Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/435

Canadian, so I did not reply. Besides, the panels were just then opened, and the exterior light entered.

We were in open water, as I have said; but, at about six yards on each side of the Nautilus, rose a dazzling wall of ice. Above and below it was the same. Above us the lower surface of the iceberg covered us like an immense ceiling, while below, the overturned iceberg having slipped a little, had found a rest upon the two lateral walls which kept it in that position. The Nautilus was thus imprisoned in a regular ice-tunnel, about twenty yards in length, and filled with still water. It was, therefore, easy to get out of it by going backwards or forwards, and afterwards make, at some hundred yards lower down, a free passage beneath the iceberg.

The ceiling light had been extinguished, and, nevertheless, the saloon was brilliantly illuminated. This was the powerful reflection from the glass partitions, caused by the intense light of the electric lamp. I cannot describe the effect of the voltaic rays upon the capriciously-shaped ice blocks; each angle, ridge, and facet threw off a different gleam according to the vein of the ice. A sparkling mine of gems, and particularly of sapphires, which crossed their blue rays with the green of the emerald. There were also opal shades of infinite softness coursing amidst brilliant diamond-points of fire, whose intense brilliancy the eye could not sustain. The power of the lantern was increased a hundred-fold, like a lamp through the lenticular sheets of a large lighthouse.

“Is it not beautiful?” cried Conseil.

“Yes,” I said, “it is a magnificent sight, is it not, Ned?”

“Yes, confound it, yes it is,” replied Ned Land. “It is superb. I am angry at being forced to admit it. Nothing to