Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (60 page)

Nemo’s boot sank deep, sending up a cloud of silty mud.
 
For a second he wondered if he had stumbled upon a murky trough of quicksand . . . but then he struck hard rock.
 
With slow, fluid steps, he left footprints that the ocean erased.

Caliph Robur walked beside him like a child, struggling to keep his balance, but soon he was filled with delight and wonder.
 
Liedenbrock followed them, letting himself become accustomed to the suit.
 
The reluctant guard used his harpoon like a walking stick.
 
Nemo watched them every second, ready to strike the moment either man made a mistake or showed any weaknesses.

They passed through a garden of olive-green seaweed that waved like ferns around their knees and provided shelter for darting, exotic fish.
 
The ground rose in rippled mounds of volcanic rock mixed with colorful coral like the antlers of a stag.
 

When Nemo saw the twined coral, he felt another sharp pang.
 
He recalled that long-ago morning when he and Jules Verne had each promised to obtain a coral necklace for the beautiful young Caroline Aronnax.
 
Now he stood looking at a fortune of the substance . . . and he was farther from Caroline than he had ever been -- and far from his wife Auda, as well, who had risked a great deal to warn him of the dangers he faced.

Robur intends to kill us all.

Hidden among boulders, they saw a cluster of giant clams, each one like a wide set of gray lips rimming a hard shell.
 
Nemo wondered if they might find enormous black pearls inside the crushing bivalve jaws of the clams.
 

The explorers were so intent on the mollusks that only Nemo noticed the shadow like a sharp canoe over their heads.
 
He tilted his armored helmet to see the sleek form of a hammerhead shark swimming in search of prey.

The air bubbles escaping from their tanks had attracted the predator.
 
Nemo froze, hoping the shark would swim away, but the hammerhead circled back.
 
Nemo grabbed Liedenbrock’s arm to get his attention.
 
Seeing the movement, the caliph looked up and recoiled in astonishment.
 
The guard holding the spear flailed in terror as the shark swam closer.

Nemo bounded forward, the water’s embrace forcing him into a slow-motion dance.
 
He wrested the spear out of the befuddled guard’s gloved hand, then made certain he had a strong foothold on the rough coral surface.

The hammerhead stroked its angular tail back and forth, propelling itself toward Liedenbrock.
 
As the shark passed overhead, Nemo thrust the spear upward with all his might.
 
The barbed tip plunged into the shark’s belly.
 
The hammerhead shuddered, but Nemo refused to let go of the spear.
 
He pushed and tugged, using the jagged blade to rip open the fish’s abdomen and spill its entrails along with a cloud of red blood.

The shark wheeled away, thrashing as it died.
 
Trembling from the effort, Nemo ripped the spear loose.
 
The air tasted hot and metallic inside his helmet.
 
Liedenbrock stood beside him, poised for further action.
 
The caliph’s guard lumbered forward to retrieve the spear.
 
His dark eyes glowered with anger and shame at his own inaction.

Both Nemo and Caliph Robur looked with contempt at the burly man, but Nemo surrendered the weapon without argument.
 
He wouldn’t need it for what he had in mind anyway.
 
He gestured for the men to begin the return trek to the
Nautilus
, whose lights gleamed in the distance like a lighthouse beacon.
 
The dissipating blood from the shark would attract other aquatic predators . . . and Nemo had enough human enemies right beside him.

#

Aboard the
Nautilus
, after he’d waited long enough for the underwater party to be far away, Cyrus Harding sounded the alarm.
 
The other crew members had been primed, and they reacted to the emergency, pointing toward one of the ballast chambers.
 
Harding raised his voice in false panic.
 
“Sabotage!
 
Sabotage, mates!
 
Someone’s in the ballast rooms!”

The confused guards sensed the urgency, but they understood little.
 
Harding could have spoken in perfect Turkish after so many years at Rurapente, but he stumbled over the foreign words with feigned confusion, explaining little.
 
A loud siren and a flashing beacon flustered the well-muscled guards even more.

The Englishman ran toward the rear ballast chambers, and three of the five remaining guards stormed after him, drawing their scimitars.
 
While the other crew members scrambled about, faces filled with mock terror, Harding flung open the metal bulkhead door.
 
He pointed in alarm.

The three guards plunged inside, swords raised, ready for battle with saboteurs -- and Harding slammed the metal door, sealing them into the ballast chambers.
 
Then, coldly and without remorse, the British boatbuilder opened the valves and filled the sealed room with cold sea water.
 

The trapped guards shouted and hammered their sword hilts on the other side of the door.
 
Harding stood stony-faced.
 
These men had executed Conseil without mercy and would have happily dispatched every member of the
Nautilus
crew.
 
The followers of Caliph Robur deserved to drown.

The other Europeans turned on the remaining guards, overwhelming them.
 
One of the engineers had retrieved the scimitar left behind by Robur’s bodyguard; now the men threw themselves at the white-clad guards, using metal bars and equipment to fight for their lives.
 
They knocked the curved swords away from Robur’s men and retrieved the blades for themselves.
 
Their enthusiasm and anger ran unchecked.
 

By the time Cyrus Harding went to meet them, turning deaf ears to the final cries of the drowning men inside the ballast chamber, the caliph’s murderous guards had already been slain with their own swords.
 
They lay in pools of blood on the
Nautilus
deckplates.

After the successful revolt, the captive crew members stood in shock, drenched in sweat.
 
Blood spattered the uniforms Caliph Robur had forced them to wear, identifying them as prisoners of Rurapente.
 
The long silence extended for more than a minute.
 

Finally, without a word or sign from Cyrus Harding, the men let out a loud cheer that signified their victory and their freedom at last after so many long years held hostage.
 
Now the
Nautilus
belonged to them.

Harding went back to the helm and stared out the thick windows, watching for his captain to return.

#

Nemo waited until they approached the
Nautilus
.
 
The running lights from the sub-marine boat shone out, overpowering the shimmering illumination from the sun far above.

He moved his gloved hand in a secret signal to Liedenbrock.
 
Nemo fumbled inside a wide pocket in his underwater suit and withdrew the long knife he had secreted there.
 
He stepped in front of their captor and turned so that his eyes, dark with hatred, could stare through the viewing plate at Robur’s scarred face.
 
He had waited long years for this moment.

When Robur saw the knife, a burst of bubbles evacuated from his air tank as the caliph flailed backwards, clumsily trying to get away.
 
Nemo gracefully slid forward and slashed the air hose behind Robur’s brass helmet.
 
Helpless, the warlord struggled, but to no avail.
 

Air poured from the severed hose the way blood had sprayed from Conseil’s neck.
 
Nemo watched impassively as the once-powerful caliph fought to breathe . . . but all of his air bled away.
 
Gratified, thinking of the years of oppression he and the other captives had suffered, Nemo watched every moment and felt no sympathy whatsoever. . . .

Liedenbrock struck at the same moment, cutting the guard’s air hose with another knife.
 
As the burly man lumbered about in confusion, the pressurized air propelled him like a jet, knocking him forward and off balance.
 
In desperation, the guard swung his spear, but the metallurgist sidestepped the jagged blade, then plucked the weapon from the guard’s gloved hand as if it were a welcome gift.

Liedenbrock lowered the spear and thrust it into his enemy’s chest, killing him instantly.
 
Nemo regretted that extra bit of violence, because now it would take longer to repair the valuable watertight suit.
 

When Robur finally ceased his struggles, Nemo looked down to see that the warlord’s helmet had filled with water, and his eyes and mouth were open.
 
The fearsome caliph looked like nothing more than a dead fish.
 
With a heart of stone, Nemo had no regrets for what they had been forced to do.
 
He grasped Robur’s body by the thick sleeve and dragged him to the
Nautilus
airlock.

Liedenbrock did the same with the guard.
 
The crew would have plenty of time now to repair the underwater suits.
 
When Nemo emerged from the airlock into the sub-marine, dripping and exhausted, he saw that Cyrus Harding had done his part.
 
They had succeeded in capturing the
Nautilus
.

Nemo lifted the brass helmet from his shoulders as the ecstatic crewmen set up a loud cheer.
 
He was their captain, and these men would follow him around the Earth, if he asked it.
 
They had lived and worked and suffered together for years.
 
They had built an unparalleled sub-marine vessel, they had slain a brutal warlord who wanted to be master of the world -- and now they were free again.

The
Nautilus
remained submerged while the crew washed the blood off the deck and disposed of the bodies, feeding the caliph and his hated guards to the fishes.

Nemo stood at the helm of his great sub-marine boat and studied his loyal and devoted men.
 
They were now in command of their own destinies.
 
According to Auda’s note, it would not be safe to go back to the Ottoman Empire for some time.
 
Instead, he would take the
Nautilus
and head out of the Mediterranean.

“Captain . . .”
 
Cyrus Harding said, looking at the other men as if they had elected him to speak for them.
 
“We’ve all been away for six or seven years.
 
The things we’ve done, and the things we’ve seen since then -- well, sir, our homelands are just memories now.
 
They ain’t nobody’s
home
anymore.”

Liedenbrock stomped his foot on the metal deckplate of the
Nautilus
.
 
“Ach!
 
If we were having anything to return to, why would we join the war in the first place?
 
I want to stay aboard this ship that we built, with these men who are closer comrades than anyone I knew back in Europe.”

A Sardinian glassmaker with long hair said, “If it’s all the same to you, Captain, I’d rather wait out the year and go back for my family in Rurapente.
 
I want to take them away from there.
 
When it’s time.”

Hearing his men, Nemo nodded.
 
He longed to go back to France and see Caroline again, and Jules Verne -- but he had traveled so far along life’s path since he’d last spoken to them.
 
He was married to Auda now, and he loved her.
 
Thanks to the vile deception Caliph Robur had perpetrated, Nemo knew that Caroline had believed him dead for years . . . lost to her.
 
By now, she would have gone on with her life, perhaps even married again.
 
He could not bear to torment Caroline -- or himself -- with things that now could never be.
 
Better to let her keep thinking him lost than to suffer more regrets. . . .