The Crystal City Under the Sea Read Free Page B

a lugubrious fashion.
    “Come, let us begin all over again. What on earth is the matter with you, with your sighs and your head-shakings? One would think that you concealed some terrible secret. Have you discovered a conspiracy among the monsters of the deep, or have you heard the sirens sing at the bottom of the sea, and care for nothing but their music?”
    To the doctor’s great surprise, a deep flush suffused René’s pale face, and his eyes brightened, while a smile leaped to his lips. The two friends waited a moment, in silence, looking one another in the face.
    “Well, explain yourself, I beg,” said the doctor, at length, crossing his arms on his breast.
    Rene reassumed his dejected attitude.
    “What would be the use?” said he, in a tone of lassitude; “you would not believe me.”
    “Why?”
    “Because, if I spoke, it would be to tell you of such improbable things, so ridiculous, you would never believe me. And you would be right, no doubt, if it were not for one irrefutable proof; one material proof.”
    “A proof of what?”
    “Of what happened to me.”
    “Where? When? How? You are enough to provoke a saint with your reticence. I have a very good mind to shake you!”
    Rene remained silent a moment. Then he took a resolution.
    “Here, feel my pulse,” said he. “Have I any feverish symptoms?”
    “Not a shadow of fever. A cool skin, and a pulse as steady as mine.”
    Look at me. Do I look scared? Is my forehead burning? Do I look like a man demented, under the influence of delirium?”
    “Not the least in the world. You are like a fine lad, a friend of mine, the prey of an unaccountable mood, but in possession of all his faculties.”
    “Then, whatever I tell you, will you believe it?”
    “If you swear to me that you speak seriously, I will believe it without a doubt,”
    “I give you my word of honour that what I am going to tell you is strictly true. And yet, I hesitate.”
    “Well, go along. I never knew any one so suspicious.”
    “You have never known me in circumstances such as I am now placed in. Stephen, you are my dearest friend; almost my elder brother. I would not deceive you, would I? Besides, to what end? What I am going to tell you is true. It is incomprehensible, but it is true. I would rather keep to myself the secret of this strange adventure, and I had resolved never to speak of it to any one, certain of not being believed. But here you are? You question me, and I have such a habit of telling you everything that happens to me that, on my soul, I will risk it. Who knows? Perhaps, between us, we may arrive at some plausible theory, at some practical conclusion.”
    Intensely puzzled by this preamble, not less than by the serious and deeply affected expression of the midshipman’s face, the doctor took a seat by the bedside, and prepared to listen. R-ene, leaning on his elbow, with a dreamy look fixed on something visible to himself alone, began his story in these words:
    “You have not forgotten the circumstances I was placed in when I was washed overboard, on that Monday, the 19th of October. We were in a cyclone, running N. N. E., with a tremendous sea on, and the first thing you all knew was that a huge wave carried me and the gun away with it. Doubtless, a search was made for me, and the vessel was stopped, to wait for me. I know what is the usual thing to do at such times, and, at the moment, I fully expected to be picked up.”
    The doctor signified by a gesture that all that had been done.
    “Unfortunately, or, rather, fortunately,—for if I had been unluckily fished up then, I should have missed an unheard of spectacle, — in falling, an irresistible impulse made me curl my legs and arms round the breech of the gun. The mass of steel was ingulfed in the water, and carried me down by its weight. In a moment, I felt the absurdity of what I was doing, and tried to relax my hold, in order to rise to the surface. Then I lost consciousness. So far, nothing remarkable