I could no longer judge
of the time that was passing. The clocks had been stopped on board.
It seemed, as in polar countries, that night and day no longer followed
their regular course. I felt myself being drawn into that strange
region where the foundered imagination of Edgar Poe roamed at will.
Like the fabulous Gordon Pym, at every moment I expected to see "that veiled
human figure, of larger proportions than those of any inhabitant of the earth,
thrown across the cataract which defends the approach to the pole."
I estimated (though, perhaps, I may be mistaken)--I estimated this
adventurous course of the Nautilus to have lasted fifteen or twenty days.
And I know not how much longer it might have lasted, had it not been
for the catastrophe which ended this voyage. Of Captain Nemo I saw nothing
whatever now, nor of his second. Not a man of the crew was visible for
an instant. The Nautilus was almost incessantly under water. When we came
to the surface to renew the air, the panels opened and shut mechanically.
There were no more marks on the planisphere.
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