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Home -> Jules Verne -> 20,000 Leagues under the Sea -> Chapter 16

20,000 Leagues under the Sea - Chapter 16

1. Part I Chapter 1

2. Chapter 2

3. Chapter 3

4. Chapter 4

5. Chapter 5

6. Chapter 6

7. Chapter 7

8. Chapter 8

9. Chapter 9

10. Chapter 10

11. Chapter 11

12. Chapter 12

13. Chapter 13

14. Chapter 14

15. Chapter 15

16. Chapter 16

17. Chapter 17

18. Chapter 18

19. Chapter 19

20. Chapter 20

21. Chapter 21

22. Chapter 22

23. Chapter 23

24. Part II Chapter 1

25. Chapter 2

26. Chapter 3

27. Chapter 4

28. Chapter 5

29. Chapter 6

30. Chapter 7

31. Chapter 8

32. Chapter 9

33. Chapter 10

34. Chapter 11

35. Chapter 12

36. Chapter 13

37. Chapter 14

38. Chapter 15

39. Chapter 16

40. Chapter 17

41. Chapter 18

42. Chapter 19

43. Chapter 20

44. Chapter 21

45. Chapter 22

46. Chapter 23







CHAPTER XVI

WANT OF AIR

Thus around the Nautilus, above and below, was an impenetrable wall
of ice. We were prisoners to the iceberg. I watched the Captain.
His countenance had resumed its habitual imperturbability.

"Gentlemen," he said calmly, "there are two ways of dying in
the circumstances in which we are placed." (This puzzling person
had the air of a mathematical professor lecturing to his pupils.)
"The first is to be crushed; the second is to die of suffocation.
I do not speak of the possibility of dying of hunger, for the supply
of provisions in the Nautilus will certainly last longer than we shall.
Let us, then, calculate our chances."

"As to suffocation, Captain," I replied, "that is not to be feared,
because our reservoirs are full."

"Just so; but they will only yield two days' supply of air.
Now, for thirty-six hours we have been hidden under the water,
and already the heavy atmosphere of the Nautilus requires renewal.
In forty-eight hours our reserve will be exhausted."

"Well, Captain, can we be delivered before forty-eight hours?"

"We will attempt it, at least, by piercing the wall that surrounds us."

"On which side?"

"Sound will tell us. I am going to run the Nautilus aground
on the lower bank, and my men will attack the iceberg on the side
that is least thick."

Captain Nemo went out. Soon I discovered by a hissing noise
that the water was entering the reservoirs. The Nautilus
sank slowly, and rested on the ice at a depth of 350 yards,
the depth at which the lower bank was immersed.

"My friends," I said, "our situation is serious, but I rely
on your courage and energy."

"Sir," replied the Canadian, "I am ready to do anything
for the general safety."

"Good! Ned," and I held out my hand to the Canadian.

"I will add," he continued, "that, being as handy with the pickaxe
as with the harpoon, if I can be useful to the Captain, he can
command my services."

"He will not refuse your help. Come, Ned!"

I led him to the room where the crew of the Nautilus
were putting on their cork-jackets. I told the Captain
of Ned's proposal, which he accepted. The Canadian put on
his sea-costume, and was ready as soon as his companions.
When Ned was dressed, I re-entered the drawing-room, where
the panes of glass were open, and, posted near Conseil,
I examined the ambient beds that supported the Nautilus.
Some instants after, we saw a dozen of the crew set foot on the bank
of ice, and among them Ned Land, easily known by his stature.
Captain Nemo was with them. Before proceeding to dig the walls,
he took the soundings, to be sure of working in the right direction.
Long sounding lines were sunk in the side walls, but after
fifteen yards they were again stopped by the thick wall.
It was useless to attack it on the ceiling-like surface,
since the iceberg itself measured more than 400 yards in height.
Captain Nemo then sounded the lower surface. There ten yards
of wall separated us from the water, so great was the thickness
of the ice-field. It was necessary, therefore, to cut from it
a piece equal in extent to the waterline of the Nautilus.
There were about 6,000 cubic yards to detach, so as to dig
a hole by which we could descend to the ice-field. The work
had begun immediately and carried on with indefatigable energy.
Instead of digging round the Nautilus which would have involved
greater difficulty, Captain Nemo had an immense trench made at eight
yards from the port-quarter. Then the men set to work simultaneously
with their screws on several points of its circumference.
Presently the pickaxe attacked this compact matter vigorously,
and large blocks were detached from the mass. By a curious
effect of specific gravity, these blocks, lighter than water,
fled, so to speak, to the vault of the tunnel, that increased
in thickness at the top in proportion as it diminished at the base.
But that mattered little, so long as the lower part grew thinner.
After two hours' hard work, Ned Land came in exhausted. He and his
comrades were replaced by new workers, whom Conseil and I joined.
The second lieutenant of the Nautilus superintended us.
The water seemed singularly cold, but I soon got warm
handling the pickaxe. My movements were free enough,
although they were made under a pressure of thirty atmospheres.
When I re-entered, after working two hours, to take some food
and rest, I found a perceptible difference between the pure
fluid with which the Rouquayrol engine supplied me and the
atmosphere of the Nautilus, already charged with carbonic acid.
The air had not been renewed for forty-eight hours, and its vivifying
qualities were considerably enfeebled. However, after a lapse
of twelve hours, we had only raised a block of ice one yard thick,
on the marked surface, which was about 600 cubic yards!
Reckoning that it took twelve hours to accomplish this much it
would take five nights and four days to bring this enterprise
to a satisfactory conclusion. Five nights and four days!
And we have only air enough for two days in the reservoirs!
"Without taking into account," said Ned, "that, even if we get out
of this infernal prison, we shall also be imprisoned under the iceberg,
shut out from all possible communication with the atmosphere."
True enough! Who could then foresee the minimum of time
necessary for our deliverance? We might be suffocated before
the Nautilus could regain the surface of the waves? Was it
destined to perish in this ice-tomb, with all those it enclosed?
The situation was terrible. But everyone had looked the danger
in the face, and each was determined to do his duty to the
last.

As I expected, during the night a new block a yard square
was carried away, and still further sank the immense hollow.
But in the morning when, dressed in my cork-jacket, I traversed
the slushy mass at a temperature of six or seven degrees below zero,
I remarked that the side walls were gradually closing in.
The beds of water farthest from the trench, that were not warmed
by the men's work, showed a tendency to solidification. In presence
of this new and imminent danger, what would become of our chances
of safety, and how hinder the solidification of this liquid medium,
that would burst the partitions of the Nautilus like glass?

I did not tell my companions of this new danger.
What was the good of damping the energy they displayed in
the painful work of escape? But when I went on board again,
I told Captain Nemo of this grave complication.

"I know it," he said, in that calm tone which could counteract
the most terrible apprehensions. "It is one danger more;
but I see no way of escaping it; the only chance of safety is to go
quicker than solidification. We must be beforehand with it,
that is all."

On this day for several hours I used my pickaxe vigorously.
The work kept me up. Besides, to work was to quit the Nautilus,
and breathe directly the pure air drawn from the reservoirs,
and supplied by our apparatus, and to quit the impoverished and
vitiated atmosphere. Towards evening the trench was dug one yard deeper.
When I returned on board, I was nearly suffocated by the carbonic
acid with which the air was filled--ah! if we had only the chemical
means to drive away this deleterious gas. We had plenty of oxygen;
all this water contained a considerable quantity, and by dissolving
it with our powerful piles, it would restore the vivifying fluid.
I had thought well over it; but of what good was that,
since the carbonic acid produced by our respiration had invaded
every part of the vessel? To absorb it, it was necessary to fill
some jars with caustic potash, and to shake them incessantly.
Now this substance was wanting on board, and nothing could replace it.
On that evening, Captain Nemo ought to open the taps of his reservoirs,
and let some pure air into the interior of the Nautilus; without this
precaution we could not get rid of the sense of suffocation. The next day,
March 26th, I resumed my miner's work in beginning the fifth yard.
The side walls and the lower surface of the iceberg thickened visibly.
It was evident that they would meet before the Nautilus was
able to disengage itself. Despair seized me for an instant;
my pickaxe nearly fell from my hands. What was the good of digging
if I must be suffocated, crushed by the water that was turning
into stone?--a punishment that the ferocity of the savages even
would not have invented! Just then Captain Nemo passed near me.
I touched his hand and showed him the walls of our prison.
The wall to port had advanced to at least four yards from the hull of
the Nautilus. The Captain understood me, and signed me to follow him.
We went on board. I took off my cork-jacket and accompanied him into the
drawing-room.

"M. Aronnax, we must attempt some desperate means, or we shall
be sealed up in this solidified water as in cement."

"Yes; but what is to be done?"

"Ah! if my Nautilus were strong enough to bear this pressure
without being crushed!"

"Well?" I asked, not catching the Captain's idea.

"Do you not understand," he replied, "that this congelation of water
will help us? Do you not see that by its solidification, it would
burst through this field of ice that imprisons us, as, when it freezes,
it bursts the hardest stones? Do you not perceive that it would be
an agent of safety instead of destruction?"

"Yes, Captain, perhaps. But, whatever resistance to crushing
the Nautilus possesses, it could not support this terrible pressure,
and would be flattened like an iron plate."

"I know it, sir. Therefore we must not reckon on the aid of nature,
but on our own exertions. We must stop this solidification.
Not only will the side walls be pressed together; but there
is not ten feet of water before or behind the Nautilus.
The congelation gains on us on all sides."

"How long will the air in the reservoirs last for us to breathe on board?"

The Captain looked in my face. "After to-morrow they will be empty!"

A cold sweat came over me. However, ought I to have been astonished
at the answer? On March 22, the Nautilus was in the open polar seas.
We were at 26@. For five days we had lived on the reserve on board.
And what was left of the respirable air must be kept for the workers.
Even now, as I write, my recollection is still so vivid that an
involuntary terror seizes me and my lungs seem to be without air.
Meanwhile, Captain Nemo reflected silently, and evidently an idea
had struck him; but he seemed to reject it. At last, these words
escaped his lips:

"Boiling water!" he muttered.

"Boiling water?" I cried.

"Yes, sir. We are enclosed in a space that is relatively confined.
Would not jets of boiling water, constantly injected by the pumps,
raise the temperature in this part and stay the congelation?"

"Let us try it," I said resolutely.

"Let us try it, Professor."

The thermometer then stood at 7@ outside. Captain Nemo took
me to the galleys, where the vast distillatory machines
stood that furnished the drinkable water by evaporation.
They filled these with water, and all the electric heat from
the piles was thrown through the worms bathed in the liquid.
In a few minutes this water reached 100@. It was directed
towards the pumps, while fresh water replaced it in proportion.
The heat developed by the troughs was such that cold water,
drawn up from the sea after only having gone through the machines,
came boiling into the body of the pump. The injection was begun,
and three hours after the thermometer marked 6@ below zero outside.
One degree was gained. Two hours later the thermometer only marked
4@.

"We shall succeed," I said to the Captain, after having anxiously
watched the result of the operation.

"I think," he answered, "that we shall not be crushed.
We have no more suffocation to fear."

During the night the temperature of the water rose to 1@ below zero.
The injections could not carry it to a higher point. But, as the congelation
of the sea-water produces at least 2@, I was at least reassured against
the dangers of solidification.

The next day, March 27th, six yards of ice had been cleared, twelve feet
only remaining to be cleared away. There was yet forty-eight hours' work.
The air could not be renewed in the interior of the Nautilus.
And this day would make it worse. An intolerable weight oppressed me.
Towards three o'clock in the evening this feeling rose to a violent degree.
Yawns dislocated my jaws. My lungs panted as they inhaled this burning fluid,
which became rarefied more and more. A moral torpor took hold of me.
I was powerless, almost unconscious. My brave Conseil, though exhibiting
the same symptoms and suffering in the same manner, never left me.
He took my hand and encouraged me, and I heard him murmur, "Oh! if I could
only not breathe, so as to leave more air for my master!"

Tears came into my eyes on hearing him speak thus. If our
situation to all was intolerable in the interior, with what haste
and gladness would we put on our cork-jackets to work in our turn!
Pickaxes sounded on the frozen ice-beds. Our arms ached,
the skin was torn off our hands. But what were these fatigues,
what did the wounds matter? Vital air came to the lungs!
We breathed! we breathed!

All this time no one prolonged his voluntary task beyond the prescribed time.
His task accomplished, each one handed in turn to his panting companions
the apparatus that supplied him with life. Captain Nemo set the example,
and submitted first to this severe discipline. When the time came,
he gave up his apparatus to another and returned to the vitiated air
on board, calm, unflinching, unmurmuring.

On that day the ordinary work was accomplished with unusual vigour.
Only two yards remained to be raised from the surface.
Two yards only separated us from the open sea. But the reservoirs
were nearly emptied of air. The little that remained ought
to be kept for the workers; not a particle for the Nautilus.
When I went back on board, I was half suffocated. What a night!
I know not how to describe it. The next day my breathing
was oppressed. Dizziness accompanied the pain in my head and made
me like a drunken man. My companions showed the same symptoms.
Some of the crew had rattling in the throat.

On that day, the sixth of our imprisonment, Captain Nemo,
finding the pickaxes work too slowly, resolved to crush
the ice-bed that still separated us from the liquid sheet.
This man's coolness and energy never forsook him. He subdued his
physical pains by moral force.

By his orders the vessel was lightened, that is to say,
raised from the ice-bed by a change of specific gravity.
When it floated they towed it so as to bring it above
the immense trench made on the level of the water-line. Then,
filling his reservoirs of water, he descended and shut himself up
in the hole.

Just then all the crew came on board, and the double door of communication
was shut. The Nautilus then rested on the bed of ice, which was not one
yard thick, and which the sounding leads had perforated in a thousand places.
The taps of the reservoirs were then opened, and a hundred cubic yards
of water was let in, increasing the weight of the Nautilus to 1,800 tons.
We waited, we listened, forgetting our sufferings in hope. Our safety
depended on this last chance. Notwithstanding the buzzing in my head,
I soon heard the humming sound under the hull of the Nautilus. The ice
cracked with a singular noise, like tearing paper, and the Nautilus sank.

"We are off!" murmured Conseil in my ear.

I could not answer him. I seized his hand, and pressed it convulsively.
All at once, carried away by its frightful overcharge, the Nautilus sank like
a bullet under the waters, that is to say, it fell as if it was in a vacuum.
Then all the electric force was put on the pumps, that soon began to let
the water out of the reservoirs. After some minutes, our fall was stopped.
Soon, too, the manometer indicated an ascending movement. The screw,
going at full speed, made the iron hull tremble to its very bolts and drew
us towards the north. But if this floating under the iceberg is to last
another day before we reach the open sea, I shall be dead first.

Half stretched upon a divan in the library, I was suffocating.
My face was purple, my lips blue, my faculties suspended.
I neither saw nor heard. All notion of time had gone from my mind.
My muscles could not contract. I do not know how many hours
passed thus, but I was conscious of the agony that was coming over me.
I felt as if I was going to die. Suddenly I came to.
Some breaths of air penetrated my lungs. Had we risen to the surface
of the waves? Were we free of the iceberg? No! Ned and Conseil,
my two brave friends, were sacrificing themselves to save me.
Some particles of air still remained at the bottom of one apparatus.
Instead of using it, they had kept it for me, and, while they
were being suffocated, they gave me life, drop by drop.
I wanted to push back the thing; they held my hands,
and for some moments I breathed freely. I looked at the clock;
it was eleven in the morning. It ought to be the 28th of March.
The Nautilus went at a frightful pace, forty miles an hour. It literally
tore through the water. Where was Captain Nemo? Had he succumbed?
Were his companions dead with him? At the moment the manometer
indicated that we were not more than twenty feet from the surface.
A mere plate of ice separated us from the atmosphere. Could we not
break it? Perhaps. In any case the Nautilus was going to attempt it.
I felt that it was in an oblique position, lowering the stern,
and raising the bows. The introduction of water had been the means
of disturbing its equilibrium. Then, impelled by its powerful screw,
it attacked the ice-field from beneath like a formidable battering-ram.
It broke it by backing and then rushing forward against the field,
which gradually gave way; and at last, dashing suddenly against it,
shot forwards on the ice-field, that crushed beneath its weight.
The panel was opened--one might say torn off--and the pure air came in in
abundance to all parts of the Nautilus.




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