was the good of digging if I must be
suffocated, crushed by the water that was turning into stone?--a
punishment that the ferocity of the savages even would not have
invented! Just then Captain Nemo passed near me. I touched his hand
and showed him the walls of our prison. The wall to port had advanced
to at least four yards from the hull of the Nautilus. The Captain
understood me, and signed me to follow him. We went on board. I took
off my cork-jacket and accompanied him into the drawing-room.

"M. Aronnax, we must attempt some desperate means, or we shall be
sealed up in this solidified water as in cement."

"Yes; but what is to be done?"

"Ah! if my Nautilus were strong enough to bear this pressure without
being crushed!"

"Well?" I asked, not catching the Captain's idea.

"Do you not understand," he replied, "that this congelation of water
will help us? Do you not see that by its solidification, it would
burst through this field of ice that imprisons us, as, when it freezes,
it bursts the hardest stones? Do you not perceive that it would be an
agent of safety instead of destruction?"

"Yes, Captain, perhaps. But, whatever resistance to crushing the
Nautilus possesses, it could not support this terrible pressure, and
would be flattened like an iron plate."

"I know it, sir. Therefore we must not reckon on the aid of nature,
but on our own exertions. We must stop this solidification. Not only
will the side walls be pressed together; but there is not ten feet of
water before or behind the Nautilus. The congelation gains on us on
all sides."

"How long will the air in the reservoirs last for us to breathe on
board?"

The Captain looked in my face. "After to-morrow they will be empty!"

A cold sweat came over me. However, ought I to have been astonished at
the answer? On March 22, the Nautilus was in the open polar seas. We
were at 26 deg.. For five days we had lived on the reserve on board.
And what was left of the respirable air must be kept for the workers.
Even now, as I write, my recollection is still so vivid that an
involuntary terror seizes me and my lungs seem to be without air.
Meanwhile, Captain Nemo reflected silently, and evidently an idea had
struck him; but he seemed to reject it. At last, these words escaped
his lips:

"Boiling water!" he muttered.

"Boiling water?" I cried.

"Yes, sir. We are enclosed in a space that is relatively confined.
Would not jets of boili