Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/73

 prison was suddenly illuminated. In the whiteness and intensity of this gleam I recognised the electric light which produced the appearance of a magnificent phosphorescence round the submarine vessel. I was involuntarily obliged to close my eyes, and when I again opened them I found that the light had been placed in a ground-glass globe, which was fixed at the upper end of the cabin.

“At last we can see something,” cried Ned Land, who, bowie-knife in hand, stood on the defensive.

“Yes,” I replied, risking the antithesis, “but the situation is not the less obscure.”

“If Monsieur will only have patience,” said the impassible Conseil.

The sudden illumination of the cabin gave me the opportunity to examine it more minutely. It only contained a table and five stools. The invisible door was hermetically closed. No sound reached our ears. Everyone seemed dead on board. Whether it was still moving over the surface of the ocean, or plunged in its depths, I could not divine.

However, the lamp had not been lighted for nothing. So I was in hopes that the crew of the vessel would soon put in an appearance. When people wish to put an end to prisoners they do not illuminate the oubliettes.

I was not mistaken; the noise of withdrawing bolts was heard, the door opened, and two men entered.

One was rather short but strongly made, with immense breadth of shoulder, intellectual looking, with thick black hair and beard, piercing eyes, and with the vivacity which characterises the provincial population of France.