Ah! bravo, Conseil! Captain Nemo had chosen a strange moment for uttering this philosophical reflection. On the whole, his answer helped me little. At last this long night passed. My indistinct remembrance prevents my describing all the impressions it made. I can only recall one circumstance. During some lulls of the wind and sea, I fancied I heard several times vague sounds, a sort of fugitive harmony produced by distant words of command. What was then the mystery of this submarine craft of which the whole world vainly sought an explanation? What kind of beings existed in this strange boat? What mechanical agent caused its prodigious speed? I shall do it, he replied coldly. And I advise you not to judge me, sir. Fate has shown you what you ought not to have seen. The attack has begun; go down.
They proceed in various ways. When they adhere to the shell, the fishermen often pull them off with pinchers; but the most common way is to lay the pintadines on mats of the seaweed which covers the banks. Thus they die in the open air; and at the end of ten days they are in a forward state of decomposition. They are then plunged into large reservoirs of sea-water; then they are opened and washed. Now begins the double work of the sorters. First they separate the layers of pearls, known in commerce by the name of bastard whites and bastard blacks, which are delivered in boxes of two hundred and fifty and three hundred pounds each. Then they take the parenchyma of the oyster, boil it, and pass it through a sieve in order to extract the very smallest pearls. I saw no more of the interior of this Mediterranean than a traveler by express train perceives of the landscape which flies before his eyes; that is to say, the distant horizon, and not the nearer objects which pass like a flash of lightning. Perhaps so, said Conseil; but, in any case, the Nautilus can only contain a certain number of men. Could not you, sir, estimate their maximum? What if some volcanic burst should one day raise these two barriers above the waves?
I would fain have asked him; not being able to, I stopped him-I seized his arm. But shaking his head, and pointing to the highest point of the mountain, he seemed to say: Sir, I am going to sink it. Good, sir! but do you forget that the Nautilus is armed with a powerful spur, and could we not send it diagonally against these fields of ice, which would open at the shock? I do not know; but whatever it is, it will be sunk before night. In any case, it is better to perish with it, than be made accomplices in a retaliation, the justice of which we cannot judge.