When I re-entered, after working two hours, to take some food
and rest, I found a perceptible difference between the pure
fluid with which the Rouquayrol engine supplied me and the
atmosphere of the Nautilus, already charged with carbonic acid.
The air had not been renewed for forty-eight hours, and its vivifying
qualities were considerably enfeebled. However, after a lapse
of twelve hours, we had only raised a block of ice one yard thick,
on the marked surface, which was about 600 cubic yards!
Reckoning that it took twelve hours to accomplish this much it
would take five nights and four days to bring this enterprise
to a satisfactory conclusion. Five nights and four days!
And we have only air enough for two days in the reservoirs!
"Without taking into account," said Ned, "that, even if we get out
of this infernal prison, we shall also be imprisoned under the iceberg,
shut out from all possible communication with the atmosphere."
True enough! Who could then foresee the minimum of time
necessary for our deliverance? We might be suffocated before
the Nautilus could regain the surface of the waves? Was it
destined to perish in this ice-tomb, with all those it enclosed?
The situation was terrible.
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