“Sir, you may believe me when I tell you that this piece of iron will navigate neither on nor under the sea again; it is only fit to be sold for its weight. I think, therefore, that the time has come to part company with Captain Nemo.”
“Friend Ned, I do not despair of this stout Nautilus, as you do; and in four days we shall know what to hold to on the Pacific tides. Besides, flight might be possible if we were in sight of the English or Provençal coasts; but on the Papuan shores, it is another thing; and it will be time enough to come to that extremity if the Nautilus does not recover itself again, which I look upon as a grave event.”
“But do they know, at least, how to act circumspectly? There is an island; on that island there are trees; under those trees, terrestrial animals, bearers of cutlets and roast-beef, to which I would willingly give a trial.”
“In this, friend Ned is right,” said Conseil, “and I agree with him. Could not master obtain permission from his friend Captain Nemo to put us on land, if only so as not to lose the habit of treading on the solid parts of our planet?”
“I can ask him, but he will refuse.”
“Will master risk it?” asked Conseil. “And we shall know how to rely upon the captain’s amiability.”
To my great surprise Captain Nemo gave me the permission I asked for, and he gave it very agreeably, without even exacting from me a promise to return to the vessel; but flight across New Guinea might be very perilous, and I should not have counseled Ned Land to attempt it. Better to be a prisoner on board the Nautilus than to fall into the hands of the natives.
At eight o’clock, armed with guns and hatchets, we got off the Nautilus. The sea was pretty calm; a slight breeze blew on land. Conseil and I rowing, we sped along quickly, and Ned steered in the straight passage that the breakers left between them. The boat was well handled, and moved rapidly.
Ned Land could not restrain his joy. He was like a prisoner that had escaped from prison, and knew not that it was necessary to re-enter it.
“Meat! We are going to eat some meat; and what meat!” he replied. “Real game! No, bread, indeed. I do not say that fish is not good; we must not abuse it; but a piece of fresh venison grilled on live coals will agreeably vary our ordinary course.”
“Gourmand!” said Conseil. “He makes my mouth water.”
“It remains to be seen,” I said, “if these forests are full of game, and if the game is not such as will hunt the hunter himself.”
“Well said, M. Aronnax,” replied the Canadian, whose teeth seemed sharpened like the edge of a hatchet; “but I will eat tiger—loin of tiger—if there is no other quadruped on this island.”
“Friend Ned is uneasy about it,” said Conseil.
“Whatever it may be,” continued Ned Land, “every animal with four paws without feathers, or with two paws with feathers, will be saluted by my first shot.”
“Very well! Master Land’s imprudences are beginning.”
“Never fear, M. Aronnax,” replied the Canadian; “I do not want twenty-five minutes to offer you a dish of my sort.”
At half-past eight the Nautilus’ boat ran softly aground, on a heavy sand, after having happily passed the coral reef that surrounds the island of Gilboa.
A Few Days on Land
I was much impressed on touching land. Ned Land tried the soil with his feet, as if to take possession of it. However, it was only two months before that we had become, according to Captain Nemo, “passengers on board the Nautilus,” but, in reality, prisoners of its commander.
In a few minutes we were within musket-shot of the coast. The soil was almost entirely madreporical, but certain beds of dried-up torrents strewn with debris of granite showed that this island was of the primary formation. The whole horizon was hidden behind a beautiful curtain of forests. Enormous trees, the trunks of which attained a height of 200 feet, were tied to each other by garlands of bindweed, real natural hammocks, which a light breeze rocked. They were mimosas, ficuses, casuarinæ, teks, hibisci, and palm trees, mingled together in profusion; and under the shelter of their verdant vault grew orchids, leguminous plants, and ferns.