Voyage Beneath the Waves. Jules Rengade
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at the top of his voice: “Wait there! We’re coming!”
Ignorant of the simplest laws of physics, Marcel did not know that it was sufficient for him to speak in a normal voice for Trinitus to hear him; thus, in his impermeable prison, the scientist was stunned by the brutal exclamation that fell upon him so loudly. His ears were still ringing when his two companions, linked like him to the machine by respiratory tubes, appeared at his sides.
“What a strange place!” said Niciase.
“It’s magnificent!” said Marcel.
“Why,” the old mariner continued, “once can see here as if by gaslight. Is there moonlight under the sea?”
“No, Nicaise,” Trinitus replied. “It’s the objects surrounding us that are producing this strange light. You’re already lit up in the darkness like a box of matches.”
“So the gleam that’s illuminating us is the same one that sometimes shines on the waves at night?”
“Exactly. It’s caused by animalcules that I’ll show you under the microscope in a little while. They exist in such great numbers in the sea that there are more than a million of them in a single drop of water. They’re known as Noctiluca.…”
“Oh, my God, is it possible?” exclaimed Nicaise.
“It’s very curious,” Marcel added.
Although they were only a few meters from one another, it would have been impossible for them to talk to one another directly because of the glass helmets that were imprisoning them, but they were able to converse because their voices rose up through the respiratory tube of the speaker, resounded in the cabin and came back down the listeners’ neighboring tubes, quite clearly and without distortion.
Marcel had approached the electric cable and was contemplating the extravagant vegetation it bore with profound amazement. An incredible multitude of living things were fixed on the submerged cord—which, resting on submarine rocks at intervals, formed a kind of suspension bridge between them. The algae, zoophytes, mollusks and polyps attached to that frail point of support had no suspicion that human speech was running beneath their feet every day. Entangled with one another, they were grouped into enormous bouquets, transforming the cable into an enormous tufted garland barring the Ocean.
Undulating Laminaria that were reminiscent of gigantic gladioli were sparkling like flaming swords. Zonaria deployed their sumptuous foliage in fans, richer in brilliant gleams than a peacock’s tail; Fucus and Plocamia bore an infinite quantity of sea-shells, like gold and silver fruits striped with the most vivid colors, at the extremities of their stems. Beside a mass of phosphorescent sponges, sea-anemones blossomed; further away, Ophiura spread their bristling arms, like enormous millipedes, and Campanularia vibrated gently, like flowers attempting to detach themselves gradually from their stems.
That entire mysterious society dwelt in the most profound security. There were inexplicable creatures there whose exterior was plant-like and interior animal-like; and there were others that, like certain fabulous monsters, had flesh bodies supported by feet of stone.
Nicaise and Trinitus, having observed that the boat had been slightly dented by the violent impact it had received, finally joined Marcel in contemplating the picturesque flora of the electric cable.
Suddenly, Nicaise uttered a cry of joy. He had just bumped into a formless mass, and, on bending down to look at it, had found that he and his companions were walking over an oyster-bed.
“Pick them up!” he exclaimed. “Pick them up! Here’s our dinner!”
As strokes of good luck never happen in isolation, however, Nicaise while rummaging under rocks covered in the precious bivalves, was dexterous enough to grab hold of a spider-crab and a sea-urchin. He plunged them into the large tarred canvas bag that he had fitted to his apparatus, and buried them with three or four dozen oysters.
“Let’s go back!” aid Trinitus. “It’s time to go.”
“What a pity,” Marcel replied. “Can’t we travel like this, in our apparatus, without shutting ourselves away in the cabin?”
“What an idea!” said Trinitus.
“It seems to me,” Marcel continued, “that nothing would be simpler. It would be sufficient to fit a kind of swing under the boat, on which one could sit, while the Éclair traveled at top speed.…”
“That’s true—we’d have a better view of the country,” added Nicaise.
“Well, my lads, we’ll see about that,” Trinitus replied. “As regards breakfast, though, it’s still necessary to go back into the cabin—we can talk about Marcel’s project while eating our oysters!”
Immediately, the three voyagers hoisted themselves up to the ship, and Nicaise, laden with the booty, went in first. Trinitus carefully reclosed the opening of the cylinder; the cook went to his oven in order to prepare the crab and the sea-urchin, and Marcel visited the apparatus for manufacturing air.
The boat, which had only sustained insignificant damage as a result of the collision, set off again with frightful speed, and the captain recorded the first incident that had occurred in his journal.
The breakfast was excellent, and Marcel’s proposal, after mature reflection, was accepted unanimously. It was decided that three seats on a plank would be suspended beneath the vessel, in the fashion of a swing, and that each passenger would be armed with a long barbed harpoon for self-defense.
That was not sufficient for Nicaise, however; he wanted to have a more formidable weapon against the large marine animals that would not fail to present themselves, and Trinitus was obliged to invent a kind of thunderbolt with which to kill them.
He devised a kind of iron arrow, which a long metallic chain would connect to the boat’s electrical apparatus. A small steel hammer, sustained by a spring, would serve to change the direction of the current and make a quantity of electricity large enough to kill an enormous shark instantly to pass into the arrow through the intermediary of the chain.
The apparatus was, moreover, easy to construct. Trinitus had the principal components in his stores, and in the Azores, where they would have to pause in order to repair the boat, they would obtain the luxury of a small thunderbolt in no time.
Nicaise and Marcel then started rooting through the storage-lockers and gathering together everything they might need. In the meantime, Trinitus drew up all the details of the thunderbolt as he imagined it, and calculated its effects theoretically, which awaiting an opportunity to take account of them in reality.
The entire morning was devoted to that important work, and during the rest of day, Trinitus, in accordance with his promise, told his companions the story of some of the bizarre creatures that they had seen on the sea-bed.
To begin with, he showed them, under the microscope, the animalcule that produces the phosphorescence of the waves. It was a tiny creature, triangular in form, bearing a slender fin at reach of its angles, formed of extremely delicate threads. On its globular back, a host of little spherical dots could be seen, distributed at random, which shone at times with a bright gleam. The phenomenon was produced most strikingly when Trinitus caressed the Noctiluca’s threads with the point of a needle, or teased the animal slightly.
Then the scientist introduced his companions to several extremely curious zoophytes that he had removed from the electric cable or collected on the nearby rocks. He showed them starfish with pink limbs; sponges and Thetis clad with their polyps, gray Pennatula that resembled silky and curly feathers; and Eleutheria, the numerous arms of which were each terminated by a flower.
What amused Marcel most, however, was a kind of Holothurian, Duvernoy’s Synapta, thus baptized by Monsieur de Quatrefages,4 who had first observed it in the little archipelago of Chausey abut thirty years before. Trinitus explained how the Synapta tolerated famine and abstinence philosophically. Its body, as transparent as crystal, contracts and segments with