so encrusted with shells
that it must have lain there a great many years. As I stood there
wondering what might be Captain Nemo's reason for his manoeuvres, he
came to my side and, speaking slowly, said:

"That was the Marseillais, launched in 1772. It carried seventy-four
guns, and fought gallantly against the Preston, was in action again at
the siege of Granada, and in Chesapeake Bay. Then in 1794 the French
Republic changed the vessel's name, and it joined a squadron at Brest to
escort a cargo of corn coming from America. The squadron fell in with an
English man-o'-war, and seventy-two years ago to this very day, on this
very spot, after fighting heroically, until its masts were shot away,
its hold full of water, and a third of its crew disabled, this vessel
preferred sinking, with its 356 sailors, to surrendering. Nailing its
colours to the mast, it sank beneath the waves to the cry of 'Long live
the Republic!'"

"The Avenger!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, the Avenger. A good name!" said the captain, with a strange
seriousness, as he crossed his arms.

I was deeply impressed with his whole bearing while he recalled these
facts. It was clearly no common spite against his fellow-men that had
shut up Captain Nemo and his crew in the Nautilus.

Already we were ascending, fast leaving the grave of the old Avenger.
When we had reached the surface we could see the other vessel steaming
towards us. A low boom greeted the Nautilus as its upper part showed
above the water. Ned Land, aflame once more with hope of escape, made
out the vessel to be a two-decker ram, but she showed no flag at her
mizzen. It seemed for a moment there might just be some chance of escape
for us three prisoners, and Ned declared he would jump into the sea if
the man-o'-war came within a mile of us. Just then another gun boomed
out. She was firing at us.

It flashed across my mind at that moment that as those on board the
Abraham Lincoln, having once seen the effect of Ned Land's harpoon when
it struck the Nautilus, could not but have concluded their enemy was no
monster of the deep--though indeed a monster of man's contriving--the
warships of all nations would now be on the look-out for the Nautilus,
and we on board it could scarcely hope for mercy.

The shot rattled about us as we stood on the opened upper deck of the
submarine, and Ned Land, in a mad moment, waved his handkerchief to the
enemy, only to be instantly felled by the iron hand of Captain