, then turned the handle. The door

opened, I went in. The Captain was there. Bending over his work-table,

he had not heard me. Resolved not to go without having spoken, I

approached him. He raised his head quickly, frowned, and said roughly,

“You here! What do you want?”

“To speak to you, Captain.”

“But I am busy, sir; I am working. I leave you at liberty to shut

yourself up; cannot I be allowed the same?”

This reception was not encouraging; but I was determined to hear and

answer everything.

“Sir,” I said coldly, “I have to speak to you on a matter that admits

of no delay.”

“What is that, sir?” he replied, ironically. “Have you discovered

something that has escaped me, or has the sea delivered up any new

secrets?”

We were at cross-purposes. But, before I could reply, he showed me an

open manuscript on his table, and said, in a more serious tone, “Here,

M. Aronnax, is a manuscript written in several languages. It contains

the sum of my studies of the sea; and, if it please God, it shall not

perish with me. This manuscript, signed with my name, complete with the

history of my life, will be shut up in a little floating case. The last

survivor of all of us on board the _Nautilus_ will throw this case into

the sea, and it will go whither it is borne by the waves.”

This man’s name! his history written by himself! His mystery would then

be revealed some day.

“Captain,” I said, “I can but approve of the idea that makes you act

thus. The result of your studies must not be lost. But the means you

employ seem to me to be primitive. Who knows where the winds will carry

this case, and in whose hands it will fall? Could you not use some

other means? Could not you, or one of yours——”

“Never, sir!” he said, hastily interrupting me.

“But I and my companions are ready to keep this manuscript in store;

and, if you will put us at liberty——”

“At liberty?” said the Captain, rising.

“Yes, sir; that is the subject on which I wish to question you. For

seven months we have been here on board, and I ask you to-day, in the

name of my companions and in my own, if your intention is to keep us

here always?”

“M. Aronnax, I will answer you to-day as I did seven months ago:

Whoever enters the _Nautilus_, must never quit it.”

“You impose actual slavery upon us!”

“Give it what name you please.”

“But everywhere the slave has the right to regain his liberty.”

“Who denies you this right? Have I ever tried to chain you with an

oath?”

He looked at me with his arms crossed.

“Sir,” I said, “to return a second time to this subject will be neither

to your nor to my taste; but, as we have entered upon it, let us go

through with it. I repeat, it is not only myself whom it concerns.

Study is to me a relief, a diversion, a passion that could make me

forget everything. Like you, I am willing to live obscure, in the frail

hope of bequeathing one day, to future time, the result of my labours.

But it is otherwise with Ned Land. Every man, worthy of the name,

deserves some consideration. Have you thought that love of liberty,

hatred of slavery, can give rise to schemes of revenge in a nature like

the Canadian’s; that he could think, attempt, and try——”

I was silenced; Captain Nemo rose.

“Whatever Ned Land thinks of, attempts, or tries, what does it matter

to me? I did not seek him! It is not for my pleasure that I keep him on

board! As for you, M. Aronnax, you are one of those who can understand

everything, even silence. I have nothing more to say to you. Let this

first time you have come to treat of this subject be the last, for a

second time I will not listen to you.”

I retired. Our situation was critical. I related my conversation to my

two companions.

“We know now,” said Ned, “that we can expect nothing from this man. The

_Nautilus_ is nearing Long Island. We will escape, whatever the weather

may be.”

But the sky became more and more threatening. Symptoms of a hurricane

became manifest. The atmosphere was becoming white and misty. On the

horizon fine streaks of cirrhous clouds were succeeded by masses of

cumuli. Other low clouds passed swiftly by. The swollen sea rose in

huge billows. The birds disappeared with the exception of the petrels,

those friends of the storm. The barometer fell sensibly, and indicated

an extreme tension of the vapours. The mixture of the storm glass was

decomposed under the influence of the electricity that pervaded the

atmosphere. The tempest burst on the 18th of May, just as the

_Nautilus_ was floating off Long Island, some miles from the port of

New York. I can describe this strife of the elements! for, instead of

fleeing to the depths of the sea, Captain Nemo, by an unaccountable

caprice, would brave it at the surface. The wind blew from the

south-west at first. Captain Nemo, during the squalls, had taken his

place on the platform. He had made himself fast, to prevent being

washed overboard by the monstrous waves. I had hoisted myself up, and

made myself fast also, dividing my admiration between the tempest and

this extraordinary man who was coping with it. The raging sea was swept

by huge cloud-drifts, which were actually saturated with the waves. The

_Nautilus_, sometimes lying on its side, sometimes standing up like a

mast, rolled and pitched terribly. About five o’clock a torrent of rain

fell, that lulled neither sea nor wind. The hurricane blew nearly

forty leagues an hour. It is under these conditions that it overturns

houses, breaks iron gates, displaces twenty-four pounders. However, the

_Nautilus_, in the midst of the tempest, confirmed the words of a

clever engineer, “There is no well-constructed hull that cannot defy

the sea.” This was not a resisting rock; it was a steel spindle,

obedient and movable, without rigging or masts, that braved its fury

with impunity. However, I watched these raging waves attentively. They

measured fifteen feet in height, and 150 to 175 yards long, and their

speed of propagation was thirty feet per second. Their bulk and power

increased with the depth of the water. Such waves as these, at the

Hebrides, have displaced a mass weighing 8,400 lbs. They are they

which, in the tempest of December 23rd, 1864, after destroying the town

of Yeddo, in Japan, broke the same day on the shores of America. The

intensity of the tempest increased with the night. The barometer, as in

1860 at Reunion during a cyclone, fell seven-tenths at the close of

day. I saw a large vessel pass the horizon struggling painfully. She

was trying to lie to under half steam, to keep up above the waves. It

was probably one of the steamers of the line from New York to

Liverpool, or Havre. It soon disappeared in the gloom. At ten o’clock

in the evening the sky was on fire. The atmosphere was streaked with

vivid lightning. I could not bear the brightness of it; while the

captain, looking at it, seemed to envy the spirit of the tempest. A

terrible noise filled the air, a complex noise, made up of the howls of

the crushed waves, the roaring of the wind, and the claps of thunder.

The wind veered suddenly to all points of the horizon; and the cyclone,

rising in the east, returned after passing by the north, west, and

south, in the inverse course pursued by the circular storm of the

southern hemisphere. Ah, that Gulf Stream! It deserves its name of the

King of Tempests. It is that which causes those formidable cyclones, by

the difference of temperature between its air and its currents. A

shower of fire had succeeded the rain. The drops of water were changed

to sharp spikes. One would have thought that Captain Nemo was courting

a death worthy of himself, a death by lightning. As the _Nautilus_,

pitching dreadfully, raised its steel spur in the air, it seemed to act

as a conductor, and I saw long sparks burst from it. Crushed and

without strength I crawled to the panel, opened it, and descended to

the saloon. The storm was then at its height. It was impossible to

stand upright in the interior of the _Nautilus_. Captain Nemo came down

about twelve. I heard the reservoirs filling by degrees, and the

_Nautilus_ sank slowly beneath the waves. Through the open windows in

the saloon I saw large fish terrified, passing like phantoms in the

water. Some were struck before my eyes. The _Nautilus_ was still

descending. I thought that at about eight fathoms deep we should find a

calm. But no! the upper beds were too violently agitated for that. We

had to seek repose at more than twenty-five fathoms in the bowels of

the deep. But there, what quiet, what silence, what peace! Who could

have told that such a hurricane had been let loose on the surface of

that ocean?

CHAPT