may God preserve us!” exclaimed Trinitus.
There was a slight shock; the lamp fixed in the ceiling of the cabin suddenly projected a bright light, and the Éclair shot across the surface of the waves with the rapidity of a shooting star traversing the sky.
“We’re flying like a swallow!” said Nicaise.
“Not yet,” Trinitus replied, “but we’ll travel much faster under water. I’m trying to reach the middle of the Channel. There are two sand-banks to avoid: the Varne Bank, where the Dutch three-master Maria Jacoba ran aground a few years ago; and the Colbart Bank, which is no less dangerous.…”
“How will you navigate?” asked Marcel.
“By means of the lighthouse on Cap Gris-Nez, which I can see through the window,” the scientist replied.
“I can see it too,” said Nicaise, “and I think that we ought to be level with the Colbart Bank now.”
“That’s my opinion…let’s go a little bit further.…”
“There—now!”
“We’re there. Pay attention.…”
“One moment!” said Marcel, hastening to the window that looked out upon France.
The boat stopped, and the three voyagers turned their gazes toward the gray and misty ribbon that limited the southern horizon.
“This is it!” murmured Marcel, sighing.
Trinitus’ eyes filled with tears. Nicaise felt, to his surprise, that his heart was beating faster.
“What is it?” he said. “I’ve almost drowned twenty times over; I’ve been frozen fishing for cod off the coast of Iceland; I’ve fought polar bears without ever flinching, and now I go weak! Come on, come on—let’s light a pipe and get on with it!”
No matter how much effort he made to master his emotion, however, the old mariner allowed a tear to leak from his eye when Trinitus shook his hand and said to him: “I’m hopeful, Nicaise, that our wishes will be granted. We’ll find my dear Thérèse and my beloved Alice! I have a feeling that tells me so. If anything bad were going to happen to us, the sky would not have that purity—a good augury, which inspires me and revives my courage!”
The sky was, indeed, displayed in all its splendor that evening. Not one cloud could be seen; the moon and stars had never shone more brightly. The sea, ordinarily choppy off the Pas-de-Calais, was calm and tranquil; it had doubtless come to an understanding with the sky. Only a few soft and tender waves swayed the boat very slightly at intervals, and their crests could be seen breaking in the distance, emitting a pale phosphorescent light.
A cool breeze was running through the atmosphere.
Two great dark spaces opened to the west and the east. On one side was the entrance to the Channel, on the other that of the North Sea. On the English and French coasts, the lighthouses projected the brilliant beams of their occulting lights a long way out to sea. They could make out quite clearly, on one side, the lights of Dover and Folkestone, and on the other, those of Calais and Cap Gris-Nez.
The upper hemisphere of Trinitus’ boat emerged from the middle of the waves, and the bright light illuminating the interior escaped through the portholes in long silvery beams, which vacillated softly on the ridges of the waves.
Having darted one last glance at the coast that they might never seen again, the three voyagers decided to go down to the bottom of the sea. Trinitus put his hand on a ring fixed to the wall and pulled it vigorously toward him. The pallets that were supporting them on the surface of the water assumed a vertical stance and the boat sank softly into the abyss.
The sea allowed her to plunge into its depths. It swallowed her up beneath its waves, and closed insouciantly over her.
As the ship went down, the scientist’s eyes followed the ascension of a thin column of liquid in a vertical tube placed in the floor of the cabin.
“That’s our manometer,” he said. “The lower extremity of this graduated tube opens into the sea. The further we descend, the greater the pressure exerted on us will be. I’ve calculated that for every twenty meters of depth, the column of liquid in the manometer will rise one degree. We’ll soon be at forty-five meters; we’ll be able to maintain ourselves there.”
“Very good!” said Nicaise. “I believe that we’ll get by without any encumbrance—and without crushing anyone!”
Trinitus pushed the mechanism that he had pulled back toward the wall, forcefully. Almost instantaneously, the boat ceased sinking and moved off horizontally, with an extreme rapidity.
At that moment, the Panthère, which was operating a service between Boulogne and London via the Thames, was going through the narrowest part of the Channel. The passengers grouped on the deck saw a strange light fleeing beneath them. A naturalist affirmed that it was produced by medusas, gelatinous mollusks phosphorescent by night, and everyone believed him.
It was Trinitus’ boat!
Meanwhile, the ship had scarcely got under way when its skillful pilot was already occupied in organizing the interior duty roster, and giving his companions their share of the work.
Marcel, having youth and intelligence in his favor, became the scientist’s assistant. He was charged with supervising the manufacture of artificial air, maintaining the piles and coils, and looking after the precision instruments and weapons of every kind.
Nicaise had nothing to envy Molière’s famous Maître Jacques.2 He was occupied with the fishing tackle, the food, the cooking and the emergency apparatus, as well as the general order of the boat.
Trinitus, the captain and pilot, reserved the direction of the Éclair for himself—and, indeed, he alone was capable of fulfilling that role.
Meanwehile, the boat was traveling at top speed. The emotion that had saddened the voyagers slightly at the moment of departure disappeared slowly; they felt their joyful enthusiasm and all their hopes revive.
Marcel never ceased dreaming about Alice, glimpsing a corner of paradise in the future. Nicaise, proud of his appointment as cook, tried to remember various recipes for seamen’s court-bouillons, and hummed the tune of “Marlbrough s’en vat-t-en guerre” gaily. It was his favorite song.
As for Trinitus, after he had assigned everyone his duties, he went to his desk, checked the time on his chronometer, and on the first page of a notebook opened in front of him, he wrote:
THE ÉCLAIR
Submarine Boat
Departed Calais for the Coral Sea midnight, 3 August 1864
Then, at the bottom of the page, he added:
Journal of Captain Trinitus.
As he finished writing, however, an extremely violent shock made the boat shake. The Éclair recoiled abruptly, and the three surprised men were hurled on to the floor.
Nicaise only had the strength to utter an oath.
Marcel,
