“It is I,” answered the captain simply.
The engineer and the 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.
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,—
