I passed into the saloon.
It was deserted. I consulted the different instruments. The Nautilus was
flying northward at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, now on the surface,
and now thirty feet below it. On taking the bearings by the chart,
I saw that we were passing the mouth of the Manche, and that our course
was hurrying us towards the northern seas at a frightful speed. That night
we had crossed two hundred leagues of the Atlantic. The shadows fell,
and the sea was covered with darkness until the rising of the moon. I went
to my room, but could not sleep. I was troubled with dreadful nightmare.
The horrible scene of destruction was continually before my eyes.
From that day, who could tell into what part of the North Atlantic
basin the Nautilus would take us? Still with unaccountable speed.
Still in the midst of these northern fogs. Would it touch at Spitzbergen,
or on the shores of Nova Zembla? Should we explore those unknown seas,
the White Sea, the Sea of Kara, the Gulf of Obi, the Archipelago of Liarrov,
and the unknown coast of Asia? I could not say.
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