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“By the quays, Jules,” Nemo said, leading the way. “I want to be close to the ships when I submerge myself.” With his new apparatus, Nemo was certain that he could walk and breathe underwater. And Verne actually believed him.

Growing up near one of France’s largest shipyards, both of them had an abiding love for the sea. Sailors from Batz unloaded a cargo of salt onto the quay. The fish market, its air thick with the stench of day-old catch, sweltered under the humid July sun. The fishwives teased each other in loud voices, using colorful language that would have brought a blush to the cheeks of Verne’s strict father, a local lawyer.

Even forty miles inland, the broad Loire was sluggish as it drained toward the Atlantic. A century earlier, through dredgings and diversions, engineers had created an artificial island, Ile Feydeau, separated by a shallow canal on one side and the deep river channel on the other. The swollen waters of annual spring floods still found the first floors of the row houses, and many families kept small boats tied up in the courtyards.

Ile Feydeau was shaped like a boat, and Verne and Nemo often pretended the entire island would detach and float down the river -- village and all -- to the coast. From there, they could drift across the Atlantic and explore the world. . . .

Now, they made their way past the barrels, crates, and lumber piles to where they had stowed their equipment. Walking underwater. Verne found Nemo’s plan incredible -- but his fiery-eyed and determined friend might succeed where no one else could. The dark-haired young man did not believe in the impossible.

Preparing for the underwater experiment, Nemo carried his equipment over one shoulder. Verne hurried after him with the remaining items. Soon they’d find out whether the invention would work. Verne planned to write a chronicle of their underwater adventures, provided the two of them ever went anyplace more interesting than the Loire River.

Half a century before, Nantes had built up an enviable prosperity from the “ebony trade,” shipping slaves from Africa to the West Indies. Merchants used the money raised in the Caribbean to buy sugar cane, which they brought back to France and resold at a high profit. Since the decline of the slave trade, Nantes had faded as a major port. When local sugar beets replaced expensive imported cane, the city became dependent on its shipbuilding industry. The shipyard forest held frameworks and drydocks for packet ships, clippers, schooners.

A nearly completed vessel floated in the deep channel just ahead of them, a ship named the Cynthia. In the hot afternoon, men chanted as they swung heavy mallets, pounding deckboards together, hammering iron eyes. Pulleys rattled as thick ropes were hauled up to the tops of the three masts. On deck, cauldrons of bubbling tar gave off a harsh chemical stench that drove back the aroma of old fish. Painters covered the outer hull with traditional black, then added a sleek white stripe from bow to stern.

Nemo shaded his eyes, trying to make out a familiar silhouette among the workers. His father Jacques worked as a carpenter and finisher aboard the Cynthia. The wiry, good-natured man had been a seaman in his early years and now used his expertise in constructing the tall ships. Verne and Nemo often listened to Jacques telling tales of his glorious days at sea.

It seemed strange that the son of a conservative lawyer would be good friends with the child of a widowed shipbuilder, but the two shared a fascination for far-off lands and the mysteries of the Earth. They had the same favorite books: Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Wyss’s Swiss Family Robinson, which they collectively called their “Robinsons.”

Though both were dreamers, the young men were different in appearance and temperament. Verne had blue eyes and tousled reddish hair, freckles on his pale skin, and a plodding sort of persistence; Nemo had deep brown eyes that held an undeniable spark of optimism.