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

“Commander Farragut?”

“In person. Welcome aboard, professor. Your cabin is waiting for you.”

I bowed, and I was taken to the cabin.

The Abraham Lincoln was a high-speed frigate furnished with superheating equipment. Under the pressure it reached an average speed of 18.3 miles per hour, a considerable speed, but still not enough to cope with our gigantic cetacean.

I was satisfied with my cabin, which was located in the stern.

“We’ll be quite comfortable here,” I told Conseil.

I climbed on deck to watch the preparations for getting under way. If I’d been delayed by a quarter of an hour or even less, the frigate would have gone without me, and I would have missed out on this unearthly, extraordinary, and inconceivable expedition.

But Commander Farragut didn’t want to waste a single day, or even a single hour, in making for those seas where the animal had just been sighted.

“Go ahead!” Commander Farragut called.

Chapter 4

Commander Farragut was a good seaman, worthy of the frigate he commanded.

His ship and he were one. He was its very soul. He believed in cetacean as certain pious women believe in the leviathan from the Book of Job[15 - the Book of Job – «Книга Р?ова»]—out of faith, not reason. The monster existed, and he had vowed to rid the seas of it. Either Commander Farragut would slay the narwhale, or the narwhale would slay Commander Farragut. No middle of the road for these two.

The ship’s officers shared the views of their leader. They were chatting, discussing, arguing, calculating the different chances of an encounter, and observing the vast expanse of the ocean.

As for the crew, they only wanted to encounter the unicorn, harpoon it, haul it on board, and carve it up. They surveyed the sea with scrupulous care. Besides, Commander Farragut had mentioned that a certain sum of $2,000 was waiting for the man who first sighted the animal, be he cabin boy or sailor, mate or officer.

As I said, Commander Farragut had carefully equipped his ship with all the gear needed to fish for a gigantic cetacean. No vessel could have been better armed. We had every known mechanism. On the forecastle was mounted the latest model cannon, a weapon that figured in the Universal Exhibition of 1867.

Moreover, the Abraham Lincoln had Ned Land[16 - Ned Land – Нед Ленд], the King of Harpooners.