s
I, and equally at a loss how to account for it.

Meanwhile, I was absorbed in my own reflections, and could think of
nothing but the strange fear depicted in the Captain's countenance. I
was utterly at a loss to account for it, when my cogitations were
disturbed by these words from Ned Land:

"Hallo! breakfast is ready."

And indeed the table was laid. Evidently Captain Nemo had given this
order at the same time that he had hastened the speed of the Nautilus.

"Will master permit me to make a recommendation?" asked Conseil.

"Yes, my boy."

"Well, it is that master breakfasts. It is prudent, for we do not know
what may happen."

"You are right, Conseil."

"Unfortunately," said Ned Land, "they have only given us the ship's
fare."

"Friend Ned," asked Conseil, "what would you have said if the breakfast
had been entirely forgotten?"

This argument cut short the harpooner's recriminations.

We sat down to table. The meal was eaten in silence.

Just then the luminous globe that lighted the cell went out, and left
us in total darkness. Ned Land was soon asleep, and what astonished me
was that Conseil went off into a heavy slumber. I was thinking what
could have caused his irresistible drowsiness, when I felt my brain
becoming stupefied. In spite of my efforts to keep my eyes open, they
would close. A painful suspicion seized me. Evidently soporific
substances had been mixed with the food we had just taken.
Imprisonment was not enough to conceal Captain Nemo's projects from us,
sleep was more necessary. I then heard the panels shut. The
undulations of the sea, which caused a slight rolling motion, ceased.
Had the Nautilus quitted the surface of the ocean? Had it gone back to
the motionless bed of water? I tried to resist sleep. It was
impossible. My breathing grew weak. I felt a mortal cold freeze my
stiffened and half-paralysed limbs. My eye lids, like leaden caps,
fell over my eyes. I could not raise them; a morbid sleep, full of
hallucinations, bereft me of my being. Then the visions disappeared,
and left me in complete insensibility.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE CORAL KINGDOM

The next day I woke with my head singularly clear. To my great
surprise, I was in my own room. My companions, no doubt, had been
reinstated in their cabin, without having perceived it any more than I.
Of what had passed during the night they were as ignorant as I was, and
to penetrate this mystery I only reckone