20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Chapter 5 At Random!

Chapter 5 At

Random!FOR SOME WHILE the voyage of the Abraham Lincoln was marked by

no incident. But one circumstance arose that displayed Ned Land's

marvelous skills and showed just how much confidence we could place

in him.

Off the Falkland Islands on June 30, the frigate came in contact

with a fleet of American whalers, and we learned that they hadn't

seen the narwhale. But one of them, the captain of the Monroe, knew

that Ned Land had shipped aboard the Abraham Lincoln and asked his

help in hunting a baleen whale that was in sight. Anxious to see

Ned Land at work, Commander Farragut authorized him to make his way

aboard the Monroe. And the Canadian had such good luck that with a

right-and-left shot, he harpooned not one whale but two, striking

the first straight to the heart and catching the other after a few

minutes' chase!

Assuredly, if the monster ever had to deal with Ned Land's

harpoon, I wouldn't bet on the monster.

The frigate sailed along the east coast of South America with

prodigious speed. By July 3 we were at the entrance to the Strait

of Magellan, abreast of Cabo de las Virgenes. But Commander

Farragut was unwilling to attempt this tortuous passageway and

maneuvered instead to double Cape Horn.

The crew sided with him unanimously. Indeed, were we likely to

encounter the narwhale in such a cramped strait? Many of our

sailors swore that the monster couldn't negotiate this passageway

simply because "he's too big for it!"

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, that stray rock Dutch

seamen had named Cape Horn after their hometown of Hoorn. Our

course was set for the northwest, and the next day our frigate's

propeller finally churned the waters of the Pacific.

"Open your eyes! Open your eyes!" repeated the sailors of the

Abraham Lincoln.

And they opened amazingly wide. Eyes and spyglasses (a bit

dazzled, it is true, by the vista of $2,000.00) didn't remain at

rest for an instant. Day and night we observed the surface of the

ocean, and those with nyctalopic eyes, whose ability to see in the

dark increased their chances by fifty percent, had an excellent

shot at winning the prize.

As for me, I was hardly drawn by the lure of money and yet was

far from the least attentive on board. Snatching only a few minutes

for meals and a few hours for sleep, come rain or come shine, I no

longer left the ship's deck. Sometimes bending over the forecastle

railings, sometimes leaning against the sternrail, I eagerly

scoured that cotton-colored wake that whitened the ocean as far as

the eye could see! And how many times I shared the excitement of

general staff and crew when some unpredictable whale lifted its

blackish back above the waves. In an instant the frigate's deck

would become densely populated. The cowls over the companionways

would vomit a torrent of sailors and officers. With panting chests

and anxious eyes, we each would observe the cetacean's movements. I

stared; I stared until I nearly went blind from a worn-out retina,

while Conseil, as stoic as ever, kept repeating to me in a calm

tone:

"If master's eyes would kindly stop bulging, master will see

farther!"

But what a waste of energy! The Abraham Lincoln would change

course and race after the animal sighted, only to find an ordinary

baleen whale or a common sperm whale that soon disappeared amid a

chorus of curses!

However, the weather held good. Our voyage was proceeding under

the most favorable conditions. By then it was the bad season in

these southernmost regions, because July in this zone corresponds

to our January in Europe; but the sea remained smooth and easily

visible over a vast perimeter.

Ned Land still kept up the most tenacious skepticism; beyond his

spells on watch, he pretended that he never even looked at the

surface of the waves, at least while no whales were in sight. And

yet the marvelous power of his vision could have performed yeoman

service. But this stubborn Canadian 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, and

if there is some animal, what chance would we have of spotting it?

Can't you see we're just wandering around at random? People say

they've sighted this slippery beast again in the Pacific high seas—

I'm truly willing to believe it, but two months have already gone

by since then, and judging by your narwhale's personality, it hates

growing moldy from hanging out too long in the same waterways! It's

blessed with a terrific gift for getting around. Now, professor,

you know even better than I that nature doesn't violate good sense,

and she wouldn't give some naturally slow animal the ability to

move swiftly if it hadn't a need to use that talent. 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 about it? All the same, our chances were

automatically pretty limited. Yet everyone still felt confident of

success, and not a sailor on board would have bet against the

narwhale appearing, and soon.

On July 20 we cut the Tropic of Capricorn at longitude 105

degrees, and by the 27th of the same month, we had cleared the

equator on the 110th meridian. These bearings determined, the

frigate took a more decisive westward heading and tackled the seas

of the central Pacific. Commander Farragut felt, and with good

reason, that it was best to stay in deep waters and keep his

distance from continents or islands, whose neighborhoods the animal

always seemed to avoid—"No doubt," our bosun said, "because there

isn't enough water for him!" So the frigate kept well out when

passing the Tuamotu, Marquesas, and Hawaiian Islands, then cut the

Tropic of Cancer at longitude 132 degrees and headed for the seas

of China.

We were finally in the area of the monster's latest antics! And

in all honesty, shipboard conditions became life-threatening.

Hearts were pounding hideously, gearing up for futures full of

incurable aneurysms. The entire crew suffered from a nervous

excitement that it's beyond me to describe. Nobody ate, nobody

slept. Twenty times a day some error in perception, or the optical

illusions of some sailor perched in the crosstrees, would cause

intolerable anguish, and this emotion, repeated twenty times over,

kept us in a state of irritability so intense that a reaction was

bound 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, racing after whales

sighted, abruptly veering off course, swerving sharply from one

tack to another, stopping suddenly, putting on steam and reversing

engines in quick succession, at the risk of stripping its gears,

and it didn't leave a single point unexplored from the beaches of

Japan to the coasts of America. And we found nothing! Nothing

except an immenseness of deserted waves! Nothing remotely

resembling a gigantic narwhale, or an underwater islet, or a

derelict shipwreck, or a runaway reef, or anything the least bit

unearthly!

So the reaction set in. At first, discouragement took hold of

people's minds, opening the door to disbelief. A new feeling

appeared on board, made up of three-tenths shame and seven-tenths

fury. The crew called themselves "out-and-out fools" for being

hoodwinked by a fairy tale, then grew steadily more furious! The

mountains of arguments amassed over a year collapsed all at once,

and each man now wanted only to catch up on his eating and

sleeping, to make up for the time he had so stupidly

sacrificed.

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. This reaction

mounted upward from the bowels of the ship, from the quarters of

the bunker hands to the messroom of the general staff; and for

certain, if it hadn't been for Commander Farragut's characteristic

stubbornness, the frigate would ultimately have put back to that

cape in the south.

But 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. Never had the crew of an American naval craft

shown more patience and zeal; they weren't responsible for this

failure; there was nothing to do but go home.

A request to this effect was presented to the commander. The

commander stood his ground. His sailors couldn't hide their

discontent, and their work suffered because of it. I'm unwilling to

say that there was mutiny on board, but after a reasonable period

of intransigence, Commander Farragut, like Christopher Columbus

before him, asked for a grace period of just three days more. After

this three-day delay, if the monster hadn't appeared, our helmsman

would give three turns of the wheel, and the Abraham Lincoln would

chart a course toward European seas.

This promise was given on November 2. It had the immediate

effect of reviving the crew's failing spirits. The ocean was

observed with renewed care. Each man wanted one last look with

which to sum up his experience. Spyglasses functioned with feverish

energy. A supreme challenge had been issued to the giant narwhale,

and the latter had no acceptable excuse for ignoring this Summons

to Appear!

Two days passed. The Abraham Lincoln stayed at half steam. On

the offchance that the animal might be found in these waterways, a

thousand methods were used to spark its interest or rouse it from

its apathy. Enormous sides of bacon were trailed in our wake, to

the great satisfaction, I must say, of assorted sharks. While the

Abraham Lincoln heaved to, its longboats radiated in every

direction around it and didn't leave a single point of the sea

unexplored. But the evening of November 4 arrived with this

underwater mystery still unsolved.

At noon the next day, November 5, the agreed-upon delay expired.

After a position fix, true to his promise, Commander Farragut would

have to set his course for the southeast and leave the northerly

regions of the Pacific decisively behind.

By then the frigate lay in latitude 31 degrees 15' north and

longitude 136 degrees 42' east. The shores of Japan were less than

200 miles to our leeward. Night was coming on. Eight o'clock had

just struck. Huge clouds covered the moon's disk, then in its first

quarter. The sea undulated placidly beneath the frigate's

stempost.

Just then I was in the bow, leaning over the starboard rail.

Conseil, stationed beside me, stared straight ahead. Roosting in

the shrouds, the crew examined the horizon, which shrank and

darkened little by little. Officers were probing the increasing

gloom with their night glasses. Sometimes the murky ocean sparkled

beneath moonbeams that darted between the fringes of two clouds.

Then all traces of light vanished into the darkness.

Observing Conseil, I discovered that, just barely, the gallant

lad had fallen under the general influence. At least so I thought.

Perhaps his nerves were twitching with curiosity for the first time

in history.

"Come on, Conseil!" I told him. "Here's your last chance to

pocket that $2,000.00!"

"If master will permit my saying so," Conseil replied, "I never

expected to win that prize, and the Union government could have

promised $100,000.00 and been none the poorer."

"You're right, Conseil, it turned out to be a foolish business

after all, and we jumped into it too hastily. What a waste of time,

what a futile expense of emotion! Six months ago we could have been

back in France—"

"In master's little apartment," Conseil answered. "In master's

museum! And by now I would have classified master's fossils. And

master's babirusa would be ensconced in its cage at the zoo in the

Botanical Gardens, and it would have attracted every curiosity

seeker in town!"

"Quite so, Conseil, and what's more, I imagine that people will

soon be poking fun at us!"

"To be sure," Conseil replied serenely, "I do think they'll have

fun at master's expense. And must it be said … ?"

"It must be said, Conseil."

"Well then, it will serve master right!"

"How true!"

"When one has the honor of being an expert as master is, one

mustn't lay himself open to—"

Conseil didn't have time to complete the compliment. In the

midst of the general silence, a voice became audible. It was Ned

Land's voice, and it shouted:

"Ahoy! There's the thing in question, abreast of us to

leeward!"