In Search of the Castaways / A Romantic Narrative of the Loss of Captain Grant of the Brig Britannia and of the Adventures of His Children and Friends in His Discovery and Rescue

by Jules Verne

"Because you are turning your back upon the Indian peninsula."

"How? Captain Burton——"

"I am not Captain Burton," replied John Mangles.

"But the Scotia?"

"This vessel is not the Scotia."

Paganel's amazement cannot be depicted. He looked first at Lord Glenarvan, always serious; then at Lady Helena and Miss Grant, whose features expressed a sympathetic disappointment; and finally at Captain Mangles, who was smiling, and the imperturbable major. Then, raising his shoulders and drawing down his glasses from his forehead to his eyes, he exclaimed,—

"What a joke!"

But at that his eyes fell upon the steering wheel, on which were inscribed these two words, thus:

"The Duncan! the Duncan!" he cried in a tone of real despair; and, leaping down the companion-way, he rushed to his cabin.