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"It is I," answered the captain simply. The engineer and reporter rose. Their companions had drawn near, and the gratitude with which their hearts were charged was about to express itself in their gestures and words. Captain Nemo stopped them by a sign, and in a voice which betrayed more emotion than he doubtless intended to show.
Several times Cyrus Harding entreated him to repose for a while, but he shook his head as a man to whom the morrow may never come, and when the reporter offered his assistance, "It is useless," he said; "my hours are numbered." Captain Nemo was an Indian, the Prince Dakkar, son of a rajah of the then independent territory of Bundelkund.
I was marveling at this magnificent ocean view when Captain Nemo appeared. He didn't seem to notice my presence and began a series of astronomical observations. Then, his operations finished, he went and leaned his elbows on the beacon housing, his eyes straying over the surface of the ocean.
Ned Land's logic pressed me hard, and I felt myself beaten on that ground. I knew not what argument would now tell in my favour. "Sir," continued Ned, "let us suppose an impossibility: if Captain Nemo should this day offer you your liberty; would you accept it?" "I do not know," I answered. "And if," he added, "the offer made you this day was never to be renewed, would you accept it?"
Cyrus Harding, bending low, closed the eyes of him who had once been the Prince Dakkar, and was now not even Captain Nemo. Herbert and Pencroft sobbed aloud. Tears fell from Ayrton's eyes. Neb was on his knees by the reporter's side, motionless as a statue. Then Cyrus Harding, extending his hand over the forehead of the dead, said solemnly "May his soul be with God! Let us pray!"
Profiting by this, I and my two companions went up on to the deserted platform. Before us was the steersman's cage, and I expected that Captain Nemo was there directing the course of the Nautilus. I had before me the excellent charts of the Straits of Torres, and I consulted them attentively. Round the Nautilus the sea dashed furiously.
Now Cardan, tho' he allows this Consequence, yet in the same place he gives several Reasons why the Pygmies could not be Men, and looks upon the whole Story as fabulous. Electoris Saxoniæ, altitudine infra Cubitum, Ossium soliditate, proportioneque tum Capitis, tum aliorum; ut Embrionem, aut Artificiale quid Nemo rerum peritus suspicari possit. Addita insuper est Inscriptio Veri Pygmæi.
I was silenced; Captain Nemo rose. "Whatever Ned Land thinks of, attempts, or tries, what does it matter to me? I did not seek him! It is not for my pleasure that I keep him on board! As for you, M. Aronnax, you are one of those who can understand everything, even silence. I have nothing more to say to you.
One day, the 22nd of June, 1867, these three men, who knew nothing of the past history of Captain Nemo, succeeded in escaping in one of the "Nautilus's" boats. But as at this time the "Nautilus" was drawn into the vortex of the maelstrom, off the coast of Norway, the captain naturally believed that the fugitives, engulfed in that frightful whirlpool, found their death at the bottom of the abyss.
On the contrary, Captain Nemo went himself to test the temperature in the depths of the sea, and his thermometer, placed in communication with the different sheets of water, gave him the required degree immediately and accurately.
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