Our pace was rapid;
we could feel it by the quivering of the long steel body.
About two in the morning I took some hours' repose, and Conseil
did the same. In crossing the waist I did not meet Captain Nemo:
I supposed him to be in the pilot's cage. The next morning,
the 19th of March, I took my post once more in the saloon.
The electric log told me that the speed of the Nautilus
had been slackened. It was then going towards the surface;
but prudently emptying its reservoirs very slowly.
My heart beat fast. Were we going to emerge and regain the open
polar atmosphere? No! A shock told me that the Nautilus
had struck the bottom of the iceberg, still very thick,
judging from the deadened sound. We had in deed "struck," to use
a sea expression, but in an inverse sense, and at a thousand
feet deep. This would give three thousand feet of ice above us;
one thousand being above the water-mark. The iceberg was then
higher than at its borders--not a very reassuring fact.
Several times that day the Nautilus tried again, and every
time it struck the wall which lay like a ceiling above it.
Pages:
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421