We all three followed in a few seconds, saved by a miracle, and reached the fisherman's boat.
Captain Nemo's first care was to recall the unfortunate man to life again. I did not think he could succeed. I hoped so, for the poor creature's immersion was not long; but the blow from the shark's tail might have been his death-blow.
Happily, with the captain's and Conseil's sharp friction, I saw consciousness return by degrees. He opened his eyes. What was his surprise, his terror even, at seeing four great copper heads leaning over him! And, above all, what must he have thought when Captain Nemo, drawing from the pocket of his dress a bag of pearls, placed it in his hand! This munificent charity from the man of the waters to the poor Cingalese was accepted with a trembling hand. His wondering eyes showed that he knew not to what superhuman beings he owed both this fortune and his life.
At a sign from the captain we regained the bank, and following the road already traversed, came in about half an hour to the anchor which held the canoe of the Nautilus to the earth.
Once on board, we each, with the help of the sailors, got rid of the heavy copper helmets.
Captain Nemo's first word was to the Canadian.
"Thank you, Master Land," said he.
"It was in revenge, captain," replied Ned Land. "I owed you that."
A ghastly smile crossed the captain's lips; that was all.
"To the Nautilus" said he.
The boat flew over the waves. Some minutes after we met the shark's dead body floating. By the black marking of the extremity of its fins, I recognized the terrible melanopteron of the Indian seas, of the species of shark properly so called. It was more than twenty-five feet long; its enormous mouth occupied one-third of its body. It was an adult, as was known by its six rows of teeth placed in an isosceles triangle in the upper jaw.
Conseil looked at it with scientific interest, and I am sure that he placed it, and not without reason, in the cartilaginous class, of the chondropterygian order, with fixed gills, of the selacian family, in the genus of the sharks.
