FIRST PART
CHAPTER 15: An Invitation in Writing
(continued)
I was prepared to greet Captain Nemo, but it was his chief
officer who appeared--whom I had already met during our first
visit with the captain. He advanced over the platform,
not seeming to notice my presence. A powerful spyglass to his eye,
he scrutinized every point of the horizon with the utmost care.
Then, his examination over, he approached the hatch and pronounced
a phrase whose exact wording follows below. I remember it because,
every morning, it was repeated under the same circumstances.
It ran like this:
"Nautron respoc lorni virch."
What it meant I was unable to say.
These words pronounced, the chief officer went below again.
I thought the Nautilus was about to resume its underwater navigating.
So I went down the hatch and back through the gangways to my stateroom.
Five days passed in this way with no change in our situation.
Every morning I climbed onto the platform. The same phrase was
pronounced by the same individual. Captain Nemo did not appear.
I was pursuing the policy that we had seen the last of him,
when on November 16, while reentering my stateroom with Ned
and Conseil, I found a note addressed to me on the table.
I opened it impatiently. It was written in a script that was clear
and neat but a bit "Old English" in style, its characters reminding
me of German calligraphy.
The note was worded as follows:
Professor Aronnax
Aboard the Nautilus
November 16, 1867
Captain Nemo invites Professor Aronnax on a hunting trip that
will take place tomorrow morning in his Crespo Island forests.
He hopes nothing will prevent the professor from attending, and he looks
forward with pleasure to the professor's companions joining him.
CAPTAIN NEMO,
Commander of the Nautilus.
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