“Yes,” Ned Land went on. “You can repay your debt by coming with me when I leave this infernal Nautilus.”
“By the way,” Conseil said, “are we going in a favorable direction?”
“Yes,” I replied, “because we’re going in the direction of the sun, and here the sun is due north.”
“Sure,” Ned Land went on, “but it remains to be seen whether we’ll make for the Atlantic or the Pacific, in other words, whether we’ll end up in well-traveled or deserted seas.”
I had no reply to this, and I feared that Captain Nemo wouldn’t take us homeward but rather into that huge ocean washing the shores of both Asia and America. In this way he would complete his underwater tour of the world, going back to those seas where the Nautilus enjoyed the greatest freedom. But if we returned to the Pacific, far from every populated shore, what would happen to Ned Land’s plans?
We would soon settle this important point. The Nautilus traveled swiftly. Soon we had cleared the Antarctic Circle plus the promontory of Cape Horn. We were abreast of the tip of South America by March 31 at seven o’clock in the evening.
By then all our past sufferings were forgotten. The memory of that imprisonment under the ice faded from our minds. We had thoughts only of the future. Captain Nemo no longer appeared, neither in the lounge nor on the platform. The positions reported each day on the world map were put there by the chief officer, and they enabled me to determine the Nautilus’s exact heading. Now then, that evening it became obvious, much to my satisfaction, that we were returning north by the Atlantic route.
I shared the results of my observations with the Canadian and Conseil.
“That’s good news,” the Canadian replied, “but where’s the Nautilus going?”
“I’m unable to say, Ned.”