We were seated on the platform, with a quiet sea. The month of October in those latitudes gave us some lovely autumnal days. It was the Canadian-- he could not be mistaken--who signalled a whale on the eastern horizon. Looking attentively, one might see its black back rise and fall with the waves five miles from the Nautilus.
"Ah!" exclaimed Ned Land, "if I was on board a whaler, now such a meeting would give me pleasure. It is one of large size. See with what strength its blow-holes throw up columns of air an steam! Confound it, why am I bound to these steel plates?"
"What, Ned," said I, "you have not forgotten your old ideas of fishing?"
"Can a whale-fisher ever forget his old trade, sir? Can he ever tire of the emotions caused by such a chase?"
"You have never fished in these seas, Ned?"
"Never, sir; in the northern only, and as much in Behring as in Davis Straits."
"Then the southern whale is still unknown to you. It is the Greenland whale you have hunted up to this time, and that would not risk passing through the warm waters of the equator. Whales are localised, according to their kinds, in certain seas which they never leave. And if one of these creatures went from Behring to Davis Straits, it must be simply because there is a passage from one sea to the other, either on the American or the Asiatic side."
"In that case, as I have never fished in these seas, I do not know the kind of whale frequenting them!"
"I have told you, Ned."
"A greater reason for making their acquaintance," said Conseil.
"Look! look!" exclaimed the Canadian, "they approach: they aggravate me; they know that I cannot get at them!"
Ned stamped his feet. His hand trembled, as he grasped an imaginary harpoon.
"Are these cetaceans as large as those of the northern seas?" asked he.
"Very nearly, Ned."
"Because I have seen large whales, sir, whales measuring a hundred feet. I have even been told that those of Hullamoch and Umgallick, of the Aleutian Islands, are sometimes a hundred and fifty feet long."
"That seems to me exaggeration. These creatures are generally much smaller than the Greenland whale." {this paragraph has been edited}
"Ah!" exclaimed the Canadian, whose eyes had never left the ocean, "they are coming nearer; they are in the same water as the Nautilus."
Then, returning to the conversation, he said:
"You spoke of the cachalot as a small creature. I have heard of gigantic ones. They are intelligent cetacea. It is said of some that they cover themselves with seaweed and fucus, and then are taken for islands. People encamp upon them, and settle there; lights a fire----"
"And build houses," said Conseil.
"Yes, joker," said Ned Land. "And one fine day the creature plunges, carrying with it all the inhabitants to the bottom of the sea."
"Something like the travels of Sinbad the Sailor," I replied, laughing.
"Ah!" suddenly exclaimed Ned Land, "it is not one whale; there are ten--there are twenty--it is a whole troop! And I not able to do anything! hands and feet tied!"
"But, friend Ned," said Conseil, "why do you not ask Captain Nemo's permission to chase them?"
Conseil had not finished his sentence when Ned Land had lowered himself through the panel to seek the Captain. A few minutes afterwards the two appeared together on the platform.
Captain Nemo watched the troop of cetacea playing on the waters about a mile from the Nautilus.
"They are southern whales," said he; "there goes the fortune of a whole fleet of whalers."
"Well, sir," asked the Canadian, "can I not chase them, if only to remind me of my old trade of harpooner?"
"And to what purpose?" replied Captain Nemo; "only to destroy! We have nothing to do with the whale-oil on board."
"But, sir," continued the Canadian, "in the Red Sea you allowed us to follow the dugong."
