Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 5.djvu/109

Rh cell. He then pressed a knob. I heard the pumps working in the midst of the vessel. I felt the water sinking from around me, and in a few moments the cell was entirely empty. The inside door then opened, and we entered the vestry. There our diving-dress was taken off, not without some trouble; and, fairly worn out from want of food and sleep, I returned to my room, in great wonder at this surprising excursion at the bottom of the sea.

CHAPTER XVII FOUR THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE PACIFIC

next morning, the 18th of November, I had quite recovered from my fatigues of the day before, and I went up on to the platform, just as the second lieutenant was uttering his daily phrase.

I was admiring the magnificent aspect of the ocean when Captain Nemo appeared. He did not seem to be aware of my presence, and began a series of astronomical observations. Then, when he had finished, he went and leaned on the cage of the watchlight, and gazed abstractedly on the ocean. In the meantime, a number of the sailors of the Nautilus, all strong and healthy men, had come up on to the platform. They came to draw up the nets that had been laid all night. These sailors were evidently of different nations, although the European type was visible in all of them. I recognized some unmistakable Irishmen, Frenchmen, some Slavs, and a Greek or a Candiote. They were civil, and only used that odd language among themselves, the origin of which I could not guess, neither could I question them.

The nets were hauled in. They were a large kind of "chaluts," like those on the Normandy coast, great pockets that the waves and a chain fixed in the smaller meshes kept open. These pockets, drawn by iron poles, swept through the water, and gathered in everything in their way. That day they brought up curious specimens from those productive coasts—fishing—frogs that, from their comical movements, have acquired the name of buffoons; black commersons, furnished with antennæ; trigger-fish, encircled with red bands; orthragorisci, with very subtle venom; some