orn off our hands.
But what were these fatigues, what did the wounds matter? Vital air
came to the lungs! We breathed! we breathed!

All this time no one prolonged his voluntary task beyond the prescribed
time. His task accomplished, each one handed in turn to his panting
companions the apparatus that supplied him with life. Captain Nemo set
the example, and submitted first to this severe discipline. When the
time came, he gave up his apparatus to another and returned to the
vitiated air on board, calm, unflinching, unmurmuring.

On that day the ordinary work was accomplished with unusual vigour.
Only two yards remained to be raised from the surface. Two yards only
separated us from the open sea. But the reservoirs were nearly emptied
of air. The little that remained ought to be kept for the workers; not
a particle for the Nautilus. When I went back on board, I was half
suffocated. What a night! I know not how to describe it. The next
day my breathing was oppressed. Dizziness accompanied the pain in my
head and made me like a drunken man. My companions showed the same
symptoms. Some of the crew had rattling in the throat.

On that day, the sixth of our imprisonment, Captain Nemo, finding the
pickaxes work too slowly, resolved to crush the ice-bed that still
separated us from the liquid sheet. This man's coolness and energy
never forsook him. He subdued his physical pains by moral force.

By his orders the vessel was lightened, that is to say, raised from the
ice-bed by a change of specific gravity. When it floated they towed it
so as to bring it above the immense trench made on the level of the
water-line. Then, filling his reservoirs of water, he descended and
shut himself up in the hole.

Just then all the crew came on board, and the double door of
communication was shut. The Nautilus then rested on the bed of ice,
which was not one yard thick, and which the sounding leads had
perforated in a thousand places. The taps of the reservoirs were then
opened, and a hundred cubic yards of water was let in, increasing the
weight of the Nautilus to 1,800 tons. We waited, we listened,
forgetting our sufferings in hope. Our safety depended on this last
chance. Notwithstanding the buzzing in my head, I soon heard the
humming sound under the hull of the Nautilus. The ice cracked with a
singular noise, like tearing paper, and the Nautilus sank.

"We are off!" murmured Conseil in my ear.

I could not