The World's Greatest Books - Volume 8 Part 43

"You have seen the attack," he said calmly. "I shall sink yonder s.h.i.+p, but not here--no, not here. Her ruins shall not mingle with those of the Avenger."

_V.--The Doom of the Oppressor_

Having no choice but to obey, we all went below, and the propeller of the Nautilus was soon las.h.i.+ng the water into creamy foam, taking us beyond the range of fire. I held my peace for a time, but, after some deliberation, ventured to go up in the hope of dissuading Captain Nemo from more destruction. His vessel was now coursing round the other s.h.i.+p like a wild beast manoeuvring to attack its prey, and I had scarcely spoken when the captain turned on me fiercely, commanding silence.

"Here I am the law and the judge," he said, almost in a shriek. "There is the oppressor. Through him I have lost all that I have loved, cherished, and venerated--country, wife, children, father, and mother. I saw all peris.h.!.+ All that I hate is represented by that s.h.i.+p! Not another word!"

In the face of such fierce hatred it was useless to try persuasion. I and my companions resolved to attempt escape when the Nautilus made the attack. At six the next morning, being the second day of June, the two vessels were less than a mile and a half apart. Suddenly, as the three of us were preparing to rush on deck and jump overboard, the upper panel closed sharply. Our chance was gone!

Next moment the noise of the water rus.h.i.+ng into the reservoir indicated that we were sinking, and in a moment more the machinery throbbed at its greatest speed as the Nautilus shot forward under the sea. Then the whole submarine trembled; there was a shock, and then a rending jar above. The terror of the seas had cut its way through the other vessel like a needle through sailcloth! Horror-stricken, I rushed into the saloon and found Captain Nemo, mute and gloomy, standing by the port panel, which had instantly been slid back, watching with a terrible satisfaction the injured vessel sinking with all its crew beneath the waves. The Nautilus sank with it, so that its terrible captain might lose nothing of the fascinating horror presented by the spectacle of his victims descending to their ocean grave. When we had seen all, he went to his room, and, following him, I saw on the wall the portraits of a woman, still young, and two little children. He looked at them, and as he stretched his arms toward them the fierce expression of hate died away from his face. He sank down on his knees, and burst into deep sobs.

I felt a strange horror for this man, who, though he might have suffered terribly, had no right to exact so terrible a vengeance.

The Nautilus was now making its top speed, and the instruments indicated a northerly direction. Whither was it flying? That night we covered two hundred leagues of the Atlantic. Onward we kept our course, the speed never lessening, and for fifteen or twenty days, during which we prisoners never saw the captain or his lieutenant, this headlong race continued.

_VI.--Our Escape from the Nautilus_

Poor Ned Land was in despair, and Conseil and I had to watch him carefully lest he might kill himself. One morning he said to me:

"We are going to fly to-night. I have taken the reckoning, and make out that twenty miles or so to the east is land. I have got a little food and water, and Conseil and I will be near the opening into the small boat at ten. Meet us there. If we do not escape, they sha'n't take me alive."

"I will go with you," I said. "At least we can die together."

Wis.h.i.+ng to verify the direction of the Nautilus, I went to the saloon.

We were going N.N.E. with frightful speed at a depth of twenty-five fathoms. I took a last look at all the natural marvels and art treasures collected in this strange museum, a collection doomed to perish in the depths of the ocean with the man who had made it. Back in my own room I donned my sea garments, and placed all my notes carefully about my clothing. My heart was beating so loudly that I feared my agitation might betray me if I met Captain Nemo. I decided it was best to lie down on my bed in the hope of calming my nerves, and thus to pa.s.s the time till the hour determined upon for our attempt. Ten o'clock was on the point of striking, when I heard Captain Nemo playing a weird and sad melody, and I was struck with the sudden terror of having to pa.s.s through the saloon while he was there. I must make the attempt, and softly I crept to the door of the saloon and softly opened it. Captain Nemo was still playing his subdued melody; but the room was in darkness, and slowly I made my way across it to the library door. I had almost opened this when a sigh from him made me pause.

He had risen from the organ, and, as some rays of light were now admitted from the library, I could see him coming toward me with folded arms, gliding like a ghost rather than walking. His breast heaved with sobs, and I heard him murmur these words, the last of his I heard: "Enough! O G.o.d, enough!" Was it remorse escaping thus from the conscience of this mysterious being?

Had I not seen it begin with the tears in his eyes at the death of the Englishman whom he had buried in the coral cemetery, and who was doubtless a victim of one of his acts of destruction?

Now rendered desperate, I rushed into the library, up the central staircase, and so gained the opening to the boat where my companions were awaiting me. Quickly the panel through which we went was shut and bolted by means of a wrench which Ned Land had secured. The opening of the boat was also quickly fastened after we had got inside, and the harpooner had begun to undo from the inside the screws that still fastened the boat to the Nautilus. Suddenly a great noise was heard within the submarine. We thought we had been discovered, and were prepared to die defending ourselves. Ned Land stopped his work for the moment, and the noise grew louder. It was a terrible word, twenty times repeated, that we heard. "The Maelstrom! The Maelstrom!" was what they were crying. Was it to this, then, that the Nautilus had been driven, by accident or design, with such headlong speed? We heard a roaring noise, and could feel ourselves whirled in spiral circles. The steel muscles of the submarine were cracking, and at times in the awful churning of the whirlpool it seemed to stand on end. "We must hold on," cried Land, "and we may be saved if we can stick to the Nautilus."

His anxiety now was to make fast the screws that bound the boat to the submarine, but he had scarcely finished speaking when, with a great crash, the bolts gave way, and the boat shot up, released from the larger vessel, into the midst of the whirlpool. My head struck on its iron framework and with the violent shock I lost all consciousness.

How we escaped from that hideous gulf, where even whales of mighty strength have been tossed and battered to death, none of us will ever know! But I was in a fisherman's hut on the Lofoden Isles when I regained consciousness. My two companions were by my side, safe and sound, and we all shook hands heartily. There we had to wait for the steamer that runs twice a month to Cape North, and in the interval I occupied myself revising this record of our incredible expedition in an element previously considered inaccessible to man, but to which progress will one day open up a way.

I may be believed or not, but I know that I have made a journey of twenty thousand leagues under the sea.

Does the Nautilus still exist? Is Captain Nemo still alive? Was that awful night in the Maelstrom his last, or is he still pursuing a terrible vengeance? Will the confessions of his life, which he told me he had written, and which the last survivor of his fellow-exiles was to cast into the sea in an air-tight case, ever be found?

This I know, that only two men could have a right to answer the question asked in the Ecclesiastes three thousand years ago: "That which is far off and exceeding deep, who can find it out?" These two men are Captain Nemo and I.

HORACE WALPOLE

Castle of Otranto

Horace Walpole, the third son of Sir Robert Walpole, was born in 1717. After finis.h.i.+ng his education at Eton and Cambridge, he travelled abroad for some years, princ.i.p.ally in Italy, where he seems to have acquired those tastes for which he afterwards became so well known. He returned to England in 1741, and took his seat in parliament, but he had no taste for politics, and six years later he purchased a piece of ground near Twickenham, and made the princ.i.p.al occupation of his life the erection and decoration of his famous mansion--"Strawberry. Hill." "The Castle of Otranto" appeared in 1764. It was described as a "Gothic Story translated by William Marshal Gent, from the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto." But, emboldened by the success of the work, Walpole in the second edition acknowledged that he himself was the author. The theme of the story was suggested to him by a dream, of which he said, "All I could recover was that I thought myself in an ancient castle, and that on the uppermost bal.u.s.ter of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down and began to write without knowing in the least what I intended to relate." The tale was the precursor of a whole series of Gothic romances, and for fifty years afterwards English readers were afforded an unfailing supply of the supernatural and the horrible. A more important if less direct achievement of Walpole's was that by "The Castle of Otranto"

he heralded the romantic revival that culminated in the masterpieces of Scott. Walpole died on March 2, 1797.

_I.--The Helmet_

Manfred, Prince of Otranto, had contracted a marriage for his son Conrad with the Marquis of Vicenza's daughter, Isabella. Young Conrad's birthday was fixed for his espousal, and Manfred's impatience for this ceremonial was marked by everyone. His tenants and subjects attributed this haste to the Prince's dread of seeing accomplished an ancient prophecy that _the Castle and lords.h.i.+p of Otranto should pa.s.s from the present family whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it_. It was difficult to make any sense of this prophecy; yet this mystery did not make the populace adhere the less to their opinion.

On the wedding-day, when the company was a.s.sembled in the chapel of the castle, Conrad himself was missing. Manfred, impatient of the least delay, sent an attendant to summon the young Prince. In less than a minute the attendant came back breathless, in a frantic manner, and foaming at the mouth. At last, after repeated questions, he cried out, "Oh! the helmet! the helmet!" Manfred and most of the company ran out into the court, from whence was heard a confused noise of shrieks, horror, and surprise.

What a sight for a father's eyes! Manfred beheld his child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, an hundred times more large than any casque ever made for human being, and shaded with a proportionable quant.i.ty of black feathers.

The horror of the spectacle, and the tremendous phenomenon before him, took away the Prince's speech. Yet his silence lasted longer than even grief could occasion; and when he spoke, it was observed that his first words were, "Take care of the Lady Isabella."

Manfred then touched and examined the fatal casque, and inquired whether any man knew from whence it could have come? n.o.body could give him the least information. At length, however, a young peasant from a neighbouring village observed that the miraculous helmet was exactly like that on the figure in black marble of Alfonso the Good, one of their former Princes, in the Church of St. Nicholas.

"Villain!" cried Manfred in a tempest of rage, "how darest thou utter such treason!"

At this moment there came news from the church that the helmet was missing from Alfonso's statue. Manfred rushed frantically on the young peasant, crying, "Sorcerer! 'tis thou hast done this!" Coming to himself, he gravely declared that the young man was a necromancer, and ordered that he should be kept prisoner under the helmet itself till the church should take cognisance of the affair.

Conrad's mother, the Princess Hippolita, had been carried fainting to her apartments, accompanied by her daughter Matilda, who smothered her own grief in order to a.s.sist her afflicted parent, and by Isabella. To his wife and daughter Manfred that day paid no attention; but as the ladies sat together sorrowing at night, a servant of Manfred's arrived and told Isabella that his lord demanded to speak with her.

"I sent for you on a matter of great moment," said he. "Isabella, the line of Manfred calls for numerous supports; and since I cannot give you my son, I offer you myself."

"Heavens!" cried Isabella. "You, my lord! the husband of the virtuous and tender Hippolita!"

"Name not that woman to me!" said Manfred imperiously. "I shall divorce her. My fate depends on having sons."

He seized the hand of Isabella, who shrieked and started from him. At that instant the portrait of his grandfather, which hung in the apartment, uttered a deep sigh and descended from its panel. Manfred in his distraction released Isabella, who had not seen the portrait's movement, and who made towards the door. The spectre marched sedately, but dejectedly, into a chamber on the right hand. Manfred would have followed; but the door was clapped to with violence, nor could he with all his force re-open it.

As Isabella took flight, she recollected a subterraneous pa.s.sage, which led from the vaults of the castle to the church of St. Nicholas. She determined, if no other means of deliverance offered, to shut herself up forever among the holy virgins, whose convent was contiguous to the cathedral. In this resolution, she seized a lamp that burned at the foot of the staircase, and hurried towards the secret pa.s.sage.

The lower part of the castle was hollowed into several intricate cloisters, and it was not easy for one under so much anxiety to find the door that opened into the cavern. When in that long labyrinth of darkness a gust of wind extinguished her lamp, words cannot paint the horror of her situation. It gave her a momentary relief to perceive a ray of moons.h.i.+ne gleam from the roof of the vault, which seemed to be fallen in; but as she advanced, she discerned a human form standing close against the wall.

She shrieked, believing it to be the ghost of Conrad. But the figure asked her, in a submissive voice, not to be alarmed. "Sir, whoever you are," she replied, "a.s.sist me to escape from this fatal castle."

"Alas!" said the stranger, "what can I do to a.s.sist you?"

"Oh!" said Isabella, "help me but to find the trap-door that is hereabout; it is the greatest service you can do me."

With a little searching they found the trap-door; the stranger lifted it, and Isabella descended to some stone steps below. The stranger was about to follow, when the voice of Manfred was heard in the distance.