Двадцать тысяч лье под водой / Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Increase its dimensions fivefold or even tenfold, then give this cetacean a strength in proportion to its size, and you have the animal we’re looking for.

“The narwhale is armed with a sort of ivory sword, or lance, as certain naturalists have expressed it. It’s a king-sized tooth as hard as steel. Imagine this weapon to be ten times stronger and the animal ten times more powerful, and you get just the collision we need to cause the specified catastrophe.

“This inexplicable phenomenon is thus explained away—unless it’s something else entirely, which is still possible!”

These last words were cowardly of me; but I wanted to protect my professorial dignity. I had accepted the existence of “the monster.”

My article was hotly debated, it rallied a number of supporters. Yet if some saw it purely as a scientific problem to be solved, more practical people, especially in America and England, were determined to purge the ocean of this monster, to insure the safety of transoceanic travel.

A high-speed frigate, the Abraham Lincoln[11 - the Abraham Lincoln – «Авраам Линкольн» (название судна)], was ready to start as soon as possible.

But, as it always happens, just when a decision had been made to chase the monster, the monster ceased to appear. For two months nobody heard a word about it.

Not a single ship encountered it. People were constantly babbling about the creature, even via the Atlantic Cable! Accordingly, the wags claimed that this rascal had got some passing telegram.

So the frigate was equipped for a voyage and armed with fearsome fishing gear, but nobody knew where to steer it. And impatience grew until, on June 2, word came that a steamer on the San Francisco line sailing from California to Shanghai, had sighted the animal again, three weeks before in the northerly seas of the Pacific.

This news caused intense excitement. Not even a 24-hour breather was granted to Commander Farragut[12 - Commander Farragut – капитан Фарагут]. His provisions were loaded on board. His coal bunkers were overflowing. Not a crewman was missing from his post. Commander Farragut wanted nothing more than to go forth.