Essential Classics (Illustrated). Charles Dickens

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      Saying which, Captain Nemo went towards a piece of furniture standing near the left panel of the saloon. Near this piece of furniture, I saw a chest bound with iron, on the cover of which was a copper plate, bearing the cypher of the Nautilus with its device.

      At that moment, the Captain, without noticing my presence, opened the piece of furniture, a sort of strong box, which held a great many ingots.

      They were ingots of gold. From whence came this precious metal, which represented an enormous sum? Where did the Captain gather this gold from? and what was he going to do with it?

      I did not say one word. I looked. Captain Nemo took the ingots one by one, and arranged them methodically in the chest, which he filled entirely. I estimated the contents at more than 4,000 lb. weight of gold, that is to say, nearly L200,000.

      The chest was securely fastened, and the Captain wrote an address on the lid, in characters which must have belonged to Modern Greece.

      This done, Captain Nemo pressed a knob, the wire of which communicated with the quarters of the crew. Four men appeared, and, not without some trouble, pushed the chest out of the saloon. Then I heard them hoisting it up the iron staircase by means of pulleys.

      At that moment, Captain Nemo turned to me.

      "And you were saying, sir?" said he.

      "I was saying nothing, Captain."

      "Then, sir, if you will allow me, I will wish you good night."

      Whereupon he turned and left the saloon.

      I returned to my room much troubled, as one may believe. I vainly tried to sleep--I sought the connecting link between the apparition of the diver and the chest filled with gold. Soon, I felt by certain movements of pitching and tossing that the Nautilus was leaving the depths and returning to the surface.

      Then I heard steps upon the platform; and I knew they were unfastening the pinnace and launching it upon the waves. For one instant it struck the side of the Nautilus, then all noise ceased.

      Two hours after, the same noise, the same going and coming was renewed; the boat was hoisted on board, replaced in its socket, and the Nautilus again plunged under the waves.

      So these millions had been transported to their address. To what point of the continent? Who was Captain Nemo's correspondent?

      The next day I related to Conseil and the Canadian the events of the night, which had excited my curiosity to the highest degree. My companions were not less surprised than myself.

      "But where does he take his millions to?" asked Ned Land.

      To that there was no possible answer. I returned to the saloon after having breakfast and set to work. Till five o'clock in the evening I employed myself in arranging my notes. At that moment--(ought I to attribute it to some peculiar idiosyncrasy)--I felt so great a heat that I was obliged to take off my coat. It was strange, for we were under low latitudes; and even then the Nautilus, submerged as it was, ought to experience no change of temperature. I looked at the manometer; it showed a depth of sixty feet, to which atmospheric heat could never attain.

      I continued my work, but the temperature rose to such a pitch as to be intolerable.

      "Could there be fire on board?" I asked myself.

      I was leaving the saloon, when Captain Nemo entered; he approached the thermometer, consulted it, and, turning to me, said:

      "Forty-two degrees."

      "I have noticed it, Captain," I replied; "and if it gets much hotter we cannot bear it."

      "Oh, sir, it will not get better if we do not wish it."

      "You can reduce it as you please, then?"

      "No; but I can go farther from the stove which produces it."

      "It is outward, then!"

      "Certainly; we are floating in a current of boiling water."

      "Is it possible!" I exclaimed.

      "Look."

      The panels opened, and I saw the sea entirely white all round. A sulphurous smoke was curling amid the waves, which boiled like water in a copper. I placed my hand on one of the panes of glass, but the heat was so great that I quickly took it off again.

      "Where are we?" I asked.

      "Near the Island of Santorin, sir," replied the Captain. "I wished to give you a sight of the curious spectacle of a submarine eruption."

      "I thought," said I, "that the formation of these new islands was ended."

      "Nothing is ever ended in the volcanic parts of the sea," replied Captain Nemo; "and the globe is always being worked by subterranean fires. Already, in the nineteenth year of our era, according to Cassiodorus and Pliny, a new island, Theia (the divine), appeared in the very place where these islets have recently been formed. Then they sank under the waves, to rise again in the year 69, when they again subsided. Since that time to our days the Plutonian work has been suspended. But on the 3rd of February, 1866, a new island, which they named George Island, emerged from the midst of the sulphurous vapour near Nea Kamenni, and settled again the 6th of the same month. Seven days after, the 13th of February, the Island of Aphroessa appeared, leaving between Nea Kamenni and itself a canal ten yards broad. I was in these seas when the phenomenon occurred, and I was able therefore to observe all the different phases. The Island of Aphroessa, of round form, measured 300 feet in diameter, and 30 feet in height. It was composed of black and vitreous lava, mixed with fragments of felspar. And lastly, on the 10th of March, a smaller island, called Reka, showed itself near Nea Kamenni, and since then these three have joined together, forming but one and the same island."

      "And the canal in which we are at this moment?" I asked.

      "Here it is," replied Captain Nemo, showing me a map of the Archipelago. "You see, I have marked the new islands."

      I returned to the glass. The Nautilus was no longer moving, the heat was becoming unbearable. The sea, which till now had been white, was red, owing to the presence of salts of iron. In spite of the ship's being hermetically sealed, an insupportable smell of sulphur filled the saloon, and the brilliancy of the electricity was entirely extinguished by bright scarlet flames. I was in a bath, I was choking, I was broiled.

      "We can remain no longer in this boiling water," said I to the Captain.

      "It would not be prudent," replied the impassive Captain Nemo.

      An order was given; the Nautilus tacked about and left the furnace it could not brave with impunity. A quarter of an hour after we were breathing fresh air on the surface. The thought then struck me that, if Ned Land had chosen this part of the sea for our flight, we should never have come alive out of this sea of fire.

      The next day, the 16th of February, we left the basin which, СКАЧАТЬ