rface, and, taking
their seats, removed their head-cases with a feeling of relief.

The negroes immediately began to row back to the _Searcher_.

Captain Vindex was the first to speak.

"Thank you, my lad," he said, extending his hand to Mont.

"It's nothing," rejoined our hero bluntly; "you saved my life when we
were wrecked, and I have now saved yours with my harpoon. We are equal
now, and I owe you nothing."

A sickly smile sat on the captain's lips for a second, and that was all.

"Lay to it!" he cried to his men. "Pull to the _Searcher_."

At half-past eight in the morning they were again on board of the ship,
having been absent a little more than three hours.

To Mont the captain was more difficult to understand than ever.

He had risked his own life to save that of a poor Indian whom he had
never seen before, and was never likely to see again.

This showed that he could not have a bad heart.

His heart was not entirely dead, whatever his faults might be.

As if the captain guessed Mont's thoughts, he observed to him at the
bottom of the staircase on board the ship:

"That Indian belonged to an oppressed race. I also am one of the
oppressed, and to my last breath I shall continue to be so. You
recognize now the bond of union between us?"

CHAPTER XXVI.

THROUGH THE EARTH.

The ship again continued her way, traveling toward the Persian Gulf.

If Captain Vindex wanted to visit Europe, it was clear that he would
have to go around the Cape of Good Hope, but that did not appear to be
his design.

He went direct to the Red Sea, and, as the Isthmus of Suez was not then
pierced by a canal, there was no outlet to the Mediterranean.

This puzzled the professor very much.

One morning the captain sought his prisoners, and said to the professor:

"To-morrow we shall be in the Mediterranean."

Mr. Woddle looked at him with astonishment.

"Does that surprise you?" he continued, with a smile.

"Certainly it does, though I thought I had given up being astonished
since I have been on board your ship."

"You are a man of science; why should you be astonished?"

"Because you must travel with the speed of lightning almost to East
Africa and round the Cape of Good Hope."

"I did not say I was going to do so," replied the captain.

"You can't go overland, since there is no canal through the Isthmus of
Suez----"

"But one can go under land," interrupted the captain.

"Under land," answered th