Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/323

Just as I was about to enter my room, Captain Nemo stopped me.

“Would you like to come with me to the pilot-house?” he asked.

“I scarcely dared to ask you,” I said.

“Come along; you will see all that can be seen at once beneath the earth and under water.”

Captain Nemo led the way to the central staircase. Half-way up he opened a door and reached the pilot-cage, which was, as may be remembered, at the extremity of the platform.

It was a cabin measuring about six feet square, and somewhat like those occupied by pilots in the Mississippi and Hudson steamers. A wheel, vertically placed, occupied the centre, and chains connected it with the rudder astern. Four “ports” gave sufficient light to the man at the wheel to see all around him.

The cabin was dark, but my eyes soon accustomed themselves to the gloom, and I saw the pilot, his hands resting upon the spokes of the wheel. Outside the sea appeared vividly illuminated by the lamp which was burning behind us at the other end of the platform.

“Now,” said Captain Nemo, “let us look for our passage.”

Electric wires connected the helmsman’s cage with the engine-room,and the captain could communicate at the same time the necessary speed and direction of his vessel. He pressed a button, and the speed was sensibly diminished.

I gazed in silence at the high perpendicular wall alongside of which we were running at that moment, the unyielding foundation of a sandy coast. We proceeded thus for an hour at a few yards’ distance only. Captain Nemo never took his eyes from the compass suspended in the cabin.