20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Read Online Free PDF Page B

government of the Union offered a hundred thousand dollars, it would have been none the poorer.”
    “You are right, Conseil. It is a foolish affair after all, and one upon which we entered too lightly. What time lost, what useless emotions! We should have been back in France six months ago.”
    “In your little room, sir,” replied Conseil, “and in your museum, sir; and I should have already classed all your fossils, sir. And the Babiroussa would have been installed in its cage in the Jardin des Plantes, and have drawn all the curious people of the capital!”
    “As you say, Conseil. I fancy we shall run a fair chance of being laughed at for our pains.”
    “That’s tolerably certain,” replied Conseil, quietly; “I think they will make fun of you, sir. And, must I say it—?”
    “Go on, my good friend.”
    “Well, sir, you will only get your deserts.”
    “Indeed!”
    “When one has the honour of being a savant as you are, sir, one should not expose one’s self to—”
    Conseil had not time to finish his compliment. In the midst of general silence a voice had just been heard. It was the voice of Ned Land shouting:
    “Look out there! The very thing we are looking for—on our weather beam!”

CHAPTER VI
    At Full Steam
    A T THIS CRY the whole ship’s crew hurried towards the harpooner—commander, officers, masters, sailors, cabin-boys; even the engineers left their engines, and the stokers their furnaces.
    The order to stop her had been given, and the frigate now simply went on by her own momentum. The darkness was then profound, and, however good the Canadian’s eyes were, I asked myself how he had managed to see, and what he had been able to see. My heart beat as if it would break. But Ned Land was not mistaken, and we all perceived the object he pointed to. At two cables’ length from the Abraham Lincoln, on the starboard quarter, the sea seemed to be illuminated all over. It was not a mere phosphoric phenomenon. The monster emerged some fathoms from the water, and then threw out that very intense but mysterious light mentioned in the report of several captains. This magnificent irradiation must have been produced by an agent of great shining power. The luminous part traced on the sea an immense oval, much elongated, the centre of which condensed a burning heat, whose overpowering brilliancy died out by successive gradations.
    “It is only a massing of phosphoric particles,” cried one of the officers.
    “No, sir, certainly not,” I replied. “That brightness is of an essentially electrical nature. Besides, see, see! it moves; it is moving forwards, backwards; it is darting towards us!”
    A general cry arose from the frigate.
    “Silence!” said the captain. “Up with the helm, reverse the engines.”
    The steam was shut off, and the Abraham Lincoln, beating to port, described a semicircle.

    “Right the helm, go ahead,” cried the captain.
    These orders were executed, and the frigate moved rapidly from the burning light.
    I was mistaken. She tried to sheer off, but the supernatural animal approached with a velocity double her own.
    We gasped for breath. Stupefaction more than fear made us dumb and motionless. The animal gained on us, sporting with the waves. It made the round of the frigate, which was then making fourteen knots, and enveloped it with its electric rings like luminous dust.
    Then it moved away two or three miles, leaving a phosphorescent track, like those volumes of steam that the express trains leave behind. All at once from the dark line of the horizon whither it retired to gain its momentum, the monster rushed suddenly towards the Abraham Lincoln with alarming rapidity, stopped suddenly about twenty feet from the hull, and died out—not diving under the water, for its brilliancy did not abate—but suddenly, and as if the source of this brilliant emanation was exhausted. Then it reappeared on the other side of the vessel, as if it had turned and slid under the hull. Any