17 The South Pole

CHAPTER 17 The South Pole About eight o'clock on the morning of the 16th of March, the Nautilus entered the Antarctic polar circle. Ice surrounded us on all sides. I can't describe the beauty of what we saw. The ice was in such surprising shapes. Occasionally I would panic, thinking we were trapped inside the icy forts. But Captain Nemo always discovered a way out. On this day, however, the ice truly blocked our road. It was

not so much the iceberg itself, but a field of coldness that wouldn't let us through. But Captain Nemo wasn't about to stop. He kept forcing the ship against the iceberg. For two days the captain rammed the ice. Ice pellets were thrown high into the air. It fell like hail around us. But the mass of ice would not move. I was on the platform that night. Captain Nemo had been thinking about our situation for some time when he said to me, "Well, sir, what do you think of this?" "I think we are stuck, Captain." "So, Mr. Aronnax, you really think that the Nautilus cannot move?" the captain asked, looking for honesty. "Perhaps it could move," I said, "but not without great difficulty." The captain answered, "Personally, I think the ship can get out and can go even farther still." "Farther to the south?" I asked, looking at the

captain. "Yes, sir, it shall go to the pole." "To the pole?" I asked, sounding like an excited child. "Yes," replied the captain coldly, "to the Antarctic pole." I got caught up in the excitement of our talk. "Let's go ahead!" I cried. "Let nothing stand in our way! Let us smash up this iceberg! Let us blow it up, and if it doesn't work, we'll give the Nautilus wings to fly over it!" "No, not over it, sir!" said Captain Nemo quietly. "Not over it, but under it!" "Under it!" I yelled. I understood. "I see we are starting to think alike," said Captain Nemo, smiling. "You are beginning to see the possibilities. Things that are impossible with an ordinary ship are easy for the Nautilus." We discussed for the next several moments the problems that we could meet in the hours to come.

"The only big problem I see," said Captain Nemo, "is that of being under the iceberg for days without coming up to get air." Of course this would be a life-or-death problem, one that needed careful planning. But by four o'clock that afternoon, Captain Nemo called for the closing of the platform. I took one last look at the huge iceberg we were going to cross. For a part of the night, we kept watch out the window. The sea was lit by the electric lanterns, but there was no ocean life present. We moved quickly. By about two in the morning, I went to sleep. The next morning, the 19th of March, I went to the saloon to check on the past hours' work. The instrument told me our speed had dropped way down. We were moving toward the surface. My heart began to beat fast. A shock told me that the Nautilus had struck the bottom of the iceberg. There were still about three thousand feet of ice above us.

Several times that day, the Nautilus tried again and again. It wasn't even close to breaking through such a mass of ice. It was now time to begin worrying about the oxygen on board. Our air supply should have been refilled four hours ago. I didn't suffer much, but Captain Nemo still had no plan on exactly when to use the extra oxygen he had stored on board. My sleep was painful that night. I tossed and turned. I awoke several times. In the middle of the night, I noticed that the Nautilus was only fifty feet under the iceberg. I watched the instrument as it kept telling us that we were rising closer and closer toward the surface of the ocean. We could see the gleaming of the sun through the ice before we were actually at the top. What a wonderful sight it was to see. At six o'clock in the morning, Captain Nemo appeared at the door. "The sea is open!" was all he said.

I rushed onto the platform. Yes! The open sea, with just a few scattered pieces of ice and moving icebergs—a long stretch of sea, a world of birds in the air, and fishes of all colors under those waters. It seemed like spring the way we were shut up behind this iceberg. "Are we at the pole?" I asked the captain with a fast-beating heart. "I don't know," he replied. "At noon I will take our readings with the sun." "But do you think the sun will show itself through this fog?" I said. "It will be fine," Captain Nemo answered. By ten A.M., we were ready for a visit to the island. We took the rowboat to shore. Conseil was going to jump onto the land, when I held him back. "Sir," said I to Captain Nemo, "you are the one who deserves to be first upon this land." "Yes," said the captain. We could tell he liked the attention. He gazed at the island as