Part 27 (1/2)
Cyrus Harding drew near the captain, and Gideon Spilett took his hand-- it was of a feverish heat. Ayrton, Pencroft, Herbert, and Neb, stood respectfully apart in an angle of the magnificent saloon, whose atmosphere was saturated with the electric fluid.
Meanwhile Captain Nemo withdrew his hand, and motioned the engineer and the reporter to be seated.
All regarded him with profound emotion. Before them they beheld that being whom they had styled the ”genius of the island,” the powerful protector whose intervention, in so many circ.u.mstances, had been so efficacious, the benefactor to whom they owed such a debt of grat.i.tude!
Their eyes beheld a man only, and a man at the point of death, where Pencroft and Neb had expected to find an almost supernatural being!
But how happened it that Cyrus Harding had recognised Captain Nemo? Why had the latter so suddenly risen on hearing this name uttered, a name which he had believed known to none?
The captain had resumed his position on the divan, and leaning on his arm, he regarded the engineer, seated near him.
”You know the name I formerly bore, sir?” he asked.
”I do,” answered Cyrus Harding, ”and also that of this wonderful submarine vessel--”
”The _Nautilus_?” said the captain, with a faint smile.
”The _Nautilus_!”
”But do you--do you know who I am?”
”I do.”
”It is nevertheless many years since I have held any communication with the inhabited world; three long years have I pa.s.sed in the depths of the sea, the only place where I have found liberty! Who then can have betrayed my secret?”
”A man who was bound to you by no tie, Captain Nemo, and who, consequently, cannot be accused of treachery.”
”The Frenchman who was cast on board my vessel by chance sixteen years since?”
”The same.”
”He and his two companions did not then perish in the Maelstrom, in the midst of which the _Nautilus_ was struggling.”
”They escaped, and a book has appeared under the t.i.tle of _Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea_, which contains your history.”
”The history of a few months only of my life!” interrupted the captain impetuously.
”It is true,” answered Cyrus Harding, ”but a few months of that strange life have sufficed to make you known--”
”As a great criminal, doubtless!” said Captain Nemo, a haughty smile curling his lips. ”Yes, a rebel, perhaps an outlaw against humanity!”
The engineer was silent.
”Well, sir?”
”It is not for me to judge you, Captain Nemo,” answered Cyrus Harding, ”at any rate as regards your past life. I am, with the rest of the world, ignorant of the motives which induced you to adopt this strange mode of existence, and I cannot judge of effects without knowing their causes; but what I _do_ know is, that a beneficent hand has constantly protected us since our arrival on Lincoln Island, that we all owe our lives to a good, generous, and powerful being, and that this being so powerful, good and generous, Captain Nemo, is yourself!”
”It is I,” answered the captain simply.
The engineer and reporter rose. Their companions had drawn near, and the grat.i.tude 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.