iness. He understood
all about cooking well. The "bari-outang," grilled on the coals, soon
scented the air with a delicious odour.

Indeed, the dinner was excellent. Two wood-pigeons completed this
extraordinary menu. The sago pasty, the artocarpus bread, some
mangoes, half a dozen pineapples, and the liquor fermented from some
coco-nuts, overjoyed us. I even think that my worthy companions' ideas
had not all the plainness desirable.

"Suppose we do not return to the Nautilus this evening?" said Conseil.

"Suppose we never return?" added Ned Land.

Just then a stone fell at our feet and cut short the harpooner's
proposition.

CHAPTER XXI

CAPTAIN NEMO'S THUNDERBOLT

We looked at the edge of the forest without rising, my hand stopping in
the action of putting it to my mouth, Ned Land's completing its office.

"Stones do not fall from the sky," remarked Conseil, "or they would
merit the name aerolites."

A second stone, carefully aimed, that made a savoury pigeon's leg fall
from Conseil's hand, gave still more weight to his observation. We all
three arose, shouldered our guns, and were ready to reply to any attack.

"Are they apes?" cried Ned Land.

"Very nearly--they are savages."

"To the boat!" I said, hurrying to the sea.

It was indeed necessary to beat a retreat, for about twenty natives
armed with bows and slings appeared on the skirts of a copse that
masked the horizon to the right, hardly a hundred steps from us.

Our boat was moored about sixty feet from us. The savages approached
us, not running, but making hostile demonstrations. Stones and arrows
fell thickly.

Ned Land had not wished to leave his provisions; and, in spite of his
imminent danger, his pig on one side and kangaroos on the other, he
went tolerably fast. In two minutes we were on the shore. To load the
boat with provisions and arms, to push it out to sea, and ship the
oars, was the work of an instant. We had not gone two cable-lengths,
when a hundred savages, howling and gesticulating, entered the water up
to their waists. I watched to see if their apparition would attract
some men from the Nautilus on to the platform. But no. The enormous
machine, lying off, was absolutely deserted.

Twenty minutes later we were on board. The panels were open. After
making the boat fast, we entered into the interior of the Nautilus.

I descended to the drawing-room, from whence I heard some chords.
Captain Nemo was ther