He explains that he has taken the men captive as prisoners of war. The captives try to introduce themselves in English, French, German, and Latin, but none of these attempts elicit a reaction.Īfter Arronax falls asleep and wakes up again, the tall man from earlier-the submarine’s commander, Captain Nemo-introduces himself in perfect, unaccented French. A tall man and his shorter companion enter the cell, and speak to each other in a language Arronax doesn’t recognize. Ned and Conseil are there too, and the three of them are taken down into a prison cell by men wearing masks. Arronax eventually loses consciousness, and when he wakes up he is on board the monster-which is actually not a monster at all, but a submarine. Ned harpoons it and at this point jets of water erupt from it, throwing Arronax into the ocean. The Abraham Lincoln initially retreats, but after the monster appears to full asleep, it advances and attacks. However, on the final day, Ned sees the monster glowing brightly in the water. Although they have very different characters, Ned and Arronax bond over their connected countries of origin.Īfter a long period searching in vain, Farragut announces that the mission will be called off if the monster isn’t found in the next three days. One of the other men on board is an expert harpooner named Ned Land, a 40-year-old from Quebec. Farragut offers $2,000 to whomever is the first person aboard to catch sight of it. The ship is commandeered by Captain Farragut, who considers it his personal mission to find and destroy the monster. He is accompanied by his faithful servant, a Flemish man named Conseil. naval ship, the Abraham Lincoln, in search of the monster, and enthusiastically accepts. He is invited to join an expedition on a U.S.

He argues that it is likely some kind of gigantic narwhal.

He is the author of a book entitled Mysteries of the Unsounded Depths Undersea, and is thus consulted as an expert on what the mysterious monster could possibly be. The narrator, a professor of natural history from Paris named Pierre Arronax, has just returned to New York after six months of fieldwork in Nebraska. After the monster bores a large whole inside the bottom of a Quebecois passenger ship, all unsolved shipwrecks are blamed on the mysterious creature. The monster is depicted in newspaper articles, songs, and plays. In 1866, the world is captivated by rumors of a “phosphorescent” sea monster that is spotted by several ships around the globe.

20000 leagues under the sea book