Even today as I write these lines, my sensations are so intense that an involuntary terror sweeps over me, and my lungs still seem short of air!
Meanwhile, motionless and silent, Captain Nemo stood lost in thought.
An idea visibly crossed his mind.
But he seemed to brush it aside.
He told himself no.
At last these words escaped his lips:
"Boiling water!" he muttered.
"Boiling water?"
I exclaimed.
"Yes, sir.
We're shut up in a relatively confined area.
If the Nautilus's pumps continually injected streams of boiling water into this space, wouldn't that raise its temperature and delay its freezing?"
"It's worth trying!"
I said resolutely.
"So let's try it, Professor."
By then the thermometer gave –7° centigrade outside.
Captain Nemo led me to the galley where a huge distilling mechanism was at work, supplying drinking water via evaporation.
The mechanism was loaded with water, and the full electric heat of our batteries was thrown into coils awash in liquid.
In a few minutes the water reached 100° centigrade.
It was sent to the pumps while new water replaced it in the process.
The heat generated by our batteries was so intense that after simply going through the mechanism, water drawn cold from the sea arrived boiling hot at the body of the pump.
The steaming water was injected into the icy water outside, and after three hours had passed, the thermometer gave the exterior temperature as –6° centigrade.
That was one degree gained.
Two hours later the thermometer gave only –4°.
After I monitored the operation's progress, double–checking it with many inspections, I told the captain,
"It's working."
"I think so," he answered me.
"We've escaped being crushed.
Now we have only asphyxiation to fear."
During the night the water temperature rose to –1° centigrade.
The injections couldn't get it to go a single degree higher.
But since salt water freezes only at –2°, I was finally assured that there was no danger of it solidifying.
By the next day, March 27, six meters of ice had been torn from the socket.
Only four meters were left to be removed.
That still meant forty–eight hours of work.
The air couldn't be renewed in the Nautilus's interior.
Accordingly, that day it kept getting worse.
An unbearable heaviness weighed me down.
Near three o'clock in the afternoon, this agonizing sensation affected me to an intense degree.
Yawns dislocated my jaws.
My lungs were gasping in their quest for that enkindling elastic fluid required for breathing, now growing scarcer and scarcer.
My mind was in a daze.
I lay outstretched, strength gone, nearly unconscious.
My gallant Conseil felt the same symptoms, suffered the same sufferings, yet never left my side.
He held my hand, he kept encouraging me, and I even heard him mutter:
"Oh, if only I didn't have to breathe, to leave more air for Master!"
It brought tears to my eyes to hear him say these words.
Since conditions inside were universally unbearable, how eagerly, how happily, we put on our diving suits to take our turns working!
Picks rang out on that bed of ice.
Arms grew weary, hands were rubbed raw, but who cared about exhaustion, what difference were wounds?