Fishes rose in masses under our feet, like frightened birds in the long grass. The massive rocks were seamed with immense fissures; deep grottos, unfathomable holes, in which formidable creatures were moving about. The blood went back to my heart when I perceived an enormous antenna blocking up the way, or a frightful claw shutting with a loud noise in the depths of the caverns. Thousands of luminous points glittered in the darkness. These were the eyes of enormous crustacea; giant lobsters, holding themselves upright like so many halberdiers, and moving their claws with a clanking sound; titanic crabs, and fearful octopi, waving their arms like a nest full of serpents. What was the extraordinary world which hitherto I had never known? To what order did these articulates belong, for whom the rocks formed a second carapace? Where had nature discovered the secret of their vegetative life, and how long—how many centuries—had they lived thus in the lowest depths of the ocean?
But I was unable to halt. Captain Nemo, evidently familiar with these terrible creatures, paid no heed to them; so we reached the first platform, where there were other surprises in store for me. There were scattered ruins which betrayed the hand of man, not of the Creator. Amongst the piles of stones, rose the vague forms of chateaux and temples, clothed with zoophytes in full flower; and over which, like ivy, the algæ and fucus threw a thick vegetable mantle.
I would have fain asked Captain Nemo for an explanation of all this, but, not being able to do so, I stopped and seized his arm; but he shook his head and, pointing to the last peak of the mountain, motioned me onward. I followed, and in a few minutes we gained the top, which, in a circle of ten yards, commanded the whole of the rocky expanse beneath.
