I leant over him. He was not only ill, he was wounded. His head, swathed in bandages covered with blood, lay on a pillow. I undid the bandages, and the wounded man looked at me with his large eyes and gave no sign of pain as I did it. It was a horrible wound. The skull, shattered by some deadly weapon, left the brain exposed, which was much injured. Clots of blood had formed in the bruised and broken mass, in colour like the dregs of wine.

There was both contusion and suffusion of the brain. His breathing was slow, and some spasmodic movements of the muscles agitated his face. I felt his pulse. It was intermittent. The extremities of the body were growing cold already, and I saw death must inevitably ensue. After dressing the unfortunate man’s wounds, I readjusted the bandages on his head, and turned to Captain Nemo.

“What caused this wound?” I asked.

“What does it signify?” he replied, evasively. “A shock has broken one of the levers of the engine, which struck myself. But your opinion as to his state?”

I hesitated before giving it.

“You may speak,” said the Captain. “This man does not understand French.”

I gave a last look at at the wounded man.

“He will be dead in two hours.”

“Can nothing save him?”

“Nothing.”

Captain Nemo’s hand contracted, and some tears glistened in his eyes, which I thought incapable of shedding any.

For some moments I still watched the dying man, whose life ebbed slowly. His pallor increased under the electric light that was shed over his death-bed. I looked at his intelligent forehead, furrowed with premature wrinkles, produced probably by misfortune and sorrow. I tried to learn the secret of his life from the last words that escaped his lips.

“You can go now, M. Aronnax,” said the Captain.

I left him in the dying man’s cabin, and returned to my room much affected by this scene. During the whole day, I was haunted by uncomfortable suspicions, and at night I slept badly, and between my broken dreams I fancied I heard distant sighs like the notes of a funeral psalm. Were they the prayers of the dead, murmured in that language that I could not understand?

The next morning I went on to the bridge. Captain Nemo was there before me. As soon as he perceived me he came to me.

“Professor, will it be convenient to you to make a submarine excursion to-day?”

“With my companions?” I asked.

“If they like.”

“We obey your orders, Captain.”

“Will you be so good then as to put on your cork jackets?”

It was not a question of dead or dying. I rejoined Ned Land and Conseil, and told them of Captain Nemo’s proposition. Conseil hastened to accept it, and this time the Canadian seemed quite willing to follow our example.

It was eight o’clock in the morning. At half-past eight we were equipped for this new excursion, and provided with two contrivances for light and breathing. The double door was open; and, accompanied by Captain Nemo, who was followed by a dozen of the crew, we set foot, at a depth of about thirty feet, on the solid bottom on which the Nautilus rested.

“Well,” I said, “these are proper caverns for poulps, and I should not be astonished to see some of these monsters.”

“What!” said Conseil; “cuttlefish, real cuttlefish of the cephalopod class?”

“No,” I said, “poulps of huge dimensions.”

“I will never believe that such animals exist,” said Ned.

“Well,” said Conseil, with the most serious air in the world, “I remember perfectly to have seen a large vessel drawn under the waves by an octopus’s arm.”

“You saw that?” said the Canadian.

“Yes, Ned.”

“With your own eyes?”

“With my own eyes.”

“Where, pray, might that be?”

“At St. Malo,” answered Conseil.

“In the port?” said Ned, ironically.

“No; in a church,” replied Conseil.

“In a church!” cried the Canadian.

“Yes; friend Ned. In a picture representing the poulp in question.”

“Good!” said Ned Land, bursting out laughing.

“He is quite right,” I said. “I have heard of this picture; but the subject represented is taken from a legend, and you know what to think of legends in the matter of natural history. Besides, when it is a question of monsters, the imagination is apt to run wild. Not only is it supposed that these poulps can draw down vessels, but a certain Olaus Magnus speaks of an octopus a mile long that is more like an island than an animal. It is also said that the Bishop of Nidros was building an altar on an immense rock. Mass finished, the rock began to walk, and returned to the sea. The rock was a poulp. Another Bishop, Pontoppidan, speaks also of a poulp on which a regiment of cavalry could manoeuvre. Lastly, the ancient naturalists speak of monsters whose mouths were like gulfs, and which were too large to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar.”

“But how much is true of these stories?” asked Conseil.

“Nothing, my friends; at least of that which passes the limit of truth to get to fable or legend. Nevertheless, there must be some ground for the imagination of the story-tellers. One cannot deny that poulps and cuttlefish exist of a large species, inferior, however, to the cetaceans. Aristotle has stated the dimensions of a cuttlefish as five cubits, or nine feet two inches. Our fishermen frequently see some that are more than four feet long. Some skeletons of poulps are preserved in the museums of Trieste and Montpelier, that measure two yards in length. Besides, according to the calculations of some naturalists, one of these animals only six feet long would have tentacles twenty-seven feet long. That would suffice to make a formidable monster.”

“Do they fish for them in these days?” asked Ned.

“If they do not fish for them, sailors see them at least. One of my friends, Captain Paul Bos of Havre, has often affirmed that he met one of these monsters of colossal dimensions in the Indian seas. But the most astonishing fact, and which does not permit of the denial of the existence of these gigantic animals, happened some years ago, in 1861.”