The Nautilus continued southward at a steady speed, following the fiftieth meridian.
I wondered if Captain Nemo intended to reach the South Pole.
But I quickly dismissed the idea. Every attempt to reach that mysterious point had failed before. Besides, the season was already too late. In the Antarctic regions, March 13 was like September 13 in the northern hemisphere, the beginning of the autumn season.
On March 14, when we reached latitude 55°, I saw the first floating ice.
At first, they were only small pieces of ice, twenty or twenty-five feet long. They drifted together in scattered banks, and the waves curled gently over them.
The Nautilus remained on the surface.
Ned Land, who had hunted in Arctic waters, was already familiar with these frozen landscapes. But for Conseil and me, it was the first time we had ever seen such a sight.
Far away on the southern horizon appeared a bright white glow spreading across the sky.
“Those are the ice fields,” Ned explained.
Whalers had given this strange reflection the name “ice blink.” Even when thick clouds covered the sky, the white glow remained visible, warning sailors that a large mass of ice was nearby.
Soon, larger blocks appeared.
Their appearance changed constantly as fog moved around them. Some had green lines running through them, like delicate patterns painted with copper sulfate. Others looked like giant amethysts, glowing from within. Some reflected sunlight through thousands of crystal surfaces. Others shone with pale, marble-like colors, looking like enormous cities carved from stone.
The farther south we traveled, the more these floating islands increased in number and size.
When we reached latitude 60°, every open passage seemed to have disappeared.
But Captain Nemo carefully searched the frozen landscape and soon found a narrow opening.
Without hesitation, he guided the Nautilus into it, knowing perfectly well that the passage might close behind us.
Under his skillful control, the submarine moved through this frozen world with incredible precision.
Conseil was fascinated.
There were icebergs that looked like mountains, frozen fields that stretched endlessly, smooth ice plains, drifting ice, and broken sheets of ice. Some pieces were circular, while others stretched out in long strips like frozen rivers.
The temperature outside was extremely low.
The thermometer showed two or three degrees below zero.
Fortunately, we were dressed warmly in fur taken from seals and sea bears. Inside the Nautilus, the electric heating system kept the temperature comfortable, completely protecting us from the terrible cold.
In fact, if we had only gone a few yards beneath the ocean surface, we would have found warmer water.
Two months earlier, these southern regions would have enjoyed constant daylight. But now darkness had already begun to appear for several hours each day.
Soon, the long Antarctic night would arrive, bringing six months of darkness.
On March 15, we reached the latitude of New Shetland and South Orkney.
Captain Nemo told me that these islands had once been filled with seals.
“But English and American hunters destroyed them without mercy,” he said.
“They killed both adults and young animals. Where there was once movement and life, there is now only silence and death.”
At eight o’clock on the morning of March 16, the Nautilus, following the fifty-fifth meridian, crossed the Antarctic Circle.
Ice surrounded us in every direction.
The horizon was completely closed.
Yet Captain Nemo continued forward, finding one narrow passage after another.
I cannot describe the beauty of these unknown lands.
The ice formed astonishing shapes.
Sometimes it looked like an oriental city filled with countless towers and mosques.
Sometimes it resembled a ruined civilization, a frozen city destroyed by some unimaginable natural disaster.
The landscape never remained the same. Sunlight struck the ice at different angles, changing its appearance every moment. Then fog would cover everything, and snowstorms would erase the view completely.
All around us, we heard powerful crashes.
Huge icebergs were breaking apart and falling, transforming the frozen world like scenes changing in a theater.
Many times, I believed we were trapped forever.
But Captain Nemo always found a way forward.
He seemed to sense the smallest signs of open water. Whenever he saw thin blue streams of water flowing between the ice fields, he knew exactly where to go.
I became convinced that he had already explored these Antarctic waters before.
However, on March 16, our path was finally blocked.
It was not yet a giant iceberg.
Instead, enormous ice fields had frozen together into one solid mass.
But this obstacle could not stop Captain Nemo.
He drove the Nautilus directly into it with tremendous force.
The submarine entered the frozen barrier like an ancient battering ram.
The ice cracked violently.
Huge pieces were thrown into the air and fell around us like a storm of frozen hail.
Powered by its own strength, the Nautilus created its own passage.
Sometimes it climbed onto the ice and crushed it beneath its enormous weight.
Sometimes it pushed underneath the ice and split it apart with its powerful movement.
Then the weather became even worse.
Violent winds attacked us from every direction. Thick fog covered everything. Standing anywhere on the platform, we could see nothing from one end to the other.
Snow piled up so heavily that we had to break it apart with axes.
The temperature dropped to five degrees below zero.
Every outside part of the Nautilus became covered with ice.
A normal sailing ship would have been helpless in such conditions.
But a vessel without sails, powered by electricity and needing no coal, could survive in these extreme southern waters.
Finally, on March 18, after many attempts, the Nautilus was completely trapped.
This was no longer loose ice or frozen fields.
It was an endless wall of ice mountains frozen together into one solid barrier.
“An iceberg!” Ned Land said to me.
I knew what this meant.
To Ned and every explorer before us, an iceberg was the ultimate obstacle.
At noon, the sun appeared briefly.
Captain Nemo took an observation and calculated our position:
51°30′ longitude and 67°39′ south latitude.
We had advanced another degree farther into the Antarctic.
There was no longer any visible open sea.
Beneath the Nautilus stretched a frozen plain filled with enormous blocks of ice.
Sharp peaks rose nearly two hundred feet into the air. Farther away stood steep frozen cliffs, as if they had been cut by giant axes. Huge icy surfaces reflected the weak sunlight before disappearing into the gray fog.
Over this frozen wilderness, complete silence ruled.
Only the occasional beating wings of petrels and puffins disturbed the stillness.
Everything was frozen.
Even sound seemed frozen.
The Nautilus had finally been forced to stop.
No matter how powerful our machines were, no matter how hard we tried to break through, the submarine remained motionless.
Usually, when a ship could not move forward, it could still turn back.
But here, retreat was impossible.
The passages behind us had already closed.
And while we remained still, new ice quickly formed around the submarine.
By two o’clock in the afternoon, we were completely imprisoned.
I had to admit that Captain Nemo had taken an enormous risk.
I was standing on the platform when he approached me.
He had been studying our situation carefully.
“Well, sir,” he asked, “what do you think of this?”
“I think we are trapped, Captain.”
The Nautilus Was Trapped in the Ice
“So, M. Aronnax, you believe the Nautilus cannot escape?”
“With difficulty, Captain. The season is already too advanced. We cannot expect the ice to break apart.”
“Ah, sir,” Captain Nemo replied with a slight smile, “you never change. You always see difficulties and obstacles.”
He looked toward the frozen barrier.
“I tell you that not only will the Nautilus escape, but it will continue farther south.”
“Farther south?” I asked.
“Yes. It will go to the Pole.”
“To the Pole!” I cried, unable to hide my disbelief.
“Yes,” he answered calmly.
“To the Antarctic Pole—the unknown point from which all the world’s meridians begin.”
“You know what the Nautilus is capable of.”
Yes, I knew.
Captain Nemo was a man who dared to challenge limits.
But conquering the frozen world surrounding the South Pole seemed almost impossible. Even the greatest explorers had never reached it.
I asked him:
“Captain, have you ever discovered the Pole yourself?”
“No,” he replied.
“But we will discover it together.”
“Others have failed, but I will not.”
“I have never taken the Nautilus this far south before, but I repeat: we will go farther.”
“I believe you, Captain,” I said with a hint of irony.
“Why not? Let us destroy this iceberg. Let us break it apart. And if that fails, perhaps we should give the Nautilus wings and fly over it!”
“Over it?” Captain Nemo said calmly.
“No, M. Aronnax. Not over it.”
“Under it.”
“Under it?” I repeated.
Suddenly, I understood his plan.
The extraordinary abilities of the Nautilus would allow us to attempt something no ordinary ship could ever do.
“I see that you understand me now,” Captain Nemo said with a faint smile.
“You are beginning to see that this attempt is possible.”
“For an ordinary vessel, this would be impossible. But the Nautilus is different.”
“If there is land at the Pole, then we must stop there. But if the Pole is surrounded by open sea, then the Nautilus will reach it.”
His reasoning convinced me.
“If the surface is frozen,” I said, “the deeper waters should still remain open. Ocean water reaches its greatest density above the freezing point, so the depths should not freeze.”
“And if I remember correctly,” I continued, “the visible part of an iceberg is only about one quarter of its total size.”
“Almost correct,” said Captain Nemo.
“For every foot above the surface, there are about three feet below.”
“If an iceberg rises three hundred feet above the ocean, it extends about nine hundred feet beneath the water.”
“And what is nine hundred feet to the Nautilus?”
“Nothing,” I admitted.
“It can go even deeper,” Captain Nemo continued.
“At those depths, the temperature remains stable, and the submarine can escape the terrible cold above.”
“The only difficulty,” he added, “is that we may need to remain underwater for several days without renewing our air supply.”
“That is not a problem,” I replied.
“The Nautilus has large oxygen reservoirs. We can fill them before we begin.”
“Well thought out, M. Aronnax,” said Captain Nemo.
“But I want you to hear all my concerns before you accuse me of acting recklessly.”
“Are there more?”
“Only one.”
“If the sea around the South Pole is also frozen, we may not be able to return to the surface.”
“But Captain,” I said, “the Nautilus has a powerful steel point. Could it not strike upward against the ice and break through?”
“Ah, sir,” Nemo said, smiling.
“You have many ideas today.”
“And why should the South Pole not have open water, just like the North Pole may have?”
“The frozen regions of Earth are not necessarily identical. Until proven otherwise, we may imagine either land or open ocean at the Pole.”
“I agree,” said Captain Nemo.
“But notice something interesting.”
“After objecting so strongly to my plan, you are now giving me arguments in its favor.”
The preparations began immediately.
The powerful pumps of the Nautilus filled the oxygen reservoirs and compressed the air inside them.
At four o’clock, Captain Nemo announced:
“Close the platform doors.”
I took one final look at the enormous iceberg we were about to cross.
The sky was clear.
The air was pure.
The cold had reached twelve degrees below zero, but the wind had stopped, making it easier to endure.
About ten men climbed onto the outside of the submarine with pickaxes.
They quickly broke the thin ice surrounding the Nautilus.
Soon, the submarine was free.
We all returned inside.
The tanks were filled with fresh water.
Then the Nautilus began its descent.
Conseil and I sat in the saloon.
Through the windows, we watched the deep southern ocean.
The thermometer rose.
The compass needle moved.
At about nine hundred feet, Captain Nemo’s calculations proved correct.
We were beneath the iceberg.
But the Nautilus continued deeper.
It descended to four hundred fathoms.
The surface water temperature had been twelve degrees.
Here it was ten degrees.
We had gained two degrees of warmth.
Inside the submarine, the heating system kept everything comfortable.
Every movement was performed with perfect accuracy.
“We shall pass beneath it,” Conseil said.
“I believe we shall,” I answered confidently.
In this open underwater passage, the Nautilus turned directly toward the Pole.
From 67°30′ south latitude to 90°, we still had twenty-two and a half degrees to travel.
That meant about five hundred leagues.
The submarine maintained an average speed of twenty-six miles per hour.
At that speed, we would reach the Pole in forty hours.
During much of the night, we remained at the windows, fascinated by our situation.
The electric lights illuminated the sea.
But there was almost no life.
No fish lived in these frozen waters.
They only used this route as a passage between the Antarctic Ocean and the unknown polar seas.
The Nautilus rushed forward.
We could feel the vibration of its long steel body.
At two in the morning, I finally rested for a few hours.
Conseil did the same.
I did not see Captain Nemo when I crossed the submarine.
I assumed he was in the pilot’s cabin.
The next morning, March 19, I returned to the saloon.
The instruments showed that the Nautilus had slowed down.
It was rising toward the surface.
But Captain Nemo was releasing the water from the tanks very carefully.
My heart began to beat faster.
Were we about to return to open air?
No.
A sudden impact answered that question.
The Nautilus had struck the underside of the iceberg.
The sound was dull and heavy.
We had not hit the bottom of the ocean.
We had struck the ceiling above us.
The ice above our submarine was still enormous.
There were perhaps three thousand feet of ice above us—one thousand feet above the waterline and two thousand beneath it.
The iceberg was even higher in the middle than at its edges.
Several times that day, Captain Nemo tried again.
Each time, we struck the frozen wall above us.
Sometimes we found ice nine hundred yards thick.
Only two hundred yards rose above the surface.
It was twice the height of the iceberg we had passed beneath earlier.
I carefully recorded every depth measurement.
Slowly, I built a picture of the underwater shape of this enormous frozen mountain.
That night, nothing changed.
Hundreds of yards of ice still separated us from freedom.
The thickness was decreasing, but the distance remained terrifying.
The air inside the Nautilus should already have been renewed.
Yet Captain Nemo had not used the reserve oxygen.
I slept badly that night.
Hope and fear fought inside me.
Several times I woke up.
The submarine continued searching for a path.
At three in the morning, I noticed something.
The lower surface of the iceberg was now only fifty feet above us.
Only one hundred and fifty feet separated us from the open sea.
The iceberg was slowly becoming a flat ice field.
The mountain had become a plain.
My eyes never left the pressure gauge.
The Nautilus continued rising diagonally.
Above us, the ice glittered under the electric lights.
The frozen barrier stretched farther and farther, becoming thinner with every mile.
Finally, at six o’clock on that unforgettable morning of March 19, the door of the saloon opened.
Captain Nemo entered.
“The sea is open,” he said.
Those were his only words.