By 8:30 we were back on board the Nautilus. There I fell to thinking about the incidents that marked our excursion over the Mannar oysterbank. Two impressions inevitably stood out. One concerned Captain Nemo’s matchless bravery, the other his devotion to a human being, a representative of that race from which he had fled beneath the seas. In spite of everything, this strange man hadn’t yet succeeded in completely stifling his heart. When I shared these impressions with him, he answered me in a tone touched with emotion: “That Indian, professor, lives in the land of the oppressed, and I am to this day, and will be until my last breath, a native of that same land!”

— Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Extraordinary Voyages, #6) by Jules Verne