Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

by Marie Sexton

  “Sharks?” I exclaimed.

  This struck me as a pretty needless question, to say the least.

  “Well?” Captain Nemo went on.

  “I admit, Captain, I’m not yet on very familiar terms with that genus of fish.”

  “We’re used to them, the rest of us,” Captain Nemo answered. “And in time you will be too. Anyhow, we’ll be armed, and on our way we might hunt a man-eater or two. It’s a fascinating sport. So, Professor, I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early.”

  This said in a carefree tone, Captain Nemo left the lounge.

  If you’re invited to hunt bears in the Swiss mountains, you might say, “Oh good, I get to go bear hunting tomorrow.” If you’re invited to hunt lions on the Atlas plains or tigers in the jungles of India, you might say, “Ha. Now’s my chance to hunt lions and tigers.” But if you’re invited to hunt sharks in their native element, you might want to think it over before accepting.

  As for me, I passed a hand over my brow, where beads of cold sweat were busy forming.

  “Let’s think this over,” I said to myself, “and let’s take our time. Hunting otters in underwater forests, as we did in the forests of Crespo Island, is an acceptable activity. But to roam the bottom of the sea when you’re almost certain to meet man-eaters in the neighbourhood, that’s another story. I know that in certain countries, particularly the Andaman Islands, Negroes don’t hesitate to attack sharks, dagger in one hand and noose in the other, but I also know that many who face those fearsome animals don’t come back alive.

  Besides, I’m not a Negro, and even if I were a Negro, in this instance I don’t think a little hesitation on my part would be out of place.”

  And there I was, fantasising about sharks, envisioning huge jaws armed with multiple rows of teeth and capable of cutting a man in half. I could already feel a definite pain around my pelvic girdle. And how I resented the offhand manner in which the captain had extended his deplorable invitation. You would have thought it was an issue of going into the woods on some harmless fox hunt.

  “Thank heavens,” I said to myself. “Conseil will never want to come along, and that’ll be my excuse for not going with the captain.”

  As for Ned Land, I admit I felt less confident of his wisdom. Danger, however great, held a perennial attraction for his aggressive nature.

  I went back to reading Sirr’s book, but I leafed through it mechanically. Between the lines I kept seeing fearsome, wide-open jaws.

  Just then Conseil and the Canadian entered with a calm, even gleeful air. Little did they know what was waiting for them.

  “Ye gods, sir,” Ned Land told me. “Your Captain Nemo—the devil take him—has just made us a very pleasant proposition.”

  “Oh,” I said “You know about—”

  “With all due respect to master,” Conseil replied, “the Nautilus’s commander has invited us, together with master, for a visit tomorrow to Ceylon’s magnificent pearl fisheries.

  He did so in the most cordial terms and conducted himself like a true gentleman.”

  “He didn’t tell you anything else?”

  “Nothing, sir,” the Canadian replied. “He said you’d already discussed this little stroll.”

  “Indeed,” I said. “But didn’t he give you any details on—”

  “Not a one, Mr Naturalist. You will be going with us, right?”

  “Me? Why yes, certainly, of course. I can see that you like the idea, Mr Land.”

  “Yes. It will be a really unusual experience.”

  “And possibly dangerous,” I added in an insinuating tone.

  “Dangerous?” Ned Land replied. “A simple trip to an oysterbank?”

  “Whatever you say, Ned.” Then, trying to imitate Captain Nemo’s carefree tone, I asked, “By the way, gallant Ned, are you afraid of sharks?”

  “Me?” the Canadian replied. “I’m a professional harpooner. It’s my job to make a mockery of them.”

  “It isn’t an issue,” I said, “of fishing for them with a swivel hook, hoisting them onto the deck of a ship, chopping off the tail with a sweep of the axe, opening the belly, ripping out the heart, and tossing it into the sea.”

  “So it’s an issue of…?”

  “Yes, precisely.”

  “In the water?”

  “In the water.”

  “Ye gods, just give me a good harpoon. You see, sir, these sharks are badly designed.

  They have to roll their bellies over to snap you up, and in the meantime…”

  Ned Land had a way of pronouncing the word “snap” that sent chills down the spine.

  “Well, how about you, Conseil? What are your feelings about these man-eaters?”

  “Me?” Conseil said. “I’m afraid I must be frank with master.”

  Good for you, I thought.

  “If master faces these sharks,” Conseil said, “I think his loyal manservant should face them with him.”

  Chapter Three

  A Pearl Worth Ten Million

  Night fell. I went to bed. Ned slept soundly next to me, no doubt dreaming of a glorious hunt, but for myself, I slept pretty poorly. Man-eaters played a major role in my dreams. And I found it more or less appropriate that the French word for shark, requin, has its linguistic roots in the word requiem.

  The next day at four o’clock in the morning, we were awakened by the steward whom Captain Nemo had placed expressly at my service. He was clearly not surprised to find the Canadian sharing my bed. We got up quickly, dressed, and went into the lounge.

  Captain Nemo was waiting for us.

  “Professor Aronnax, Mr Land,” he said to us, “are you ready to start?”

  “We’re ready.”

  “Kindly follow me.”

  “What about our companion, Captain?”

  “He’s been alerted and is waiting for us.”

  “Aren’t we going to put on our diving suits?” I asked.

  “Not yet. I haven’t let the Nautilus pull too near the coast, and we’re fairly well out from the Mannar oysterbank. But I have the skiff ready, and it will take us to the exact spot where we’ll disembark, which will save us a pretty long trek. It’s carrying our diving equipment, and we’ll suit up just before we begin our underwater exploring.”

  Captain Nemo took us to the central companionway whose steps led to the platform.

  Conseil was there, enraptured with the “pleasure trip” getting underway. Oars in position, five of the Nautilus’s sailors were waiting for us aboard the skiff, which was moored alongside. The night was still dark. Layers of clouds cloaked the sky and left only a few stars in view. My eyes flew to the side where land lay, but I saw only a blurred line covering three-quarters of the horizon from southwest to northwest. Going up Ceylon’s west coast during the night, the Nautilus lay west of the bay, or rather that gulf formed by the mainland and Mannar Island. Under these dark waters there stretched the bank of shellfish, an inexhaustible field of pearls more than twenty miles long.

  Captain Nemo, Conseil, Ned Land, and I found seats in the stern of the skiff. The longboat’s coxswain took the tiller, his four companions leaned into their oars, the moorings were cast off and we pulled clear.

  The skiff headed southward. The oarsmen took their time. I watched their strokes vigorously catch the water, and they always waited ten seconds before rowing again, following the practice used in most navies. While the longboat coasted, drops of liquid flicked from the oars and hit the dark troughs of the waves, pitter-pattering like splashes of molten lead. Coming from well out, a mild swell made the skiff roll gently, and a few cresting billows lapped at its bow.

  We were silent. What was Captain Nemo thinking? Perhaps that this approaching shore was too close for comfort, contrary to the Canadian’s views in which it still seemed too far away. As for Conseil, he had come along out of simple curiosity.

  Near 5:30 the first glimmers of light on the horizon defined the upper lines of the coast with greater distinctness. Fairly flat to
the east, it swelled a little towards the south. Five miles still separated it from us, and its beach merged with the misty waters. Between us and the shore, the sea was deserted. Not a boat, not a diver. Profound solitude reigned over this gathering place of pearl fishermen. As Captain Nemo had commented, we were arriving in these waterways a month too soon.

  At six o’clock the day broke suddenly, with that speed unique to tropical regions, which experience no real dawn or dusk. The sun’s rays pierced the cloud curtain gathered on the easterly horizon, and the radiant orb rose swiftly.

  I could clearly see the shore, which featured a few sparse trees here and there.

  The skiff advanced towards Mannar Island, which curved to the south. Captain Nemo stood up from his thwart and studied the sea.

  At his signal the anchor was lowered, but its chain barely ran because the bottom lay no more than a metre down, and this locality was one of the shallowest spots near the bank of shellfish. Instantly the skiff wheeled around under the ebb tide’s outbound thrust.

  “Here we are, Professor Aronnax,” Captain Nemo then said. “You observe this confined bay? A month from now in this very place, the numerous fishing boats of the harvesters will gather, and these are the waters their divers will ransack so daringly. This bay is felicitously laid out for their type of fishing. It’s sheltered from the strongest winds, and the sea is never very turbulent here, highly favourable conditions for diving work. Now let’s put on our underwater suits, and we’ll begin our stroll.”

  I didn’t reply, and while staring at these suspicious waves, I began to put on my heavy aquatic clothes, helped by the longboat’s sailors. Captain Nemo and my two companions suited up as well. None of the Nautilus’s men were to go with us on this new excursion.

  Soon we were imprisoned up to the neck in india-rubber clothing, and straps fastened the air devices onto our backs. As for the Ruhmkorff device, it didn’t seem to be in the picture. Before inserting my head into its copper capsule, I commented on this to the captain.

  “Our lighting equipment would be useless to us,” the captain answered me. “We won’t be going very deep, and the sun’s rays will be sufficient to light our way. Besides, it’s unwise to carry electric lanterns under these waves. Their brightness might unexpectedly attract certain dangerous occupants of these waterways.”

  As Captain Nemo pronounced these words, I turned to Conseil and Ned Land. But my two friends had already encased their craniums in their metal headgear, and they could neither hear nor reply.

  I had one question left to address to Captain Nemo.

  “What about our weapons?” I asked him. “Our rifles?”

  “Rifles? What for? Don’t your mountaineers attack bears dagger in hand? And isn’t steel surer than lead? Here’s a sturdy blade. Slip it under your belt and let’s be off.”

  I stared at my companions. They were armed in the same fashion, and Ned Land was also brandishing an enormous harpoon he had stowed in the skiff before leaving the Nautilus.

  Then, following the captain’s example, I let myself be crowned with my heavy copper sphere, and our air tanks immediately went into action.

  An instant later, the longboat’s sailors helped us overboard one after the other, and we set foot on level sand in a metre and a half of water. Captain Nemo gave us a hand signal.

  We followed him down a gentle slope and disappeared under the waves.

  There the obsessive fears in my brain left me. I became surprisingly calm again. The ease with which I could move increased my confidence, and the many strange sights captivated my imagination.

  The sun was already sending sufficient light under these waves. The tiniest objects remained visible. After ten minutes of walking, we were in five metres of water, and the terrain had become almost flat.

  Like a covey of snipe over a marsh, there rose underfoot schools of unusual fish from the genus Monopterus, whose members have no fin but their tail. I recognised the Javanese eel, a genuine eight-decimetre serpent with a bluish grey belly, which, without the gold lines over its flanks, could easily be confused with the conger eel. From the butterfish genus, whose oval bodies are very flat, I observed several adorned in brilliant colours and sporting a dorsal fin like a sickle, edible fish that, when dried and marinated, make an excellent dish known by the name “karawade”, then some sea poachers, fish belonging to the genus Aspidophoroides, whose bodies are covered with scaly armour divided into eight lengthwise sections.

  Meanwhile, as the sun got progressively higher, it lit up the watery mass more and more. The seafloor changed little by little. Its fine-grained sand was followed by a genuine causeway of smooth crags covered by a carpet of molluscs and zoophytes.

  In the midst of this moving vegetation, under arbores of water plants, there raced legions of clumsy articulates, in particular some fanged frog crabs whose carapaces form a slightly rounded triangle, robber crabs exclusive to these waterways, and horrible parthenope crabs whose appearance was repulsive to the eye. One animal no less hideous, which I encountered several times, was the enormous crab that Mr Darwin observed, to which nature has given the instinct and requisite strength to eat coconuts. It scrambles up trees on the beach and sends the coconuts tumbling, they fracture in their fall and are opened by its powerful pincers. Here, under these clear waves, this crab raced around with matchless agility, while green turtles from the species frequenting the Malabar coast moved sluggishly among the crumbling rocks.

  Near seven o’clock we finally surveyed the bank of shellfish, where pearl oysters reproduce by the millions. These valuable molluscs stick to rocks, where they’re strongly attached by a mass of brown filaments that forbids their moving about. In this respect oysters are inferior even to mussels, to whom nature has not denied all talent for locomotion.

  The shellfish Meleagrina, that womb for pearls whose valves are nearly equal in size, has the shape of a round shell with thick walls and a very rough exterior. Some of these shells were furrowed with flaky, greenish bands that radiated down from the top. These were the young oysters. The others had rugged black surfaces, measured up to fifteen centimetres in width, and were ten or more years old.

  Captain Nemo pointed to this prodigious heap of shellfish, and I saw that these mines were genuinely inexhaustible, since nature’s creative powers are greater than man’s destructive instincts. True to those instincts, Ned Land greedily stuffed the finest of these molluscs into a net he carried at his side.

  But we couldn’t stop. We had to follow the captain, who headed down trails seemingly known only to himself. The seafloor rose noticeably, and when I lifted my arms, sometimes they would pass above the surface of the sea. Then the level of the oysterbank would lower unpredictably. Often we went around tall, pointed rocks rising like pyramids. In their dark crevices huge crustaceans, aiming their long legs like heavy artillery, watched us with unblinking eyes, while underfoot there crept millipedes, bloodworms, aricia worms, and annelid worms, whose antennas and tubular tentacles were incredibly long.

  Just then a huge cave opened up in our path, hollowed from a picturesque pile of rocks whose smooth heights were completely hung with underwater flora. At first this cave looked pitch-black to me. Inside, the sun’s rays seemed to diminish by degrees. Their hazy transparency was nothing more than drowned light.

  Captain Nemo went in. We followed him. My eyes soon grew accustomed to this comparative gloom. I distinguished the unpredictably contoured springings of a vault, supported by natural pillars firmly based on a granite foundation, like the weighty columns of Tuscan architecture. Why had our incomprehensible guide taken us into the depths of this underwater crypt? I would soon find out.

  After going down a fairly steep slope, our feet trod the floor of a sort of circular pit.

  There Captain Nemo stopped, and his hand indicated an object that I hadn’t yet noticed.

  It was an oyster of extraordinary dimensions, a titanic giant clam, a holy-water font that could have held a whole lake, a basin more
than two metres wide, hence even bigger than the one adorning the Nautilus’s lounge.

  I approached this phenomenal mollusc. Its mass of filaments attached it to a table of granite, and there it grew by itself in the midst of the cave’s calm waters. I estimated the weight of this giant clam at three-hundred kilograms. Hence such an oyster held fifteen kilos of meat, and you’d need the stomach of King Gargantua to eat a couple dozen.

  Captain Nemo was obviously familiar with this bivalve’s existence. This wasn’t the first time he’d paid it a visit, and I thought his sole reason for leading us to this locality was to show us a natural curiosity. I was mistaken. Captain Nemo had an explicit personal interest in checking on the current condition of this giant clam.

  The mollusc’s two valves were partly open. The captain approached and stuck his dagger vertically between the shells to discourage any ideas about closing, then with his hands he raised the fringed, membrane-filled tunic that made up the animal’s mantle.

  There, between its leaflike folds, I saw a loose pearl as big as a coconut. Its globular shape, perfect clarity, and wonderful orient made it a jewel of incalculable value. Carried away by curiosity, I stretched out my hand to take it, weigh it, fondle it. But the captain stopped me, signalled no, removed his dagger in one swift motion, and let the two valves snap shut.

  I then understood Captain Nemo’s intent. By leaving the pearl buried beneath the giant clam’s mantle, he allowed it to grow imperceptibly. With each passing year the mollusc’s secretions added new concentric layers. The captain alone was familiar with the cave where this wonderful fruit of nature was ‘ripening’, he alone reared it, so to speak, in order to transfer it one day to his dearly beloved museum. Perhaps, following the examples of oyster farmers in China and India, he had even predetermined the creation of this pearl by sticking under the mollusc’s folds some piece of glass or metal that was gradually covered with mother-of-pearl. In any case, comparing this pearl to others I already knew about, and to those shimmering in the captain’s collection, I estimated that it was worth at least ten-million francs. It was a superb natural curiosity rather than a luxurious piece of jewellery, because I don’t know of any female ear that could handle it.