Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the forty-first chapter of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

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My name is Brie Carlyle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.

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Today we'll be continuing 20,000 leagues under.

The Sea, by Jules Verne chapter 18.

The pulps for several days the Nautilus kept off from the american coast.

Evidently it did not wish to risk the tides of the Gulf of Mexico or of the Sea of the Antilles.

April 16 we sighted Martinique and Guadalupe.

From a distance of about 30 miles.

I saw their tall peaks for an instant, the Canadian, who counted on carrying out his projects in the gulf by either landing or hailing one of the numerous boats that coast from one island to another was quite disheartened.

Flight would have been quite practicable if Ned land had been able to take possession of the boat without the captain's knowledge, but in the open sea it could not be thought of.

The Canadian conceal and I had a long conversation on this subject.

For six months we had been prisoners on board the Nautilus.

We had traveled 17,000 leagues, and, as Ned land said, there was no reason why it should come to an end.

We could hope nothing from the captain of the Nautilus, but only from ourselves.

Besides, for some time past he had become graver, more retired, less sociable.

He seemed to shun me.

I met him rarely formerly.

He was pleased to explain the submarine marvels to me now.

He left me in my studies and came no more to the saloon.

What change had come over him?

For what cause?

For my part, I did not wish to bury with me my curious and novel studies.

I had now the power to write the true book of the Sea.

And this book.

Sooner or later I wished to see daylight.

The land nearest us was the archipelago of the Bahamas.

There rose high submarine cliffs covered with large weeds.

It was about 11:00 when Ned land drew my attention to a formidable pricking, like this sting of an ant, which was produced by means of large seaweeds.

Well, I said, these are proper caverns for pulps, and I should not be astonished to see some of these monsters.

What?

Said conceal cuttlefish.

Real cuttlefish of the cellopod class.

No, I said.

Pulps of huge dimensions.

I will never believe that such animals exist, said Ned.

Well, said, conceal with the most serious air in the world.

I remember perfectly to have seen a large vessel drawn under the waves by an octopus's arm.

You saw that?

Said the Canadian.

Yes, Ned.

With your own eyes.

With my own eyes.

Where prey might that be?

At St.

Malow, answered.

Conceal in the port, said Ned ironically.

No, in a church, replied.

Conceal in a church, cried the Canadian.

Yes, friend Ned, in a picture representing the pulp in question.

Good, said Ned land, bursting out laughing.

He's quite right, I said.

I have heard of this picture.

But the subject represented is taken from a legend, and you know what to think of legends in the matter of natural history.

Besides, when it is a question of monsters, the imagination is apt to run wild.

Not only is it supposed that these pulps can draw down vessels, but a certain Olis Magnus speaks of an octopus a mile long that is more like an island than an animal.

It is also said that the bishop of Nidros was building an altar on an immense rock.

Mass finished, the rock began to walk and return to the sea.

The rock was a pulp.

Another bishop, Ponto Piddin, speaks also of a pulp on which a regiment of Calvary could maneuver.

Lastly, the ancient naturalists speak of monsters whose mouths were like gulfs and which were too large to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar.

But how much is true of these stories?

Asked.

Conceal nothing, my friends, at least of that which passes the limit of truth to get to fable or legend.

Nevertheless, there must be some ground for the imagination of the storytellers.

One cannot deny that pulps and cuttlefish exist of a large species, inferior, however, to the cetaceans.

Aristotle has stated the dimensions of a cuttlefish is five cubits, or 9ft.

Two inches.

Our fishermen frequently see some that are more than 4ft long.

Some skeletons of pulps are preserved in the museums of Trieste and Montpeller that measure two yards in length.

Besides, according to the calculations of some naturalists, one of these animals, only 6ft long, would have tentacles 27ft long.

That would suffice to make a formidable monster.

Do they fish for them in these days?

Asked Ned.

If they do not fish for them, sailors see them.

At least one of my friends, Captain Paul Boss of Haver, has often affirmed that he met one of these monsters of colossal dimensions in the indian seas.

But the most astonishing fact, and which does not permit of the denial of the existence of these gigantic animals, happened some years ago, in 1861.

What is the fact?

Asked Ned.

Land.

This is it, in 1861.

To the northeast of Tenerife, very nearly in the same latitude we are in now.

The crew of the dispatch boat alector perceived a monstrous cuttlefish swimming in the waters.

Captain Bogur went near to the animal and attacked it with harpoon and guns.

Without much success.

Fur balls and harpoons glided over the soft flesh.

After several fruitless attempts, the crew tried to pass a slipknot round the body of the mollusk.

The new slipped as far as the tail fins, and there stopped.

They tried then to haul it on board, but its weight was so considerable that the tightness of the cord separated the tail from the body, and deprived of this ornament, he disappeared under the water.

Indeed.

Is that a fact?

An indisputable fact, my good Ned.

They proposed to name this pulp bogur's cattlefish.

What length was it?

Asked the Canadian.

Did it not measure?

About six yards, said Conceal, who, posted at the window, was examining again the irregular windings of the cliff.

Precisely, I replied.

Its head rejoined.

Conceal.

Was it not crowned with eight tentacles that beat the water like a nest of serpents?

Precisely.

Had not its eyes placed at the back of its head considerable development?

Yes, conceal.

And was not its mouth like a parrot?

Speak exactly, conceal.

Very well.

No offense to master, he replied quietly.

If this is not Bogur's cuttlefish, it is at least one of its brothers.

I looked at concealed.

Ned land hurried to the window.

What a horrible beast.

He cried.

I looked in my turn and could not repress a gesture of disgust.

Before my eyes was a horrible monster, worthy to figure in the legends.

Of the marvelous.

It was an immense cuttlefish.

Being eight yards long, it swam crossways in the direction of the nautilus with great speed, watching us with its enormous, staring green eyes, its eight arms, or rather, feet fixed to its head, that have given the name of cephalopod to these animals, were twice as long as its body and were twisted like the furious hair.

One could see the 250 air holes on the inner side of the tentacles.

The monster's mouth, a horned beak, like a parrots, opened and shut vertically.

Its tongue, a horned substance furnished with several rows of pointed teeth, came out quivering from this veritable pair of shears.

What a freak of nature.

A bird's beak on a mollusk.

Its spindle like body formed a fleshy mass that might weigh 4000 to 5000 pounds.

The varying color, changing with great rapidity according to the irritation of the animal, passed successively from livid gray to reddish brown.

What irritated this mollusk?

No doubt the presence of the nautilus, more formidable than itself and on which its suckers or its jaws had no hold yet what monsters these pulps are, what vitality the creator has given them, what vigor in their movements, and they possess three hearts.

Chance had brought us in the presence of this cuttlefish, and I did not wish to lose the opportunity of carefully studying this specimen of cephalopods.

I overcame the horror that inspired me, and, taking a pencil, began to draw it.

Perhaps this is the same which the elector saw, said, conceal.

No, replied the Canadian, for this is whole.

And the other had lost its tail.

That is no reason, I replied.

The arms and tails of these animals are reformed by renewal, and in seven years the tail of Bogur's cuttlefish has no doubt had time to grow.

By this time, other pulps appeared at the port light.

I counted seven.

They formed a procession after the nautilus, and I heard their beaks gnashing against the iron hole.

I continued my work.

These monsters kept in the water with such precision that they seemed immovable.

Suddenly, the nautilus stopped.

Shock made it tremble in every plate.

Have we struck anything?

I asked.

In any case, replied to Canadian, we shall be free, for we are floating.

The nautilus was floating, no doubt, but it did not move.

A minute passed.

Captain Nemo, followed by his lieutenant, entered the drawing room.

I had not seen him for some time.

He seemed dull.

Without noticing or speaking to us, he went to the panel, looked at the pulps, and said something to his lieutenant.

The latter went out.

Soon the panels were shut.

The ceiling was lighted.

I went towards the captain.

A curious collection of pulps, I said.

Yes, indeed, Mr.

Naturalist, he replied.

And we're going to fight them.

Man the beast.

I looked at him.

I thought I had not heard a right.

Man the beast, I repeated.

Yes, sir.

The screw is stopped.

I think that the h**** jaws of one of the cuttlefish is entangled in the blades.

That is what prevents our moving.

What are you going to do?

Rise to the surface and slaughter this vermin?

A difficult enterprise.

Yes, indeed.

The electric bullets are powerless against the soft flesh, where they do not find resistance enough to go off.

But we shall attack them with the hatchet and the harpoon.

Sir, said the Canadian, if you do not refuse my help, I will accept it.

Master Land, we will follow you, I said, and following Captain Nemo, we went towards the central staircase.

There, about ten men with boarding hatchets ready for the attack, conceal and I took two hatchets.

Ned land seized a harpoon.

The nautilus had then risen to the surface.

One of the sailors posted on the top ladder step unscrewed the bolts of the panels, but hardly were the screws loosed when the panel rose with great violence, evidently drawn by the suckers of a pulp's arm.

Immediately one of these arms slid like a serpent down the opening, and 20 others were above.

With one blow of the axe, Captain Nemo cut this formidable tentacle that slid, wriggling, down the ladder.

Just as we were pressing one on the other to reach the platform, two other arms lashing the air, came down on the sea man placed before Captain Nemo and lifted him up with irresistible power.

Captain Nemo uttered a cry and rushed out.

We hurried after him.

What a scene.

The unhappy man, seized by the tentacle, infixed to the suckers, was balanced in the air at the caprice of this enormous trunk.

He rattled in his throat.

He was stifled.

He cried, help.

These words, spoken in French, startled me.

I had a fellow countryman on board, perhaps several.

That heart rending cry, I shall hear it all my life.

The unfortunate man was lost.

Who could rescue him from that powerful pressure, however?

Captain Nemo had rushed to the pulp, and with one blow of the axe had cut through one arm.

His lieutenant struggled furiously against other monsters that crept on the flanks of the Nautilus.

The crew fought with their axes.

The canadian concealer and I buried our weapons in the fleshy masses.

A strong smell of musk penetrated the atmosphere.

It was horrible.

For one instant, I thought the unhappy man, entangled with the pulp, would be torn from its powerful suction.

Seven of the eight arms had been cut off.

Only one wriggled in the air, brandishing the victim like a feather.

But just as Captain Nemo and his lieutenant threw themselves on it, the animal ejected a stream of black liquid.

We were blinded with it.

When the cloud dispersed, the cuttlefish had disappeared and my unfortunate countrymen with it.

Ten or twelve pulps now invaded the platform insides of the nautilus.

We rolled pellmel into the midst of this nest of serpents that wriggled on the platform.

In the waves of blood and ink, it seemed as though these slimy tentacles sprang up like the hydra's heads.

Ned land's harpoon, at each stroke, was plunged into the staring eyes of the cuttlefish.

But my bold companion was suddenly overturned by the tentacles of a monster he had not been able to avoid.

How my heart beat with emotion and horror.

The formidable beak of a cuttlefish was open over Ned land.

The unhappy man would be cut in, too.

I rushed to his sucker, but Captain Nemo was before me.

His axe disappeared between the two enormous jaws and miraculously saved the canadian rising plunged his harpoon deep into the triple heart of the pulp.

I owed myself this revenge, said the captain to the Canadian.

Ned bowed without replying.

The combat had lasted a quarter of an hour.

The monsters, vanquished and mutilated, left us at last and disappeared under the waves.

Captain Nemo, covered with blood, nearly exhausted, gazed upon the sea that had swallowed up one of his companions, and great tears gathered in his eyes.

Thank you for joining bite at a time books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle, and.

I hope you come back tomorrow for.

The next bite of 20,000 leagues under the sea.

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