Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius Read Free Page A

and looked ready to wade in after Nemo.   Verne realized that he’d better add another reed, or his friend would drag the end of the breathing tube underwater.
    “I don’t know, my -- my lovely lady.”   Verne stumbled over his words even as he tried to be as debonair as the heroes in dramas he had seen in the Nantes playhouse.   “When you come near me, all time seems to stop.”
    Caroline endured the flattery with patient grace.   “Then perhaps you had better consult your pocket watch.”   She raised her eyebrows and indicated the end of the breathing reed, which tottered close to being submerged.
    Embarrassed, Verne splashed into the water to seal on the next tube, getting sticky gum on his fingers.  
    Caroline knew full well that she’d captivated the hearts of both young men.   As she stood beside Verne, watching the breathing tubes disappear beneath the river, a smile emerged at the corners of her graceful mouth.   Seeing Nemo’s preposterous scheme of walking beneath the water, she said, “It is wonderful to see impossible dreams come to fruition.”
    Verne nodded as he stood up to his ankles in the water.   “André never believes it when people tell him about difficulties.   He makes up his own mind and does things as he sees fit.”
    “And I admire him for it.”
    While he chattered about plans he and Nemo had made for exploring the hidden undersea world, Verne couldn’t help but see that she was more interested in what Nemo was doing than in the fictional stories he made up.
    Looking across the water, Caroline said, “I doubt this is the last impossible task he will undertake for himself.”
     
    ii

     

    Underwater, Nemo felt the river current around him like a thick wind.   His feet sank into the bottom, meeting smooth rocks, slick mud, and loose sand.   The shimmering surface high above him filtered the sunlight as if it came through stained glass.
    Each breath required all the strength of his diaphragm to fill his lungs.   He had to exhale as well, pushing the used air back through the exhaust valve.   Though the wine-sour helmet became stifling, he continued through the murky Loire .   Sweat ran like tears down his temples and cheeks.   In front of him, he could discern shadowy, barnacle-encrusted pilings.   River weeds curled like peacock feathers around boulders that floods had tossed downstream.  
    As he strode ahead, Nemo thought of Captain Cook journeying to uncharted islands, Lewis and Clark forging their way across North America, Willem Barents trapped all winter long in a wooden hut high in the Arctic .
    And here he was, André Nemo, treading another new realm . . . a place where visitors to drowned Atlantis might have felt at home.   He wished Verne could have joined him.   It would have been simple enough to make two sets of the breathing apparatus, though he suspected his friend would find some excuse.   Verne’s imagination had always been greater than his desire for true adventure.  
    Determined, Nemo pushed on and fought to take breaths as the hollow tube stretched farther from fresh air.   The current turned colder and darker, but he pressed on.   Overhead, the curved gray shapes of hulls were like the shadows of floating whales.   Booming vibrations -- the pounding sounds of heavy work above -- echoed through the water.
    He saw what must have been the underbelly of the Cynthia , flat-bottomed to increase the size of her hold.   Nemo’s father claimed the vessel boasted a cargo capacity of 1500 tons.   Her timbers were well caulked, the exterior waxed to deter barnacles and weeds.   Above the waterline, the bow was rounded and the stern squared for added stability on the stormy Atlantic ; but underneath, the bow had a sharp edge to cut through the water with great speed.   By dropping two of the stones at his waist, Nemo could have floated up to the bottom keel -- where only a few hull planks would separate him from his father at work.
    It had become