for hindering them. After
all, these Papuans are poor creatures, and I am unwilling that my visit
to the island should cost the life of a single one of these wretches."

Upon that I was going away; But Captain Nemo detained me, and asked me
to sit down by him. He questioned me with interest about our
excursions on shore, and our hunting; and seemed not to understand the
craving for meat that possessed the Canadian. Then the conversation
turned on various subjects, and, without being more communicative,
Captain Nemo showed himself more amiable.

Amongst other things, we happened to speak of the situation of the
Nautilus, run aground in exactly the same spot in this strait where
Dumont d'Urville was nearly lost. Apropos of this:

"This D'Urville was one of your great sailors," said the Captain to me,
"one of your most intelligent navigators. He is the Captain Cook of
you Frenchmen. Unfortunate man of science, after having braved the
icebergs of the South Pole, the coral reefs of Oceania, the cannibals
of the Pacific, to perish miserably in a railway train! If this
energetic man could have reflected during the last moments of his life,
what must have been uppermost in his last thoughts, do you suppose?"

So speaking, Captain Nemo seemed moved, and his emotion gave me a
better opinion of him. Then, chart in hand, we reviewed the travels of
the French navigator, his voyages of circumnavigation, his double
detention at the South Pole, which led to the discovery of Adelaide and
Louis Philippe, and fixing the hydrographical bearings of the principal
islands of Oceania.

"That which your D'Urville has done on the surface of the seas," said
Captain Nemo, "that have I done under them, and more easily, more
completely than he. The Astrolabe and the Zelee, incessantly tossed
about by the hurricane, could not be worth the Nautilus, quiet
repository of labour that she is, truly motionless in the midst of the
waters.

"To-morrow," added the Captain, rising, "to-morrow, at twenty minutes
to three p.m., the Nautilus shall float, and leave the Strait of Torres
uninjured."

Having curtly pronounced these words, Captain Nemo bowed slightly.
This was to dismiss me, and I went back to my room.

There I found Conseil, who wished to know the result of my interview
with the Captain.

"My boy," said I, "when I feigned to believe that his Nautilus was
threatened by the natives of Papua, the Captain answered me very
sarcastical