Read the passage. What happened that night, how the skiff escaped from the Maelstrom's fearsome eddies, how Ned Land, Conseil, and I got out of that
whirlpool, I'm unable to say. But when I regained consciousness, I was lying in a fisherman's hut on one of the Lofoten Islands. My two companions,
safe and sound, were at my bedside clasping my hands. We embraced each other heartily.
Just now we can't even dream of returning to France. Travel between upper Norway and the south is limited. So I have to wait for the arrival
of a steamboat that provides bimonthly service from North Cape.
So it is here, among these gallant people who have taken us in that I'm reviewing my narrative of these adventures. It is accurate. Not a fact
has been omitted, not a detail has been exaggerated. It's the faithful record of this inconceivable expedition into an element now beyond human
reach, but where progress will someday make great inroads.
Will anyone believe me? I don't know. Ultimately it's unimportant. What I can now assert is that I've earned the right to speak of these seas,
beneath which in less than ten months. I've cleared 20.000 leagues in this underwater tour of the world that has shown me so many wonders
across the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the southernmost and northernmost seas!
(from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne)
Which best explains where the passage belongs in the plot of the story?
1. as part of the exposition, which introduces the main characters, conflict and setting
2 as part of the rising action, which develops characters and intensifies the conflict
3. as part of the climax, which peaks reader emotion by placing the outcome of characters in doubt
04 as part of the falling action, which completes the action started by the dimax