Home Categories science fiction twenty thousand leagues under the sea

Chapter 24 Chapter 24 Coral Kingdom

The next day, I woke up feeling very refreshed.To my great surprise, I was in my room.My companions must have gone back to their cabins too, perhaps they were as unaware of it as I was.They knew nothing of what had happened during the night, any more than I did, and I had nothing but chance to unravel this mystery. I thought about getting out of this room.Thought I had regained my freedom?Or still a prisoner?In fact, I was completely free again.I opened the door, walked into the aisle, and went up the central iron ladder.The panels were closed yesterday and are now open. I'm on the platform.

Ned Land and Conseil were waiting for me there.I asked them and they didn't know anything.The drowsy sleep did not leave any memory for them, they were just surprised in their hearts, seeing that they had returned to their cabins at some point. As for the Nautilus, it seemed to us as usual, quiet and mysterious.It moves very slowly and floats on the waves.Nothing seemed to have changed on board. Ned Land opened his piercing eyes and surveyed the sea.There is nothing at sea.Canadians see nothing in the sky, no ships, no land. The westerly wind blew loudly, Feng set up a magnificent wave and hit the boat, causing the boat to vibrate visibly.

After fresh air, the Nautilus was driven under water at an average depth of fifteen meters, so that it could quickly return to the surface: this was done in a different way than usual, and on the 19th of January a several times.The mate was now on the platform again, and the words he was accustomed to say were heard in the boat again. As for Captain Nemo, he did not come out.As for the crew on board, I only saw the cold steward, who, as usual, served me meals on time and silently. About two o'clock, I was in the drawing room, sorting out my notes, when Captain Nemo opened the door and entered.I salute him.He answered me with a salute, an almost imperceptible salute, without saying a word.I went on with my work, hoping that he might explain to me the particular events of the night before.

But he said nothing.I watched him and it seemed that his countenance seemed weary: his eyes were red, sleep had not refreshed them: his countenance expressed deep sorrow, real pain.He walks up and down, sits down, stands up, picks up a book at will, puts it down again immediately, and looks at his various equipment, but does not take notes that he often needs to make, as if he cannot be quiet for a moment.Then he came towards me and asked me: "Mr. Aronnax, are you a doctor?" I really didn't expect him to ask this question suddenly. I looked at him and didn't answer him immediately.

"Are you a doctor?" he continued. "Several of your colleagues, like Gradiolie, Morgan Donton, and others, have studied medicine." "Yes," I said, "I'm a doctor and a resident. I practiced medicine for several years before I became a professor at a museum." "Very good, sir." My answer obviously satisfied Captain Nemo.However, I don't know why he mentioned this matter. I wait for him to ask a new question, and I can answer it according to the situation. "Mr. Aronnax," said the captain to me, "will you come and treat one of my crew?"

"Do you have any patients here?" "yes." "I'll follow you to see." "Please come with me." I have to admit, my heart was racing right now.I do not know why, but I felt some connection between the illness of this crewman and the events of last night, a secret at least as entrenched in me as the patient. Captain Nemo took me aft of the Nautilus and let me into a cabin next to the sailor's quarters. On the bed in the room lay a man of about forty years old, with a strong appearance, a typical example of a true Anglo-Saxon. I bent down to look at him.He is not only sick, but injured.His head was wrapped in bloody gauze and lay on two pillows.I untied the wrapping, and the patient looked at me with wide eyes and asked me to untie it, without saying a word about the pain.

The wound looked very scary.The skull was shattered by the impacting instrument, and the brain was exposed, which suffered severe friction.On the wounded brain there were lumps of blood, the color of wine vats.The brain was injured and shocked at the same time.The casualty's breathing was slow.Muscles twitched, shaking his face. The brain is completely inflamed, so that thought and movement are numb. I pressed the patient's pulse, and it came and went.All over my body, the tips of my fingers and toes were cold, and I could see that death was imminent, and there was no cure for it.Having bandaged the unfortunate invalid, and putting the gauze on his head, I turned to Captain Nemo; and I asked him:

"Where did this scar come from?" "That's all right!" replied the captain in disguise. "The Nautilus was struck by a hit which broke a lever on the engine and hit the man. The mate was beside him. He rushed forward and suffered the most." After this blow...brothers sacrifice for their brothers, friends sacrifice for their friends, there is no simpler enjoyment! This is the law that all crew members of the Nautilus abide by! What is your opinion on his sickness? how?" I hesitated to speak. "You may say," said the captain to me, "that this man does not understand French.

I looked at the wounded one last time, and replied: "The man will be dead in two hours." "Is there nothing we can do to save him?" "No." Captain Nemo's hands trembled, and a few tears fell from his eyes, which I thought he could not weep. For a moment, I looked at the dying man again, and his life disappeared bit by bit.His pale complexion was made paler by the bright electric light that fell on his death bed.I saw many premature wrinkles on his wise brow, caused by misfortune in life or years of poverty.I want to learn the secret of his life from some words that happen to come out of his mouth!

"You can quit, Mr. Aronnax." Captain Nemo said to me at this moment. I came out and left the captain alone in the critically ill room. I went back to my room, very emotional about the scene just now.All that day, I had all kinds of ominous premonitions in my heart, and I was very uneasy.I didn't sleep well at night, and I often woke up in my sleep, thinking that I heard moaning and mourning songs from afar.Is this a prayer for the dead, in a language I don't understand? The next morning, when I was on the platform again, Captain Nemo was already there.As soon as he saw me, he came up to me.

"Professor," he said to me, "would you like to take a walk under the sea today?" "Can my companion come with me?" I asked. "They can go together if they want." "We must go with you, Captain." "Just go and put on your wetsuits, please." He said no more about the critically ill or dead man.I went to Ned.Land and Conseil, and told them about Captain Nemo's proposal.Conseil immediately agreed to go, and this time the Canadian expressed his willingness to go with us. The time is eight o'clock in the morning.By eight-thirty we had put on our wetsuits for this walk, with searchlights and respirators.The double door opened, and Captain Nemo came out with a dozen or so crew members following him. We reached a depth of ten meters, and our feet were on the bottom of the sea floor where the Nautilus stopped.) A slight incline leads to rough ground to a depth of about twenty-five metres.The ground was nothing like anything I had seen on my first underwater walk in the Pacific Ocean.There is no fine sand, no sea grass, no sea forest, and I immediately recognized this magical place that Captain Nemo invited us to this day; this place is the kingdom of coral. In the Phylum Phytozoa and the Class Emeralds, there is the order Alumflower, which includes the three families of Alumflower, Horsetail and Coral.Coral belongs to the coral family, which is a strange thing. It was once divided into minerals, plants and animals.In ancient times, it was a prescription for curing diseases, and in modern times it was a decorative treasure. It was not until 1694 that the Maasai man Pisannier clearly classified them as animals. Corals are populations of microorganisms that gather on friable and stony pseudocoral trees.These coral polyps have a peculiar fecundity, like branching, they have their own life, but at the same time they have a common life, so this situation seems to be a kind of natural socialism; As a result of the research on zoophytes, according to the very correct observation of biologists, coral polyps play a role in mineralization during branching and reproduction. For me, it is really interesting to visit a stony forest planted by nature under the sea. Nothing could be more interesting. The Lankov searcher was engaged, and we followed the coral formations that were forming, the veins that in time would one day close this part of the Indian Ocean.The roadsides were tangled coral groves of small coral trees, their branches covered with tiny white star-shaped flowers.However, contrary to plants on land, the branches of coral trees fixed on rocks on the seabed all develop from top to bottom. The lights shine back and forth among the brightly colored branches and leaves, creating infinitely beautiful and charming scenes.I seem to see thin film-like and cylindrical tubes trembling under the sea waves.As I was going to pick their fresh petals with their fibrous tentacles (some just in bloom, some just out of the head), some light-bodied fish with swift-flapping fins approached and touched them like birds flying by.But as soon as I put my hand near these living flowers, these living mimosas, there was an alarm in the flowers.Then the white petals shrank into their vermilion boxes, and the flowers disappeared before my eyes, and the coral thicket was transformed into a great stone dome. Chance has brought before me some of the most precious varieties of this insectivore.This coral is as valuable as that found in the Mediterranean, on the French, Italian and Barbary coasts.Commercially, poetic names like "Blood Flower" and "Blood Foam" have been given to the most beautiful of these, and their bright colors justify this.This kind of coral has been sold for five hundred francs a kilogram; there is indeed a wealth of coral salvage in the sea in this area. This precious material is often mixed with other species of coral trees, thus forming the dense and mixed monoliths called "Macioda", on which I saw a very beautiful variety of rose corals. Soon the coral groves grew close together, and the branches grew, as if a real stony jungle and a long trough of strange low buildings opened before our steps. Captain Nemo entered a dark corridor-like passage, and from this sloping passage we reached a depth of a hundred meters.The optics of our serpentine glass tubes shine upon these natural jagged arches, upon the pendant ceilings arranged like crystal sconces and studded with sparks. Magical and charming power happened, and among the coral clumps, I saw the same strange coral trees, sea lice-shaped corals, arthropod butterfly corals, and some clustered corals, some were blue, some were red, really Like algae on a limestone floor, these coral mounds, after a long discussion, the biologists definitely included them among the plants.However, according to a thinker, "they may be life just struggling from the slumber of insensibility, and has not yet completely escaped from the physical properties of minerals. After walking for two hours, we reached a depth of 100 meters in t9, the place where the final boundary of coral began to form.But here, it is not isolated and separated coral bushes, not low forest bushes, but a vast forest, huge mineral plants, thick stone trees, combined by those sea kudzu vines, beautiful feather grass wreaths Standing up, embellished with a variety of colors and reflections, it looks great.Their tall branches disappeared in the shadow of the sea, and we walked freely under them. Under our feet, there were tube corals, brain shells, star shells, fungus shells, carnation corals, forming a carpet of flowers. , showing a variety of dazzling colors. It is really an indescribable, indescribable scene!what!Why can't we exchange impressions of each other's feelings!Why are we imprisoned in this round helmet of metal and glass!Why are we blocked from talking to each other!At least, I hope we can live like fish that breed in sea water, or better, like those amphibians, who can come and go on the ground and swim in the water as they want for a long time! But Captain Nemo stopped.My companion and I also halted, and I turned my head to see the crew forming a semicircle around their false leader.I looked more carefully and saw that four of them were carrying a rectangular object on their shoulders. We were standing in the center of a wide open space, surrounded by the tall, jutting branches of the underwater forest.Our lights cast a blurred light across the vast space, and the shadows on the floor were extraordinarily long.At the end of the open space, it was even darker, only the coral spikes left some sparse light. Ned Land and Conseil stood beside me.We watched, and I thought to myself, I am about to take part in a very queer scene.I observed the ground and saw several places where, due to the accumulation of limestone and the regular arrangement of human hands, there were slightly raised tumors, and the ground appeared to be bulging. In the middle of the clearing, on a foundation of stones piled up at random, stood a coral cross. The two long arms extending from both sides of the cross seemed to be made of stone blood. At a gesture from Captain Nemo, a member of the crew stepped forward, took the shovel from his belt a few feet from the cross, and began digging. I totally get it!This clearing is a cemetery, this pit is a grave, and this long thing is the body of someone who died the night before!Captain Nemo and his crew came to the bottom of this secluded ocean, this common cemetery, to bury their companions. No!My heart has never been so excited, so nervous!Never have more moving thoughts invaded my brain than now!I just don't want to see what my eyes see! But the grave was dug slowly.The fish were startled and ran around.I heard the tinkling of shovels on the limestone floor, and sometimes the shovels caught flints thrown under the water and sparkled like stars.Gradually the grave lengthened and enlarged, and soon became quite deep enough to accommodate the corpse. Then the bearers of the body came forward, and the body was wrapped in white linen, and placed in a wet pit.Captain Nemo folded his arms, and all the friends the deceased had loved knelt in a gesture of prayer.My two companions and I also bowed reverently. The grave was then covered by the earth and rocks dug out of the ground, and the ground formed a slight bulge. When the grave was filled, Captain Nemo and his crew rose, and then approached the grave, kneeling and extending their hands, in a final gesture of farewell. After the fire, the funeral procession followed the same path, under the arched buildings of the forest, among the bushes, through the long coral groves, always going up, towards the Nautilus. return. At last the lights of the ship came out, and a long ray of light led me down to the Nautilus.It was exactly one o'clock when we got back to the boat. I changed and stepped onto the platform, haunted by terrible thoughts. He walked over to the searchlight and sat down. Captain Nemo came up to me; I stood up and said to him: "Just as I expected, did that person die at night?" "Yes, Mr. Aronnax." Captain Nemo replied. "Is he now buried beside his companions, in that coral graveyard?" The captain suddenly covered his convulsed hands and face, and he could not suppress his groan, after which he said: "There, hundreds of feet below the waves, is our quiet grave!" "At least, Captain, your dead companions can rest peacefully there, safe from sharks!" "Yes, sir," replied Captain Nemo gravely, "from sharks and characters.
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