No; Captain Nemo was not satisfied with shunning man.
His formidable apparatus not only suited his instinct of freedom,
but perhaps also the design of some terrible retaliation.
At this moment nothing is clear to me; I catch but a glimpse
of light amidst all the darkness, and I must confine myself
to writing as events shall dictate.
That day, the 24th of January, 1868, at noon, the second officer came to take
the altitude of the sun. I mounted the platform, lit a cigar, and watched
the operation. It seemed to me that the man did not understand French;
for several times I made remarks in a loud voice, which must have drawn
from him some involuntary sign of attention, if he had understood them;
but he remained undisturbed and dumb.
As he was taking observations with the sextant, one of the
sailors of the Nautilus (the strong man who had accompanied
us on our first submarine excursion to the Island of Crespo)
came to clean the glasses of the lantern. I examined the fittings
of the apparatus, the strength of which was increased a hundredfold
by lenticular rings, placed similar to those in a lighthouse,
and which projected their brilliance in a horizontal plane.
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