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

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One bite at a time 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 part two chapter one the Indian Ocean we now come to the second part of our journey under the sea.

The first ended with the moving scene in the coral cemetery, which left such a deep impression on my mind.

Thus, in the midst of this great sea, Captain Nemo's life was passing even to his grave, which he had prepared in one of its deepest abysses.

There, not one of the ocean's monsters could trouble the last sleep of the crew of the Nautilus, of those friends riveted to each other in death as in life, nor any man either, had added the captain.

Still the same fierce, implacable defiance towards human society.

I could no longer content myself with theory, which satisfied conceal that worthy fellow persisted in seeing the commander of the Nautilus, one of those unknown savants who returned mankind contempt for indifference.

For him, he was a misunderstood genius who, tired of Earth's deceptions, had taken refuge in this inaccessible medium where he might follow his instincts freely.

To my mind, this explains but one side of Captain Nemo's character, indeed, the mystery of that last night, during which we had been chained in prison with sleep, and the precautions so violently taken by the captain of snatching from my eyes the glass I had raised to sweep the horizon, the mortal wound of the man, due to an unaccountable shock of the Nautilus, all put me on a new track.

No, Captain Nemo was not satisfied with shunning man.

His formidable apparatus not only suited his instinct of freedom, but perhaps also the design of some terrible retaliation.

At this moment, nothing is clear to me.

I catch but a glimpse of light amidst all the darkness, and I must confine myself to writing, as event shall dictate.

That day, the 24 January, 1868.

At noon, the second officer came to take the altitude of the sun.

I mounted the platform, lit a cigar, and watched the operation.

It seemed to me that the man did not understand French, for several times I made remarks in a loud voice, which must have drawn from him some involuntary sign of attention, if he had understood them.

But he remained undisturbed and dumb.

As he was taking observations with the sextant, one of the sailors of the Nautilus, the strong man who had accompanied us on our first submarine excursion to the island of Crespo, came to clean the glasses of the lantern.

I examined the fittings of the apparatus, the strength of which was increased a hundredfold by lenticular rings, plays similar to those in a lighthouse, and which projected their brilliance in a horizontal plane.

The electric lamp was combined in such a way as to give its most powerful light.

Indeed, it was produced in a vacuum, which ensured both its steadiness and its intensity.

This vacuum economized the graphite points between which the luminous arc was developed, an important point of economy for captain Nemo, who could not easily have replaced them, and under these conditions, their waste was imperceptible.

When the nautilus was ready to continue its submarine journey, I went down to the saloon.

The panel was closed, and the course marked direct west.

We were furring the waters of the Indian Ocean, a vast liquid plain with a surface of 1,200,000,000 of acres, and whose waters are so clear and transparent that anyone leaning over them would turn giddy.

The nautilus usually floated between 51 hundred fathoms deep.

We went on so for some days.

To anyone but myself, who had a great love for the sea, the hours would have seemed long and monotonous.

But the daily walks on the platform, which I steeped myself in the reviving air of the ocean, the sight of the rich waters through the windows of the saloon, the books in the library, the compiling of my memoirs took up all my time and left me not a moment of nui or weariness.

For some days we saw a great number of aquatic birds, sea muse or goals.

Some were cleverly killed and prepared in a certain way made very acceptable water game amongst large winged birds, carried a long distance from all lands, and resting upon the waves from the fatigue of their flight, I saw some magnificent albatrosses uttering discordant cries like the brain of an a**, and birds belonging to the family of the longwings.

As to the fish, they always provoked our admiration when we surprised the secrets of their aquatic life.

Through the open panels I saw many kinds, which I never before had a chance of observing.

I shall notice chiefly austrations peculiar to the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and that part which washes the coast of tropical America.

These fishes, like the tortoise, the armadillo, the sea hedgehog, and the crustacea, are protected by a breastplate which is neither chalky nor stony, but real bone.

In some it takes the form of a solid triangle, in others of a solid quadrangle.

Amongst the triangular I saw some an inch and a half in length, with wholesome flesh and a delicious flavor.

They are brown at the tail and yellow at the fins, and I recommend their introduction into fresh water, to which a certain number of seafish easily accustomed themselves.

I would also mention quadrangular estrations, having on the back four large tubicles, some dotted over with white spots on the lower part of the body, and which may be tamed like birds.

Trigons, provided with spikes formed by the lengthening of their bony shell, in which from their strange gruntings are called sea pigs.

Also dromedaries, with large humps in the shape of a cone, whose flesh is very tough and leathery.

I now borrow from the daily notes of master conceal certain fish of the.

Genius pedrodon, peculiar to those seas with red backs and white chests, which are distinguished by three rows of longitudinal filaments, and some electrical, seven inches long, decked in the liveliest colors.

Then, as specimens of other kinds.

Some ovioids, resembling an egg of a dark brown color, marked with white bands and without tails.

Diodons, real sea porcupines, furnished with spikes and capable of swelling in such a way as to look like cushions bristling with darts.

Hippocampi, common to every ocean.

Some pegasus with lengthened snouts, which their pectoral fins being much elongated and formed in the shape of wings, allow, if not to fly, at least to shoot into the air.

Pigeon spatulae, with tails covered with many rings of shell.

Macronathy, with long jaws.

An excellent fish, nine inches long and bright, with most agreeable colors.

Pale colored calamores with rugged heads and plenty of chatapudans, with long and tubular muzzles, which kill insects by shooting them as from an air gun with a single drop of water.

These we may call the fly catchers of the seas.

In the 89th genius of fishes, classed by Lespeede, belonging to the second lower class of bony, characterized by opercules and bronchial membranes, I remarked the scorpagna, the head of which is furnished with spikes, and which has but one dorsal fin.

These creatures are covered or not, with little shells, according to the subclass to which they belong.

The second subclass gives us specimens of didactylites, 14 or 15 inches in length, with yellow rays, and heads of a most fantastic appearance.

As to the first subclass, it gives several specimens of that singular looking fish, appropriately called a seafrog, with large head, sometimes pierced with holes, sometimes swollen with protuberances, bristling with spikes, and covered with tubercles.

It has irregular and hideous horns.

Its body and tail are covered with callicatites.

Its sting makes a dangerous wound.

It is both repugnant and horrible to look at.

From the 21st to the 23 January, the nautilus went at the rate of 250 leagues in 24 hours, being 540 miles, or 22 miles an hour.

If we recognized so many different varieties of fish, it was because, attracted by the electric light, they tried to follow us.

The greater part, however, was soon distanced by our speed, though some kept their place in the waters of the nautilus for a time.

The morning of the 24th, in twelve degrees, five minutes south latitude and 94 degrees, 33 minutes longitude, we observed Keeling island, a coral formation planted with magnificent cocos, and which had been visited by Mr.

Darwin and Captain Fitzroy.

The nautilus skirted the shores of this desert island for a little distance.

Its nets brought up numerous specimens of polypy and curious shells of Mollisca.

Some precious productions of the species of Delafinuli enriched the treasures of Captain Nemo, to which I added in austrea pontifefera, a kind of parasite, polypus, often found fixed to a shell.

Soon Keeling island disappeared from the horizon, and our course was directed to the northwest, in the direction of the indian peninsula.

From Keeling island our course was slower and more variable, often taking us into great depths.

Several times they made use of the inclined plains which certain internal levers placed obliquely to the waterline.

In that way we went about 2 miles, but without ever obtaining the greatest depths of the Indian Sea, which soundings of 7000 fathoms have never reached.

As to the temperature of the lower strata, the thermometer invariably indicated four degrees above zero.

I only observed that in the upper regions the water was always colder in the high levels than at the surface of the sea.

On the 25 January, the ocean was entirely deserted.

The nautilus passed the day on the surface, beating the waves with its powerful screw and making them rebound to a great height, who under such circumstances would not have taken it for a gigantic cetacean?

Three parts of this day I spent on the platform.

I watched the sea.

Nothing on the horizon till about 04:00.

A steamer running west on her counter.

Her masts were visible for an instant, but she could not see the nautilus being too low in the water.

I fancied this steamboat, belonging to the Po company, which runs from Ceylon to Sydney, touching at King George's Point in Melbourne at 05:00 in the evening.

Before that fleeting twilight which binds night to day in tropical zones, conceal and I were astonished by a curious spectacle.

It was a shoal of Argonauts traveling along the surface of the ocean.

We could count several hundreds.

They belonged to the tupacle kind, which are peculiar to the indian seas.

These graceful mollusks moved backwards by means of their locomotive tube, through which they propelled the water.

Already drawn in.

Of their eight tentacles, six were elongated and stretched out, floating on the water, whilst the other two, rolled up flat, were spread to the wing like a light sail.

I saw their spiral shaped and fluted shells, which cuvier justly compares to an elegant skiff abode.

Indeed, it bears the creature which secretes it without its adhering to it.

For nearly an hour, the nautilus floated in the midst of the shoal of mollusks.

Then I know not what sudden fright they took, but as if at a signal, every sail was furled, the arms folded, the body drawn in, the shells turned over, changing their center of gravity, and the whole fleet disappeared under the waves.

Never did the ships of a squadron maneuver with more unity.

At that moment, night fell suddenly, and the reeds, scarcely raised by the breeze, lay peaceably under the sides of the Nautilus.

The next day, 26 January, we cut the equator at the 82nd meridian and entered the northern hemisphere.

During the day, a formidable troop of sharks accompanied us.

Terrible creatures which multiply in these seas and make them very dangerous.

They were CentrechioPhilippi sharks with brown backs and whitish bellies, armed with eleven rows of teeth eyed sharks, their throat being marked with a large black spot, surrounded with white like an eye.

There were also some isabella sharks with rounded snouts, marked with dark spots.

These powerful creatures often hurled themselves at the windows of the saloon with such violence as to make us feel very insecure.

At such times.

Ned land was no longer master of himself.

He wanted to go to the surface and harpoon the monsters, particularly certain smoothhound sharks, whose mouth is studded with teeth like a mosaic, enlarged tiger sharks, nearly six yards long, the last named of which seemed to excite him more particularly.

But the Nautilus, accelerating her speed, easily left the most rapid of them behind.

27 January, at the entrance of the vast bay of Bengal, we met repeatedly a forbidding spectacle, dead bodies floating on the surface of the water.

They were the dead of the indian villages, carried by the ganges to the level of the sea, in which the vultures, the only undertakers of the country, had not been able to devour.

But the sharks did not fail to help them at their funeral work.

00 in the evening, the Nautilus, half immersed, was sailing in a sea of milk.

At first sight, the ocean seemed lactified.

Was it the effect of the lunar rays?

No, for the moon, scarcely two days old, was still lying hidden under the horizon in the rays of the sun.

The whole sky, though lit by the sidewalk rays, seemed black by contrast with the whiteness of the waters.

Conceal could not believe his eyes, and questioned me as to the cause of this strange phenomenon.

Happily I was able to answer him.

It is called a milk sea, I explained a large extent of white wavelets, often to be seen on the coast of Ambona and in these parts of the sea.

But, sir, said conceal, can you tell.

Me what causes such an effect?

For I suppose the water is not.

Really turned into milk.

No, my boy.

And the whiteness which surprises you is caused only by the presence of myriads of infusoria, a sort of luminous little worm, gelatinous and without color, of the thickness of a hair, and whose length is not more than seven thousandths of an inch.

These insects adhere to one another, sometimes for several leagues.

Several leagues.

Exclaimed conceal.

Yes, my boy.

And you need not try to compute the number of these in Fusoria.

You will not be able.

For if I am not mistaken, ships have floated on these milk seas for more than 40 miles.

Towards midnight, the sea suddenly resumed its usual color.

But behind us, even to the limits of the horizon.

The sky reflected the whitened waves and for a long time seemed impregnated with the vague glimmerings of an aurora borealis.

Thank you for joining bite at a.

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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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