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Updated: May 3, 2025
Somehow the wind with all its world-pain had got into the room, and the cold rain was in our eyes, and the wave came up in both of us at once that awful, vague, universal pain, that cold fear of life and death and God and hope and we were like two clinging together on a spar in midocean after the shipwreck of everything.
Was it the voice of some poor devil left behind in midocean, some other victim of that collision suffered by our ship? Or was it one of the frigate's longboats, hailing us out of the gloom? Conseil made one final effort, and bracing his hands on my shoulders, while I offered resistance with one supreme exertion, he raised himself half out of the water, then fell back exhausted.
It was absolutely beyond the pale of possibility that Alvarez should desert me. No, there was some other explanation. Something occurred to place my second officer, Porfirio Johnson, in command. I was sure of it but why speculate? The futility of conjecture was only too palpable. The Coldwater had abandoned us in midocean. Doubtless none of us would survive to know why.
In fact, that blackish object was soon only a mile away from us. It looked like a huge reef stranded in midocean. What was it? I still couldn't make up my mind. "Oh, it's moving off! It's diving!" Ned Land exclaimed. "Damnation! What can that animal be? It doesn't have a forked tail like baleen whales or sperm whales, and its fins look like sawed-off limbs." "But in that case " I put in.
"What's the matter, Billy?" hailed Frank, overjoyed to know that one at least of his comrades was safe. Before Billy could reply Harry's voice hailed through the darkness. "I'm up to my neck in mud. Where are we, anyhow?" "We're on dry land in midocean, shiver my timbers if we ain't," came a deep throated hail, which proceeded from Ben Stubbs.
Looking out over the water from his seat on the gun'l, Wilbur could make out a round, greenish mass like a patch of floating seaweed, just under the surface, some sixty yards ahead. "Easy sta'board," whispered the Captain under his elbow. "Go ahead, port; e-e-easy all, steady, steady." The affair began to assume the intensity of a little drama a little drama of midocean.
An escape attempt would have been quite feasible, assuming Ned Land managed to seize the skiff without the captain's knowledge. But in midocean it was unthinkable. The Canadian, Conseil, and I had a pretty long conversation on this subject. For six months we had been prisoners aboard the Nautilus. We had fared 17,000 leagues, and as Ned Land put it, there was no end in sight.
Then he extended his hands and almost gave a cry so great was his amazement. He had encountered an unmistakable tree trunk! He was on land not dry land for the boy was mired to the knees in sticky mud, but nevertheless land. Land in midocean. Hardly had he recovered from his first shock of surprise when he heard a voice exclaim: "Can anyone tell me am I awake or dreaming in my bunk?"
"Quite so, Katherine, quite so, but nevertheless there is a lake, subterraneous or above ground, which feeds your White Mountain spring, and such a lake must be situated higher than the spring is. Why, girl, you ought to study hydrometeorology as well as chemistry. Here is a rock jutting up in midocean "
Here was Helen Curtis, fleeing from the recollection of him; here was himself, fleeing from the too-sweet actuality of her calm face and lambent eyes; and they were set down face to face in midocean! Such a preposterous trick on the part of the Three! "I suppose happiness is never anything more than a mirage," he said to himself as he paced.
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