I was quite impatient to clear Captain Nemo's tunnel, couldn't sit still, and wanted to breathe the fresh night air.
Soon, in the shadows, I spotted a pale signal light glimmering a mile away, half discolored by mist.
"A floating lighthouse," said someone next to me.
I turned and discovered the captain.
"That's the floating signal light of Suez," he went on.
"It won't be long before we reach the entrance to the tunnel."
"It can't be very easy to enter it."
"No, sir.
Accordingly, I'm in the habit of staying in the pilothouse and directing maneuvers myself.
And now if you'll kindly go below, Professor Aronnax, the Nautilus is about to sink beneath the waves, and it will only return to the surface after we've cleared the Arabian Tunnel."
I followed Captain Nemo.
The hatch closed, the ballast tanks filled with water, and the submersible sank some ten meters down.
Just as I was about to repair to my stateroom, the captain stopped me.
"Professor," he said to me, "would you like to go with me to the wheelhouse?"
"I was afraid to ask," I replied.
"Come along, then.
This way, you'll learn the full story about this combination underwater and underground navigating."
Captain Nemo led me to the central companionway.
In midstair he opened a door, went along the upper gangways, and arrived at the wheelhouse, which, as you know, stands at one end of the platform.
It was a cabin measuring six feet square and closely resembling those occupied by the helmsmen of steamboats on the Mississippi or Hudson rivers.
In the center stood an upright wheel geared to rudder cables running to the Nautilus's stern.
Set in the cabin's walls were four deadlights, windows of biconvex glass that enabled the man at the helm to see in every direction.
The cabin was dark; but my eyes soon grew accustomed to its darkness and I saw the pilot, a muscular man whose hands rested on the pegs of the wheel.
Outside, the sea was brightly lit by the beacon shining behind the cabin at the other end of the platform.
"Now," Captain Nemo said, "let's look for our passageway."
Electric wires linked the pilothouse with the engine room, and from this cabin the captain could simultaneously signal heading and speed to his Nautilus.
He pressed a metal button and at once the propeller slowed down significantly.
I stared in silence at the high, sheer wall we were skirting just then, the firm base of the sandy mountains on the coast.
For an hour we went along it in this fashion, staying only a few meters away.
Captain Nemo never took his eyes off the two concentric circles of the compass hanging in the cabin.
At a mere gesture from him, the helmsman would instantly change the Nautilus's heading.
Standing by the port deadlight, I spotted magnificent coral substructures, zoophytes, algae, and crustaceans with enormous quivering claws that stretched forth from crevices in the rock.
At 10:15 Captain Nemo himself took the helm.
Dark and deep, a wide gallery opened ahead of us.
The Nautilus was brazenly swallowed up.
Strange rumblings were audible along our sides.
It was the water of the Red Sea, hurled toward the Mediterranean by the tunnel's slope.
Our engines tried to offer resistance by churning the waves with propeller in reverse, but the Nautilus went with the torrent, as swift as an arrow.
Along the narrow walls of this passageway, I saw only brilliant streaks, hard lines, fiery furrows, all scrawled by our speeding electric light.
With my hand I tried to curb the pounding of my heart.
At 10:35 Captain Nemo left the steering wheel and turned to me:
"The Mediterranean," he told me.
In less than twenty minutes, swept along by the torrent, the Nautilus had just cleared the Isthmus of Suez.
Chapter 6 The Greek Islands
AT SUNRISE the next morning, February 12, the Nautilus rose to the surface of the waves.
I rushed onto the platform.
The hazy silhouette of Pelusium was outlined three miles to the south.
A torrent had carried us from one sea to the other.
But although that tunnel was easy to descend, going back up must have been impossible.
Near seven o'clock Ned and Conseil joined me.