20,000 Leagues Under the Sea | Page 5

the force of the water was considerable. Fortunately this compartment did not
hold the boilers, or the fires would have been immediately extinguished. Captain
Anderson ordered the engines to be stopped at once, and one of the men went down to
ascertain the extent of the injury. Some minutes afterwards they discovered the existence
of a large hole, two yards in diameter, in the ship's bottom. Such a leak could not be
stopped; and the Scotia, her paddles half submerged, was obliged to continue her course.
She was then three hundred miles from Cape Clear, and, after three days' delay, which
caused great uneasiness in Liverpool, she entered the basin of the company.
The engineers visited the Scotia, which was put in dry dock. They could scarcely believe
it possible; at two yards and a half below water-mark was a regular rent, in the form of an
isosceles triangle. The broken place in the iron plates was so perfectly defined that it
could not have been more neatly done by a punch. It was clear, then, that the instrument
producing the perforation was not of a common stamp and, after having been driven with
prodigious strength, and piercing an iron plate 1 3/8 inches thick, had withdrawn itself by
a backward motion.
Such was the last fact, which resulted in exciting once more the torrent of public opinion.
From this moment all unlucky casualties which could not be otherwise accounted for
were put down to the monster.
Upon this imaginary creature rested the responsibility of all these shipwrecks, which
unfortunately were considerable; for of three thousand ships whose loss was annually
recorded at Lloyd's, the number of sailing and steam-ships supposed to be totally lost,
from the absence of all news, amounted to not less than two hundred!
Now, it was the "monster" who, justly or unjustly, was accused of their disappearance,
and, thanks to it, communication between the different continents became more and more
dangerous. The public demanded sharply that the seas should at any price be relieved
from this formidable cetacean. [1]
[1] Member of the whale family.

CHAPTER II
PRO AND CON
At the period when these events took place, I had just returned from a scientific research
in the disagreeable territory of Nebraska, in the United States. In virtue of my office as
Assistant Professor in the Museum of Natural History in Paris, the French Government
had attached me to that expedition. After six months in Nebraska, I arrived in New York
towards the end of March, laden with a precious collection. My departure for France was
fixed for the first days in May. Meanwhile I was occupying myself in classifying my
mineralogical, botanical, and zoological riches, when the accident happened to the Scotia.
I was perfectly up in the subject which was the question of the day. How could I be
otherwise? I had read and reread all the American and European papers without being
any nearer a conclusion. This mystery puzzled me. Under the impossibility of forming an
opinion, I jumped from one extreme to the other. That there really was something could
not be doubted, and the incredulous were invited to put their finger on the wound of the
Scotia.
On my arrival at New York the question was at its height. The theory of the floating
island, and the unapproachable sandbank, supported by minds little competent to form a
judgment, was abandoned. And, indeed, unless this shoal had a machine in its stomach,
how could it change its position with such astonishing rapidity?
From the same cause, the idea of a floating hull of an enormous wreck was given up.
There remained, then, only two possible solutions of the question, which created two
distinct parties: on one side, those who were for a monster of colossal strength; on the
other, those who were for a submarine vessel of enormous motive power.
But this last theory, plausible as it was, could not stand against inquiries made in both
worlds. That a private gentleman should have such a machine at his command was not
likely. Where, when, and how was it built? and how could its construction have been kept
secret? Certainly a Government might possess such a destructive machine. And in these
disastrous times, when the ingenuity of man has multiplied the power of weapons of war,
it was possible that, without the knowledge of others, a State might try to work such a
formidable engine.
But the idea of a war machine fell before the declaration of Governments. As public
interest was in question, and transatlantic communications suffered, their veracity could
not be doubted. But how admit that the construction of this submarine boat had escaped
the public eye? For a private gentleman to keep the secret under such circumstances
would be very