SECOND PART
CHAPTER 21: A Mass Execution
(continued)
Near four o'clock in the afternoon, unable to control the impatience
and uneasiness devouring me, I went back to the central companionway.
The hatch was open. I ventured onto the platform. The captain was
still strolling there, his steps agitated. He stared at the ship,
which stayed to his leeward five or six miles off. He was circling it
like a wild beast, drawing it eastward, letting it chase after him.
Yet he didn't attack. Was he, perhaps, still undecided?
I tried to intervene one last time. But I had barely queried
Captain Nemo when the latter silenced me:
"I'm the law, I'm the tribunal! I'm the oppressed, and there
are my oppressors! Thanks to them, I've witnessed the destruction
of everything I loved, cherished, and venerated--homeland, wife,
children, father, and mother! There lies everything I hate!
Not another word out of you!"
I took a last look at the battleship, which was putting on steam.
Then I rejoined Ned and Conseil.
"We'll escape!" I exclaimed.
"Good," Ned put in. "Where's that ship from?"
"I've no idea. But wherever it's from, it will sink before nightfall.
In any event, it's better to perish with it than be accomplices
in some act of revenge whose merits we can't gauge."
"That's my feeling," Ned Land replied coolly. "Let's wait for nightfall."
Night fell. A profound silence reigned on board. The compass
indicated that the Nautilus hadn't changed direction. I could hear
the beat of its propeller, churning the waves with steady speed.
Staying on the surface of the water, it rolled gently, sometimes to
one side, sometimes to the other.
My companions and I had decided to escape as soon as the vessel came
close enough for us to be heard--or seen, because the moon would wax
full in three days and was shining brightly. Once we were aboard
that ship, if we couldn't ward off the blow that threatened it,
at least we could do everything that circumstances permitted.
Several times I thought the Nautilus was about to attack.
But it was content to let its adversary approach, and then it would
quickly resume its retreating ways.
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