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Most intriguing to Nemo, though, was a small boat designed to travel underwater, keeping a man safe and protected. “Are these ideas possible, sir? Or just fanciful visions from an impractical man?”

Captain Grant looked at the cabin boy, bemused, then closed the book. He replaced it in a revered place on his shelf. “Anything is possible, lad -- given enough imagination, some engineering knowledge, and a lot of persistence.”

iii

In the shark-infested Indian Ocean, the ship traveled around Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa. They put ashore several parties to collect colorful specimens of lepidoptera (which Nemo learned was a Latin name for butterflies).

Under Captain Grant’s guidance, the Coralie sailed northeastward to the southern tip of India and the island of Ceylon, where they took on a load of black tea, saffron, and cardamom, which they hoped would remain fresh until the ship returned to the trading ports of Europe.

At dawn after a long night watch, Ned Land stood beside a bleary-eyed Nemo. They watched a purplish-maroon sunrise brighten into a wash of scarlet before full daylight. The muscular quartermaster turned to the cabin boy. “Red sky at morning, sailor take warning. Aye. Know that much, don’t ye, scamp?”

“I’ve heard the saying, but I don’t know the truth of it.”

“Means a bad storm is coming.” Ned sniffed the wind. “Mark my words.” The sailors on deck flashed knowing looks, and within half an hour, Captain Grant ordered the sails to be trimmed.

By afternoon Nemo found himself scaling the tarred ratlines with bare feet and callused hands to reach the topgallant sail on the foremast and yank ropes to furl it against a devastating wind. The ropes were slippery, and the squall-drenched cotton canvas sails were heavy as wet clay.

In a team effort, the sailors worked the deck ends of the lift lines while Nemo and the younger crewmen stepped into footropes, clinging onto the horizontal yardarms high above the deck and the roiling sea. The ship lurched like a wild horse -- and the sway was much more pronounced high on the masts. But Nemo had no fear of falling, no loss of balance. He felt like a sailor, at home even on the frothing seas.

After calling all hands, Captain Grant stood on the quarterdeck and let his men handle the situation. The first and second mates yelled orders, which were sometimes lost in the wind. Rather than riding atop the heavy swells, the brig’s sharp prow cut through them, which brought huge surges over the deck.

From his high vantage, Nemo looked overboard into the foaming waves -- and wondered how quiet it must be just a fathom beneath the surface. He recalled da Vinci’s speculative drawings of the boat that could travel under the water, out of the reach of bad weather.

Then the storm took all his attention again. . . .

#

When the weather died down, the crew worked through the day to put the Coralie back in order. Exhausted and dripping, Nemo changed into his second set of dry clothes so he wouldn’t catch cold . . . or get waterspots on any of the scientist captain’s precious notebooks.

At the captain’s table they ate cold meat and boiled eggs. “I prefer my food solid and immobile,” Grant said as the ship continued to rock and sway. “‘Tis not weather for soup, lad, not if ye want to keep any in your bowl.”

Nemo ate in silence, wrestling with the question in his mind. Finally, he asked, “The notebooks of da Vinci, the drawings you showed me. I keep thinking of that underwater vessel. Do you really think it could be built someday?”

The captain smiled at him, brushing down his trim mustache. During the voyage he had let his brown hair grow longer. “Aye, lad, I’ve heard of schemes to use sealed boats under water. In Year of Our Lord 1620, the court engineer for King James I -- a man named Cornelius Drebbel -- constructed a ‘sub-marine boat’ and demonstrated it in the Thames River. To maneuver he used oars sealed at the locks with leather gaskets. Alas, it did not prove practical.”

Nemo tried to picture the spectacle