Outside, the sea appeared vividly lit up by the lantern,
which shed its rays from the back of the cabin to the other extremity
of the platform.
"Now," said Captain Nemo, "let us try to make our passage."
Electric wires connected the pilot's cage with the machinery room,
and from there the Captain could communicate simultaneously to his
Nautilus the direction and the speed. He pressed a metal knob,
and at once the speed of the screw diminished.
I looked in silence at the high straight wall we were running
by at this moment, the immovable base of a massive sandy coast.
We followed it thus for an hour only some few yards off.
Captain Nemo did not take his eye from the knob, suspended by
its two concentric circles in the cabin. At a simple gesture,
the pilot modified the course of the Nautilus every instant.
I had placed myself at the port-scuttle, and saw some magnificent
substructures of coral, zoophytes, seaweed, and fucus, agitating their
enormous claws, which stretched out from the fissures of the rock.
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