heeding their enormous bulk, or their tremendous “pull” on the vessel.
At length the cachalots fled. The sea became calm again. We ascended to the surface; the panels were opened; we hastened to the platform. The ocean was covered with mutilated bodies. A tremendous explosion could not have had more terrible effects. We were floating surrounded by gigantic corpses. Some cachalots were visible on the horizon in full retreat. The waves were tinged with red for several miles, and we appeared to be sailing in a sea of blood.
Captain Nemo now joined us.
“Well, Master Land!” he said.
“Well, sir!” replied the Canadian, whose ardour had somewhat abated. “It is really a terrible spectacle; but I am not a butcher, myself; I am merely a hunter, and this has been butchery.”
“It was only a massacre of mischievous animals,” replied the captain; “and the Nautilus is not a butcher's knife.”
“T prefer my harpoon,” replied Ned.
“Everyone to his own weapon,” replied the captain, looking steadily at the Canadian.
I was afraid the latter would give way to some violence, which would have deplorable consequences. But his wrath was turned aside by the sight of a whale, which the Nautilus had just reached. The animal had not escaped scot-free from the jaws of the cachalots. I recognised the southern whale by its black and flattened head. Anatomically it is distinguished from the white and the North Cape whales by the joining of the seven cervical vertebræ, and it possesses two more ribs than the others. This unhappy specimen was lying upon its side, the belly bitten to pieces, quite dead.
