24. The kingdom of coral

The next day, I woke up with head-te singularmen clear, and I saw with surprise that
I was in my bed-rote. My companions also should have been refunded to-dos
yours inadvertently, like me. As I did not know what happened on that night. To
unravel the mystery, po-day only rely on chance of the future.
The idea of ​​leaving the cabin made me wonder if I should be imprisoned or free
again. Completely free. I opened the door, walked the hallways and up the stairs
Central. Hatches closed yesterday, were open. I got to the platform, where
they were already waiting for me, Ned and Con-Conseil. To my questions they answered saying no
They knew nothing. He had surprised found in his cabin, the des-pertarse a heavy
I dream that had left them re-sane one.
The Nautilus was as calm and as mysterious as ever, cruising on the surface
waves at a moderate sea-cha. Nothing seemed to have changed on board.
Ned Land observed the sea with his penetrating eyes. There was nothing in sight. The
Canadian did not say anything new on the horizon, or sailing or land.
Sound a breeze blowing from the West, which bristled at sea in long waves, subjecting the
Nautilus a ba-lanced sensitive.
Having renewed its air, the Nautilus plunged to an average depth of fifteen
meters, in order, apparently, to be able to quickly emerge to the surface, operation,
against all custom, he was performed several times during that day 19
January. In all, the second up to the platform and pronounced his sentence Habi-tual.
Captain Nemo did not appear throughout the morning. The only member of the crew
I saw who was the steward, who served me food with accuracy and silence of cos-Tumbre.
About two in the afternoon I was in the room, busy sorting my notes, when
Captain appeared. To my sa-ludo he responded with an almost imperceptible tilt, without
speak to me. I returned to my work, hoping that I might give some explanation
on the events of the night before, but did not say anything. I looked. His face
denounced fatigue, his bloodshot eyes had not been re-frescoed sleep. All his
physiognomy expressed a deep sadness, a feeling real sorrow. He came and went,
he sat and sat up, took a book at random to leave immediately, consulted his
to-sea instruments without notes as usual, and seemed unable to stand still for a moment.
Finally he came to me and said:
? Are you a doctor, sir Aronnax?
His question was so unexpected, that I was looking at him without answering.
? Are you a doctor? ? He repeated ?. I know some of their cole-gas surveys have been made
Medicine, as Gratiolet, Mo-quin? Tandon and others.
? Indeed? I said ?. I am a doctor and I have practiced for several years as intern
hospitals, before entering the museum.
? Good very good.
My answer obviously pleased Captain Nemo.
Ignoring what their intentions might be, I waited for me to do new questions,
reserving for res-ponderle under the circumstances.
? Lord Aronnax, would you accept to attend one of my men?
? Do you have a sick?
? Yes.
? I am at your disposal.
? Follow me.
I must confess that I was excited. I do not know why I saw some connection between
one of the crew and the events of the day before illness, and this miste-rio
I worried almost as much as the patient.
Captain Nemo led me to the stern of the Nautilus and made me into a cabin in the
who lay on a bed a man in his forties, energetic look.
He was a true prototype of the Anglo-Saxon.
As I leaned over him saw it was not simply an in-Fermo, but wounded. His head,
san-guinolentos wrapped in bandages, resting on a double pillow. I removed the
dressing. The wounded stared at me without uttering a single complaint.
The wound was horrible. The skull crushed by a blunt instrument-ins, leaving the
brain exposed. The cerebral substance had undergone a profound attrition and
They had produced some blood clots similar to a colored stools
wine. There was at once cerebral contusion and concussion. The patient was breathing
slow. His face was troubled by twitching. The phlegmasia
It was complete and caused brain and paralysis of sensation and movement.
The pulse of the injured was intermittent. In-friarse beginning to the body's extremities.
I realized that the Dead-you approached without doing anything possible to prevent-what. After
have bandaged the wounded, I went to Captain Nemo.
How occurred this wound?
What can import it? ? Evasively replied the captain ?. A shock of the Nautilus
He has broken one of the palan-cas machinery and hurt this man. But tell me, how
It is?
Seeing my hesitation in answering, the captain said:
? Can you speak freely. This man turns com-French.
I looked back to hurt and replied:
? It's going to be dead in two hours.
? There's nothing to do?
Nothing.
I could see his hands clenched Captain Nemo, and how the tears flowed
his eyes, I would not have believed made to mourn.
For a few moments I kept watching the agoni-Zante, whose pallor was increasing
under the electric light illuminating his deathbed. He looked at his intelligent face south-ed
premature wrinkles perhaps carved long ago by misfortune, if not misery.
Surprise was the secret of his life in the last words I could leave
escape his lips.
? You can retire, M. Aronnax? Said the capi-tan Nemo.
I left the captain in the cabin of the dying and returned to me, very excited about that
scene. All day I felt agitated by sinister forebodings. I slept badly
that night, and in moments of dozing I thought I heard distant sighs, and something like
a funeral chant. Did that would be a prayer for the dead in that language that I do not
I could understand?
The next day, in the morning, when I went up to the bridge ha-llé Captain Nemo there. Nothing
saw me said:
Professor Sir, would you make a Subma-rina tour today?
? With my companions?
? If you want.
? We are at your command, Captain.
-Vayan Therefore to put on their spacesuits.
I said nothing of the dying or dead. I went to find Ned Land and Conseil, who
I attended the proposition of Captain Nemo. Conseil hastened to accept and, this time, the
Canada was very willing to follow.
It was eight in the morning. Half an hour later-mos was already dressed for that new
walk, and the two devices equipped with lighting and breathing. It opened the double
door, and, accompanied by Captain Nemo, who were twelve men of the crew,
set foot DEPTH-didad to ten meters on the firm ground on which rested the
Nautilus.
A slight slope led us to an accident-do background, at a depth of about
fifteen fathoms. Much different from that background that he had visited during my first
former incursion under the Pacific Ocean. Or fine sand or seagrass beds, or
pelagic forests. I recognized imme-diately the wonderful region that led us
Captain Nemo that day. It was the kingdom of coral.
Among the zoófltos and the class of contained alcyonarians the order of gorgonians, which
It includes gorgonians, the isis and coralarios. It is the latter group that owns the
coral, curious substance that was alternately classified in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms
animal. Re-used as a means by ancient and as an ornamental jewel by
mo-ern, his definitive incorporation to the animal kingdom, made by the Marseille Peysonnel,
dates only from 1694.
Coral is a colony of tiny animals together by a calcareous and polypary
branched brittle nature. These polyps have a single generator that
produced by outbreaks. Their communal life does not exempt them from you-ner own existence. It is,
thus a kind of Socialis-mo natural.
I know recent studies done on this curious zoophyte that is mineralized to
arborizarse, according to the very atina-da naturalistic observation, and nothing could have
greater interest to me than to visit one of these petrified forests that nature has
planted in the seabed.
With the apparatus in operation Ruhmkorff, walk-mos along bank
coral in the process of formation, which, over time, will close one day this area of ​​the ocean
Indian. The road was lined with inextricable thickets formed by the
entanglement of bushes crowned with flowers of white shaped corolla
star. But dif- ference of land plants, those arborescences, fixed-das to
rocks soil, all heading up and down.
The light produced wonderful effects between those branch-jes so vividly colored.
Under the ripple of the water seemed to tremble and those membranous tubes
ci-líndricos, they offered me tempted to take their fresh ornate delicate corollas
tentacles, a newly opened, barely nascent other, the fish touched the pa-sar
like flocks of birds. But it was enough that the hand closer to those living flowers, as
sensitive, so that the alarm scour the colony. The white petals retracts-ban in
their red cases, the flowers vanished before my eyes, and "scrub" transformed
a stone block.
Chance had put me in the presence of one of the most beautiful examples of this zoophyte.
Valio coral that was so-so as to be fishing in the Mediterranean, along the
coasts of France, Italy and North Africa. For their bright colors, poetic justified
names of flower and blood foam commerce giving her more beautiful products.
The coral comes to sell up to five hundred francs ki-logramo, and that there had to
my eyes would have made the fortune of a large number of jewelers. The precious commodity,
often mixed with other polyparies, he was those with intractable and compact-together
known by the name of "macciota" and among them I could see admires-able
pink coral specimens.
But soon the "scrub" thickened and grew the tree formations, opening
petrified before us true and long galleries of fan-tastic architecture groves.
Captain Nemo was entered by one of the lar-go from a gentle slope we
He led to a profundi-ness of one hundred meters. In light of our flashlights sometimes he tore
magical effects of the rough edge off those natural arches and pendentives
chandeliers looked like he did to glow with bright flashes. The bushes of coral
I saw other no less curious polyps, melites, iris with articulated branches, clumps of
Coral, a see-des and other red, true algae entrenched in their calcareous salts, to
which naturalists have stayed short-mind, after long discussions in the kingdom
vegetable. A pensa-dor said that "perhaps there is found the real limit beyond which life
Sleep begins dating the stone, without totally free and yet their rude
point.
After two hours of walking we had reached a depth of about three hundred
meters, ie, the extreme limit of the formation of coral. There no longer existed or AIS-side
"Scrub" or the "grove" of scrubland. It was the rulership of the immense forest of
my-eral large vegetations, the huge petrified trees, compiled by
plumarias elegant garlands, those sea lianas, whose beauty realzaban its nuances
color and phospho-rescent flashes. We walked easily under the high branches
per-didos in the dark waters, while our feet, tubíporas, the
meandrinas, the Astreas, the fungias, the ca-riófilas formed a carpet of flowers strewn
res-plandecientes gems.
What indescribable show! Ah! No power our feelings car-Communion!
To find oneself trapped in a metal cage and glass! See us unable to
commu-carnos among us! Ah, can not live the life of those pe-ces that populate
liquid element, or better yet, of these amphibians that long, can
albe-Drio go to your whim double dominion of earth and water!
My colleagues and I we suspended our journey to see that Captain Nemo had
arrested with his men for-control semicircle around him. It was then that I
I found that four of them carried on their shoulders an object oblong.
We were in the middle of a vast clearing, surrounded by high concretions
Submarine tree forest. Our lamps cast on the space A
Twilight spe-cies clearly that inordinately lengthened our shadows on the
I use. On the edge of the clearing the darkness was deep, crossed by only odd
scintillation started by our lamps to the sharp edges of coral.
Ned Land and Conseil were with me. I sensed that we were attending a strange
scene. Noting the floor, I saw that in some places rose slightly in a
limescale protrusions which regularly betrayed the hand of man.
In the middle of the clearing, on a pedestal of rocks piled gross-mind, it stood a
lar cross-gos coral whose arms would have said were made of petri-fied blood.
At a signal from Captain Nemo, he came forward one of his men and a few steps from the
Cross, he began digging a hole with a peak that had unleashed his belt.
Only then I realized that clearing was a ce-menterio the hole, a tomb, and
oblong object, the body of the man who had died during the night. Captain Nemo
and his men had come to bury his com-draper in the last common residence in the
inacce-possible background of the ocean!
No! My spirit never felt so overwhelmed as now! Never
I had felt wome-gado by such an impressive emotion like that! I did not want to
see what my eyes were seeing!
But the tomb was taking shape slowly. Stand-States, fleeing the fish from here and
there. We could hear the echo peak hie-carriage on calcareous soil and occasionally on
some flint lost in the deep waters. The hole was lengthening and widening and
soon he became a pit deep enough to accommodate the body.
Carriers approached her. The body, wrapped in a tissue of white byssus,
He went down to his wet tum-ba. Captain Nemo, arms crossed over his chest, and
all others knelt on the attitude of the folds-ria ... My two companions and I
religious-inclined mind.
The tomb was covered with the remains torn to the ground, forming a slight bulge.
Captain Nemo and his men rejoined and acer-cándose to the grave, they extended
his hands in a gesture of supreme farewell.
The funeral procession then made his way to re-Congress Nautilus, under the arches
Forest, through the bushes and along coral plants in a promotion
continuous.
Finally they appeared Nautilus lights that guided nues-meters final steps. At one, and
we were on board.
Nothing shed my diving, I went to the silver-form where a terrible Dam
confusion of ideas. I went to sit near the beacon. Soon joined me Captain Nemo. Me
I stood up and said:
? So, as predicted, that man died last night.
Yes, sir Aronnax.
? And now he's resting with his companions in that coral cemetery.
Yes, forgotten by all, but not us. We ca-go tombs and polyps
They seal them responsible for our dead for eternity.
With an abrupt gesture hiding her face in her clenched hands, the captain tried vainly
contain a pike-zo. Then he said:
? This is our peaceful cemetery, a few hundred feet below the surface
Tues.
? Their dead quiet sleep in it, captain, away from sharks.
Yes, sir? Gravely replied Captain Nemo ?,-ra was the scope of sharks and
Men's.

END OF PART ONE