Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/298

 Captain Nemo’s first words were addressed to the Canadian.

“Thank you, Master Land,” he said.

“It was only a ‘return match,’” said Ned. “I owed you that.”

A wan smile flitted across the captain’s features, and that was all.

“To the Nautilus,” he cried.

The boat flew over the waves. Some minutes later we encountered the dead body of the shark floating on the surface.

In its black marking at the extremities of the fins, I recognised the terrible melanopteron of the Indian Seas, sharks properly so called. Its length was twenty-five feet: its enormous mouth occupied a third of its body. It was a full-grown specimen, as we could perceive by the six rows of teeth, disposed in the form of an isosceles triangle in its upper jaw.

Conseil regarded it from an entirely scientific point of view, and I am sure he classed it, and not without reason, amongst the cartilaginous animals—order of chondropterygians with fixed gills, family selacian—genus sharks.

While I was looking at it, a dozen of its voracious relatives appeared close by; but, without noticing us, they threw themselves upon the corpse, and fought for the fragments.

At half-past nine we were on board the Nautilus again.

There I began to reflect upon the incidents of our excursion to the Manaar Bank. Two reflections suggested themselves at once. One was the unparalleled bravery of Captain Nemo; the other, his devotion to a human being, a representative of the race he shunned. Whatever he