CHAPTER 5

Arabian Tunnel

THE SAME DAY, I reported to Conseil and Ned Land that part of the

foregoing conversation directly concerning them. When I told them we

would be lying in Mediterranean waters within two days, Conseil

clapped his hands, but the Canadian shrugged his shoulders.

“An underwater tunnel!” he exclaimed. “A connection between two seas!

Who ever heard of such malarkey!”

“Ned my friend,” Conseil replied, “had you ever heard of the Nautilus?

No, yet here it is! So don’t shrug your shoulders so blithely, and

don’t discount something with the feeble excuse that you’ve never

heard of it.”

“We’ll soon see!” Ned Land shot back, shaking his head. “After all,

I’d like nothing better than to believe in your captain’s little

passageway, and may Heaven grant it really does take us to the

Mediterranean.”

The same evening, at latitude 21 degrees 30′ north, the Nautilus was

afloat on the surface of the sea and drawing nearer to the Arab

coast. I spotted Jidda, an important financial center for Egypt,

Syria, Turkey, and the East Indies. I could distinguish with

reasonable clarity the overall effect of its buildings, the ships made

fast along its wharves, and those bigger vessels whose draft of water

required them to drop anchor at the port’s offshore mooring. The sun,

fairly low on the horizon, struck full force on the houses in this

town, accenting their whiteness. Outside the city limits, some wood or

reed huts indicated the quarter where the bedouins lived.

Soon Jidda faded into the shadows of evening, and the Nautilus went

back beneath the mildly phosphorescent waters.

The next day, February 10, several ships appeared, running on our

opposite tack. The Nautilus resumed its underwater navigating; but at

the moment of our noon sights, the sea was deserted and the ship rose

again to its waterline.

With Ned and Conseil, I went to sit on the platform. The coast to the

east looked like a slightly blurred mass in a damp fog.

Leaning against the sides of the skiff, we were chatting of one thing

and another, when Ned Land stretched his hand toward a point in the

water, saying to me:

“See anything out there, professor?”

“No, Ned,” I replied, “but you know I don’t have your eyes.”

“Take a good look,” Ned went on. “There, ahead to starboard, almost

level with the beacon! Don’t you see a mass that seems to be moving

around?”

“Right,” I said after observing carefully, “I can make out something

like a long, blackish object on the surface of the water.”

“A second Nautilus?” Conseil said.

“No,” the Canadian replied, “unless I’m badly mistaken, that’s some

marine animal.”

“Are there whales in the Red Sea?” Conseil asked.

“Yes, my boy,” I replied, “they’re sometimes found here.”

“That’s no whale,” continued Ned Land, whose eyes never strayed from

the object they had sighted. “We’re old chums, whales and I, and I

couldn’t mistake their little ways.”

“Let’s wait and see,” Conseil said. “The Nautilus is heading that

direction, and we’ll soon know what we’re in for.”

In fact, that blackish object was soon only a mile away from us. It

looked like a huge reef stranded in midocean. What was it? I still

couldn’t make up my mind.

“Oh, it’s moving off! It’s diving!” Ned Land exclaimed. “Damnation!

What can that animal be? It doesn’t have a forked tail like baleen

whales or sperm whales, and its fins look like sawed-off limbs.”

“But in that case—” I put in.

“Good lord,” the Canadian went on, “it’s rolled over on its back, and

it’s raising its breasts in the air!”

“It’s a siren!” Conseil exclaimed. “With all due respect to master,

it’s an actual mermaid!”

That word “siren” put me back on track, and I realized that the animal

belonged to the order Sirenia: marine creatures that legends have

turned into mermaids, half woman, half fish.

“No,” I told Conseil, “that’s no mermaid, it’s an unusual creature of

which only a few specimens are left in the Red Sea. That’s a dugong.”

“Order Sirenia, group Pisciforma, subclass Monodelphia, class

Mammalia, branch Vertebrata,” Conseil replied.

And when Conseil has spoken, there’s nothing else to be said.

Meanwhile Ned Land kept staring. His eyes were gleaming with desire at

the sight of that animal. His hands were ready to hurl a harpoon. You

would have thought he was waiting for the right moment to jump

overboard and attack the creature in its own element.

“Oh, sir,” he told me in a voice trembling with excitement, “I’ve

never killed anything like that!”

His whole being was concentrated in this last word.

Just then Captain Nemo appeared on the platform. He spotted the

dugong. He understood the Canadian’s frame of mind and addressed him

directly:

“If you held a harpoon, Mr. Land, wouldn’t your hands be itching to

put it to work?”

“Positively, sir.”

“And just for one day, would it displease you to return to your

fisherman’s trade and add this cetacean to the list of those you’ve

already hunted down?”

“It wouldn’t displease me one bit.”

“All right, you can try your luck!”

“Thank you, sir,” Ned Land replied, his eyes ablaze.

“Only,” the captain went on, “I urge you to aim carefully at this

animal, in your own personal interest.”

“Is the dugong dangerous to attack?” I asked, despite the Canadian’s

shrug of the shoulders.

“Yes, sometimes,” the captain replied. “These animals have been known

to turn on their assailants and capsize their longboats. But with

Mr. Land that danger isn’t to be feared. His eye is sharp, his arm is

sure. If I recommend that he aim carefully at this dugong, it’s

because the animal is justly regarded as fine game, and I know

Mr. Land doesn’t despise a choice morsel.”

“Aha!” the Canadian put in. “This beast offers the added luxury of

being good to eat?”

“Yes, Mr. Land. Its flesh is actual red meat, highly prized, and set

aside throughout Malaysia for the tables of aristocrats. Accordingly,

this excellent animal has been hunted so bloodthirstily that, like its

manatee relatives, it has become more and more scarce.”

“In that case, captain,” Conseil said in all seriousness, “on the

offchance that this creature might be the last of its line, wouldn’t

it be advisable to spare its life, in the interests of science?”

“Maybe,” the Canadian answered, “it would be better to hunt it down,

in the interests of mealtime.”

“Then proceed, Mr. Land,” Captain Nemo replied.

Just then, as mute and emotionless as ever, seven crewmen climbed onto

the platform. One carried a harpoon and line similar to those used in

whale fishing. Its deck paneling opened, the skiff was wrenched from

its socket and launched to sea. Six rowers sat on the thwarts, and the

coxswain took the tiller. Ned, Conseil, and I found seats in the

stern.

“Aren’t you coming, captain?” I asked.

“No, sir, but I wish you happy hunting.”

The skiff pulled clear, and carried off by its six oars, it headed

swiftly toward the dugong, which by then was floating two miles from

the Nautilus.

Arriving within a few cable lengths of the cetacean, our longboat

slowed down, and the sculls dipped noiselessly into the tranquil

waters. Harpoon in hand, Ned Land went to take his stand in the

skiff’s bow. Harpoons used for hunting whales are usually attached to

a very long rope that pays out quickly when the wounded animal drags

it with him. But this rope measured no more than about ten fathoms,

and its end had simply been fastened to a small barrel that, while

floating, would indicate the dugong’s movements beneath the waters.

I stood up and could clearly observe the Canadian’s adversary. This

dugong—which also boasts the name halicore—closely resembled a

manatee. Its oblong body ended in a very long caudal fin and its

lateral fins in actual fingers. It differs from the manatee in that

its upper jaw is armed with two long, pointed teeth that form

diverging tusks on either side.

This dugong that Ned Land was preparing to attack was of colossal

dimensions, easily exceeding seven meters in length. It didn’t stir

and seemed to be sleeping on the surface of the waves, a circumstance

that should have made it easier to capture.

The skiff approached cautiously to within three fathoms of the

animal. The oars hung suspended above their rowlocks. I was

crouching. His body leaning slightly back, Ned Land brandished his

harpoon with expert hands.

Suddenly a hissing sound was audible, and the dugong

disappeared. Although the harpoon had been forcefully hurled, it

apparently had hit only water.

“Damnation!” exclaimed the furious Canadian. “I missed it!”

“No,” I said, “the animal’s wounded, there’s its blood; but your

weapon didn’t stick in its body.”

“My harpoon! Get my harpoon!” Ned Land exclaimed.

The sailors went back to their sculling, and the coxswain steered the

longboat toward the floating barrel. We fished up the harpoon, and the

skiff started off in pursuit of the animal.

The latter returned from time to time to breathe at the surface of the

sea. Its wound hadn’t weakened it because it went with tremendous

speed. Driven by energetic arms, the longboat flew on its

trail. Several times we got within a few fathoms of it, and the

Canadian hovered in readiness to strike; but then the dugong would

steal away with a sudden dive, and it proved impossible to overtake

the beast.

I’ll let you assess the degree of anger consuming our impatient Ned

Land. He hurled at the hapless animal the most potent swearwords in

the English language. For my part, I was simply distressed to see this

dugong outwit our every scheme.

We chased it unflaggingly for a full hour, and I’d begun to think it

would prove too difficult to capture, when the animal got the untimely

idea of taking revenge on us, a notion it would soon have cause to

regret. It wheeled on the skiff, to assault us in its turn.

This maneuver did not escape the Canadian.

“Watch out!” he said.

The coxswain pronounced a few words in his bizarre language, and no

doubt he alerted his men to keep on their guard.

Arriving within twenty feet of the skiff, the dugong stopped, sharply

sniffing the air with its huge nostrils, pierced not at the tip of its

muzzle but on its topside. Then it gathered itself and sprang at us.

The skiff couldn’t avoid the collision. Half overturned, it shipped a

ton or two of water that we had to bail out. But thanks to our

skillful coxswain, we were fouled on the bias rather than broadside,

so we didn’t capsize. Clinging to the stempost, Ned Land thrust his

harpoon again and again into the gigantic animal, which imbedded its

teeth in our gunwale and lifted the longboat out of the water as a

lion would lift a deer. We were thrown on top of each other, and I

have no idea how the venture would have ended had not the Canadian,

still thirsting for the beast’s blood, finally pierced it to the

heart.

I heard its teeth grind on sheet iron, and the dugong disappeared,

taking our harpoon along with it. But the barrel soon popped up on the

surface, and a few moments later the animal’s body appeared and rolled

over on its back. Our skiff rejoined it, took it in tow, and headed to

the Nautilus.

It took pulleys of great strength to hoist this dugong onto the

platform. The beast weighed 5,000 kilograms. It was carved up in sight

of the Canadian, who remained to watch every detail of the

operation. At dinner the same day, my steward served me some slices of

this flesh, skillfully dressed by the ship’s cook. I found it

excellent, even better than veal if not beef.

The next morning, February 11, the Nautilus’s pantry was enriched by

more dainty game. A covey of terns alighted on the Nautilus. They were

a species of Sterna nilotica unique to Egypt: beak black, head gray

and stippled, eyes surrounded by white dots, back, wings, and tail

grayish, belly and throat white, feet red. Also caught were a couple

dozen Nile duck, superior-tasting wildfowl whose neck and crown of the

head are white speckled with black.

By then the Nautilus had reduced speed. It moved ahead at a saunter,

so to speak. I observed that the Red Sea’s water was becoming less

salty the closer we got to Suez.

Near five o’clock in the afternoon, we sighted Cape Ras Mohammed to

the north. This cape forms the tip of Arabia Petraea, which lies

between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba.

The Nautilus entered the Strait of Jubal, which leads to the Gulf of

Suez. I could clearly make out a high mountain crowning Ras Mohammed

between the two gulfs. It was Mt. Horeb, that biblical Mt. Sinai on

whose summit Moses met God face to face, that summit the mind’s eye

always pictures as wreathed in lightning.

At six o’clock, sometimes afloat and sometimes submerged, the Nautilus

passed well out from El Tur, which sat at the far end of a bay whose

waters seemed to be dyed red, as Captain Nemo had already

mentioned. Then night fell in the midst of a heavy silence

occasionally broken by the calls of pelicans and nocturnal birds, by

the sound of surf chafing against rocks, or by the distant moan of a

steamer churning the waves of the gulf with noisy blades.

From eight to nine o’clock, the Nautilus stayed a few meters beneath

the waters. According to my calculations, we had to be quite close to

Suez. Through the panels in the lounge, I spotted rocky bottoms

brightly lit by our electric rays. It seemed to me that the strait was

getting narrower and narrower.

At 9:15 when our boat returned to the surface, I climbed onto the

platform. I was quite impatient to clear Captain Nemo’s tunnel,

couldn’t sit still, and wanted to breathe the fresh night air.

Soon, in the shadows, I spotted a pale signal light glimmering a mile

away, half discolored by mist.

“A floating lighthouse,” said someone next to me.

I turned and discovered the captain.

“That’s the floating signal light of Suez,” he went on. “It won’t be

long before we reach the entrance to the tunnel.”

“It can’t be very easy to enter it.”

“No, sir. Accordingly, I’m in the habit of staying in the pilothouse

and directing maneuvers myself. And now if you’ll kindly go below,

Professor Aronnax, the Nautilus is about to sink beneath the waves,

and it will only return to the surface after we’ve cleared the Arabian

Tunnel.”

I followed Captain Nemo. The hatch closed, the ballast tanks filled

with water, and the submersible sank some ten meters down.

Just as I was about to repair to my stateroom, the captain stopped me.

“Professor,” he said to me, “would you like to go with me to the

wheelhouse?”

“I was afraid to ask,” I replied.

“Come along, then. This way, you’ll learn the full story about this

combination underwater and underground navigating.”

Captain Nemo led me to the central companionway. In midstair he opened

a door, went along the upper gangways, and arrived at the wheelhouse,

which, as you know, stands at one end of the platform.

It was a cabin measuring six feet square and closely resembling those

occupied by the helmsmen of steamboats on the Mississippi or Hudson

rivers. In the center stood an upright wheel geared to rudder cables

running to the Nautilus’s stern. Set in the cabin’s walls were four

deadlights, windows of biconvex glass that enabled the man at the helm

to see in every direction.

The cabin was dark; but my eyes soon grew accustomed to its darkness

and I saw the pilot, a muscular man whose hands rested on the pegs of

the wheel. Outside, the sea was brightly lit by the beacon shining

behind the cabin at the other end of the platform.

“Now,” Captain Nemo said, “let’s look for our passageway.”

Electric wires linked the pilothouse with the engine room, and from

this cabin the captain could simultaneously signal heading and speed

to his Nautilus. He pressed a metal button and at once the propeller

slowed down significantly.

I stared in silence at the high, sheer wall we were skirting just

then, the firm base of the sandy mountains on the coast. For an hour

we went along it in this fashion, staying only a few meters

away. Captain Nemo never took his eyes off the two concentric circles

of the compass hanging in the cabin. At a mere gesture from him, the

helmsman would instantly change the Nautilus’s heading.

Standing by the port deadlight, I spotted magnificent coral

substructures, zoophytes, algae, and crustaceans with enormous

quivering claws that stretched forth from crevices in the rock.

At 10:15 Captain Nemo himself took the helm. Dark and deep, a wide

gallery opened ahead of us. The Nautilus was brazenly swallowed

up. Strange rumblings were audible along our sides. It was the water

of the Red Sea, hurled toward the Mediterranean by the tunnel’s

slope. Our engines tried to offer resistance by churning the waves

with propeller in reverse, but the Nautilus went with the torrent, as

swift as an arrow.

Along the narrow walls of this passageway, I saw only brilliant

streaks, hard lines, fiery furrows, all scrawled by our speeding

electric light. With my hand I tried to curb the pounding of my heart.

At 10:35 Captain Nemo left the steering wheel and turned to me:

“The Mediterranean,” he told me.

In less than twenty minutes, swept along by the torrent, the Nautilus

had just cleared the Isthmus of Suez.