ill find upon the water-line. The water will
penetrate into the reservoirs, and the 'Nautilus' will gradually sink
beneath the water to repose at the bottom of the abyss."

And comprehending a gesture of Cyrus Harding, the captain added,--

"Fear nothing! You will but bury a corpse!"

Neither Cyrus Harding nor his companions ventured to offer any
observation to Captain Nemo. He had expressed his last wishes, and they
had nothing to do but to conform to them.

"I have your promise, gentlemen?" added Captain Nemo.

"You have, captain," replied the engineer.

The captain thanked the colonists by a sign, and requested them to leave
him for some hours. Gideon Spilett wished to remain near him, in the
event of a crisis coming on, but the dying man refused, saying, "I shall
live until to-morrow, sir."

All left the saloon, passed through the library and the dining-room, and
arrived forward, in the machine-room where the electrical apparatus was
established, which supplied not only heat and light, but the mechanical
power of the "Nautilus."

The "Nautilus" was a masterpiece containing masterpieces with itself,
and the engineer was struck with astonishment.

The colonists mounted the platform, which rose seven or eight feet above
the water. There they beheld a thick glass lenticular covering, which
protected a kind of large eye, from which flashed forth light. Behind
this eye was apparently a cabin containing the wheels of the rudder, and
in which was stationed the helmsman, when he navigated the "Nautilus"
over the bed of the ocean, which the electric rays would evidently light
up to a considerable distance.

Cyrus Harding and his companions remained for a time silent, for they
were vividly impressed by what they had just seen and heard, and their
hearts were deeply touched by the thought that he whose arm had so often
aided them, the protector whom they had known but a few hours, was at
the point of death.

Whatever might be the judgment pronounced by posterity upon the events
of this, so to speak, extra-human existence, the character of Prince
Dakkar would ever remain as one of those whose memory time can never
efface.

"What a man!" said Pencroft. "Is it possible that he can have lived at
the bottom of the sea? And it seems to me that perhaps he has not found
peace there any more than elsewhere!"

"The 'Nautilus,'" observed Ayrton, "might have enabled us to leave
Lincoln Island and reach some inhabited countr