Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 5.djvu/93

Rh dried up, retained their lovely colors. Among these precious hydrophytes I remarked some vorticellæ, pavonariæ, delicate ceramics with scarlet tints, some fan-shaped agari; in short, a perfect series of algæ.

The whole day passed without my being honored by a visit from Captain Nemo. The panels of the saloon did not open. Perhaps they did not wish us to tire of these beautiful things. The course of the Nautilus was E. N. E., her speed twelve knots, the depth below the surface between twenty-five and thirty fathoms.

The next day, 10th of November, the same desertion, the same solitude. I did not see one of the ship's crew; Ned and Conseil spent the greater part of the day with me. They were astonished at the inexplicable absence of the captain. Was this singular man ill? Had he altered his intentions with regard to us? After all, as Conseil said, we enjoyed perfect liberty, we were delicately and abundantly fed. Our host kept to his terms of the treaty. We could not complain, and, indeed, the singularity of our fate reserved such wonderful compensation for us that we had no right to accuse it as yet.

That day I commenced the journal of these adventures which has enabled me to relate them with more scrupulous exactitude and minute detail. I wrote it on paper made from the zostera marina.

November 11th, early in the morning. The fresh air spreading over the interior of the Nautilus told me that we had come to the surface of the ocean to renew our supply of oxygen. I directed my steps to the central staircase, and mounted the platform.

It was six o'clock, the weather was cloudy, the sea gray but calm. Scarcely a billow. Captain Nemo, whom I hoped to meet, would he be there? I saw no one but the steersman imprisoned in his glass cage. Seated upon the projection formed by the hull of the pinnace, I inhaled the salt breeze with delight.

By degrees the fog disappeared under the action of the sun's rays, the radiant orb rose from behind the eastern horizon. The sea flamed under its glance like a train of gunpowder. The clouds scattered in the heights were colored with lively tints of beautiful shades, and numerous "mare's tails," which betokened wind for that day. But