第12章 THE ARABIAN TUNNEL(2)

The coxswain said some words in his outlandish tongue,doubtless warning the men to keep on their guard.

The dugong came within twenty feet of the boat,stopped,sniffed the air briskly with its large nostrils (not pierced at the extremity,but in the upper part of its muzzle).Then,taking a spring,he threw himself upon us.

The pinnace could not avoid the shock,and half upset,shipped at least two tons of water,which had to be emptied;but,thanks to the coxswain,we caught it sideways,not full front,so we were not quite overturned.

While Ned Land,clinging to the bows,belaboured the gigantic animal with blows from his harpoon,the creature's teeth were buried in the gunwale,and it lifted the whole thing out of the water,as a lion does a roebuck.

We were upset over one another,and I know not how the adventure would have ended,if the Canadian,still enraged with the beast,had not struck it to the heart.

I heard its teeth grind on the iron plate,and the dugong disappeared,carrying the harpoon with him.But the barrel soon returned to the surface,and shortly after the body of the animal,turned on its back.

The boat came up with it,took it in tow,and made straight for the Nautilus.

It required tackle of enormous strength to hoist the dugong on to the platform.I t weighed 10,000lb.

The next day,11th February,the larder of the Nautilus was enriched by some more delicate game.Aflight of sea-swallows rested on the Nautilus.

It was a species of the Sterna nilotica,peculiar to Egypt;its beak is black,head grey and pointed,the eye surrounded by white spots,the back,wings,and tail of a greyish colour,the belly and throat white,and claws red.

They also took some dozen of Nile ducks,a wild bird of high flavour,its throat and upper part of the head white with black spots.

About five o'clock in the evening we sighted to the north the Cape of Ras-Mohammed.This cape forms the extremity of Arabia Petraea,comprised between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Acabah.

The Nautilus penetrated into the Straits of Jubal,which leads to the Gulf of Suez.I distinctly saw a high mountain,towering between the two gulfs of Ras-Mohammed.I t was Mount Horeb,that Sinai at the top of which Moses saw God face to face.

At six o'clock the Nautilus,sometimes floating,sometimes immersed,passed some distance from Tor,situated at the end of the bay,the waters of which seemed tinted with red,an observation already made by Captain Nemo.

Then night fell in the midst of a heavy silence,sometimes broken by the cries of the pelican and other night-birds,and the noise of the waves breaking upon the shore,chafing against the rocks,or the panting of some far-off steamer beating the waters of the Gulf with its noisy paddles.

From eight to nine o'clock the Nautilus remained some fathoms under the water.According to my calculation we must have been very near Suez.Through the panel of the saloon I saw the bottom of the rocks brilliantly lit up by our electric lamp.

We seemed to be leaving the Straits behind us more and more.

At a quarter-past nine,the vessel having returned to the surface,I mounted the platform.Most impatient to pass through Captain Nemo's tunnel,I could not stay in one place,so came to breathe the fresh night air.