ur country, gentlemen," continued the captain;
"your toils are for her prosperity and glory. You are right. One's
native land!--there should one live! there die! And I die far from all I
loved!"

"You have some last wish to transmit," said the engineer with emotion,
"some souvenir to send to those friends you have left in the mountains
of India?"

"No, Captain Harding; no friends remain to me! I am the last of my race,
and to all whom I have known I have long been as are the dead.--But
to return to yourselves. Solitude, isolation, are painful things, and
beyond human endurance. I die of having thought it possible to live
alone! You should, therefore, dare all in the attempt to leave Lincoln
Island, and see once more the land of your birth. I am aware that those
wretches have destroyed the vessel you have built."

"We propose to construct a vessel," said Gideon Spilett, "sufficiently
large to convey us to the nearest land; but if we should succeed, sooner
or later we shall return to Lincoln Island. We are attached to it by too
many recollections ever to forget it."

"It is here that we have known Captain Nemo," said Cyrus Harding.

"It is here only that we can make our home!" added Herbert.

"And here shall I sleep the sleep of eternity, if--" replied the
captain.

He paused for a moment, and, instead of completing the sentence, said
simply,--

"Mr. Harding, I wish to speak with you--alone!"

The engineer's companions, respecting the wish, retired.

Cyrus Harding remained but a few minutes alone with Captain Nemo, and
soon recalled his companions; but he said nothing to them of the private
matters which the dying man had confided to him.

Gideon Spilett now watched the captain with extreme care. It was evident
that he was no longer sustained by his moral energy, which had lost the
power of reaction against his physical weakness.

The day closed without change. The colonists did not quit the "Nautilus"
for a moment. Night arrived, although it was impossible to distinguish
it from day in the cavern.

Captain Nemo suffered no pain, but he was visibly sinking. His noble
features, paled by the approach of death, were perfectly calm. Inaudible
words escaped at intervals from his lips, bearing upon various incidents
of his checkered career. Life was evidently ebbing slowly and his
extremities were already cold.

Once or twice more he spoke to the colonists who stood around him, and
smiled on them with that las