Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 16

At these words the re­clin­ing fig­ure rose, and the elec­tric light fell up­on his coun­te­nance; a mag­nif­icent head, the fore­head high, the glance com­mand­ing, beard white, hair abun­dant and falling over the shoul­ders.

His hand rest­ed up­on the cush­ion of the di­van from which he had just risen. He ap­peared per­fect­ly calm. It was ev­ident that his strength had been grad­ual­ly un­der­mined by ill­ness, but his voice seemed yet pow­er­ful, as he said in En­glish, and in a tone which evinced ex­treme sur­prise,–

“Sir, I have no name.”

“Nev­er­the­less, I know you!” replied Cyrus Hard­ing.

Cap­tain Nemo fixed his pen­etrat­ing gaze up­on the en­gi­neer, as though he were 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 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 cir­cum­stances, had been so ef­fi­ca­cious, 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, where Pen­croft and Neb had ex­pect­ed to find an al­most su­per­nat­ural be­ing!

But how hap­pened it that Cyrus Hard­ing had rec­og­nized 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 passed in the depth 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 ti­tle 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 the 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.

“Wait till you have heard all,” he said.

And the cap­tain, in a few con­cise sen­tences, ran over the events of his life.

His nar­ra­tive was short, yet he was obliged to sum­mon up his whole re­main­ing en­er­gy to ar­rive at the end. He was ev­ident­ly con­tend­ing against ex­treme weak­ness. 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. His fa­ther sent him, when ten years of age, to Eu­rope, in or­der that he might re­ceive an ed­uca­tion in all re­spects com­plete, and in the hopes that by his tal­ents and knowl­edge he might one day take a lead­ing part in rais­ing his long de­grad­ed and hea­then coun­try to a lev­el with the na­tions of Eu­rope.

From the age of ten years to that of thir­ty Prince Dakkar, en­dowed by Na­ture with her rich­est gifts of in­tel­lect, ac­cu­mu­lat­ed knowl­edge of ev­ery kind, and in sci­ence, lit­er­ature, and art his re­search­es were ex­ten­sive and pro­found.

He trav­eled over the whole of Eu­rope. His rank and for­tune caused him to be ev­ery­where sought af­ter; but the plea­sures of the world had for him no at­trac­tions. Though young and pos­sessed of ev­ery per­son­al ad­van­tage, he was ev­er grave–somber even–de­voured by an un­quench­able thirst for knowl­edge, and cher­ish­ing in the re­cess­es of his heart the hope that he might be­come a great and pow­er­ful ruler of a free and en­light­ened peo­ple.

Still, for long the love of sci­ence tri­umphed over all oth­er feel­ings. He be­came an artist deeply im­pressed by the mar­vels of art, a philoso­pher to whom no one of the high­er sci­ences was un­known, a states­man versed in the pol­icy of Eu­ro­pean courts. To the eyes of those who ob­served him su­per­fi­cial­ly he might have passed for one of those cos­mopoli­tans, cu­ri­ous of knowl­edge, but dis­dain­ing ac­tion; one of those op­ulent trav­el­ers, haughty and cyn­ical, who move in­ces­sant­ly from place to place, and are of no coun­try.

The his­to­ry of Cap­tain Nemo has, in fact, been pub­lished un­der the ti­tle of “Twen­ty Thou­sand Leagues Un­der the Sea.” Here, there­fore, will ap­ply the ob­ser­va­tion al­ready made as to the ad­ven­tures of Ayr­ton with re­gard to the dis­crep­an­cy of dates. Read­ers should there­fore re­fer to the note al­ready pub­lished on this point.

This artist, this philoso­pher, this man was, how­ev­er, still cher­ish­ing the hope in­stilled in­to him from his ear­li­est days.

Prince Dakkar re­turned to Bun­delkund in the year 1849. He mar­ried a no­ble In­di­an la­dy, who was im­bued with an am­bi­tion not less ar­dent than that by which he was in­spired. Two chil­dren were born to them, whom they ten­der­ly loved. But do­mes­tic hap­pi­ness did not pre­vent him from seek­ing to car­ry out the ob­ject at which he aimed. He wait­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty. At length, as he vain­ly fan­cied, it pre­sent­ed it­self.

In­sti­gat­ed by princes equal­ly am­bi­tious and less saga­cious and more un­scrupu­lous than he was, the peo­ple of In­dia were per­suad­ed that they might suc­cess­ful­ly rise against their En­glish rulers, who had brought them out of a state of an­ar­chy and con­stant war­fare and mis­ery, and had es­tab­lished peace and pros­per­ity in their coun­try. Their ig­no­rance and gross su­per­sti­tion made them the facile tools of their de­sign­ing chiefs.

In 1857 the great se­poy re­volt broke out. Prince Dakkar, un­der the be­lief that he should there­by have the op­por­tu­ni­ty of at­tain­ing the ob­ject of his long-​cher­ished am­bi­tion, was eas­ily drawn in­to it. He forth­with 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 life equal­ly with the hum­blest of the wretched and mis­guid­ed fa­nat­ics; he was ten times wound­ed in twen­ty en­gage­ments, seek­ing death but find­ing it not, but at length the san­guinary rebels were ut­ter­ly de­feat­ed, and the atro­cious 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 from with­out, the in­flu­ence and suprema­cy in Asia of the Unit­ed King­dom would have been a thing of the past.

The name of Prince Dakkar was at that time well known. He had fought open­ly and with­out con­ceal­ment. A price was set up­on his head, but he man­aged to es­cape from his pur­suers.

Civ­iliza­tion nev­er re­cedes; the law of ne­ces­si­ty ev­er forces it on­wards. The se­poys were van­quished, and the land of the ra­jahs of old fell again un­der the rule of Eng­land.

Prince Dakkar, un­able to find that death he court­ed, re­turned to the moun­tain fast­ness­es of Bun­delkund. There, alone in the world, over­come by dis­ap­point­ment at the de­struc­tion of all his vain hopes, a prey to pro­found dis­gust for all hu­man be­ings, filled with ha­tred of the civ­ilized world, he re­al­ized the wreck of his for­tune, as­sem­bled some score of his most faith­ful com­pan­ions, and one day dis­ap­peared, leav­ing no trace be­hind.

Where, then, did he seek that lib­er­ty de­nied him up­on the in­hab­it­ed earth? Un­der the waves, in the depths of the ocean, where none could fol­low.

The war­rior be­came the man of sci­ence. Up­on a de­sert­ed is­land of the Pa­cif­ic he es­tab­lished his dock­yard, and there a sub­ma­rine ves­sel was con­struct­ed from his de­signs. By meth­ods which will at some fu­ture day be re­vealed he had ren­dered sub­servient the il­lim­itable forces of elec­tric­ity, which, ex­tract­ed from in­ex­haustible sources, was em­ployed for all the re­quire­ments of his float­ing equipage, as a mov­ing, light­ing, and heat­ing agent. The sea, with its count­less trea­sures, its myr­iads of fish, its num­ber­less wrecks, its enor­mous mam­malia, and not on­ly all that na­ture sup­plied, but al­so all that man had lost in its depths, suf­ficed for ev­ery want of the prince and his crew–and thus was his most ar­dent de­sire ac­com­plished, nev­er again to hold com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the earth. He named his sub­ma­rine ves­sel the “Nau­tilus,” called him­self sim­ply Cap­tain Nemo, and dis­ap­peared be­neath the seas.

Dur­ing many years this strange be­ing vis­it­ed ev­ery ocean, from pole to pole. Out­cast of the in­hab­it­ed earth in these un­known worlds he gath­ered in­cal­cu­la­ble trea­sures. The mil­lions lost in the Bay of Vi­go, in 1702, by the galleons of Spain, fur­nished him with a mine of in­ex­haustible rich­es which he de­vot­ed al­ways, anony­mous­ly, in fa­vor of those na­tions who fought for the in­de­pen­dence of their coun­try.

(This refers to the res­ur­rec­tion of the Can­diotes, who were, in

fact, large­ly as­sist­ed by Cap­tain Nemo.)

For long, how­ev­er, he had held no com­mu­ni­ca­tion with his fel­low- 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 hurled over­board by a col­li­sion which had tak­en place be­tween the “Nau­tilus” and the Unit­ed States frigate “Abra­ham Lin­coln,” which had chased her.

Cap­tain Nemo learned from this pro­fes­sor that the “Nau­tilus,” tak­en now for a gi­gan­tic mam­mal of the whale species, now for a sub­ma­rine ves­sel car­ry­ing a crew of pi­rates, was sought for in ev­ery sea.

He might have re­turned these three men to the ocean, from whence chance had brought them in con­tact with his mys­te­ri­ous ex­is­tence. In­stead of do­ing this he kept them pris­on­ers, and dur­ing sev­en months they were en­abled to be­hold all the won­ders of a voy­age of twen­ty thou­sand leagues un­der the sea.

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. He was un­aware that the French­man and his two com­pan­ions had been mirac­ulous­ly cast on shore, that the fish­er­men of the Lo­foten Is­lands had ren­dered them as­sis­tance, and that the pro­fes­sor, on his re­turn to France, had pub­lished that work in which sev­en months of the strange and event­ful nav­iga­tion of the “Nau­tilus” were nar­rat­ed and ex­posed to the cu­rios­ity of the pub­lic.

For a long time al­ter this, Cap­tain Nemo con­tin­ued to live thus, travers­ing ev­ery sea. But one by one his com­pan­ions died, and found their last rest­ing-​place in their ceme­tery of coral, in the bed of the Pa­cif­ic. At last Cap­tain Nemo re­mained the soli­tary sur­vivor of all those who had tak­en refuge with him in the depths of the ocean.

He was now six­ty years of age. Al­though alone, he suc­ceed­ed in nav­igat­ing the “Nau­tilus” to­wards one of those sub­ma­rine cav­erns which had some­times served him as a har­bor.

One of these ports was hol­lowed be­neath Lin­coln Is­land, and at this mo­ment fur­nished an asy­lum to the “Nau­tilus.”

The cap­tain had now re­mained there six years, nav­igat­ing the ocean no longer, but await­ing death, and that mo­ment when he should re­join his for­mer com­pan­ions, when by chance he ob­served the de­scent of the bal­loon which car­ried the pris­on­ers of the Con­fed­er­ates. Clad in his div­ing dress he was walk­ing be­neath the wa­ter at a few ca­bles’ length from the shore of the is­land, when the en­gi­neer had been thrown in­to the sea. 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 har­bor refuge was closed, for in con­se­quence of an el­eva­tion of the basalt, pro­duced by the in­flu­ence of vol­canic ac­tion, he could no longer pass through the en­trance of the vault. Though there was suf­fi­cient depth of wa­ter to al­low a light craft to pass the bar, there was not enough for the “Nau­tilus,” whose draught of wa­ter was con­sid­er­able.

Cap­tain Nemo was com­pelled, there­fore, to re­main. He ob­served these men thrown with­out re­sources up­on a desert is­land, but had no wish to be him­self dis­cov­ered by them. By de­grees he be­came in­ter­est­ed in their ef­forts when he saw them hon­est, en­er­get­ic, and bound to each oth­er by the ties of friend­ship. As if de­spite his wish­es, he pen­etrat­ed all the se­crets of their ex­is­tence. By means of the div­ing dress he could eas­ily reach the well in the in­te­ri­or of Gran­ite House, and climb­ing by the pro­jec­tions of rock to its up­per ori­fice he heard the colonists as they re­count­ed the past, and stud­ied the present and fu­ture. He learned from them the tremen­dous con­flict of Amer­ica with Amer­ica it­self, for the abo­li­tion of slav­ery. Yes, these men were wor­thy to rec­on­cile Cap­tain Nemo with that hu­man­ity which they rep­re­sent­ed so nobly in the is­land.

Cap­tain Nemo had saved Cyrus Hard­ing. It was he al­so who had brought back the dog to the Chim­neys, who res­cued Top from the wa­ters of the lake, who caused to fall at Flot­sam Point the case con­tain­ing so many things use­ful to the colonists, who con­veyed the ca­noe back in­to the stream of the Mer­cy, who cast the cord from the top of Gran­ite House at the time of the at­tack by the ba­boons, who made known the pres­ence of Ayr­ton up­on Ta­bor Is­land, by means of the doc­ument en­closed in the bot­tle, who caused the ex­plo­sion of the brig by the shock of a tor­pe­do placed at the bot­tom of the canal, who saved Her­bert from cer­tain death by bring­ing the sul­phate of qui­nine; and fi­nal­ly, it was he who had killed the con­victs with the elec­tric balls, of which he pos­sessed the se­cret, and which he em­ployed in the chase of sub­ma­rine crea­tures. Thus were ex­plained so many ap­par­ent­ly su­per­nat­ural oc­cur­rences, and which 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 are aware, the colonists of Gran­ite House to vis­it the “Nau­tilus,” by means of a wire which con­nect­ed it with the cor­ral. Pos­si­bly he would not have done this had he been aware that Cyrus Hard­ing was suf­fi­cient­ly ac­quaint­ed with his his­to­ry to ad­dress him by the name of Nemo.

The cap­tain con­clud­ed the nar­ra­tive of his life. Cyrus Hard­ing then spoke; he re­called all the in­ci­dents which had ex­er­cised so benef­icent an in­flu­ence up­on the colony, and in the names of his com­pan­ions and him­self thanked the gen­er­ous be­ing to whom they owed so much.

But Cap­tain Nemo paid lit­tle at­ten­tion; his mind ap­peared to be ab­sorbed by 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 in­ci­dent wit­nessed by the three strangers thrown on board his ves­sel, and which the French pro­fes­sor had re­lat­ed in his work, caus­ing a pro­found and ter­ri­ble sen­sa­tion. Some days pre­vi­ous to the flight of the pro­fes­sor and his two com­pan­ions, the “Nau­tilus,” be­ing chased by a frigate in the north 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 an in­stant in­to the Prince Dakkar, “an en­emy’s frigate! It was she who at­tacked me–I was in a nar­row and shal­low bay–the frigate barred my way– 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 replied grave­ly, “Sir, your er­ror was in sup­pos­ing that the past can be re­sus­ci­tat­ed, and in con­tend­ing against in­evitable progress. It is one of those er­rors which some ad­mire, oth­ers blame; which God alone can judge. He who is mis­tak­en in an ac­tion which he sin­cere­ly be­lieves to be right may be an en­emy, but re­tains our es­teem. Your er­ror is one that we may ad­mire, and your name has noth­ing to fear from the judg­ment of his­to­ry, which does not con­demn hero­ic fol­ly, but its re­sults.”

The old man’s breast swelled with emo­tion, and rais­ing his hand to heav­en,–

“Was I wrong, or in the right?” he mur­mured.

Cyrus Hard­ing replied, “All great ac­tions re­turn to God, from whom they are de­rived. Cap­tain Nemo, we, whom you have suc­cored, shall ev­er mourn your loss.”

Her­bert, who had drawn near the cap­tain, fell on his knees and kissed his hand.

A tear glis­tened in the eyes of the dy­ing man. “My child,” he said, “may God bless you!”