At that moment the instruments in the gallery indicated that only a thin sheet of ice separated us from open water. I was desperate to breathe some fresh air. Once again I heard the sound of the water tanks filling, but this time it was only the tanks in the stern. As the bow of the submarine began to rise, I realized that the Nautilus was going to attempt to break through the ice above us.
The submarine attacked the ice with its battering ram, and then it backed off and rushed forward again. This time the icy crust gave way and we shot to the surface. Someone tore open the hatches and pure air came rushing into all parts of the Nautilus. I have no idea how I got to the platform; perhaps Ned carried me there. But once I was out in the fresh sea air, I breathed deeply.
"How delightful this air is!" said Conseil. "And we may all breathe freely because there is enough for everyone."
Ned did not say anything but inhaled deeply, opening his jaws wide enough to frighten a shark. When our strength returned, I tried to express my gratitude to Ned and Conseil for saving my life.
"My friends," I said, "we will be bonded by this experience forever, and I have a great obligation to you both."
"Which I will take advantage of," Ned said slyly.
"What do you mean?" asked Conseil.
"Only that I will insist on taking the professor and you with me when I leave this infernal submarine."
"Well," said Conseil, "after all this, are we heading in the right direction?"
"Yes, because we're definitely headed north," I replied.
"But it remains to be seen," said Ned, "whether Captain Nemo will take us into the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean. In other words, are we going toward seas that are heavily traveled or seas that are lonely?"
I could not answer that question and feared that Captain Nemo would prefer to take us to the Pacific Ocean, so that he could complete his underwater tour of the world. But by March 31 it was clear that we were heading into the Atlantic.
By April 12 we had crossed the equator and were within twenty miles of Guiana, a French territory that would have given refuge to Ned, Conseil, and me. But a stiff breeze was blowing and the waves would have capsized the small boat. Ned must have realized this because he made no mention of escaping. For my part, I said nothing either. I didn't want to encourage Ned in an attempt to escape that would fail.
To Ned's great disappointment, the Nautilus stayed out of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. He had hoped either to land on one of the islands or to hail one of the many boats passing from island to island. That assumed, of course, that he was able to launch the small boat without Captain Nemo's knowledge.
On April 16 we sighted Martinique and Guadeloupe from a distance. We had been prisoners on the Nautilus for five months and had traveled seventeen thousand leagues.
"This voyage will never come to an end!" Ned moaned one day in despair. "We're going to have to be the ones who end it because that captain never will."
Meanwhile what concerned me was that Captain Nemo had become more serious and less sociable. I rarely saw him anymore. He used to spend time explaining underwater marvels to me; these days he left me to my studies and never came into the gallery.
My attitude had changed too. I realized that I now had the research to write a solid book about underwater life, and I wanted to get back to land to see that book published.
On April 20 we were cruising underwater near the Bahamas. Tall cliffs rose beneath the sea, their surfaces covered with weeds. I was looking out the gallery windows with Conseil and Ned.
"Giant squid could live in some of those caves," I suggested.
"Oh, I'll never believe that such animals exist," said Ned.
"Well," Conseil said very seriously, "I remember seeing a large vessel being pulled under the waves by a squid's tentacles."
"Oh, really," Ned said skeptically, "and exactly where was that?"
"In a church in Brittany," said Conseil. "There's a painting showing that scene."
"He's right," I said as Ned and I turned away from the windows. "The painting, however, is based merely on a legend about a squid that was supposed to be a mile long, more like an island than an animal. Another legend tells of a bishop building an altar on a large rock; after the bishop said mass, the rock—which was a giant squid—walked into the sea."
"How much of those stories is true?" asked Conseil.
"When it comes to sea monsters, imaginations run wild," I replied. "The legends are untrue, but huge squids do exist. Some naturalists have calculated that a six-foot squid would have tentacles twenty-seven feet long."
Ned was especially interested in how someone would catch one of these creatures, so I told him about an unsuccessful attempt that occurred a few years before.
"How big was this squid?" asked Ned.
"Wasn't it about 18 feet?" said Conseil. "And when it waved its tentacles about, didn't they look like a nest of serpents? And didn't it have a beak like a parrot's?"
"That's all correct," I said.
"Well, then, I think it—or its brother—is right outside the window! Look!"
Ned and I rushed to the glass, where we saw an immense squid that had to be at least twenty-five feet long and four thousand pounds. What a freak of nature! It had hundreds of suckers along its tentacles and its beaklike mouth was lined with rows of sharp teeth. Nearby were more squid! I counted seven by the light of the Nautilus.
Suddenly the submarine stopped. A shock made it tremble from bow to stern.
"We can't have hit anything because we're still floating," said Ned.
Captain Nemo and his lieutenant came into the gallery and looked through the windows.
"The squid have disabled our propeller," Captain Nemo explained. "We're going to rise to the surface and see if we can get rid of them."
As the submarine rose, we followed Nemo up the stairs that led to the platform. There, about ten men were waiting, armed with hatchets and ready to attack. Conseil and I picked up hatchets while Ned seized a harpoon. One of the crewmen unscrewed the bolts of the hatch and opened it. Immediately a huge tentacle slid down and grabbed the man.
"Help! Help!" he cried in French.
I had a fellow countryman on board, and I hadn't even known it until this awful moment!
Captain Nemo and his crew fought the squid, but it blinded them with a stream of its black liquid. By the time the men could see again, the squid had disappeared overboard with the unfortunate crewman. Ten or twelve squid now climbed up the sides and platform of the Nautilus. Ned fought them off with his harpoon until one pinned him to the platform with its horrible, heavy tentacles.