Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (29 page)

He was lost at the center of the Earth and defenseless in the face of whatever forces Nature chose to inflict upon him.
 

vii

When a pounding came at the door of his small room, Jules Verne was not asleep, though the hour was late.
 
He’d sat by the pale light from a salvaged candle, rereading scenes from the Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
 
Tears were in his eyes from the tragic end of Romeo and Juliet, but the plotting and careful tapestry of characters made him weep as well.
 
He wanted to publish great dramas, too -- and perhaps Alexandre Dumas could help him.
 
He wished he could afford to buy some of the esteemed author’s novels and plays before visiting Dumas in his chateau.
 
Verne was anxious to make a good impression.

The fist hammered insistently, and Verne assumed it must be one of his literary friends, possibly drunk, possibly wanting to borrow money that Verne didn’t have.
 
He got up, grumbling, and closed his book.
 
“Coming, coming!”

But when he opened the door, he saw a broad-shouldered figure in the dimness of the hall.
 
The stranger wore the striped pullover shirt of a sailor and tattered bell-bottomed pants, and he carried a smell of tar and sweat about him.
 
Verne stopped, startled, as if seeing a ghost from the shipyards on Ile Feydeau.

“I’m looking for Jules Verne,” the man said with a gruff, Breton accent.

“I am he.”
 
Verne drew himself up, running a hand through his tousled reddish hair, though this sailor did not seem to put much stock in personal appearances.
 
Rough and tumble, scarred, the sailor cut a fearsome figure, and Verne swallowed hard.
 
He took an unsteady step backward, thinking of assassins and bullies.
 
But who would want to rob him?
 
“May . . . I help you?”

“You’re from Nantes, then?
 
I’ve been to your city and seen your father.
 
He gave me your address here, but I’ve got to get back to my ship.”

Now Verne was even more confused.
 
His mind whirled -- his father would never send such a man to check up on him, would he?
 
He wished he’d been studying his law books rather than Shakespeare, just in case this ruffian reported on him.
 
“What is this all about, sir?”
 
He did not dare invite the man into his small room.

“I have a message for you.
 
And a story.”
 
The sailor withdrew a thick, rolled-up sheaf of papers from his pocket.
 
The pages were yellowed, curled, and waterstained, some torn.
 
“I worked on a fishing trawler five months ago.
 
We caught a shark, and when we slit his belly open we found a bottle inside.
 
That bottle contained this journal -- a long one, written by a friend of yours.
 
Someone by the name of Nemo.”

Verne’s entire body went numb, and he reached out a trembling hand to take the roll of papers.
 
As he unfolded them and looked down at the packed writing, he recognized his friend’s penmanship.
 
“Nemo . . . he’s alive?”

The sailor shrugged his broad shoulders.
 
“I expect so, otherwise he wasn’t likely to write so much.
 
Beyond that, I can’t say.
 
No telling how long the bottle drifted in the currents before the shark swallowed it.
 
Says here at the top to deliver it to a Monsieur Jules Verne, from Ile Feydeau.
 
That’s you, isn’t it?”

Stunned, Verne stepped back into his room, holding the pages as if they were a rare treasure map.
 
“Yes.
 
Thank you.
 
Thank you.”
 

He had no money to tip the sailor, and he hoped his father had at least paid the man something for his trouble.
 
The stranger didn’t seem to expect money, though, and turned to depart without further formalities.
 
Verne recalled that the brotherhood of the sea obliged sailors to perform such services for each other.
 

Nevertheless, he was relieved when the intimidating man creaked his way down the long staircase.
 
Verne locked the door.
 
He moved aside the volume of Shakespeare and sat down in a cold sweat.
 
A strange amazement warmed his heart as he stared at the pages.
 

He read all through the night and well past dawn, astonished at the ordeals Nemo had undergone on the mysterious island.
 
But the story came to an abrupt end after the pirate attack, without a resolution.
 
Verne sat up, trembling, and wondered what had happened to his friend next.

viii

As the weird, unchanging days passed, Nemo lost track of how many times he slept or ate.
 
Estimating as best he could, he marked notches on the mushroom logs to make a crude calendar.
 
The endless twilight passed in a haze of monotony as he continued to drift across the underground sea.
 

The character of the sky began to change so subtly that Nemo failed to notice at first.
 
But then he saw that the air overhead had acquired a swirling, oily color, as if the cavernous ceiling had trapped strange thunderclouds.
 
To him, it looked like a manifestation of the brooding vengeance he’d held for so many years against Captain Noseless and the pirates.
 
Fluid arcs of electricity danced about, fading and vanishing . . . not exactly lightning, but pulses of electric current, discharges from some mammoth dynamo.
 

He sat up on the swaying raft, feeling a strong metallic-smelling wind in his face.
 
The placid water around him had become restless.
 
In the distance ahead, where the flow was carrying him, he could make out the frothy choppiness of a brewing storm that increased in intensity.
 
Nemo’s raft began to jostle and shake.
 
Strange buzzing
cracks
stuttered through the air -- not quite thunder, but something more exotic.

Deep in the strangely thick water, he noticed the movement of large, shadowy shapes.
 
Titanic silhouettes.
 
Not far away, a slick form like the back of a whale breached the surface and then plunged down again.
 
Nemo withdrew to the center of his raft, though it offered little protection, exposed as he was.
 
From his brief glimpse, Nemo knew that what he had seen was no whale or cachalot.
 

Another jolt of eerie
crackles
around him was broken by the sound of a huge beast emerging from the water.
 
Its mottled back was studded with fins and armored with overlapping scales.
 
Icepick fangs filled its long, narrow snout, like some hideous nightmare that had been the precursor to crocodiles.
 
Black eyes like impenetrable volcanic glass stared at him.

Nemo remembered sketches of fossils from Verne’s science magazines and noted that this creature was similar to an aquatic reptile called an
Ichthyosaur
.
 
The hungry-looking beast swirled in the stormy water and approached his raft.
 
Gritting his teeth, Nemo withdrew his pistols and made sure both were loaded.
 
He also propped the long cutlass in front of him.

Before the crocodile-beast could attack, however, a second prehistoric monster burst above the water, its head long and sinuous.
 
Its arms were wide flippers, like the rudders of a boat.
 
Seeing its competitor, the new creature struck like an oceanic dragon.
 
It was a sea monster reminiscent of maritime legends Nemo had heard on the docks in Nantes.

This ferocious sea serpent was by no means his rescuer, though.
 
Nemo paddled frantically, doubting he had the strength to push his boat through choppy waters while these two titans battled.
 
The sea serpent fell upon the first monster, striking with its snakelike neck and wide-open jaws.
 
It bit deep into the dorsal flesh of the other, which snapped back until it tore a bloody shred from a flipper-fin.

Both aquatic dinosaurs chomped and hissed.
 
The crocodile monster thrashed again, tearing a gash in the neck of the sea serpent.
 
But the other monster was larger and more powerful, and as the two battled, the grayish water turned crimson.
 
The sea serpent bit hard, using its unwounded flipper to roll the other dinosaur over so it could avoid the sharp, spiny fins on its enemy’s back.
 
Then it bit deep into the soft, white underbelly.

The doomed creature squealed and splashed, but its long snout snapped on empty air.
 
The sea serpent disemboweled it, ripping open the tough hide and spilling Ichthyosaur entrails into the stormy subterranean sea.
 

Its teeth bloodied, the sea-serpent struck again and again, taking a mouthful of meat each time, stripping the flesh off the cartilage and bones.
 
As the carcass sank into the red water, the sea-serpent circled.

Paddling with all his strength, Nemo had put some distance between his raft and the frothing combat.
 
He had his cutlass and his pistols, but he doubted either would be sufficient to defeat the remaining monster.
 
As the sea serpent turned its head, its obsidian eyes spotted the mushroom raft and the young man paddling.
 
The sea serpent glided toward him.

Nemo got to his feet, cutlass in one hand and pistol in the other.
 
He glared at the beast, as if his anger alone would be sufficient to drive it away.
 
He shouted a blood-curdling scream.
 
He had come too far and fought too hard to end up in a mindless animal’s belly.

The wind increased, flailing his shaggy hair around his face, but a defiant Nemo stood to meet the oncoming monster.
 
The sea serpent circled the raft, more curious than hungry after its feast of the Ichthyosaur.
 
The sinuous neck rose up like a mammoth cobra’s.

Unflinching, Nemo pointed the pistol at what he hoped was a vulnerable point for his single lead shot.
 
The sea serpent opened its jaws and struck as if it expected no struggle from this morsel.
 
Seizing the opportunity, Nemo screamed another challenge and fired the pistol into the pink flesh of its mouth.
 
The sea serpent jerked back with a roar, startled as much from the loud
bang
as from the bullet sting.

Nemo dropped the now-useless pistol and yanked the second one from his belt, knowing he’d have no time to reload.
 
Only one shot remained.
 
After that, he would have to defend himself with the pirate’s sword -- and he vowed to hurt the monster as much as possible.
 

The sea serpent lunged again, faster this time.
 
Nemo tried to remain steady on the rocking raft as he aimed for the beast’s eye.
 
When he fired, the puff of smoke obscured his vision at first, and then he saw that he had missed.
 
Just barely.
 
A bright splatter of red appeared below the sea serpent’s left eyelid, perhaps enough to blind the beast from that side -- certainly enough to cause it further pain.
 
And rage.

Thrashing, the sea serpent submerged and doubled back for another attack.
 
Nemo grasped the cutlass, turning in slow circles, feet spread on the uncertain deck of his raft.
 
Around him, the thunderous
cracks
grew louder, and the wind howled as the magnetic storm grew in intensity.
 

With an explosive thrust, the sea serpent surfaced under the raft.
 
Its armored head crashed through the tough mushroom structure, snapping Nemo’s braided vine ropes.
 
The raft broke into matchstick pieces in the water.
 
The mushroom-cap pontoons broke free, and debris drifted in all directions.
 
Nemo somehow held onto his sword as he plunged beneath the surface, taking an unexpected gulp of bitter water.
 
He thrashed about, unable to hide in the ocean.
 
He tried to reach the raft debris, where he could continue to fight.