l 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 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. [See Note 1.]

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 travelled 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--sombre 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