Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 5.djvu/139

Rh The captain's fingers were then running over the keys of the instrument, and I remarked that he touched only the black keys, which gave to his melodies an essentially Scotch character. Soon he had forgotten my presence, and had plunged into a reverie that I did not disturb. I went up again on to the platform—night had already fallen; for, in this low latitude, the sun sets rapidly and without twilight. I could only see the island indistinctly; but the numerous fires lighted on the beach showed that the natives did not think of leaving it. I was alone for several hours, sometimes thinking of the natives—but without any dread of them, for the imperturbable confidence of the captain was catching—sometimes forgetting them to admire the splendors of the night. My remembrances went to France, in the train of those zodiacal stars that would shine in some hours' time. The moon shone clearly in the midst of the constellations of the zenith.

The night slipped away without any mischance, the islanders frightened, no doubt, at the sight of a monster aground in the bay. The panels were open, and would have offered an easy access to the interior of the Nautilus.

At six o'clock in the morning of the 8th of January, I went up on to the platform. The dawn was breaking. The island soon showed itself through the dissipating fogs—first the shore, then the summits.

The natives were there, more numerous than on the day before—500 or 600 perhaps—some of them, profiting by the low water, had come on to the coral, at less than two cable-lengths from the Nautilus. I distinguished them easily; they were true Papuans, with athletic figures; men of good race, large high foreheads—large, but not broad, and flat—and white teeth. Their woolly hair, with a reddish tinge, showed off on their black, shining bodies like those of the Nubians. From the lobes of their ears, cut and distended, hung chaplets of bones. Most of these savages were naked. Among them I remarked some women dressed from the hips to the knees in quite a crinoline of herbs, that sustained a vegetable waistband. Some chiefs had ornamented their necks with a crescent and collars of glass beads, red and white; nearly all were armed with bows, arrows, and shields, and carried on their shoulders a sort of net containing those round stones which they cast