At seven o’clock the log told me that the Nautilus had reduced speed. I realized that it was letting the warship approach. Moreover, the explosions grew more intensely audible. Shells furrowed the water around us, drilling through it with an odd hissing sound.
“My friends,” I said, “it’s time. Let’s shake hands, and may God be with us!”
Ned Land was determined, Conseil calm, I myself nervous and barely in control.
We went into the library. Just as I pushed open the door leading to the well of the central companionway, I heard the hatch close sharply overhead.
The Canadian leaped up the steps, but I stopped him. A well-known hissing told me that water was entering the ship’s ballast tanks. Indeed, in a few moments the Nautilus had submerged some meters below the surface of the waves.
I understood this maneuver. It was too late to take action. The Nautilus wasn’t going to strike the double-decker where it was clad in impenetrable iron armor, but below its waterline, where the metal carapace no longer protected its planking.
We were prisoners once more, unwilling spectators at the performance of this gruesome drama. But we barely had time to think. Taking refuge in my stateroom, we stared at each other without pronouncing a word. My mind was in a total daze. My mental processes came to a dead stop. I hovered in that painful state that predominates during the period of anticipation before some frightful explosion. I waited, I listened, I lived only through my sense of hearing!
Meanwhile the Nautilus’s speed had increased appreciably. So it was gathering momentum. Its entire hull was vibrating.
Suddenly I let out a yell. There had been a collision, but it was comparatively mild. I could feel the penetrating force of the steel spur. I could hear scratchings and scrapings. Carried away with its driving power, the Nautilus had passed through the vessel’s mass like a sailmaker’s needle through canvas!
I couldn’t hold still. Frantic, going insane, I leaped out of my stateroom and rushed into the lounge.