e, bending over his organ, and plunged in a
musical ecstasy.

"Captain!"

He did not hear me.

"Captain!" I said, touching his hand.

He shuddered, and, turning round, said, "Ah! it is you, Professor?
Well, have you had a good hunt, have you botanised successfully?"

"Yes Captain; but we have unfortunately brought a troop of bipeds,
whose vicinity troubles me."

"What bipeds?"

"Savages."

"Savages!" he echoed, ironically. "So you are astonished, Professor,
at having set foot on a strange land and finding savages? Savages!
where are there not any? Besides, are they worse than others, these
whom you call savages?"

"But Captain----"

"How many have you counted?"

"A hundred at least."

"M. Aronnax," replied Captain Nemo, placing his fingers on the organ
stops, "when all the natives of Papua are assembled on this shore, the
Nautilus will have nothing to fear from their attacks."

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 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 splendours of the night in the tropics. My remembrances
went to France in the train of those zodiacal stars that would shine in
some hours' time. The moon shone 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 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--five or
six hundred perhaps--some of them, profiting by the low water, had come
on to the coral, at