20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Level 3

By Jules Verne

In this tale, some ships are damaged by a mysterious monster.The sea expedition to find the monster is lead by the enigmaticCaptain Nemo and his amazing submarine, the Nautilus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Compass Publishing
• Release date: Feb 24, 2009
• ISBN: 9781599662442

Book preview

The Monster in the Sea

On July 20, 1866, the sailors on a steamship saw a strange reef near Australia. The reef was not on the map. The captain decided to measure it. Suddenly, it sent two spouts of water high into the air. Then, it disappeared. Three days later, another steamship saw it. It was 700 leagues away in the Pacific Ocean. Two weeks later and two thousand leagues further away, another ship saw it. What was it?

It was about one hundred meters long, said one sailor.

It was two hundred meters long, said another.

It made a spout of water like a whale.

I saw two spouts!

It made a whistling noise.

It made a roaring noise.

I think it is a very large whale.

It’s much too big for a whale. It must be a submarine ship.

"It’s a monster!"

I think you’ve all been dreaming, said a sailor who was asleep when the others saw it.

On March 5, 1867, a ship called Moravian hit a rock that was not on the map. It was damaged but did not sink. When it reached port, the sailors discovered that there was a lot of damage. On April 13, 1867, something hit a British ship called Scotia. It was not a big hit, but it made a large neat triangular hole in the four-centimeter-thick hull. The sailors could not believe their eyes. Now, everybody began to talk about the danger of ships being hit and sunk. Some ships did sink, and everybody blamed the strange monster, although nobody could prove anything.

At this time, I was a teacher at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, but I was studying animals in America. I had written some books about sea animals, so people asked me what I thought about the monster. Could it be a floating reef, Dr. Aronnax?

Could it be the wreck of a ship? I thought it could not be either of those because it traveled around too quickly.

Is it a submarine ship, Dr. Aronnax? I did not think so. Who could build it? No government could build such a ship without other people knowing about it. It had to be an animal.

"It might be a large narwhal with a horn, I said. It must be ten times larger and stronger than usual. Perhaps an animal like this might have come from the deepest part of the ocean, where no man has ever been."

For scientists like me, it was a very interesting situation to investigate. For other people, it was much more than simply being interesting. They wanted to kill this mysterious monster because it was endangering human life. Passengers were too afraid to cross the Atlantic. This was bad for business.

The Americans prepared a steamship and added additional weaponry in order to hunt and kill the monster. They waited for somebody to see it again. Nobody saw it for over three months. People made jokes about it.

It can read the newspapers. It hides when it knows we are looking for it!

"It can read the telegrams that we send on cables under the seas!"

Finally, another ship saw it in the North Pacific. The Americans set off from New York. I had been invited to come with them, and I was on board with my servant, Conseil. The ship was the Abraham Lincoln under Captain Farragut. Captain Farragut was a good sailor. He was determined to kill the monster. He said he would give $2,000 to the first person to see it. All the sailors watched the sea carefully. One sailor, however, did not watch the sea at all. This tall sailor read books or slept in his room. His name was Ned Land, and he was a very good harpooner. I don’t believe in the monster, he said.

We became friends because he could speak French. He told me many stories about whaling.

The Abraham Lincoln sailed down the coast of South America. Early in July, we sailed around Cape Horn and into the Pacific. A few weeks later, we crossed the equator.

"We’ve been looking for almost three months. Perhaps it doesn’t exist," said one sailor to another sailor on duty with him.

I agree with Ned, said a third. Soon, Captain Farragut was the only person who still believed in