Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/351

92 I wished to take a last look at the saloon. I gazed at all its riches, and treasured specimens, like one on the brink of exile, and who was never to see these things again. Those marvels of Nature, the masterpieces of Art, amongst which my life had moved on for so long—was I about to abandon them for ever! I wished to take a glance through the windows across the Atlantic waves, but the panels were closed, and an iron cloak separated me from the ocean which I should no longer know.

As I wandered round the saloon, I reached a door that opened into the captain’s room. To my great surprise it was ajar. I drew back involuntarily. If Captain Nemo were in his room, he would see me. However, not hearing any noise, I approached the room—it was empty. I pushed the door and entered. All was still, and plain of aspect as ever.

Just then some engravings, which I had not noticed in my previous visit, attracted my attention. They were portraits of men renowned in history, whose existences have been devoted to some grand aim. Kosciusko, the Pole; Botzaris, the Leonidas of modern Greece; O’Connell, the Irish Patriot; Washington, the founder of the American Republic; Mauin, the Italian Patriot; Lincoln, who fell by the assassin’s bullet; and finally that martyr to the freedom of the black races—John Brown, depicted on the gibbet, as drawn with such terrible truthfulness by Victor Hugo.

What fellow-feeling existed between these heroic souls and the mind of Captain Nemo? Could I now unravel the mystery of his existence! Was he a champion of an oppressed people—the liberator of a race of slaves? Had he taken part in the later political and social commotions of the century? Was he one of the heroes of that terrible, lamentable, yet glorious American war?

The clock struck eight. The sound of the first stroke