LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

of it. Either Commander Farragut would slay the narwhale, or the narwhale would slay Commander Farragut. No middle of the road for these two.

      The ship’s officers shared the views of their leader. They were chatting, discussing, arguing, calculating the different chances of an encounter, and observing the vast expanse of the ocean.

      As for the crew, they only wanted to encounter the unicorn, harpoon it, haul it on board, and carve it up. They surveyed the sea with scrupulous care. Besides, Commander Farragut had mentioned that a certain sum of $2,000 was waiting for the man who first sighted the animal, be he cabin boy or sailor, mate or officer.

      As I said, Commander Farragut had carefully equipped his ship with all the gear needed to fish for a gigantic cetacean. No vessel could have been better armed. We had every known mechanism. On the forecastle was mounted the latest model cannon, a weapon that figured in the Universal Exhibition of 1867.

      Moreover, the Abraham Lincoln had Ned Land[16], the King of Harpooners. Gifted with uncommon manual ability, Ned Land was a Canadian who had no equal in his dangerous trade. Dexterity, coolness, bravery, and cunning were virtues he possessed to a high degree. He was about forty years old. A man of great height, he was powerfully built, serious in manner, not very sociable, sometimes headstrong, and quite ill-tempered when crossed.

      Commander Farragut, to my thinking, had made a wise move in hiring on this man. With his eye and his throwing arm, he was worth the whole crew all by himself. I can compare him with a powerful telescope that could serve as a cannon always ready to fire.

      To say Canadian is to say French. No doubt it was my nationality that attracted him. It was an opportunity for him to speak, and for me to hear, that old dialect still used in some Canadian provinces.

      Little by little Ned developed a taste for chatting, and I loved hearing the tales of his adventures in the polar seas. He described his fishing trips and his battles with great natural lyricism.

      I’m writing of this bold companion as I currently know him. Ah, my gallant Ned! I ask only to live 100 years more, the longer to remember you!

      And now, what were Ned Land’s views on this question of a marine monster? I must admit that he flatly didn’t believe in the unicorn, and he didn’t share the general conviction.

      Three weeks after our departure we had crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, and the Strait of Magellan opened less than 700 miles to the south. Seated on the afterdeck, Ned Land and I chatted about one thing and another, staring at that mysterious sea whose depths to this day are beyond the reach of human eyes.

      “Ned,” I asked him, “how can you still doubt the reality of this cetacean? Do you have any particular reasons for being so skeptical?”

      The harpooner stared at me awhile before replying, closed his eyes as if to collect himself, and finally said:

      “Just maybe, Professor Aronnax.”

      “But Ned, you’re a professional whaler, a man familiar with all the great marine mammals—your mind should easily accept this hypothesis of an enormous cetacean!”

      “That’s just where you’re mistaken, professor,” Ned replied. “The common man may still believe in fabulous comets crossing outer space, or in prehistoric monsters living at the earth’s core, but astronomers and geologists don’t swallow such fairy tales. It’s the same with whalers. I’ve chased plenty of cetaceans, I’ve harpooned a good number, I’ve killed several. But no matter how powerful and well armed they were, neither their tails or their tusks could puncture the sheet-iron plates of a steamer.”

      “Listen to me, Ned—”

      “No, no, professor. Some gigantic devilfish maybe…?”

      “Even less likely, Ned. The devilfish is merely a mollusk. Even if it were 500 feet long, it would still be utterly harmless to ships like the Abraham Lincoln.”

      “So, Mr. Naturalist,” Ned Land continued in a bantering tone, “you believe in the existence of some enormous cetacean?”

      “Yes, Ned, I repeat it. I believe in the existence of a mammal with a powerful constitution, and armed with a tusk made of horn that has tremendous penetrating power.”

      “Humph!” the harpooner shook his head.

      “Note well,” I went on, “if such an animal exists, if it lives deep in the ocean, it needs to have a constitution so solid, it defies all comparison.”

      “And why this powerful constitution?” Ned asked.

      “Because it takes incalculable strength just to live in those deep strata and withstand their pressure.”

      “Oh really?” Ned said.

      “Oh really, and I can prove it to you with a few simple figures.”

      “Oh!” Ned replied. “You can make figures do anything you want!”

      “In business, Ned, but not in mathematics. Listen to me. If such animals don’t exist, my stubborn harpooner, how do you explain the accident that happened to the Scotia?”

      “It’s maybe … ,” Ned said, hesitating.

      “Go on!”

      “Because … it just couldn’t be true!” the Canadian replied.

      But this reply proved nothing. That day I pressed him no further. The Scotia’s accident was undeniable. Its hole was real enough, and I don’t think a hole’s existence can be more emphatically proven. This hole didn’t make itself, and since it hadn’t resulted from underwater rocks or underwater machines, it must have been caused by the perforating tool of some animal.

      Chapter 5

      Near three o’clock in the afternoon on July 6, fifteen miles south of shore, the Abraham Lincoln doubled that solitary islet at the tip of the South American continent. Our course was set for the northwest, and the next day our frigate was in the waters of the Pacific.

      Day and night we observed the surface of the ocean. The weather was good. Our voyage was proceeding under the most favorable conditions. July in this zone corresponds to our January in Europe; but the sea remained smooth and easily visible.

      Ned Land spent eight hours out of every twelve reading or sleeping in his cabin. A hundred times I chided him for his unconcern.

      “Bah!” he replied. “Nothing’s out there, Professor Aronnax, can’t you see we’re just wandering around at random? People say they’ve seen this slippery beast again in the Pacific seas—I want to believe it, but two months have already gone by since then! So if the beast does exist, it’s already long gone!”

      I had no reply to this. Obviously we were just groping blindly. But how else could we go? Our chances were pretty limited. Yet everyone still felt confident of success.

      We were finally in the area of the monster’s latest activity! The entire crew suffered from a nervous excitement that it’s beyond me to describe. Nobody ate, nobody slept. A reaction was expected to follow.

      And this reaction wasn’t long in coming. For three months, during which each day seemed like a century, the Abraham Lincoln plowed all the northerly seas of the Pacific. And we found nothing!

      At first, discouragement took hold of people’s minds, opening the door to disbelief. The crew called themselves “out-and-out fools”. With typical human fickleness, they jumped from one extreme to the other. Inevitably, the most enthusiastic supporters of the undertaking became its most energetic opponents.

      And this futile search couldn’t drag on much longer. The Abraham Lincoln had done everything it could to succeed and had no reason to blame itself. The crew weren’t responsible for this failure; there was nothing to do but go home.

      The commander’s sailors couldn’t hide their discontent, and their work suffered because of it.

      Commander Farragut asked for a grace period [17]of

Скачать книгу