What charming hours I passed thus at the window of the saloon! What new specimens of submarine flora and fauna did I admire under the brightness of our electric lantern! Broken? We pursued it without relaxation for an hour, and I began to think it would prove difficult to capture, when the animal, possessed with the perverse idea of vengeance, of which he had cause to repent, turned upon the pinnace and assailed us in its turn. I will not forget, sir.
Our course is barred southward? I asked. I have no further objections to make, I answered. I will only ask you one thing, captain-how can you light your road at the bottom of the sea? Yes, I replied, for we are going the way of the sun, and here the sun is in the north. M. Aronnax, an iron vessel costs ?45 per ton. Now the Nautilus weighed 1,500. It came therefore to ?67,500 and ?80,000 more for fitting it up, and about ?200,000 with the works of art and the collections it contains.
At six o'clock in the evening we had regained the shore; our boat was moored to the usual place. The Nautilus, like a long rock, emerged from the waves two miles from the beach. Ned Land, without waiting, occupied himself about the important dinner business. He understood all about cooking well. The bari-outang, grilled on the coals, soon scented the air with a delicious odor. No one knows. For some moments I still watched the dying man, whose life ebbed slowly. His pallor increased under the electric light that was shed over his deathbed. I looked at his intelligent forehead, furrowed with premature wrinkles, produced probably by misfortune and sorrow. I tried to learn the secret of his life from the last words that escaped his lips. Then unless you quite fill the Nautilus, I do not see how you can draw it down to those depths.