The next morning Ned came into my room, very disappointed.
“That captain had to stop at the very hour we wanted to leave!”
“He had business with his bank, Ned. With the ocean, where his money is safer than in any bank on land.”
I told him about the night. He was only sorry that he had not been able to pick up some gold at Vigo for himself.
“Anyway,” he said, “it’s not over. It was only one missed throw. Next time we’ll succeed.”
But the compass showed that we were heading southwest, with our backs to Europe, and at noon there was no land in sight, only empty sea under gray clouds. When I told Ned that we were hundreds of kilometers from the nearest coast, he was furious. As for me, I felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted from me, and I went back calmly to my work.
That night, at about eleven, Captain Nemo paid me an unexpected visit.
“Professor, so far you have only seen the sea floor by daylight. Would you like to see it in the dark of night? I warn you: the walk will be tiring. We have far to go, and a mountain to climb.”
“That only makes me more curious, Captain.”
Neither my friends nor any of the crew came with us. We put on our diving suits and air tanks, but no lamps were prepared.
“We will not need them,” said the captain, before his head disappeared inside his copper helmet.
A few minutes later we stepped onto the floor of the Atlantic, about three hundred meters down, with iron-tipped sticks in our hands. It was nearly midnight, and the water was completely dark. But far away the captain pointed to a red glow. What fire could burn under the water? I could not say, but it lit our way a little. Above my head I heard a pattering: rain was falling on the surface of the sea. For a moment I was afraid of getting wet, and I almost laughed. Wet, in the middle of the water!
Ahead, the red glow grew brighter. Had human hands lit this fire? After so many wonders, I would not have been surprised to find a whole town under the sea. Captain Nemo walked on without hesitating. He knew this road. His tall figure stood out black against the glowing horizon.
At one in the morning we reached the foot of a mountain. To climb it we had to pass through a forest of dead trees, without leaves, turned to stone by the water. Their black branches stood out against the red glow above us. I climbed over rocks and fallen trunks and frightened the fish, which flew from branch to branch like birds. In the holes in the rocks huge crabs and lobsters raised their claws, and octopuses twisted their arms together like a nest of snakes. My blood ran cold.
Two hours after leaving the Nautilus we came out above the trees. There, under a thick coat of sea plants, lay great heaps of stone, and among them I could make out the shapes of castles and temples. Human hands had made them. I seized the captain’s arm, but he pointed to the top of the mountain, as if to say: “Higher!”
In a few minutes I stood on the summit. The mountain was a volcano. Near its top a crater poured out rivers of lava, which glowed white-hot under the water and lit the whole plain below like an enormous torch.
And there, below me, lay a ruined town. Its roofs had fallen in, its temples lay broken, its columns lay on the ground. I saw the remains of a great aqueduct, the outline of a harbor where ships had once come in, and long lines of fallen walls and wide, empty streets. A whole city lay buried under the sea.
Where was I? I tried to speak, but Captain Nemo stopped me with a gesture. He picked up a piece of chalky stone, walked to a black rock and wrote one word:
ATLANTIS
It was like a flash of light in my mind. Atlantis, the land that Plato wrote about, which so many scholars said had never existed! I was walking on the mountains of that lost continent, touching ruins thousands of years old.
Captain Nemo stood still, leaning against a stone, as if he too had turned to stone. Was he dreaming of those lost generations? Did he come here to live in the past, he who wanted nothing of the present? What would I not have given to know his thoughts! We stayed there for an hour, while deep rumbles shook the mountain. Then the moon shone faintly through the water onto the drowned land, and the captain signaled to me to follow him. We came on board just as the first light of day was whitening the surface of the ocean.
A day later, when I woke in the morning, the Nautilus had stopped. I went up onto the platform and found deep darkness instead of daylight. Was it still night? No: not a star was shining.
“Is that you, Professor?” said a voice beside me.
“Captain! Where are we?”
“Under the ground, Professor. Wait a moment.”
The ship’s light came on. We were floating on a lake surrounded by high walls of rock, which leaned together into an enormous roof shaped like a funnel. Far above, through a round opening, came a little daylight.
“We are inside an old volcano,” said the captain. “Long ago the sea broke into it. The Nautilus came in while you were asleep, through a tunnel that opens a few meters below the surface of the ocean. This is its harbor: secret, safe and sheltered from every storm. Here my men dig the coal that I need to make sodium, and with sodium I make our electricity. Today we only take on sodium from my store, and tomorrow we leave. If you want to see the cave, go today.”
Conseil, who was surprised at nothing, found it quite natural to wake up under a mountain after falling asleep under the sea. Ned thought of only one thing: was there a way out?
“Here we are on land again,” said Conseil as we stepped onto the shore.
“I don’t call this land,” said Ned. “We’re not on it, we’re under it.”
We walked around the lake and climbed as high as we could. Ned found bees in a hollow tree and filled his bag with honey, and with a well-thrown stone he brought down a fine large bird. But the walls hung over us, too steep to climb, and the only way out was the tunnel under the sea.
“If only that tunnel were above the water,” said Ned.
“But then, Ned,” said Conseil, “the Nautilus couldn’t have come in.”
The next day the Nautilus left its secret harbor and went back under the waves of the Atlantic.