ilus, and took me into
a cabin situated near the sailors' quarters.

There, on a bed, lay a man about forty years of age, with a resolute
expression of countenance, a true type of an Anglo-Saxon.

I leant over him. He was not only ill, he was wounded. His head,
swathed in bandages covered with blood, lay on a pillow. I undid the
bandages, and the wounded man looked at me with his large eyes and gave
no sign of pain as I did it. It was a horrible wound. The skull,
shattered by some deadly weapon, left the brain exposed, which was much
injured. Clots of blood had formed in the bruised and broken mass, in
colour like the dregs of wine.

There was both contusion and suffusion of the brain. His breathing was
slow, and some spasmodic movements of the muscles agitated his face. I
felt his pulse. It was intermittent. The extremities of the body were
growing cold already, and I saw death must inevitably ensue. After
dressing the unfortunate man's wounds, I readjusted the bandages on his
head, and turned to Captain Nemo.

"What caused this wound?" I asked.

"What does it signify?" he replied, evasively. "A shock has broken one
of the levers of the engine, which struck myself. But your opinion as
to his state?"

I hesitated before giving it.

"You may speak," said the Captain. "This man does not understand
French."

I gave a last look at the wounded man.

"He will be dead in two hours."

"Can nothing save him?"

"Nothing."

Captain Nemo's hand contracted, and some tears glistened in his eyes,
which I thought incapable of shedding any.

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 death-bed. 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.

"You can go now, M. Aronnax," said the Captain.

I left him in the dying man's cabin, and returned to my room much
affected by this scene. During the whole day, I was haunted by
uncomfortable suspicions, and at night I slept badly, and between my
broken dreams I fancied I heard distant sighs like the notes of a
funeral psalm. Were they the prayers of the dead, murmured in that
language that I could not understand?

The next morning I went on to the bridge. Captain Nemo was there
before me. As soon as he percei