CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
CAPTAIN NEMO--HIS FIRST WORDS--THE HISTORY OF THE RECLUSE--HISADVENTURES--HIS SENTIMENTS--HIS COMRADES--SUBMARINE LIFE--ALONE--THELAST REFUGE OF THE NAUTILUS IN LINCOLN ISLAND--THE MYSTERIOUS GENIUS OFTHE ISLAND.
At these words the reclining figure rose, and the electric light fellupon his countenance; a magnificent head, the forehead high, the glancecommanding, beard white, hair abundant and falling over the shoulders.
His hand rested upon the cushion of the divan from which he had justrisen. He appeared perfectly calm. It was evident that his strengthhad been gradually undermined by illness, but his voice seemed yetpowerful, as he said in English, and in a tone which evinced extremesurprise--
"Sir, I have no name."
"Nevertheless, I know you!" replied Cyrus Harding.
Captain Nemo fixed his penetrating gaze upon the engineer as though hewere about to annihilate him.
Then, falling back amid the pillows of the divan--
"After all, what matters now?" he murmured; "I am dying!"
Cyrus Harding drew near the captain, and Gideon Spilett took his hand--it was of a feverish heat. Ayrton, Pencroft, Herbert, and Neb, stoodrespectfully apart in an angle of the magnificent saloon, whoseatmosphere was saturated with the electric fluid.
Meanwhile Captain Nemo withdrew his hand, and motioned the engineer andthe reporter to be seated.
All regarded him with profound emotion. Before them they beheld thatbeing whom they had styled the "genius of the island," the powerfulprotector whose intervention, in so many circumstances, had been soefficacious, the benefactor to whom they owed such a debt of gratitude!Their eyes beheld a man only, and a man at the point of death, wherePencroft and Neb had expected to find an almost supernatural being!
But how happened it that Cyrus Harding had recognised Captain Nemo? Whyhad the latter so suddenly risen on hearing this name uttered, a namewhich he had believed known to none?
The captain had resumed his position on the divan, and leaning on hisarm, 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 wonderfulsubmarine 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 withthe inhabited world; three long years have I passed in the depths of thesea, the only place where I have found liberty! Who then can havebetrayed 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 yearssince?"
"The same."
"He and his two companions did not then perish in the Maelstrom, in themidst of which the _Nautilus_ was struggling."
"They escaped, and a book has appeared under the title of _TwentyThousand Leagues under the Sea_, which contains your history."
"The history of a few months only of my life!" interrupted the captainimpetuously.
"It is true," answered Cyrus Harding, "but a few months of that strangelife have sufficed to make you known--"
"As a great criminal, doubtless!" said Captain Nemo, a haughty smilecurling 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 theworld, ignorant of the motives which induced you to adopt this strangemode of existence, and I cannot judge of effects without knowing theircauses; but what I _do_ know is, that a beneficent hand has constantlyprotected us since our arrival on Lincoln Island, that we all owe ourlives to a good, generous, and powerful being, and that this being sopowerful, good and generous, Captain Nemo, is yourself!"
"It is I," answered the captain simply.
The engineer and reporter rose. Their companions had drawn near, andthe gratitude with which their hearts were charged was about to expressitself in their gestures and words.
Captain Nemo stopped them by a sign, and in a voice which betrayed moreemotion than he doubtless intended to show.
"Wait till you have heard all," he said. [See Note 1.]
And the captain, in a few concise sentences, ran over the events of hislife.
His narrative was short, yet he was obliged to summon up his wholeremaining energy to arrive at the end. He was evidently contendingagainst extreme weakness. Several times Cyrus Harding entreated him torepose for a while, but he shook his head as a man to whom the morrowmay 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 thethen independent territory of Bundelkund. His father sent him, when tenyears of age, to Europe, in order that he might receive an education inall respects complete, and in the hopes that by his talents andknowledge he might one day take a leading part in raising his longdegraded and heathen country to a level with the nations of Europe.
From the age of ten years to that of thirty Prince Dakkar, endowed byNature with her richest gifts of intellect, accumulated knowledge ofevery kind, and in science, literature, and art his researches wereextensive and profound.
He travelled over the whole of Europe. His rank and fortune caused himto be everywhere sought after; but the pleasures of the world had forhim no attractions. Though young and possessed of every personaladvantage, he was ever grave--sombre even--devoured by an unquenchablethirst for knowledge, and cherishing in the recesses of his heart thehope that he might become a great and powerful ruler of a free andenlightened people.
Still, for long the love of science triumphed over all other feelings.He became an artist deeply impressed by the marvels of art, aphilosopher to whom no one of the higher sciences was unknown, astatesman versed in the policy of European courts. To the eyes of thosewho observed him superficially he might have passed for one of thosecosmopolitans, curious of knowledge, but disdaining action; one of thoseopulent travellers, haughty and cynical, who move incessantly from placeto place, and are of no country.
This artist, this philosopher, this man was, however, still cherishingthe hope instilled into him from his earliest days.
Prince Dakkar returned to Bundelkund in the year 1849. He married anoble Indian lady, who was imbued with an ambition not less ardent thanthat by which he was inspired. Two children were born to them, whomthey tenderly loved. But domestic happiness did not prevent him fromseeking to carry out the object at which he aimed. He waited anopportunity. At length, as he vainly fancied, it presented itself.
Instigated by princes equally ambitious and less sagacious and moreunscrupulous than he was, the people of India were persuaded that theymight successfully rise against their English rulers, who had broughtthem out of a state of anarchy and constant warfare and misery, and hadestablished peace and prosperity in their country. Their ignorance andgross superstition made them the facile tools of their designing chiefs.
In 1857 the great sepoy revolt broke out. Prince Dakkar, under thebelief that he should thereby have the opportunity of attaining theobject of his long-cherished ambition, was easily drawn into it. Heforthwith devoted his talents and wealth to the service of this cause.He aided it in person; he fought in the front ranks; he risked his lifeequally with the humblest of the wretched and misguided fanatics; he wasten times wounded in twenty engagements, seeking death but finding itnot, when at length the sanguinary rebels were utterly defeated, and theatrocious mutiny was brought to an end.
Never before had the British power in India been exposed to such danger,and if, as they had hoped, the sepoys had received assistance fromwithout, the influence and supremacy in Asia of the United Kingdom wou
ldhave been a thing of the past.
The name of Prince Dakkar was at that time well-known. He had foughtopenly and without concealment. A price was set upon his head, but hemanaged to escape from his pursuers.
Civilisation never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards.The sepoys were vanquished, and the land of the rajahs of old fellagain under the rule of England.
Prince Dakkar, unable to find that death he courted, returned to themountain fastnesses of Bundelkund. There, alone in the world, overcomeby disappointment at the destruction of all his vain hopes, a prey toprofound disgust for all human beings, filled with hatred of thecivilised world, he realised the wreck of his fortune, assembled somescore of his most faithful companions, and one day disappeared, leavingno trace behind.
Where, then, did he seek that liberty denied him upon the inhabitedearth? Under the waves, in the depths of the ocean, where none couldfollow.
The warrior became the man of science. Upon a deserted island of thePacific he established his dockyard, and there a submarine vessel wasconstructed from his designs. By methods which will at some future daybe revealed he had rendered subservient the illimitable forces ofelectricity, which, extracted from inexhaustible sources, was employedfor all the requirements of his floating equipage, as a moving,lighting, and heating agent. The sea, with its countless treasures, itsmyriads of fish, its numberless wrecks, its enormous mammalia, and notonly all that nature supplied, but also all that man had lost in itsdepths, sufficed for every want of the prince and his crew--and thus washis most ardent desire accomplished, never again to hold communicationwith the earth. He named his submarine vessel the _Nautilus_, calledhimself simply Captain Nemo, and disappeared beneath the seas.
During many years this strange being visited every ocean, from pole topole. Outcast of the inhabited earth in these unknown worlds hegathered incalculable treasures. The millions lost in the Bay of Vigo,in 1702, by the galleons of Spain, furnished him with a mine ofinexhaustible riches which he devoted always, anonymously, in favour ofthose nations who fought for the independence of their country. [SeeNote 2.]
For long, however, he had held no communication with hisfellow-creatures, when, during the night of the 6th of November, 1866,three men were cast on board his vessel. They were a French professor,his servant, and a Canadian fisherman. These three men had been hurledoverboard by a collision which had taken place between the _Nautilus_and the United States frigate _Abraham Lincoln_, which had chased her.
Captain Nemo learnt from this professor that the _Nautilus_, taken nowfor a gigantic mammal of the whale species, now for a submarine vesselcarrying a crew of pirates, was sought for in every sea.
He might have returned these three men to the ocean, from whence chancehad brought them in contact with his mysterious existence. Instead ofdoing this he kept them prisoners, and during seven months they wereenabled to behold all the wonders of a voyage of twenty thousand leaguesunder the sea.
One day, the 22nd of June, 1867, these three men, who knew nothing ofthe past history of Captain Nemo, succeeded in escaping in one of the_Nautilus's_ boats. But as at this time the _Nautilus_ was drawn intothe vortex of the Maelstrom, off the coast of Norway, the captainnaturally believed that the fugitives, engulfed in that frightfulwhirlpool, found their death at the bottom of the abyss. He wasignorant that the Frenchman and his two companions had been miraculouslycast on shore, that the fishermen of the Loffoden Islands had renderedthem assistance, and that the professor, on his return to France, hadpublished that work in which seven months of the strange and eventfulnavigation of the _Nautilus_ were narrated and exposed to the curiosityof the public.
For a long time after this, Captain Nemo continued to live thus,traversing every sea. But one by one his companions died, and foundtheir last resting-place in their cemetery of coral, in the bed of thePacific. At last Captain Nemo remained the solitary survivor of allthose who had taken refuge with him in the depths of the ocean.
He was now sixty years of age. Although alone, he succeeded innavigating the _Nautilus_ towards one of those submarine caverns whichhad sometimes served him as a harbour.
One of these ports was hollowed beneath Lincoln Island, and at thismoment furnished an asylum to the _Nautilus_.
The captain had now remained there six years, navigating the ocean nolonger, but awaiting death, and that moment when he should rejoin hisformer companions, when by chance he observed the descent of the balloonwhich carried the prisoners of the Confederates. Clad in hisdiving-dress he was walking beneath the water at a few cables' lengthfrom the shore of the island, when the engineer had been thrown into thesea. Moved by a feeling of compassion the captain saved Cyrus Harding.
His first impulse was to fly from the vicinity of the five castaways;but his harbour of refuge was closed, for in consequence of an elevationof the basalt, produced by the influence of volcanic action, he could nolonger pass through the entrance of the vault. Though there wassufficient depth of water to allow a light craft to pass the bar, therewas not enough for the _Nautilus_, whose draught of water wasconsiderable.
Captain Nemo was compelled, therefore, to remain. He observed these menthrown without resources upon a desert island, but had no wish to behimself discovered by them. By degrees he became interested in theirefforts when he saw them honest, energetic, and bound to each other bythe ties of friendship. As if despite his wishes, he penetrated all thesecrets of their existence. By means of the diving-dress he couldeasily reach the well in the interior of Granite House, and climbing bythe projections of rock to its upper orifice he heard the colonists asthey recounted the past, and studied the present and future. He learntfrom them the tremendous conflict of America with America itself, forthe abolition of slavery. Yes, these men were worthy to reconcileCaptain Nemo with that humanity which they represented so nobly in theisland.
Captain Nemo had saved Cyrus Harding. It was he also who had broughtback the dog to the Chimneys, who rescued Top from the waters of thelake, who caused to fall at Flotsam Point the case containing so manythings useful to the colonists, who conveyed the canoe back into thestream of the Mercy, who cast the cord from the top of Granite House atthe time of the attack by the baboons, who made known the presence ofAyrton upon Tabor Island, by means of the document enclosed in thebottle, who caused the explosion of the brig by the shock of a torpedoplaced at the bottom of the canal, who saved Herbert from a certaindeath by bringing the sulphate of quinine; and finally, it was he whohad killed the convicts with the electric balls, of which he possessedthe secret, and which he employed in the chase of submarine creatures.Thus were explained so many apparently supernatural occurrences, andwhich all proved the generosity and power of the captain.
Nevertheless, this noble misanthrope longed to benefit his _proteges_still further. There yet remained much useful advice to give them, and,his heart being softened by the approach of death, he invited, as we areaware, the colonists of Granite House to visit the _Nautilus_, by meansof a wire which connected it with the corral. Possibly he would nothave done this had he been aware that Cyrus Harding was sufficientlyacquainted with his history to address him by the name of Nemo.
The captain concluded the narrative of his life. Cyrus Harding thenspoke; he recalled all the incidents which had exercised so beneficentan influence upon the colony, and in the names of his companions andhimself thanked the generous being to whom they owed so much.
But Captain Nemo paid little attention; his mind appeared to be absorbedby one idea, and without taking the proffered hand of the engineer--
"Now, sir," said he, "now that you know my history, your judgment!"
In saying this, the captain evidently alluded to an important incidentwitnessed by the three strangers thrown on board his vessel, and whichthe French professor had related in his work, causing a profound andterrible sensation. Some days previous to the flight of the professorand his two companions, the _Nautilus_, being chased by a frigate in thenorth of the Atlantic
, had hurled herself as a ram upon this frigate,and sunk her without mercy.
Cyrus Harding understood the captain's allusion, and was silent.
"It was an enemy's frigate," exclaimed Captain Nemo, transformed for aninstant into the Prince Dakkar, "an enemy's frigate! It was she whoattacked me--I was in a narrow and shallow bay--the frigate barred myway--and I sank her!"
A few moments of silence ensued; then the captain demanded--
"What think you of my life, gentlemen?"
Cyrus Harding extended his hand to the ci-devant prince and repliedgravely, "Sir, your error was in supposing that the past can beresuscitated, and in contending against inevitable progress. It is oneof those errors which some admire, others blame; which God alone canjudge. He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes tobe right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem. Your error is onethat we may admire, and your name has nothing to fear from the judgmentof history, which does not condemn heroic folly, but its results."
The old man's breast swelled with emotion, and raising his hand toheaven--
"Was I wrong, or in the right?" he murmured.
Cyrus Harding replied, "All great actions return to God, from whom theyare derived. Captain Nemo, we, whom you have succoured, shall evermourn your loss."
Herbert, who had drawn near the captain, fell on his knees and kissedhis hand.
A tear glistened in the eyes of the dying man. "My child," he said,"may God bless you!"
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Note 1. The history of Captain Nemo has, in fact, been published underthe title of _Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea_. Here, therefore,will apply the observation already made as to the adventures of Ayrtonwith regard to the discrepancy of dates. Readers should therefore referto the note already published on this point.
Note 2. This refers to the insurrection of the Candiotes, who were, infact largely assisted by Captain Nemo.