The room was, in fact, the arsenal and changing room of the Nautilus. A dozen diving suits hung neatly along the wall, waiting for us to use them.
Ned Land stared at the strange equipment with obvious dislike. He clearly had no desire to put one on.
“But my good Ned,” I said, “the forests of Crespo Island are not ordinary forests. They are forests beneath the sea.”
“Wonderful!” the disappointed harpooner replied. “So my hopes of finding fresh meat have disappeared completely.”
Then he looked at me.
“And you, Professor Aronnax, are you really going to wear one of these things?”
“I have no other choice, Ned.”
“As you wish, sir,” he said, shaking his head. “But I promise you, unless someone forces me, I will never climb into one of those suits.”
“No one will force you, Master Ned,” said Captain Nemo calmly.
“Is Conseil going too?” Ned asked.
“I will follow my master wherever he goes,” Conseil answered.
At Captain Nemo’s signal, two members of the crew came forward to help us put on the heavy diving suits.
These suits were made of seamless rubber and specially designed to withstand the enormous pressure of the deep sea. They looked like flexible suits of armor—strong enough to protect us, yet soft enough to allow movement.
The suit consisted of thick trousers and a jacket. The trousers ended in heavy boots with lead soles, which helped us walk on the ocean floor. The jacket was reinforced with copper bands crossing the chest. These bands protected the body from the pressure of the water while still allowing the lungs to work freely.
The sleeves ended in gloves that did not prevent the hands from moving naturally.
Compared with the old diving equipment used in the eighteenth century—the heavy cork jackets and primitive air-filled devices—these suits were a remarkable achievement.
Soon Captain Nemo, one of his companions—a powerful man with the strength of a giant—Conseil, and I were completely dressed.
Only one thing remained: putting on the metal helmets.
Before doing so, I asked Captain Nemo if I could examine the weapons we would carry.
One of the Nautilus crew handed me a simple-looking gun. Its steel handle was hollow inside and served as a container for compressed air. A spring-controlled valve released the air into a metal tube.
Inside a small compartment built into the handle were about twenty electric bullets. Each bullet was pushed into the barrel by a spring after the previous one was fired, so another shot was always ready immediately.
“Captain Nemo,” I said, “this weapon is extremely well designed and easy to use. I would like to test it someday. But how will we reach the ocean floor?”
“Professor, the Nautilus is currently resting in only five fathoms of water. We simply need to leave.”
“But how will we get outside?”
“You will soon see.”
Captain Nemo placed his head inside the helmet. Conseil and I followed his example.
Behind us, we heard Ned Land’s mocking voice.
“Good luck with your adventure!”
The upper part of our diving suits ended in a copper collar, onto which the metal helmet was screwed tightly.
Three thick glass windows allowed us to see in every direction. By turning our heads inside the helmet, we could observe everything around us.
Once the helmets were fixed in place, the Rouquayrol breathing devices on our backs began working. To my surprise, I could breathe easily.
With a Ruhmkorff lamp hanging from my belt and the electric gun in my hand, I was ready to begin our journey.
Yet, to be honest, I immediately discovered a problem.
The suit was extremely heavy. The lead soles of my boots pressed me firmly against the deck, and I could barely move my feet.
But the Nautilus had already prepared for this difficulty.
I suddenly felt myself being pushed forward into a small chamber beside the changing room.
My companions were pushed along with me.
Behind us, a waterproof door fitted with sealing plates closed tightly. Darkness surrounded us completely.
After several minutes, we heard a loud hissing sound.
A cold sensation slowly rose from my feet to my chest.
The explanation was obvious. Somewhere inside the ship, a valve had been opened, allowing seawater to enter the chamber. Soon the room was completely filled with water.
Then another door opened in the side of the Nautilus.
A faint light appeared.
A moment later, our feet touched the bottom of the sea.
How can I possibly describe the feeling of taking my first steps beneath the ocean?
Words seem too weak to express such a breathtaking experience.
Captain Nemo walked ahead of us, with his companion following a short distance behind.
Conseil and I stayed close together, almost as if we could speak through our metal helmets.
The strange thing was that I no longer felt the weight of my clothing, my boots, my air tank, or my heavy helmet. My head moved inside the helmet almost like an almond inside its shell.
The sunlight that reached the seabed, thirty feet below the surface, amazed me with its strength.
The rays of the sun passed easily through the water, filling the ocean with light. I could clearly see objects nearly one hundred and fifty yards away.
Beyond that distance, the colors gradually became darker. Beautiful shades of deep blue slowly disappeared into mysterious shadows.
The water around me seemed like another kind of air—thicker than the atmosphere above the earth, but almost equally transparent.
Above my head stretched the peaceful surface of the sea.
We walked across a smooth plain of fine sand.
Unlike a beach, this sand showed no marks from waves. It was perfectly flat, like a shining carpet spread across the ocean floor.
The sand reflected the sunlight with incredible brightness, creating a constant trembling glow throughout the water.
Would anyone believe me if I said that thirty feet below the ocean surface, I could see almost as clearly as in daylight?
For fifteen minutes, I walked across this sand, which was covered with the delicate dust of broken shells.
The body of the Nautilus, lying behind us like a long dark shape, gradually disappeared from view.
But its powerful lamps would later guide us back when darkness arrived.
Soon, strange shapes began appearing in the distance.
I recognized magnificent rocks covered with beautiful layers of coral and other marine creatures.
The underwater world had a magical beauty unlike anything I had ever seen.
It was about ten o’clock in the morning.
The sunlight entered the waves at an angle, and as the rays passed through the water like light through a prism, everything around us became decorated with rainbow colors.
Flowers, rocks, plants, shells, and coral creatures seemed to wear edges of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
It was an incredible display of colors—a living painting created by nature itself.
I wished desperately that I could share my excitement with Conseil and hear his words of admiration.
Perhaps Captain Nemo and his companion could communicate through secret signals they had created.
But I had no one to speak with.
So I talked to myself inside my copper helmet, wasting precious air on words that no one could hear.
Around us grew countless underwater plants and creatures.
There were delicate corals, strange sea flowers, starfish scattered across the sand, and beautiful creatures whose shapes looked like lace woven by invisible hands.
Their soft movements followed the gentle waves created by our footsteps.
It pained me to step on the countless shells covering the ground—hammer shells, delicate wing-shaped shells, spiral shells, red helmet shells, and many others created by the endless richness of the ocean.
But we had to continue walking.
Above us floated countless jellyfish and other creatures, their long tentacles trailing behind them.
Some had transparent bodies glowing like pearls, while others shone with soft colors of pink and blue.
They drifted above us like living umbrellas, protecting us from the sunlight.
I witnessed all these wonders within a distance of only a quarter of a mile.
I barely stopped, following Captain Nemo’s signals as he continued forward.
Soon, the nature of the ground changed.
The sandy plain gave way to a thick layer of soft mud, which Americans call “ooze.” It was made from countless tiny shells of silica and calcium.
After that, we entered a vast field of seaweed.
The underwater plants formed a thick green carpet beneath our feet, softer than the finest handmade rugs.
But the vegetation did not exist only below us.
Above our heads, delicate networks of sea plants floated near the surface.
Among them I saw long ribbons of fucus, round and swollen seaweeds, delicate laurencia, cladostephi, and fan-shaped rhodomenia that looked like cactus leaves.
I noticed that green plants preferred the upper levels of the sea, while red plants grew deeper. The darker brown and black plants created gardens in the most distant depths of the ocean.
We had left the Nautilus about an hour and a half earlier.
It was almost noon.
I knew this because the sun’s rays had become almost vertical and were no longer strongly bent by the water.
The magical colors slowly disappeared.
The emerald and sapphire shades faded away.
We continued walking steadily. Each step created a surprisingly loud sound on the seabed.
The smallest noises traveled through the water with incredible speed. Sound moves through water about four times better than through air.
The ground began to slope downward.
The light became more uniform.
We were now about one hundred and five yards deep, under a pressure of six atmospheres.
Even at this depth, I could still see sunlight, although it was much weaker.
The bright daylight had changed into a reddish twilight—the final stage between day and night.
Yet we could still see clearly, and there was no need to use the Ruhmkorff lamp.
Suddenly, Captain Nemo stopped.
He waited until I reached him.
Then he pointed toward a dark shape rising from the shadows a short distance away.
I immediately understood.
“The forest of Crespo Island,” I thought.
And I was right.