he stopcocks of the ballast tanks were then opened wide, and 100 cubic meters of water rushed in, increasingthe Nautilus's weight by 100,000 kilograms.We waited, we listened, we forgot our sufferings, we hoped once more. We had staked our salvation on this one last gamble. Despite the buzzing in my head, I soon could hear vibrations under the Nautilus's hull. We tilted. The ice cracked with an odd ripping sound, like paper tearing, and the Nautilus began settling downward.

"We're going through!" Conseil muttered in my ear.I couldn't answer him. I clutched his hand. I squeezed it in an involuntary convulsion.All at once, carried away by its frightful excess load, the Nautilus sank into the waters like a cannonball, in other words, dropping as if in a vacuum!

Our full electric power was then put on the pumps, which instantly began to expel water from the ballast tanks. After a few minutes we had checked our fall. The pressure gauge soon indicated an ascending movement. Brought to full speed, the propeller made the sheet-iron hull tremble down to its rivets, and we sped northward. But how long would it take to navigate under the Ice Bank to the open sea? Another day? I would be dead first!

Half lying on a couch in the library, I was suffocating. My face was purple, my lips blue, my faculties in abeyance. I could no longer see or hear. I had lost all sense of time. My muscles had no power to contract. I'm unable to estimate the hours that passed in this way. But I was aware that my death throes had begun. I realized that I was about to die...Suddenly I regained consciousness. A few whiffs of air had entered my lungs. Had we risen to the surface of the waves? Had we cleared the Ice Bank?