One day, the 22nd of June, 1867, these three men, who knew nothing of the past history of Captain Nemo, succeeded in escaping in one of the "Nautilus's" boats.But as at this time the "Nautilus" was drawn into the vortex of the maelstrom, off the coast of Norway, the captain naturally believed that the fugitives, engulfed in that frightful whirlpool, found their death at the bottom of the abyss.He was unaware that the Frenchman and his two companions had been miraculously cast on shore, that the fishermen of the Lofoten Islands had rendered them assistance, and that the professor, on his return to France, had published that work in which seven months of the strange and eventful navigation of the "Nautilus" were narrated and exposed to the curiosity of the public.
For a long time alter this, Captain Nemo continued to live thus, traversing every sea.But one by one his companions died, and found their last resting-place in their cemetery of coral, in the bed of the Pacific.
At last Captain Nemo remained the solitary survivor of all those who had taken refuge with him in the depths of the ocean.
He was now sixty years of age.Although alone, he succeeded in navigating the "Nautilus" towards one of those submarine caverns which had sometimes served him as a harbor.
One of these ports was hollowed beneath Lincoln Island, and at this moment furnished an asylum to the "Nautilus."The captain had now remained there six years, navigating the ocean no longer, but awaiting death, and that moment when he should rejoin his former companions, when by chance he observed the descent of the balloon which carried the prisoners of the Confederates.Clad in his diving dress he was walking beneath the water at a few cables' length from the shore of the island, when the engineer had been thrown into the sea.Moved by a feeling of compassion the captain saved Cyrus Harding.
His first impulse was to fly from the vicinity of the five castaways; but his harbor refuge was closed, for in consequence of an elevation of the basalt, produced by the influence of volcanic action, he could no longer pass through the entrance of the vault.Though there was sufficient depth of water to allow a light craft to pass the bar, there was not enough for the "Nautilus," whose draught of water was considerable.
Captain Nemo was compelled, therefore, to remain.He observed these men thrown without resources upon a desert island, but had no wish to be himself discovered by them.By degrees he became interested in their efforts when he saw them honest, energetic, and bound to each other by the ties of friendship.As if despite his wishes, he penetrated all the secrets of their existence.By means of the diving dress he could easily reach the well in the interior of Granite House, and climbing by the projections of rock to its upper orifice he heard the colonists as they recounted the past, and studied the present and future.He learned from them the tremendous conflict of America with America itself, for the abolition of slavery.Yes, these men were worthy to reconcile Captain Nemo with that humanity which they represented so nobly in the island.