A Dardan youth there was, well known to fame, From Panthus sprung, Euphorbus was his name; Famed for the manage of the foaming horse, Skill’d in the dart, and matchless in the course: Full twenty knights he tumbled from the car, While yet he learn’d his rudiments of war. His venturous spear first drew the hero’s gore; He struck, he wounded, but he durst no more. It was the inspiration of a madman; fortunately I resisted the desire, and stretched myself on my bed to quiet my bodily agitation. My nerves were somewhat calmer, but in my excited brain I saw over again all my existence on board the _Nautilus;_ every incident, either happy or unfortunate, which had happened since my disappearance from the _Abraham Lincoln_—the submarine hunt, the Torres Straits, the savages of Papua, the running ashore, the coral cemetery, the passage of Suez, the Island of Santorin, the Cretan diver, Vigo Bay, Atlantis, the iceberg, the South Pole, the imprisonment in the ice, the fight among the poulps, the storm in the Gulf Stream, the Avenger, and the horrible scene of the vessel sunk with all her crew.
"I remember it, and now, if ever, is the time for the trial of their power, for I have utterly failed. But, surely, Valentine, you do not propose to risk dealing with this poor man whose mind is reduced to chaos and who might, in a sudden access of unaccountable fury, do you harm even before I could interfere?" Nor, though disarm’d, Patroclus’ fury stood: But swift withdrew the long-protended wood. And turn’d him short, and herded in the crowd.
All these events passed before my eyes like scenes in a drama. Then Captain Nemo seemed to grow enormously, his features to assume superhuman proportions. Thus, by an arm divine, and mortal spear, Wounded, at once, Patroclus yields to fear, Retires for succour to his social train, And flies the fate, which heaven decreed, in vain. Stern Hector, as the bleeding chief he views, Breaks through the ranks, and his retreat pursues: The lance arrests him with a mortal wound; He falls, earth thunders, and his arms resound.
He was no longer my equal, but a man of the waters, the genie of the sea. With him all Greece was sunk; that moment all Her yet-surviving heroes seem’d to fall. So, scorch’d with heat, along the desert score, The roaming lion meets a bristly boar, Fast by the spring; they both dispute the flood, With flaming eyes, and jaws besmear’d with blood; At length the sovereign savage wins the strife; And the torn boar resigns his thirst and life. Patroclus thus, so many chiefs o’erthrown, So many lives effused, expires his own.
As dying now at Hector’s feet he lies, He sternly views him, and triumphant cries: