Turtle Reader

“Yes, my friend,” I answered, “it was an electric ray that put you
in this deplorable state.”
“Oh, Master can trust me on this,” Conseil shot back.
“I’ll be revenged on that animal!”
“How?”
“I’ll eat it.”
Which he did that same evening, but strictly as retaliation.
Because, frankly, it tasted like leather.
Poor Conseil had assaulted an electric ray of the most [...]

Near eleven o’clock in the morning, we cut the Tropic of Capricorn
on the 37th meridian, passing well out from Cape Frio. Much to
Ned Land’s displeasure, Captain Nemo had no liking for the neighborhood
of Brazil’s populous shores, because he shot by with dizzying speed.
Not even the swiftest fish or birds could keep up with us, [...]

We would soon settle this important point. The Nautilus
traveled swiftly. Soon we had cleared the Antarctic Circle
plus the promontory of Cape Horn. We were abreast of the tip
of South America by March 31 at seven o’clock in the evening.
By then all our past sufferings were forgotten. The memory
of that imprisonment under [...]

Chapter 17: From Cape Horn to the Amazon
How I got onto the platform I’m unable to say.
Perhaps the Canadian transferred me there. But I could breathe,
I could inhale the life–giving sea air. Next to me my two
companions were getting tipsy on the fresh oxygen particles.
Poor souls who have suffered from long starvation mustn’t [...]

Just then the whole crew returned on board, and the double outside
door was closed. By this point the Nautilus was resting on a bed
of ice only one meter thick and drilled by bores in a thousand places.
The stopcocks of the ballast tanks were then opened wide, and 100
cubic meters of water rushed in, increasing [...]

The steaming water was injected into the icy water outside,
and after three hours had passed, the thermometer gave the exterior
temperature as –6° centigrade. That was one degree gained.
Two hours later the thermometer gave only –4°.
After I monitored the operation’s progress, double–checking it
with many inspections, I told the captain, “It’s working.”
“I think so,” he answered [...]

Get there first! By then I should have been used to this type of talk!
For several hours that day, I wielded my pick doggedly.
The work kept me going. Besides, working meant leaving the Nautilus,
which meant breathing the clean oxygen drawn from the air tanks
and supplied by our equipment, which meant leaving the thin,
foul [...]

Before digging into the ice, the captain had to obtain borings,
to insure working in the best direction. Long bores were driven into
the side walls; but after fifteen meters, the instruments were still
impeded by the thickness of those walls. It was futile to attack
the ceiling since that surface was the Ice Bank itself, more [...]

Chapter 16: Shortage of Air
Consequently, above, below, and around the Nautilus, there were
impenetrable frozen walls. We were the Ice Bank’s prisoners!
The Canadian banged a table with his fearsome fist. Conseil kept still.
I stared at the captain. His face had resumed its usual emotionlessness.
He crossed his arms. He pondered. The Nautilus [...]

The ceiling lights were off, yet the lounge was still brightly lit.
This was due to the reflecting power of the walls of ice,
which threw the beams of our beacon right back at us. Words cannot
describe the effects produced by our galvanic rays on these huge,
whimsically sculpted blocks, whose every angle, ridge, and facet gave
off [...]