Ned Land was a Canadian, with an uncommon quickness of hand, and who knew no equal in his dangerous occupation. Skill, coolness, audacity, and cunning he possessed in a superior degree, and it must be a cunning whale or a singularly 'cute' cachalot to escape the stroke of his harpoon.
Ned Land was about forty years of age; he was a tall man (more than six feet high), strongly built, grave and taciturn, occasionally violent, and very passionate when contradicted. His person attracted attention, but above all the boldness of his look, which gave a singular expression to his face.
Who calls himself Canadian calls himself French; and little communicative as Ned Land was, I must admit that he took a certain liking for me. My nationality drew him to me, no doubt. It was an opportunity for him to talk, and for me to hear, that old language of Rabelais, which is still in use in some Canadian provinces. The harpooner's family was originally from Quebec, and was already a tribe of hardy fishermen when this town belonged to France.
Little by little, Ned Land acquired a taste for chatting, and I loved to hear the recital of his adventures in the polar seas. He related his fishing, and his combats, with natural poetry of expression; his recital took the form of an epic poem, and I seemed to be listening to a Canadian Homer singing the Iliad of the regions of the North.
I am portraying this hardy companion as I really knew him. We are old friends now, united in that unchangeable friendship which is born and cemented amid extreme dangers. Ah, brave Ned! I ask no more than to live a hundred years longer, that I may have more time to dwell the longer on your memory.
Now, what was Ned Land's opinion upon the question of the marine monster? I must admit that he did not believe in the unicorn, and was the only one on board who did not share that universal conviction. He even avoided the subject, which I one day thought it my duty to press upon him. One magnificent evening, the 25th of June-that is to say, three weeks after our departure-the frigate was abreast of Cape Blanc, thirty miles to leeward of the coast of Patagonia. We had crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, and the Straits of Magellan opened less than seven miles to the south. Before eight days were over, the Abraham Lincoln would be plowing the waters of the Pacific.
Seated on the poop, Ned Land and I were chatting of one thing and another as we looked at this mysterious sea, whose great depths had up to this time been inaccessible to the eye of man. I naturally led up the conversation to the giant unicorn, and examined the various chances of success or failure of the expedition. But seeing that Ned Land let me speak without saying too much himself, I pressed him more closely.
'Well, Ned,' said I, 'is it possible that you are not convinced of the existence of this cetacean that we are following? Have you any particular reason for being so incredulous?'
The harpooner looked at me fixedly for some moments before answering, struck his broad forehead with his hand (a habit of his), as if to collect himself, and said at last, 'Perhaps I have, Mr. Aronnax.'
'But, Ned, you, a whaler by profession, familiarized with all the great marine mammalia-you, whose imagination might easily accept the hypothesis of enormous cetaceans -you ought to be the last to doubt under such circumstances!'
'That is just what deceives you, professor,' replied Ned. 'That the vulgar should believe in extraordinary comets traversing space, and in the existence of antediluvian monsters in the heart of the globe, may well be; but neither astronomers nor geologists believe in such chimeras. As a whaler, I have followed many a cetacean, harpooned a great number, and killed several; but, however strong or well-armed they may have been, neither their tails nor their weapons would have been able even to scratch the iron plates of a steamer.'
'But, Ned, they tell of ships which the teeth of the narwhal have pierced through and through.'
'Wooden ships-that is possible,' replied the Canadian; 'but I have never seen it done; and, until further proof, I deny that whales, cetaceans, or sea-unicorns could ever produce the effect you describe.'
'Well, Ned, I repeat it with a conviction resting on the logic of facts. I believe in the existence of a mammal powerfully organized, belonging to the branch of vertebrata, like the whales, the cachalots, or the dolphins, and furnished with a horn of defense of great penetrating power.'
'Hum!' said the harpooner, shaking his head with the air of a man who would not be convinced.
'Notice one thing, my worthy Canadian,' I resumed. 'If such an animal is in existence, if it inhabits the depths of the ocean, if it frequents the strata lying miles below the surface of the water, it must necessarily possess an organization the strength of which would defy all comparison.'
'And why this powerful organization?' demanded Ned.
'Because it requires incalculable strength to keep one's self in these strata and resist the pressure. Listen to me. Let us admit that the pressure of the atmosphere is represented by the weight of a column of water thirty-two feet high. In reality the column of water would be shorter, as we are speaking of sea-water, the density of which is greater than that of fresh water. Very well, when you dive, Ned, as many times thirty-two feet of water as there are above you, so many times does your body bear a pressure equal to that of the atmosphere, that is to say 15 lbs. for each square inch of its surface. It follows, then, that at 320 feet this pressure equals that of 10 atmospheres, of 100 atmospheres at 3,200 feet, and of 1,000 atmospheres at 32,000 feet, that is, about 6 miles; which is equivalent to saying that, if you could attain this depth in the ocean, each square of an inch of the surface of your body would bear a pressure of 5,600 lbs. Ah! my brave Ned, do you know how many square inches you carry on the surface of your body?'
'I have no idea, Mr. Aronnax.'
'About 6,500; and, as in reality the atmospheric pressure is about 15 lbs. to the square inch, your 6,500 square inches bear at this moment a pressure of 97,500 lbs.'
'Without my perceiving it?'
'Without your perceiving it. And if you are not crushed by such a pressure, it is because the air penetrates the interior of your body with equal pressure. Hence perfect equilibrium between the interior and exterior pressure, which thus neutralize each other, and which allows you to bear it without inconvenience. But in the water it is another thing.'
'Yes, I understand,' replied Ned, becoming more attentive; 'because the water surrounds me, but does not penetrate.'
'Precisely, Ned; so that at 32 feet beneath the surface of the sea you would undergo a pressure of 97,500 lbs.; at 320 feet, ten times that pressure; at 3,200 feet, a hundred times that pressure; lastly, at 32,000 feet, a thousand times that pressure would be 97,500,000 lbs.-that is to say, that you would be flattened as if you had been drawn from the plates of an hydraulic machine!'
'The devil!' exclaimed Ned.
'Very well, my worthy harpooner, if some vertebrate, several hundred yards long, and large in proportion, can maintain itself in such depths-of those whose surface is represented by millions of square inches, that is by tens of millions of pounds, we must estimate the pressure they undergo. Consider, then, what must be the resistance of their bony structure, and the strength of their organization to withstand such pressure!'
'Why!' exclaimed Ned Land. 'They must be made of iron plates eight inches thick, like the armored frigates.'
'As you say, Ned. And think what destruction such a mass would cause if hurled with the speed of an express train against the hull of a vessel.'
'Yes-certainly-perhaps,' replied the Canadian, shaken by these figures, but not yet willing to give in.
'Well, have I convinced you?'
'You have convinced me of one thing, sir, which is, that if such animals do exist at the bottom of the seas, they must necessarily be as strong as you say.'
'But if they do not exist, mine obstinate harpooner, how explain the accident to the Scotia?'
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The voyage of the Abraham Lincoln was for a long time marked by no special incident. But one circumstance happened which showed the wonderful dexterity of Ned Land, and proved what confidence we might place in him.
The 30th of June, the frigate spoke some American whalers, from whom we learned that they knew nothing about the narwhal. But one of them, the captain of the Monroe, knowing that Ned Land had shipped on board the Abraham Lincoln, begged for his help in chasing a whale they had in sight. Commander Farragut, desirous of seeing Ned Land at work, gave him permission to go on board the Monroe. And fate served our Canadian so well that, instead of one whale, he harpooned two with a double blow, striking one straight to the heart and catching the other after some minutes' pursuit.
Decidedly, if the monster ever had to do with Ned Land's harpoon, I would not bet in its favor.
The frigate skirted the southeast coast of America with great rapidity. The 3d of July we were at the opening of the Straits of Magellan, level with Cape Vierges. But Commander Farragut would not take a tortuous passage, but doubled Cape Horn.
The ship's crew agreed with him. And certainly it was possible that they might meet the narwhal in this narrow pass. Many of the sailors affirmed that the monster could not pass there, 'that he was too big for that!'
The 6th of July, about three o'clock in the afternoon, the Abraham Lincoln, at fifteen miles to the south, doubled the solitary island, this last rock at the extremity of the American continent to which some Dutch sailors gave the name of their native town, Cape Horn. The course was taken toward the northwest, and the next day the screw of the frigate was at last beating the waters of the Pacific.
'Keep your eyes open!' called out the sailors.
And they were opened widely. Both eyes and glasses, a little dazzled, it is true, by the prospect of two thousand dollars, had not an instant's repose. Day and night they watched the surface of the ocean, and even nyctalopes, whose faculty of seeing in the darkness multiplies their chances a hundredfold, would have had enough to do to gain the prize.
I, myself, for whom money had no charms, was not the least attentive on board. Giving but few minutes to my meals, but a few hours to sleep, indifferent to either rain or sunshine, I did not leave the poop of the vessel. Now leaning on the netting of the forecastle, now on the taffrail, I devoured with eagerness the soft foam which whitened the sea as far as the eye could reach; and how often have I shared the emotion of the majority of the crew when some capricious whale raised its black back above the waves! The poop of the vessel was crowded in a moment. The cabins poured forth a torrent of sailors and officers, each with heaving breast and troubled eye watching the course of the cetacean. I looked, and looked, till I was nearly blind, while Conseil, always phlegmatic, kept repeating in a calm voice:
