By six o’clock in the evening, we were back on the beach. The skiff was aground in its usual place. The Nautilus, looking like a long reef, emerged from the waves two miles offshore. Without further ado, Ned Land got down to the important business of dinner. He came wonderfully to terms with its entire cooking. Grilling over the coals, those cutlets from the “bari-outang” soon gave off a succulent aroma that perfumed the air. But I catch myself following in the Canadian’s footsteps. Look at me—in ecstasy over freshly grilled pork! Please grant me a pardon as I’ve already granted one to Mr. Land, and on the same grounds! In short, dinner was excellent. Two ringdoves rounded out this extraordinary menu. Sago pasta, bread from the artocarpus, mangoes, half a dozen pineapples, and the fermented liquor from certain coconuts heightened our glee. I suspect that my two fine companions weren’t quite as clearheaded as one could wish. “What if we don’t return to the Nautilus this evening?” Conseil said. “What if we never return to it?” Ned Land added. Just then a stone whizzed toward us, landed at our feet, and cut short the harpooner’s proposition. CHAPTER 22 The Lightning Bolts of Captain Nemo WITHOUT STANDING UP, we stared in the direction of the forest, my hand stopping halfway to my mouth, Ned Land’s completing its assignment. “Stones don’t fall from the sky,” Conseil said, “or else they deserve to be called meteorites.” A second well-polished stone removed a tasty ringdove leg from Conseil’s hand, giving still greater relevance to his observation. We all three stood up, rifles to our shoulders, ready to answer any attack. “Apes maybe?” Ned Land exclaimed. “Nearly,” Conseil replied. “Savages.” “Head for the skiff!” I said, moving toward the sea. Indeed, it was essential to beat a retreat because some twenty natives, armed with bows and slings, appeared barely a hundred paces off, on the outskirts of a thicket that masked the horizon to our right. The skiff was aground ten fathoms away from us. The savages approached without running, but they favored us with a show of the greatest hostility. It was raining stones and arrows. Ned Land was unwilling to leave his provisions behind, and despite the impending danger, he clutched his pig on one side, his kangaroos on the other, and scampered off with respectable speed. In two minutes we were on the strand. Loading provisions and weapons into the skiff, pushing it to sea, and positioning its two oars were the work of an instant. We hadn’t gone two cable lengths when a hundred savages, howling and gesticulating, entered the water up to their waists. I looked to see if their appearance might draw some of the Nautilus’s men onto the platform. But no. Lying well out, that enormous machine still seemed completely deserted. Twenty minutes later we boarded ship. The hatches were open. After mooring the skiff, we reentered the Nautilus’s interior.