and not upon any promise, to keep us with him. But this claim, which openly avowed his intention to keep us prisoners for ever, quite justified our attempt to escape.
I had not seen the captain since our visit to the island of Santorin. Would chance bring us together before we escaped? I desired, and yet feared, the meeting. I listened to hear if he were walking up and down in his room. I heard no sound ; the room must be empty! Then I began to wonder whether he were on board. Since the evening that the boat had left the Nautilius, on some mysterious service, my ideas had been slightly modified concerning him. I fancied, and I wish I could say so, that Captain Nemo still kept up some communication with the earth. Would he never leave the Nautilus altogether? Weeks had passed without our meeting. What did he do in that time? And, while I believed him a prey to misanthropy, might he not be at a distance, carrying out some secret plans?
All these and a thousand similar ideas crowded my brain. Conjecture could be infinite under such circumstances. I was terribly uneasy. The day appeared interminable. The hours struck too slowly for my impatience. My dinner was served as usual in my room. I ate little, I left the table at seven o’clock. One hundred and twenty minutes more separated me, from the moment I was to join Ned Land. My agitation increased: my pulse beat violently, I could not rest a moment. I moved about, in the hope to calm my mind by so doing. The idea of non-success was the least painful of my cares, but the thought of having our enterprise discovered before we quitted the ship; of being arraigned before Captain Nemo, irritated, or what would be even worse, sad at my abandonment of him, made my heart beat painfully.
