Chapter 12 Strange Happenings.
The waters we traveled in were so different that it always seemed there was something new and amazing to study.
One night I was in the saloon studying the fish of Archipelago.
Captain Nemo entered the room.
He didn't notice me there.
He seemed to be in his own little world.
I allowed him his mood and went about watching the gobies that the ship had just come upon, these little fish made for great study and enjoyment.
In the middle of my work, a man appeared in the waters.
He was a diver.
He carried a leather purse on his belt.
At first I had thought it might be a body of a lost sailor, maybe a poor soul fallen overboard or a victim of sharks.
But it was a living man.
He was swimming strongly, disappearing now and then to the surface for a breath.
I turned to Captain Nemo and yelled, A man!
Shipwrecked!
We have to save him!
The captain did not answer me, but came and leaned against the window.
The man had reached the ship and had flattened his face against the glass.
He was looking in at us.
To my great amazement, Captain Nemo signed to him.
The diver answered him with his hand, swam right to the surface of the water and did not appear again.
Don't worry about him, said Captain Nemo.
That is Pesca.
He is a bold diver.
He is very used to the water.
Pesca lives more in the sea than on land.
He is always going from one island to another.
The captain again ignored my presence and walked past me to a chest with iron locks.
On the cover was a copper plate.
Inside were bars and bars of gold.
My mind wandered.
Where did he get this gold?
How much was it worth?
What was he going to do with it?
I didn't say a word.
I watched as Captain Nemo took the bars one by one and arranged them in the chest.
I guessed there had to be at least four thousand pounds of gold there.
The captain locked the chest and wrote an address on the lid.
With this done, he pressed a button that called for four men to appear.
It took all their might to push the chest out of the saloon.
At that moment, Captain Nemo turned to me. you were saying, sir, he said.
I didn't say anything, captain.
Then, sir, I will wish you good night.
The captain turned and left the saloon.
I returned to my room to think.
I couldn't sleep, not after what I had just seen.
I was lying in bed when I felt the ship rise to the surface.
I could hear a small boat as it set out across the waves.
Two hours later, I heard the same noise again.
The boat came back and the submarine again sank deep into the waters.
So those millions had been delivered.
The next day, I talked to Ned and Conceil about the gold.
They were surprised, just as I was.
We came up with no possible answer.
I returned to the saloon and worked until five o'clock in the evening, going over my notes.
By the end of the day, I felt the ship growing hot.
This seemed very strange.
It soon got so hot, in fact, that I thought there may be a fire on board.
I was leaving the saloon when Captain Nemo entered.
He walked toward the thermometer, looked at it, and then turned to me.
I spoke before he could.
If it gets much hotter, we won't be able to stand it.
Oh, the captain said, it won't get hotter if we don't want it to.
You can lower the heat, I asked eagerly.
No, he said.
We can go farther away from where it started.
You see, we are floating in a stream of boiling water.
Is that possible?
I exclaimed.
Look.
The panels around the windows opened and I saw the sea totally white in color.
A light smoke was curling around the waves, which boiled like water on a stove.
I put my hands on one of the windows.
It was so hot that I quickly took it off again.
This is the volcanic part of the seas, Captain Nemo explained.
These are strange happenings.
The islands sink under the waves only to rise again later.
By this time, the sea, which till now had been white, was red.
I was choking.
I was gasping for air.
The captain gave an order.
The nautilus left the heat.
Fifteen minutes later, we were breathing fresh air on the surface of the ocean.
As I looked out upon the waves, a thought struck me.
If Ned had chosen this part of the sea for our escape, we would never have made it out alive.
