The Mysterious Island Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Captain Grant's Children

Chapter 108: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (39)
Shortly after the captain's departure, the ascent of the Nautilus stopped under his command.It may have touched the lower end of the iceberg, but in any case it was better to remain in the water than to tip over to the bottom of the sea.

"It's a fluke, we escaped danger!" Conseil said with a sigh of relief.

"It's not that simple. We may be trapped between these ice cubes, either crushed by icebergs, or trapped for life. In the end, because we can't change the air, it's all over!" The Canadian grunted in a low voice.

At this time, I was not in the mood to have a useless argument with the Canadians. I didn't say anything, just continued to wait.At this moment, the panel was suddenly opened, and the light from outside came in through the glass of the panel.

Looking carefully through the glass, the Nautilus was perfectly still in the water, as I had just surmised.However, on both sides of the "Nautilus", at a distance of about ten meters, there is a dazzling white ice wall.At the same time, above and below the ship, there are also the same ice walls, and we are in such an ice cave.The top of the ship, because of the ice surface at the lower end of the iceberg, is like a wide ceiling; under the ship, the overturned ice blocks slowly slipped down, finding a fulcrum on the ice walls on both sides, and maintaining the original position.In this way, the "Nautilus" was temporarily trapped by the surrounding ice. The space was about 20 meters wide and filled with calm water.However, I don't think it is difficult to get out of here, you can go forward, or back, and then dive a few hundred meters to find a passage under the iceberg.

The light on the ceiling of the living room suddenly went out, but the living room did not become dark. There was brilliant light coming in from outside the glass, which was the result of the fierce reflection of the searchlights by the four ice walls.There are countless arbitrarily cut planes on the ice wall, and the power of light reflected on them cannot be described in words.Every angle, every edge and every facet of the ice emits different light due to the distribution of different minerals inside the ice body.There are dazzling jewels and jades in front of my eyes, including the blue light of sapphire and sapphire, the green light of emerald, the infinitely soft white light of suet jade, and many brilliant diamond lights that my eyes dare not look at.The light power of the searchlight has been increased hundreds of times, as if the light has penetrated into a set of convex lenses.

"It's beautiful!" exclaimed Conseil.

"Yes! It's beautiful!" I said. "It's spectacular, isn't it, Ned?"

"Yes! It's beautiful!" Ned Land replied. "Gorgeous! Magnificent! I hate myself, I probably shouldn't say this, people have never seen such a sight, but it will cost us a lot." The price. If I were to say it freely, I would say that what we see before our eyes is what God forbids human eyes to see! We will be punished for seeing!"

Ned Land might be right, it's so beautiful it might not belong in this world.Suddenly, Conseil yelled, and I turned around and asked:
"Conseil, what's the matter with you?"

"Sir, close your eyes! Don't look!"

Conseil covered his eyes with his hands while talking.

"What's the matter with you?"

"I'm dazzled, I can't see anything!"

My eyes couldn't help looking out of the glass window, and I couldn't resist the dazzling light that shot through the glass.

It turned out that the "Nautilus" was advancing rapidly, and all the quiet brilliance on the ice wall turned into a flash of light, like the crystal light of hundreds of millions of diamonds gathered. Driven by the wheels, the "Nautilus" was Driving in this furnace of electric light.

Fortunately, the panels of the living room were closed in time, and our eyes were exposed to excessive and violent light. Even with our eyes closed, the scene of the strong light flickering just now appeared on the eye mask.We have to press our hands to our eyes, and it will take some time to smooth out these turbulent scenes in our eyes.After a while, our hands finally came down.

"My God, what an unbelievable scene!" Conseil exclaimed.

"Neither did I!" replied the Canadian.

"When we return to land in the future," Conseil continued, "we are used to being overwhelmed by the marvelous sights in the ocean, and what will we think of those poor man-made things on the land? ? No! The world inhabited by humans is really too poor for us, and it is not worth our effort to pay attention to!"

Such a statement from a normally indifferent mouth shows how excited we are.But the Canadians suddenly poured a basin of cold water.

"A world inhabited by humans?" He shook his head and said, "Don't worry, Conseil, we won't be able to go back!"

At five o'clock in the morning, I felt another collision, when the Nautilus' horn struck a mass of ice.Because there are many ice groups in this submarine channel, it is not easy to avoid it when sailing, so I accidentally hit it.I thought Captain Nemo might alter his course to avoid these obstacles, but keep on going anyway.However, I didn't guess correctly this time, and the "Nautilus" began to retreat.

"Are we going backwards?" Conseil asked.

"Yes," I replied, "I guess there is no exit ahead of this tunnel."

"Then what do we do?"

"It's easy," I said, "go back, and we'll take the south exit."

I answered very calmly, but my heart was actually not very at ease.At this time, the "Nautilus" began to accelerate, and the speed was getting faster and faster. The wheels turned backwards, leading us backwards like flying.

"It seems we are in a hurry," said Ned Land.

"If only I could come out," Conseil said.

I paced up and down between the drawing-room and the library, while my companions sat in silence, all with heavy hearts.Later, I was lying on the sofa reading a book, mechanically looking at the lines, but I didn't know what was written in it. Fifteen minutes later Conseil came up to me and said:
"Professor, is the book you read interesting?"

"It's interesting." I replied.

"I don't think so. You're reading a book you wrote yourself!"

"The book I wrote?"

Only then did I notice that what I was holding in my hand was the "Mystery of the Sea".I closed the book and started walking back and forth again.Ned Land and Conseil stood up and wanted to go away.

"Guys, please hold on," I said, holding them back. "We'll stay here until the 'Nautilus' walks out of this frozen path."

In the next few hours, I looked at the mechanical pressure gauge hanging on the wall of the living room from time to time. The "Nautilus" was always in the water layer at a depth of 300 meters, and the compass was always pointing south. The rangefinder showed that our The speed was twenty knots per hour.In this narrow waterway, this speed is a bit too fast.I think Captain Nemo knows the best speed for the ship, but at this time, time is everything, and we have to rush out before the rear channel freezes.

At 25am, there was another collision, this time at the rear of the boat.I turned pale, and my companions came up to me, hoping to cheer each other up.I took Conseil's hand, looked at each other, and no one spoke. At this time, language may not be the best way to express our thoughts.After a while, Captain Nemo came in. I went up to him and asked him:

"Is the passage to the south also blocked?"

"Yes, sir, all exits are frozen."

"Are we completely sealed underwater by the ice?"

"Yes."

lack of air
That is to say, the "Nautilus" is surrounded, up, down, left, and right, and there are insurmountable ice walls. Together with the "Nautilus", we were captured by the icebergs in Antarctica.The Canadian slammed the table with his massive fist, and Conseil fell completely silent.I stared at the captain, hoping to see some hope from him.Soon, the captain's face returned from anxiety to the previous calm and serious, he folded his hands, and spoke loudly, his voice was very calm and determined:
"Gentlemen, you must think that this time we cannot escape, that we must die. But I will say that in the situation we are in, there are two ways of dying."

Captain Nemo, like a mathematics teacher, solving arithmetic problems for his students, went on:
"The first is to be crushed to death, and the second is to be smothered to death. The possibility of starving to death is very small, and the food stored on the 'Nautilus' is still sufficient, so let us analyze the possibility of being crushed to death or suffocated .”

"Captain," I questioned. "It's impossible to suffocate. I remember that the storage in the ship is full of compressed air."

"Professor, you have only considered one aspect," said the captain, "the stored air can only be used for two days. Now we have been submerged for 36 hours, and the dirty air in the 'Nautilus' needs to be replaced. By 48 hours, We're running out of air storage."

"Captain, can we get out in 48 hours?"

"At least try hard. We have a plan to chip away at the ice wall that surrounds us."

"From which direction?"

"We can park the ship on the ice below, use the probe to find the thinnest ice layer, and then let my crew put on diving suits and go to the bottom of the ice to dig ice."

"Will the panels in the living room be open?"

"Okay, the boat has stopped."

Shortly after Captain Nemo left, we heard a whistle, which was the sound of sea water being sucked into the storage tank, and the "Nautilus" began to sink, and finally stopped at a depth of 350 meters. depth.

"Friends," I said, "the situation is critical, and I believe you can show courage and strength!"

"Professor, don't worry." The Canadian said, "Now is not the time to complain and complain. I will try my best to do something for everyone's common safety."

"Very good, Ned," I said, squeezing the Canadian's hand.

"And," he added, "I'm as good a shovel as I am a harpoon, and I want to join the ice-cutters, and I'll do my captain's bidding."

"Ned, you are right to do this. The captain will not refuse your help. Let's go find him."

Ned Land and I came to the room where the crew changed their diving suits. I told the captain of the Canadian's request, and the captain accepted it.Ned Land quickly changed into his diving suit and, like his fellow ice-cutting team members, each carried a Lugarol air box, which was filled with pure air from the storage.For the Nautilus' air storage capacity, the airbox used a significant amount of reserves, but it was a necessary expense.As for the Lankov lamps, they were not equipped with them, and the sea water was very bright under the illumination of the searchlights, and the headlights were of no use.

When Ned and the others were fully equipped, I returned to the living room, the panels were opened, and Conseil and I stood in front of the window, carefully examining the surrounding ice that trapped the "Nautilus".

A few minutes later, as more than a dozen crew members left the Nautilus and descended onto the ice, I saw the figure of Ned Land, easily recognizable by his tall stature.Captain Nemo was also with them.

Before digging into the ice, Captain Nemo had some sounding done to make sure he was going in the right direction.There are very long detection ropes placed on the ice walls on both sides. The result of the detection is that there are still thick ice walls blocking the way at 15 meters above, so it is definitely not feasible to dig ice from the upper layer, because that means we Struggling with the 400m high iceberg itself.Captain Nemo had someone probe the thickness of the ice below, where a ten-meter-thick ice plate separated us from the sea.Although it is only ten meters thick, a large area must be carved out of the ice rink, and the size must be equal to the area above the buoy line of the "Nautilus".To dig such a large hole, about [-] cubic meters of ice needs to be excavated, which is a very huge amount of work.

Captain Nemo wasted no time in ordering the ice-cutting to begin at once, and the crew worked with such firm determination and all their strength that they did not dig around the Nautilus, which might have caused great problems and inconveniences.Captain Nemo also drew a huge circle on the ice eight meters away from the port side of the ship. The ice-cutters dug in several places around the circle at the same time. of ice chipped from the ice slab.Due to the effect of density, these ice cubes are not as heavy as water, so they float to the top of the ice surface one after another. In this way, the ice layer below is thinning and the layer above is thickening.But regardless of many, the ice in the lower layer is thinning anyway.

After two hours of hard work, Ned Land and the first group of team members returned to the ship exhausted. Others changed their diving suits for them and put them on themselves. Conseil and I were also among them. We joined the first team Second team. The first mate of the "Nautilus" led the team and guided us. After leaving the ship, I felt that the sea water was freezing to the bone. After waving the shovel for a while, my body warmed up.Although the air pressure is below [-] Pa, I still work very easily.

After two hours of underwater work, I was replaced to rest and eat something.Back on board the Nautilus, I could clearly feel the difference between the pure air in Lugroel's air tanks and the already high carbon dioxide content of the ship.The air on board has not been changed for 48 hours. It can no longer provide us with smooth breathing, and some are just stuffy.After twelve hours, we had only dug out one meter of ice on the ice surface drawn by the captain, that is, about [-] cubic meters.Five nights and four days would be required to complete this seemingly impossible task, given the same amount of work every twelve hours.

"We still need five nights and four days of digging!" I said to my two companions, "but there is only enough air in the storehouse for two days."

"Besides," Ned Land replied, "even if we are lucky enough to escape from this frozen cell, who can guarantee that we will immediately float to the surface of the sea, or we may continue to be blocked underwater by another iceberg and ice wall!"

The concerns of Canadians may exist. No one dares to say what the shortest time it will take us to escape from the cage. Before the "Nautilus" returns to the surface, we may all suffocate to death due to lack of oxygen. I think this is One of the most terrible ways to die, could it be that the sea god is angry because we have reached the South Pole, and wants to trap everyone on this ship to death in this ice tomb?The future is a bit bleak, but no one on board is discouraged, and everyone is determined to fight to the end, even if there is only a sliver of hope left.

After a night's rest, I reckon another sheet of ice a meter thick has been dug out of the giant circle.However, when I put on my diving suit early in the morning and walked to the excavation site in the water temperature of minus six to seven degrees, I saw that the ice walls that had been carved out were gradually connected.The water layer farther away from the scene tends to freeze immediately because there is no human labor and tool wielding.The chances of our rescue have diminished even more in the face of this new and emerging danger, a tendency which, if frozen, would crush the Nautilus' hull, we want to prevent further aggravation.

I deliberately did not let my two companions know about the danger, including other crew members, for fear that their courage and confidence in digging desperately and escaping would be hit.As soon as I got back on board, I informed Captain Nemo of the danger that was unfolding, and urged his attention to take some action at once.

"Thank you, Professor, I'm aware of it," he said calmly, and even the most dire danger could not change his composure. "This is a new danger. I have no way to stop it or avoid it. We Our only chance of salvation is if we dig faster than we can freeze, and it's up to whoever gets ahead."

I've known I should do this beforehand, and there's no other way to do it more effectively.

I worked for hours on this day, and swinging a shovel certainly wasn't as enjoyable as reading in my study, but working now meant a little more hope of being rescued, and it meant being able to leave the Nautilus and breathe directly from the storeroom. Pure air supplied by the air box, away from the dizzy hazy air on board.

In the evening, another meter was removed from the ice wall.When I got back to the boat, I was almost suffocated by the nearly saturated carbon dioxide in the air.God, is there any way to get rid of this harmful gas?There is no lack of oxygen around us, seawater contains a lot of oxygen, and powerful batteries can break it down, which can refill the cabin with fresh and sweet air.I've mulled over this, but to no avail, the carbon dioxide we breathe seeps into every nook and cranny of the ship.Potassium chloride is needed to remove carbon dioxide, but there is no potassium chloride on board, let alone other substances that can replace it.

Tonight, Captain Nemo must turn on the spigot of the storehouse and let out some of the clean air, and if we don't, some of us won't wake up in the morning.

The next day, March 3, I went to work early in the morning like a coal miner.Five meters of ice will be dug out today.I found that the sides and bottom layers of the iceberg had obviously thickened again.These ice cubes seem to be teasing us. They seem to be waiting for the perfect time to freeze up before the "Nautilus" gets away, allowing us to fall directly from the pinnacle of hope.I felt a tinge of despair and almost dropped the shovel in my hand.Is there any use for chipping ice?I will suffocate to death, and I will go through a painful struggle before I die, and finally bleed to death from my seven orifices.Or be crushed to death by the water that is about to freeze into ice cubes, and watch the steel plates of the hull be crushed and our bodies crushed.Even the cruelty of savages is not so cruel. I feel that I am bitten in the mouth of a monster, unable to move, and my body is gradually pierced by the sharp teeth.

At this time, Captain Nemo was in charge of the scene, and he himself chiseled the ice.As he passed me, I touched him with my hand and pointed out our solid wall, the ice wall on the starboard side of the ship less than four meters from the Nautilus' hull.

The captain understood what I meant, and made a sign to me to follow him.We got back on the boat and I took off my wetsuit and followed him into the living room.

"Professor Aronnax," he said to me, "the current situation is a bit bad, we must use some special and effective methods, otherwise we will be completely blocked here, just like being sealed in cement that is about to solidify Like that."

"Exactly," I said, "but what shall we do?"

"There is a way, but I have to be cautious," he said, "Is my 'Nautilus' capable of resisting this pressure without being crushed?"

"What do you want to do?" I asked a little confused.

(End of this chapter)