CHAPTER IX
NED LAND’S TEMPER
How long we slept I do not know; but our sleep must have lasted long, for it rested us completely from our fatigues. I woke first. My companions had not moved, and were still stretched in their corner, a pair of inert masses. Hardly roused from my somewhat hard couch, I felt my brain freed, my mind clear. I then began an attentive examination of our cell.
Nothing was changed inside. The prison was still a prison,—the prisoners, prisoners. However, the steward, during our sleep, had cleared the table. There was nothing to indicate an approaching change in our situation. I asked myself seriously if we might be destined to live indefinitely in this cage.
This prospect seemed to me even more painful because, though my head was clear of obsessions, still I felt a singular oppression on my chest. I breathed with difficulty. The heavy air seemed to oppress my lungs. Although the cell was large, we had evidently consumed a great part of the oxygen that it contained. Indeed, each man consumes, in one hour, the oxygen contained in more than one hundred liters of air, and when this air becomes charged with a nearly equal quantity of carbon dioxide, it becomes unbreathable.
It became necessary to renew the atmosphere of our prison, and no doubt that of the submarine boat as well. That gave rise to a question in my mind. How would the commander of this floating dwelling-place proceed? Would he obtain air by chemical means, in getting by heat the oxygen contained in chlorate of potash, and in absorbing carbon dioxide by caustic potash? If that was the case, he must maintain contact with land in order to obtain the necessary chemicals. Or did he confine himself to simply storing air under great pressure in reservoirs, releasing it as needed by himself and his crew? Possibly. Or, a more convenient, economical, and consequently more probable alternative, would he be satisfied to rise and take breath at the surface of the water, like a cetacean, and so renew for twenty-four hours the atmospheric provision? Whatever method he used, it seemed to me prudent to employ it without delay.
In fact, I was already obliged to increase my respirations to eke out of this cell the little oxygen it contained, when suddenly I was refreshed by a current of pure air, perfumed with the smell of salt. It was an invigorating sea breeze, charged with iodine! I opened my mouth wide, and my lungs saturated themselves with fresh molecules. At the same time I felt the boat rolling. Not violently, but still noticeably. The iron-plated monster had evidently just risen to the surface of the ocean to breathe, after the fashion of whales. I found out from that the mode of ventilating the boat.
When I had inhaled this air freely, I sought the conduit, the “air pipe,” which conveyed to us the beneficial breeze, and I was not long in finding it. Above the door was a ventilator, through which volumes of fresh air renewed the impoverished atmosphere of the cell.
I was making my observations, when Ned and Conseil awoke almost at the same time, under the influence of this reviving air. They rubbed their eyes, stretched themselves, and were on their feet in an instant.
“Did monsieur sleep well?” asked Conseil, with his usual politeness.
“Very well, my brave boy. And you, Mr. Ned Land?”
“Soundly, Professor. But if I am not mistaken, I seem to be breathing sea breeze!”
A seaman could not be mistaken, and I told the Canadian all that had passed during his sleep.
“Good!” said he; “that accounts for those roarings we heard, when the supposed narwhal sighted the Abraham Lincoln.”
“Quite so, Master Land; it was taking a breath.”
“Only, Mr. Aronnax, I have no idea what hour it is, unless it is dinner-time?”
“Dinner-time, my good fellow? Say rather breakfast-time, for we certainly have begun another day.”
“So,” said Conseil, “we have slept twenty-four hours?”
“That is my opinion.”
“I will not contradict you,” replied Ned Land. “But dinner or breakfast, the steward will be welcome, whichever he brings.”
“The one and the other,” said Conseil.
“Certainly,” answered the Canadian, “we have a right to two meals, and, for my own part, I shall do honor to both.”
“Well, Ned, we must wait,” I answered. “It is evident that those two men had no intention of leaving us to die of hunger, for in that case there would have been no reason to give us dinner yesterday.”
“Unless it is to fatten us!” answered Ned.
“I protest,” I answered. “We have not fallen into the hands of cannibals!”
“One swallow does not make a summer,” answered the Canadian seriously. “Who knows if those fellows have not been deprived of fresh meat, and in that case these healthy and well-constituted individuals like the Professor, his servant, and me...”
“Drive away such ideas, Mr. Land,” I answered, “and above all do not act upon them to get into a rage with our hosts, for that would only make the situation worse.”
“Anyway,” said the harpooner, “I am devilishly hungry, and, dinner or breakfast, the meal does not arrive!”
“Mr. Land,” I replied, “we must conform to the rule of the vessel, and I suppose that our stomachs are in advance of the steward’s bell.”
“Well then, we’ll just have to fix his clock!” responded Conseil calmly.
“That is just like you, friend Conseil,” said Ned, impatiently. “You are never out of temper! always calm! you would say grace before receiving your blessings, and die of hunger rather than complain!”
“What is the use of complaining?” asked Conseil.
“It does one good to complain! It is something. And if these pirates—I say pirates not to vex the Professor, who does not like to hear them called cannibals—and if these pirates think that they are going to keep me in this cage where I am stifled without hearing how I can swear, they are mistaken! Come, Monsieur Aronnax, speak frankly. Do you think they will keep us long in this iron box?”
“To tell you the truth I know no more about it than you, friend Land.”
“But what do you think about it?”
“I think that chance has made us masters of an important secret. If it is in the interest of the crew of this submarine vessel to keep it, and if this interest is of more consequence than the life of three men, I believe our existence to be in great danger. In the contrary case, on the first opportunity, the monster who has swallowed us will send us back to the world inhabited by our fellow men.”
“Unless he enrolls us among his crew,” said Conseil, “and keeps us thus...”
“Until some frigate,” replied Ned Land, “more rapid or more skillful than the Abraham Lincoln, masters this nest of plunderers, and sends its crew and us to breathe our last at the end of his main yard.”
“Well reasoned, Mr. Land,” I replied. “But I believe no proposition of the sort has yet been made to us, so it is useless to discuss what we should do in that case. I repeat, we must wait, take counsel of circumstances, and do nothing, as there is nothing to do.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Professor,” answered the harpooner, who would not give up his point, “we must do something.”
“What, then?”
“Escape.”
“To escape from a terrestrial prison is often difficult, but from a submarine prison, that seems to me quite impracticable.”
“Come, friend Ned,” said Conseil, “what have you to say to monsieur’s objection? I do not believe an American is ever at the end of his resources.”
The harpooner, visibly embarrassed, was silent, a flight under the conditions chance had imposed upon us was absolutely impossible. But a Canadian is half a Frenchman, and Ned Land showed it by his answer.
“Then, Monsieur Aronnax,” he said, after some minutes’ reflection, “you do not guess what men ought to do who cannot escape from prison?”
“No, my friend.”
“It is very simple; they must make their arrangements to stay in it.”
“I should think so,” said Conseil; “it is much better to be inside than on the top or underneath.”
“But after you have thrown your jailers, turnkeys and keepers out?” added Ned Land.
“What, Ned? You seriously think of seizing this vessel?”
“Quite seriously,” answered the Canadian.
“It is impossible.”
“How so, sir? A favorable chance may occur, and I do not see what could prevent us profiting by it. If there are twenty men on board this machine they will not frighten two Frenchmen and a Canadian, I suppose.”
It was better to admit the proposition of the harpooner than to discuss it. So I contented myself with answering—
“Let such circumstances come, Mr. Land, and we will see. But until they do I beg you to contain your impatience. We can only act by stratagem, and you will not make yourself master of favorable chances by getting in a rage. Promise me, therefore, that you will accept the situation without too much anger.”
“I promise you, Professor,” answered Ned Land in a not very assuring tone. “Not a violent word shall leave my mouth, not an angry movement shall betray me, even if we are not waited upon at table with desirable regularity.”
“I have your word, Ned,” I answered.
Then the conversation was suspended, and each of us began to reflect on his own account. I acknowledge that, for my own part, and notwithstanding the assurance of the harpooner, I was under no illusion. I did not admit the probability of the favorable occasions of which Ned Land had spoken. To be so well worked the submarine boat must have a numerous crew, and consequently, in case of a struggle, we should have to deal with numbers too great. Besides, before aught else we must be free, and we were not. I did not even see any means of leaving this iron cell so hermetically closed. And should the strange commander of the boat have a secret to keep—which appeared at least probable—he would not allow us freedom of movement on board. Now, would he get rid of us by violence, or would he throw us upon some corner of the earth? All that was the unknown. All these hypotheses seemed to be extremely plausible, and one must be a harpooner to hope to conquer liberty again.
I understood, though, that Ned Land should get more exasperated with the thoughts that took possession of his brain. I heard him swearing in a gruff undertone, and saw his looks again become threatening. He rose, moved about like a wild beast in a cage, and struck the wall with his fist and foot.
Time was getting on, and we were fearfully hungry; and this time the steward did not appear. It was rather too long to leave us. If they really had good intentions towards us they had too long forgotten our shipwrecked conditions.
Ned Land, tormented by the cravings of his robust stomach, got still more angry; and, notwithstanding his promise, I dreaded an explosion when he found himself finally in the presence of one of the crew.
For two hours more, Ned Land’s temper increased; he cried, he shouted, but in vain. The iron walls were deaf. There was no sound to be heard in the boat: all was still as death. It did not move, for I should have felt the trembling motion of the hull under the influence of the screw. Plunged in the depths of the waters, it belonged to earth:—the silence was dreadful.
I dare no longer think how long our abandonment and isolation in this cell might last. The hopes that I had conceived after our interview with the commander of the vessel vanished one by one. The gentle look of the man, the generous expression of his face, nobility of his carriage, all disappeared from my memory. I again saw this enigmatical personage such as he must necessarily be: pitiless and cruel. I felt him to be outside the pale of humanity, inaccessible to all sentiment of pity, the implacable enemy of his fellow men, to whom he had vowed imperishable hatred!
But was the man going, then, to let us perish from inanition, shut up in this narrow prison, given up to the horrible temptations to which ferocious famine leads? This frightful thought took a terrible intensity in my mind, and imagination helping, I felt myself invaded by unreasoning fear.
Conseil remained calm, Ned Land roared.
Just then a noise was heard outside. Steps sounded on the metal floor. The locks were turned, the door opened, and the steward appeared.
Before I could rush forward to stop him, the Canadian had thrown the unlucky man down, and held him by the throat. The steward was choking under the grip of Ned’s powerful hand.
Conseil was already trying to unclasp the harpooner’s hand from his half-suffocated victim, and I was going to fly to the rescue, when suddenly I was nailed to the spot by hearing these words in French—
“Be quiet, Master Land; and you, Professor, you be so good as to listen to me!”