‘We shall be comfortable here,’ said I to Conseil.
‘Yes, as comfortable as a hermit crab in a crumpet-shell.’
I left Conseil to stow our luggage away, and went up on deck in order to see the preparations for departure. Captain Farragut was just ordering the last moorings to be cast loose, so that had I been one quarter of an hour later the frigate would have started without me, and I should have missed this extraordinary, supernatural, and incredible expedition, the true account of which may well be received with some incredulity.
But Commander Farragut did not wish to lose either a day or an hour before scouring the seas in which the animal had just been signalled. He sent for his engineer.
‘Is the steam full on?’ asked the captain.
‘Yes, captain,’ replied the engineer.
‘Go ahead, then,’ cried Farragut.
The Abraham Lincoln was soon moving majestically amongst a hundred ferry-boats and tenders loaded with spectators, passed the Brooklyn quay, on which, as well as on all that part of New York bordering on the East River, crowds of spectators were assembled. Thousands of handkerchiefs were waved above the compact mass, and saluted the Abraham Lincoln until she reached the Hudson at the point of that elongated peninsula which forms the town of New York.
Then the frigate followed the coast of New Jersey, along the right bank of the beautiful river covered with villas, and passed between the forts, which saluted her with their largest guns. The Abraham Lincoln acknowledged the salutation by hoisting the American colours three times, their thirty-nine stars shining resplendent from the mizen peak; then modifying her speed to take the narrow channel marked by buoys and formed by Sandy Hook Point, she coasted the long sandy shore, where several thousand spectators saluted her once more.
Her escorts of boats and tenders followed her till she reached the light boat, the two lights of which mark the entrance to the New York Channel.
Three o’clock was then striking. The pilot went down into his boat and rejoined the little schooner which was waiting under lee, the fires were made up, the screw beat the waves more rapidly, and the frigate coasted the low yellow shore of Long Island, and at 8 p.m., after having lost sight in the north-west of the lights on Fire Island, she ran at full steam on to the dark waters of the Atlantic.
CHAPTER 4 Ned Land (#ulink_93b94465-77e9-5433-a7fa-afa98559b697)
Captain Farragut was a good seaman, worthy of the frigate he was commanding. His ship and he were one. He was the soul of it. No doubt arose in his mind on the question of the cetacean, and he did not allow the existence of the animal to be disputed on board. He believed in it like simple souls believe in the Leviathan – by faith, not by sight. The monster existed, and he had sworn to deliver the seas from it. Either Captain Farragut would kill the narwhal or the narwhal would kill Captain Farragut – there was no middle course.
The officers on board shared the opinion of their chief. It was amusing to hear them talking, arguing, disputing, and calculating the different chances of meeting whilst they kept a sharp look-out over the vast extent of ocean. More than one took up his position on the crosstrees who would have cursed the duty as a nuisance at any other time. Whilst the sun described its diurnal circle the rigging was crowded with sailors who could not keep in place on deck. And nevertheless the Abraham Lincoln was not yet ploughing the suspected waters of the Pacific.
As to the crew, all they wanted was to meet the unicorn, harpoon it, haul it on board, and cut it up. Captain Farragut had offered a reward of 2000 dollars to the first cabin-boy, sailor, or officer who should signal the animal. I have already said that Captain Farragut had carefully provided all the tackle necessary for taking the gigantic cetacean. A whaler would not have been better furnished. We had every known engine, from the hand harpoon to the barbed arrow of the blunderbuss and the explosive bullets of the deck-gun. On the forecastle lay a perfect breech-loader, very thick at the breech and narrow in the bore, the model of which had been in the Paris Exhibition of 1867. This precious weapon, of American make, could throw with ease a conical projectile, weighing nine pounds, to a mean distance of ten miles. Thus the Abraham Lincoln not only possessed every means of destruction, but, better still, she had on board Ned Land, the king of harpooners.
Ned Land was a Canadian of uncommon skill, who had no equal in his perilous employment. He possessed ability, sang-froid, audacity, and subtleness to a remarkable degree, and it would have taken a sharp whale or a singularly wily cachalot to escape his harpoon. He was about forty years of age, tall (more than six feet high), strongly built, grave, and taciturn, sometimes violent, and very passionate when put out. His person, and especially the power of his glance, which gave a singular expression to his face, attracted attention.
I believe that Captain Farragut had done wisely in engaging this man. He was worth all the rest of the ship’s company as far as his eye and arm went. I could not compare him to anything better than a powerful telescope which would be a cannon always ready to fire as well.
I now depict this brave companion as I knew him afterwards, for we are old friends, united in that unchangeable friendship which is born and cemented in mutual danger. Ah, brave Ned, I only hope I may live a hundred years more to remember you longer.
Now what was Ned Land’s opinion on the subject of this marine monster? I must acknowledge that he hardly believed in the narwhal, and that he was the only one on board who did not share the universal conviction.
One evening, three weeks after our departure, the frigate was abreast of Cape Blanc, thirty miles to leeward of the Patagonian coast. Another week and the Abraham Lincoln would be ploughing the waters of the Pacific.
Seated on the poop, Ned Land and I were talking on all sorts of subjects, looking at that mysterious sea whose greatest depths have remained till now inaccessible to the eye of man. I brought the conversation naturally to the subject of the giant unicorn, and discussed the different chances of success in our expedition. Then seeing that Ned Land let me go on talking without saying anything himself, I pressed him more closely.
‘Well, Ned,’ I said to him, ‘are you not yet convinced of the existence of the cetacean we are pursuing? Have you any particular reasons for being so incredulous?’
The harpooner looked at me for some minutes before replying, struck his forehead with a gesture habitual to him, shut his eyes as if to collect himself, and said at last, –
‘Perhaps I have, M. Arronax.’
‘Yet you, Ned, are a whaler by profession. You are familiar with the great marine mammalia, and your imagination ought easily to accept the hypothesis of enormous cetaceans. You ought to be the last to doubt in such circumstances.’
‘That is what deceives you, sir,’ answered Ned. ‘It is not strange that common people should believe in extraordinary comets, or the existence of antediluvian monsters peopling the interior of the globe, but no astronomer or geologist would believe in such chimeras. The whaler is the same. I have pursued many cetaceans, harpooned a great number, and killed some few; but however powerful or well armed they were, neither their tails nor their defences could ever have made an incision in the iron plates of a steamer.’
‘Yet, Ned, it is said that ships have been bored through by the tusk of a narwhal.’
‘Wooden ships, perhaps,’ answered the Canadian, ‘though I have never seen it, and until I get proof to the contrary I deny that whales, cachalots, or sea-unicorns could produce such an effect.’
‘Listen to me, Ned.’
‘No, sir, no; anything you like but that – a gigantic poulp, perhaps?’
‘No, that can’t be. The poulp is only a mollusc; its flesh has no more consistency than its name indicates.’
‘Then you really do believe in this cetacean, sir?’ said Ned.
‘Yes, Ned. I repeat it with a conviction resting on the logic of facts. I believe in the existence of a mammal, powerfully organised, belonging to the branch of vertebrata, like whales, cachalots, and dolphins, and furnished with a horn tusk, of which the force of penetration is extreme.’
‘Hum!’ said the harpooner, shaking his head like a man who will not let himself be convinced.
‘Remark, my worthy Canadian,’ I continued, ‘if such an animal exists and inhabits the depths of the ocean, it necessarily possesses an organisation the strength of which would defy all comparison.’
‘Why must it have such an organisation?’ asked Ned.
‘Because it requires an incalculable strength to keep in such deep water and resist its pressure. Admitting that the pressure of the atmosphere is represented by that of a column of water thirty-two feet high. In reality the column of water would not be so high, as it is sea-water that is in question, and its density is greater than that of fresh water. When you dive, Ned, as many times thirty-two feet of water as there are above you, so many times does your body support a pressure equal to that of the atmosphere – that is to say, 15 lbs. for each square inch of its surface. It hence follows that at 320 feet this pressure equals that of 10 atmospheres; at 3200 feet, 100 atmospheres; and at 32,000 feet, 1000 atmospheres – that is, about six and a half miles, which is equivalent to saying that if you can reach this depth in the ocean, each square inch of the surface of your body would bear a pressure of 14,933 1/3 lbs. Do you know how many square inches you have on the surface of your body?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘About 6500; and as in reality the atmospheric pressure is about 15 lbs. to the square inch, your 6500 square inches support at this minute a pressure of 97,000 lbs.’
‘Without my perceiving it?’
‘Yes; and if you are not crushed by such a pressure, it is because the air penetrates the interior of your body with equal pressure, and there is a perfect equilibrium between the interior and exterior pressure, which thus neutralise each other, and allow you to bear it without inconvenience. But it is another thing in water.’
‘Yes, I understand,’ answered Ned, becoming more attentive, ‘because I am in water, but it is not in me.’
‘Precisely, Ned; so that at 32 feet below the surface of the sea you would undergo a pressure of 97,500 lbs.; at 320 feet, 975,000 lbs.; and at 32,000 feet the pressure would be 97,500,000 lbs. – that is to say, you would be crushed as flat as a pancake.’
‘The devil!’ exclaimed Ned.
‘If vertebrata can maintain themselves in such depths, especially those whose surface is represented by millions of square inches, it is by hundreds of millions of pounds we must estimate the pressure they bear. Calculate, then, what must be the resistance of their bony structure and the strength of their organisation to withstand such a pressure.’
‘They must be made of iron plate eight inches thick, like the ironclads!’ said Ned.
‘Yes, and think what destruction such a mass could cause if hurled with the speed of an express against the hull of a ship.’
Ned would not give in.
‘Have I not convinced you?’ I said.
‘You have convinced me of one thing, sir, which is, that if such animals do exist at the bottom of the sea, they must be as strong as you say.’
