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Now he was at the mercy of the strong current, and his simple rudder could barely nudge him in one direction or another. He saw no reefs or shoals, still no sign of an opposite shore, or a passage leading to the surface. He began to think he might never see the real sun again.

He was lost at the center of the Earth and defenseless in the face of whatever forces Nature chose to inflict upon him.

vii

When a pounding came at the door of his small room, Jules Verne was not asleep, though the hour was late. He’d sat by the pale light from a salvaged candle, rereading scenes from the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Tears were in his eyes from the tragic end of Romeo and Juliet, but the plotting and careful tapestry of characters made him weep as well. He wanted to publish great dramas, too -- and perhaps Alexandre Dumas could help him. He wished he could afford to buy some of the esteemed author’s novels and plays before visiting Dumas in his chateau. Verne was anxious to make a good impression.

The fist hammered insistently, and Verne assumed it must be one of his literary friends, possibly drunk, possibly wanting to borrow money that Verne didn’t have. He got up, grumbling, and closed his book. “Coming, coming!”

But when he opened the door, he saw a broad-shouldered figure in the dimness of the hall. The stranger wore the striped pullover shirt of a sailor and tattered bell-bottomed pants, and he carried a smell of tar and sweat about him. Verne stopped, startled, as if seeing a ghost from the shipyards on Ile Feydeau.

“I’m looking for Jules Verne,” the man said with a gruff, Breton accent.

“I am he.” Verne drew himself up, running a hand through his tousled reddish hair, though this sailor did not seem to put much stock in personal appearances. Rough and tumble, scarred, the sailor cut a fearsome figure, and Verne swallowed hard. He took an unsteady step backward, thinking of assassins and bullies. But who would want to rob him? “May . . . I help you?”

“You’re from Nantes, then? I’ve been to your city and seen your father. He gave me your address here, but I’ve got to get back to my ship.”

Now Verne was even more confused. His mind whirled -- his father would never send such a man to check up on him, would he? He wished he’d been studying his law books rather than Shakespeare, just in case this ruffian reported on him. “What is this all about, sir?” He did not dare invite the man into his small room.

“I have a message for you. And a story.” The sailor withdrew a thick, rolled-up sheaf of papers from his pocket. The pages were yellowed, curled, and waterstained, some torn. “I worked on a fishing trawler five months ago. We caught a shark, and when we slit his belly open we found a bottle inside. That bottle contained this journal -- a long one, written by a friend of yours. Someone by the name of Nemo.”

Verne’s entire body went numb, and he reached out a trembling hand to take the roll of papers. As he unfolded them and looked down at the packed writing, he recognized his friend’s penmanship. “Nemo . . . he’s alive?”

The sailor shrugged his broad shoulders. “I expect so, otherwise he wasn’t likely to write so much. Beyond that, I can’t say. No telling how long the bottle drifted in the currents before the shark swallowed it. Says here at the top to deliver it to a Monsieur Jules Verne, from Ile Feydeau. That’s you, isn’t it?”

Stunned, Verne stepped back into his room, holding the pages as if they were a rare treasure map. “Yes. Thank you. Thank you.”

He had no money to tip the sailor, and he hoped his father had at least paid the man something for his trouble. The stranger didn’t seem to expect money, though, and turned to depart without further formalities. Verne recalled that the brotherhood of the sea obliged sailors to perform such services for each other.

Nevertheless, he was relieved when the intimidating man creaked his way down the long staircase. Verne locked the door. He moved aside the volume of Shakespeare and sat down in