"O almighty God! Enough! Enough!"
Was it a vow of repentance that had just escaped from thisman's conscience . . . ?
Frantic, I rushed into the library. I climbed the central companionway,and going along the upper gangway, I arrived at the skiff.I went through the opening that had already given access tomy two companions.
"Let's go, let's go!" I exclaimed.
"Right away!" the Canadian replied.
First, Ned Land closed and bolted the opening cut into theNautilus's sheet iron, using the monkey wrench he had with him.After likewise closing the opening in the skiff, the Canadian beganto unscrew the nuts still bolting us to the underwater boat.
Suddenly a noise from the ship's interior became audible.Voices were answering each other hurriedly. What was it?Had they spotted our escape? I felt Ned Land sliding a daggerinto my hand.
"Yes," I muttered, "we know how to die!"
The Canadian paused in his work. But one word twenty times repeated,one dreadful word, told me the reason for the agitation spreadingaboard the Nautilus. We weren't the cause of the crew's concern.
"Maelstrom! Maelstrom!" they were shouting.
The Maelstrom! Could a more frightening name have rungin our ears under more frightening circumstances?Were we lying in the dangerous waterways off the Norwegian coast?Was the Nautilus being dragged into this whirlpool just as the skiffwas about to detach from its plating?
As you know, at the turn of the tide, the waters confined betweenthe Faroe and Lofoten Islands rush out with irresistible violence.They form a vortex from which no ship has ever been able to escape.Monstrous waves race together from every point of the horizon.They form a whirlpool aptly called "the ocean's navel,"whose attracting power extends a distance of fifteen kilometers.It can suck down not only ships but whales, and even polar bearsfrom the northernmost regions.
This was where the Nautilus had been sent accidentally--or perhaps deliberately--by its captain. It was sweeping aroundin a spiral whose radius kept growing smaller and smaller.The skiff, still attached to the ship's plating, was likewisecarried around at dizzying speed. I could feel us whirling.I was experiencing that accompanying nausea that follows suchcontinuous spinning motions. We were in dread, in the last stagesof sheer horror, our blood frozen in our veins, our nerves numb,drenched in cold sweat as if from the throes of dying!And what a noise around our frail skiff! What roars echoing fromseveral miles away! What crashes from the waters breaking againstsharp rocks on the seafloor, where the hardest objects are smashed,where tree trunks are worn down and worked into "a shaggy fur,"as Norwegians express it!
What a predicament! We were rocking frightfully. The Nautilusdefended itself like a human being. Its steel muscles were cracking.Sometimes it stood on end, the three of us along with it!
"We've got to hold on tight," Ned said, "and screw the nuts down again!If we can stay attached to the Nautilus, we can still make it . . . !"
He hadn't finished speaking when a cracking sound occurred.The nuts gave way, and ripped out of its socket, the skiff was hurledlike a stone from a sling into the midst of the vortex.
My head struck against an iron timber, and with this violent shockI lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 23
Conclusion
WE COME TO the conclusion of this voyage under the seas.What happened that night, how the skiff escaped from the Maelstrom'sfearsome eddies, how Ned Land, Conseil, and I got out of that whirlpool,I'm unable to say. But when I regained consciousness, I was lyingin a fisherman's hut on one of the Lofoten Islands. My two companions,safe and sound, were at my bedside clasping my hands.We embraced each other heartily.
Just now we can't even dream of returning to France. Travel between upperNorway and the south is limited. So I have to wait for the arrivalof a steamboat that provides bimonthly service from North Cape.
So it is here, among these gallant people who have taken us in,that I'm reviewing my narrative of these adventures. It is accurate.Not a fact has been omitted, not a detail has been exaggerated.It's the faithful record of this inconceivable expedition intoan element now beyond human reach, but where progress will somedaymake great inroads.
Will anyone believe me? I don't know. Ultimately it's unimportant.What I can now assert is that I've earned the right to speakof these seas, beneath which in less than ten months, I've cleared20,000 leagues in this underwater tour of the world that hasshown me so many wonders across the Pacific, the Indian Ocean,the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the southernmostand northernmost seas!
But what happened to the Nautilus? Did it withstandthe Maelstrom's clutches? Is Captain Nemo alive?Is he still under the ocean pursuing his frightful programof revenge, or did he stop after that latest mass execution?Will the waves someday deliver that manuscript that containshis full life story? Will I finally learn the man's name?Will the nationality of the stricken warship tell us the nationalityof Captain Nemo?
I hope so. I likewise hope that his powerful submersiblehas defeated the sea inside its most dreadful whirlpool,that the Nautilus has survived where so many ships have perished!If this is the case and Captain Nemo still inhabits the ocean--his adopted country--may the hate be appeased in that fierce heart!May the contemplation of so many wonders extinguish the spirit ofvengeance in him! May the executioner pass away, and the scientistcontinue his peaceful exploration of the seas! If his destinyis strange, it's also sublime. Haven't I encompassed it myself?Didn't I lead ten months of this otherworldly existence?Thus to that question asked 6,000 years ago in the Bookof Ecclesiastes--"Who can fathom the soundless depths?"--two men out of all humanity have now earned the right to reply.Captain Nemo and I.
END OF THE SECOND PART
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