Seemingly, all supervision had been jettisoned.
Under these conditions I admit that we could easily have gotten away.
In fact, the populous shores offered ready refuge everywhere.
The sea was plowed continuously by the many steamers providing service between the Gulf of Mexico and New York or Boston, and it was crossed night and day by little schooners engaged in coastal trade over various points on the American shore.
We could hope to be picked up.
So it was a promising opportunity, despite the thirty miles that separated the Nautilus from these Union coasts.
But one distressing circumstance totally thwarted the Canadian's plans.
The weather was thoroughly foul.
We were approaching waterways where storms are commonplace, the very homeland of tornadoes and cyclones specifically engendered by the Gulf Stream's current.
To face a frequently raging sea in a frail skiff was a race to certain disaster.
Ned Land conceded this himself.
So he champed at the bit, in the grip of an intense homesickness that could be cured only by our escape.
"Sir," he told me that day, "it's got to stop.
I want to get to the bottom of this.
Your Nemo's veering away from shore and heading up north.
But believe you me, I had my fill at the South Pole and I'm not going with him to the North Pole."
"What can we do, Ned, since it isn't feasible to escape right now?"
"I keep coming back to my idea.
We've got to talk to the captain.
When we were in your own country's seas, you didn't say a word.
Now that we're in mine, I intend to speak up.
Before a few days are out, I figure the Nautilus will lie abreast of Nova Scotia, and from there to Newfoundland is the mouth of a large gulf, and the St. Lawrence empties into that gulf, and the St. Lawrence is my own river, the river running by Quebec, my hometown—and when I think about all this, my gorge rises and my hair stands on end!
Honestly, sir, I'd rather jump overboard!
I can't stay here any longer!
I'm suffocating!"
The Canadian was obviously at the end of his patience.
His vigorous nature couldn't adapt to this protracted imprisonment.
His facial appearance was changing by the day.
His moods grew gloomier and gloomier.
I had a sense of what he was suffering because I also was gripped by homesickness.
Nearly seven months had gone by without our having any news from shore.
Moreover, Captain Nemo's reclusiveness, his changed disposition, and especially his total silence since the battle with the devilfish all made me see things in a different light.
I no longer felt the enthusiasm of our first days on board.
You needed to be Flemish like Conseil to accept these circumstances, living in a habitat designed for cetaceans and other denizens of the deep.
Truly, if that gallant lad had owned gills instead of lungs, I think he would have made an outstanding fish!
"Well, sir?"
Ned Land went on, seeing that I hadn't replied.
"Well, Ned, you want me to ask Captain Nemo what he intends to do with us?"
"Yes, sir."
"Even though he has already made that clear?"
"Yes.
I want it settled once and for all.
Speak just for me, strictly on my behalf, if you want."
"But I rarely encounter him.
He positively avoids me."
"All the more reason you should go look him up."
"I'll confer with him, Ned."
"When?" the Canadian asked insistently.
"When I encounter him."
"Professor Aronnax, would you like me to go find him myself?"