After all, as Conseil said, we enjoyed perfect liberty, we were delicately and abundantly fed. Our host kept to his terms of the treaty. We could not complain, and, indeed, the singularity of our fate reserved such wonderful compensation for us, that we had no right to accuse it as yet. That day I commenced the journal of these adventures which has enabled me to relate them with more scrupulous exactitude and minute detail. I wrote it on paper made from the zostera marina. 11th November, early in the morning. The fresh air spreading over the interior of the _Nautilus_ told me that we had come to the surface of the ocean to renew our supply of oxygen. I directed my steps to the central staircase, and mounted the platform. It was six o’clock, the weather was cloudy, the sea grey but calm. Scarcely a billow. Captain Nemo, whom I hoped to meet, would he be there? I saw no one but the steersman imprisoned in his glass cage. Seated upon the projection formed by the hull of the pinnace, I inhaled the salt breeze with delight. By degrees the fog disappeared under the action of the sun’s rays, the radiant orb rose from behind the eastern horizon. The sea flamed under its glance like a train of gunpowder. The clouds scattered in the heights were coloured with lively tints of beautiful shades, and numerous “mare’s tails,” which betokened wind for that day. But what was wind to this _Nautilus_ which tempests could not frighten! I was admiring this joyous rising of the sun, so gay, and so lifegiving, when I heard steps approaching the platform. I was prepared to salute Captain Nemo, but it was his second (whom I had already seen on the Captain’s first visit) who appeared. He advanced on the platform, not seeming to see me. With his powerful glass to his eye he scanned every point of the horizon with great attention. This examination over, he approached the panel and pronounced a sentence in exactly these terms. I have remembered it, for every morning it was repeated under exactly the same conditions. It was thus worded— “Nautron respoc lorni virch.” What it meant I could not say. These words pronounced, the second descended. I thought that the _Nautilus_ was about to return to its submarine navigation. I regained the panel and returned to my chamber. Five days sped thus, without any change in our situation. Every morning I mounted the platform. The same phrase was pronounced by the same individual. But Captain Nemo did not appear. I had made up my mind that I should never see him again, when, on the 16th November, on returning to my room with Ned and Conseil, I found upon my table a note addressed to me. I opened it impatiently. It was written in a bold, clear hand, the characters rather pointed, recalling the German type. The note was worded as follows— 16th of _November_, 1867. TO PROFESSOR ARONNAX, On board the _Nautilus_.