er half steam, to keep up above the waves. It was
probably one of the steamers of the line from New York to Liverpool, or
Havre. It soon disappeared in the gloom. At ten o'clock in the
evening the sky was on fire. The atmosphere was streaked with vivid
lightning. I could not bear the brightness of it; while the captain,
looking at it, seemed to envy the spirit of the tempest. A terrible
noise filled the air, a complex noise, made up of the howls of the
crushed waves, the roaring of the wind, and the claps of thunder. The
wind veered suddenly to all points of the horizon; and the cyclone,
rising in the east, returned after passing by the north, west, and
south, in the inverse course pursued by the circular storm of the
southern hemisphere. Ah, that Gulf Stream! It deserves its name of
the King of Tempests. It is that which causes those formidable
cyclones, by the difference of temperature between its air and its
currents. A shower of fire had succeeded the rain. The drops of water
were changed to sharp spikes. One would have thought that Captain Nemo
was courting a death worthy of himself, a death by lightning. As the
Nautilus, pitching dreadfully, raised its steel spur in the air, it
seemed to act as a conductor, and I saw long sparks burst from it.
Crushed and without strength I crawled to the panel, opened it, and
descended to the saloon. The storm was then at its height. It was
impossible to stand upright in the interior of the Nautilus. Captain
Nemo came down about twelve. I heard the reservoirs filling by
degrees, and the Nautilus sank slowly beneath the waves. Through the
open windows in the saloon I saw large fish terrified, passing like
phantoms in the water. Some were struck before my eyes. The Nautilus
was still descending. I thought that at about eight fathoms deep we
should find a calm. But no! the upper beds were too violently agitated
for that. We had to seek repose at more than twenty-five fathoms in
the bowels of the deep. But there, what quiet, what silence, what
peace! Who could have told that such a hurricane had been let loose on
the surface of that ocean?

CHAPTER XX

FROM LATITUDE 47 deg. 24' TO LONGITUDE 17 deg. 28'

In consequence of the storm, we had been thrown eastward once more.
All hope of escape on the shores of New York or St. Lawrence had faded
away; and poor Ned, in despair, had isolated himself like Captain Nemo.
Conseil and I, however, never left each o