Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the third chapter of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

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Today we'll be continuing 20,000 leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne chapter three.

A pearl of ten millions the next morning at 04:00 I was awakened by the steward whom Captain Nemo had placed at my service.

I rose hurriedly dressed and went into the saloon.

Captain Nemo was awaiting me.

Monsieur Aaron Axe, said he are you ready to start?

I am ready.

Then please to follow me and my companions, captain.

They have been told and are waiting.

Are we not to put on our divers dresses?

Asked I.

Not yet.

I have not allowed the Nautilus to come too near this coast, and we are some distance from the menar bank.

But the boat is ready and will take us to the exact point of disembarking, which will save us a long way.

It carries our diving apparatus, which we will put on when we begin our submarine journey.

Captain Nemo conducted me to the central staircase, which led on the platform.

Ned and conceal were already there, delighted at the idea of the pleasure party, which was preparing five sailors from the Nautilus with their oars waiting in the boat, which had been made fast against the side.

The night was still dark.

Layers of clouds covered the sky, allowing but few stars to be seen.

I looked on the side where the land lay and saw nothing but a dark line enclosing three parts of the horizon from southwest to northwest.

The Nautilus, having returned during the night up the western coast of Ceylon, was now west of the bay, or rather gulf formed by the mainland and the island of Menar.

There, under the dark waters stretched the pentadine bank, an inexhaustible field of pearls, the length of which is more than 20 miles.

Captain Nemo Ned land conceal and I took our places in the stern of the boat.

The master went to the tiller.

His four companions leaned on their oars.

The painter was cast off, and we sheared off.

The boat went towards the south.

The oarsmen did not hurry.

I noticed that their strokes, strong in the water, only followed each other every 10 seconds according to the method generally adopted in the navy.

Whilst the craft was running by its own velocity, the liquid drops struck the dark depths of the waves crisply, like spats of melted lead.

A little billow, spreading wide gave a slight roll to the boat, and some sapphire reed slapped before it.

We were silent.

What was Captain Nemo thinking of?

Perhaps of the land he was approaching and which he found too near to him, contrary to the canadian's opinion, who thought it too far off as to conceal, he was merely there from curiosity.

30 the first tents on the horizon showed the upper line of coast more distinctly flat enough in the east.

It rose a little to the south, 5 miles to lay between us, and it was indistinct, owing to the mist on the water.

00 it became suddenly daylight, with that rapidity peculiar to tropical regions which know neither dawn nor twilight.

The solar rays pierced the curtain of clouds piled up on the eastern horizon, and the radiant orb rose rapidly.

I saw land distinctly, with a few trees scattered here and there.

The boat neared Menar island, which was rounded to the south.

Captain Nemo rose from his seat and watched the sea.

At a sign from him, the anchor was dropped, but the chain scarcely ran, for it was little more than a yard deep, and this spot was one of the highest points of the bank of Pentadeans.

Here we are, Monser Aranax, said Captain Nemo.

You see that enclosed bay here?

In a month we'll be assembled the numerous fishing boats of the exporters, and these are the waters their divers will ransack so boldly.

Happily, this bay is well situated for that kind of fishing, it is sheltered from the strongest winds.

The sea is never very rough here, which makes it favorable for the divers work.

We will now put on our dresses and begin our walk.

I did not answer, and while watching the suspected waves, began, with the help of the sailors, to put on my heavy sea dress.

Captain Nemo and my companions were also dressing.

None of the Nautilus men were to accompany us on this new excursion.

Soon we were enveloped to the throat in India rubber clothing, the air apparatus fixed to our backs by braces.

As to the Rumcorv apparatus, there was no necessity for it.

Before putting my head into the copper cap, I had asked the question of the captain.

They would be useless, he replied.

We are going to no great depth, and the solar rays will be enough to light our walk.

Besides, it would not be prudent to carry the electric light in these waters.

Its brilliancy might attract some of the dangerous inhabitants of the coast.

Most inopportunely.

As Captain Nemo pronounced these words, I turned to conceal in ned land.

But my two friends had already encased their heads in the metal cap, and they could neither hear nor answer.

One last question remained to ask of Captain Nemo.

And our arms asked I.

Our guns.

Guns?

What for?

Do not mountaineers attack the bear with a dagger in their hand?

And is not steel sure than lead?

Here's a strong blade.

Put it in your belt, and we start.

I looked at my companions.

They were armed like us, and more than that, Ned land was brandishing an enormous harpoon, which he had placed in the boat before leaving the nautilus.

Then, following the captain's example, I allowed myself to be dressed in the heavy copper helmet, and our reservoirs of air were at once in activity.

An instant after we were landed, one after the other, in about two yards of water upon an even sand, Captain Nemo made a sign with his hand, and we followed him by a gentle declivity, till we disappeared under the waves, over our feet, like coveies of snipe in a bog rose, shoals of fish of the genus Monoptera, which have no other fins but their tail.

I recognized the Japanese, a real serpent, two and a half feet long, of a livid color underneath, and which might easily be mistaken for a conger eel, if it were not for the golden stripes on its side.

In the genus Stromatius, whose bodies are very flat and oval, I saw some of the most brilliant colors, carrying their dorsal fin like a scythe.

An excellent eating fish, which, dried and pickled, is known by the name of caraway.

Then some tranquars belonging to the genus Apsiforides, whose body is covered with a shell, quarrels of eight longitudinal plates.

The heightening sun lit the mass of waters.

More and more the soil, changed by degrees to the fine sand, succeeded a perfect causeway of boulders covered with a carpet of mollusks and zupites.

Amongst the specimens of these branches, I noticed some placeanae with thin, unequal shells, a kind of astration peculiar to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Some orange lucinae with rounded shells, rockfish, 3ft and a half long, which raised themselves under the waves like hands ready to seize one.

There were also some panopiers, slightly luminous, and lastly some oculines, like magnificent fans, forming one of the richest vegetations of these seas.

In the midst of these living plants and under the arbors of the hydrophytes, were layers of clumsy articulates, particularly some raynai, whose carapace formed a slightly rounded triangle, and some horrible looking parthenopes.

At about 07:00 we found ourselves at last surveying the oyster banks on which the pearl oysters are reproduced by millions.

Captain Nemo pointed with his hand to the enormous heap of oysters, and I could well understand that this mine was inexhaustible, for nature's creative power is far beyond man's instinct of destruction.

Ned land, faithful to his instinct, hastened to fill a net which he carried by his side with some of the finest specimens.

We could not stop.

We must follow the captain, who seemed to guide himself by paths known only to himself.

The ground was sensibly rising, and sometimes on, holding up my arm, it was above the surface of the sea.

Then the level of the bank would sink capriciously.

Often we rounded high.

Rocks scarped into pyramids in their dark fractures.

Huge crustacea perched upon their high claws like some war machine, watched us with fixed eyes, and under our feet crawled various kinds of analytes.

At this moment there opened before us a large grotto, dug in a picturesque heap of rocks and carpeted with all the thick warp of the submarine flora.

At first it seemed very dark to me.

The solar rays seemed to be extinguished by successive gradations, until its vague transparency became nothing more than drowned light.

Captain Nemo entered.

We followed.

My eyes soon accustomed themselves to this relative state of darkness.

I could distinguish the arches springing capriciously from natural pillars standing broad upon their granite base like the heavy columns of tuscan architecture.

Why had our incomprehensible guide led us to the bottom of the submarine crypt?

I was soon to know.

After descending a rather sharp declivity, our feet trod on the bottom of a kind of circular pit.

There, Captain Nemo stopped and with his hand indicated an object I had not yet perceived.

It was an oyster of extraordinary dimensions, a gigantic tridachne, a goblet which could have contained a whole lake of holy water, a basin the breadth of which was more than two yards and a half, and consequently larger than that.

Ornamenting the saloon of the nautilus, I approached this extraordinary mollusk.

It adhered by its filaments to a table of granite, and there, isolated, it developed itself in the calm waters of the grotto.

I estimated the weight of this triacne at 600 pounds.

Such an oyster would contain 30 pounds of meat, and one must have the stomach of a gargantua to demolish some dozens of them.

Captain Nemo was evidently acquainted with the existence of this bivalve and seemed to have a peculiar motive in verifying the actual state of this tridachny.

The shells were a little open.

The captain came near and put his dagger between to prevent them from closing.

Then, with his hand, he raised the membrane with its fringed edges, which formed a cloak for the creature.

There, between the folded plates, I saw a loose pearl whose size equaled that of a coconut.

Its globular shape, perfect clearness, and admirable luster made it altogether a jewel of inestimable value.

Carried away by my curiosity, I stretched out my hand to seize it, weigh it, and touch it.

But the captain stopped me, made a sign of refusal, and quickly withdrew his dagger, and the two shells closed.

Suddenly.

I then understood Captain Nemo's intention in leaving this pearl hidden in the mantle of the tridactny.

He was allowing it to grow slowly.

Each year, the secretions of the mollusk would add new concentric circles.

I estimated its value at 500,000 pounds at least.

After ten minutes, Captain Nemo stopped suddenly.

I thought he had halted previously to returning.

No.

By a gesture, he bade us crouch beside him in a deep fracture of the rock.

His hand pointed to one part of the liquid mass, which I watched attentively.

About five yards from me, a shadow appeared and sank to the ground.

The disquieting idea of sharks shot through my mind, but I was mistaken, and once again, it was not a monster of the ocean that we had anything to do with.

It was a man, a living man, an Indian, a fisherman, a poor devil who, I suppose, had come to glean before the harvest.

I could see the bottom of his canoe, anchored some feet above his head, he dived and went up successively.

A stone held between his feet, cut in the shape of a sugar loaf.

Whilst a rope fastened him to his boat, helped him to descend more rapidly.

This was all his apparatus.

Reaching the bottom about five yards deep.

He went on his knees and filled his bag with oysters picked up at random.

Then he went up, emptied it, pulled up his stone, and began the operation once more, which lasted 30 seconds.

The diver did not see us.

The shadow of the rock hid us from sight.

And how should this poor Indian ever dream that men, beings like himself, should be there under the water, watching his movements and losing no detail of the fishing?

Several times he went up in this way and dived again.

He did not carry away more than ten at each plunge, for he was obliged to pull them from the bank to which they adhered by means of their strong visas.

And how many of those oysters for which he risked his life had no pearl in them.

I watched him closely, his maneuvers irregular, and for the space of half an hour no danger appeared to threaten him.

I was beginning to accustom myself to the sight of this interesting fishing, when suddenly, as the Indian was on the ground, I saw him make a gesture of terror, rise and make a spring to return to the surface of the sea.

I understood his dread.

A gigantic shadow appeared just above the unfortunate diver.

It was a shark of enormous size, advancing diagonally, his eyes on fire and his jaws open.

I was mute with horror and unable to move.

The voracious creature shot towards the Indian, who threw himself on one side to avoid the shark's fins, but not its tail, for it struck his chest and stretched him on the ground.

The scene lasted but a few seconds.

The shark returned and turning on his back, prepared himself for cutting the indian in two.

When I saw Captain Nemo rise suddenly and then, dagger in hand, walk straight to the monster, ready to fight face to face with him.

The very moment the shark was going to snap the unhappy fisherman in two, he perceived his new adversary and turning over, made straight towards him.

I can still see Captain Nemo's position.

Holding himself well together, he waited for the shark with admirable coolness, and when it rushed at him, threw himself on one side with wonderful quickness, avoiding the shock and burying his dagger deep into its side.

But it was not all over.

A terrible combat ensued.

The shark had seemed to roar, if I might say so.

The blood rushed in torrents from its wound.

The sea was dyed red, and through the opaque liquid I could distinguish nothing more, nothing more.

Until the moment when, like lightning, I saw the undaunted captain hanging onto one of the creature's fins, struggling, as it were, hand to hand with the monster, indailing successive blows at his enemy, yet still unable to give a decisive one, the shark struggles agitated the water with such fury that the rocking threatened to upset me.

I wanted to go to the captain's assistance, but nailed to the spot with horror, I could not stir.

I saw the haggard eye, I saw the different phases of the fight.

The captain fell to the earth, upset by the enormous mass which leaned upon him.

The shark's jaws opened wide like a pair of factory shears, and it would have been all over with the captain.

But quick as thought, harpoon in hand, Ned land rushed towards the shark and struck it with its sharp point.

The waves were impregnated with a mass of blood.

They rocked under the shark's movements, which beat them with indescribable fury.

Ned land had not missed his aim.

It was the monster's death rattle.

Struck to the heart, it struggled in dreadful convulsions, the shock of which overthrew conceal.

But Ned land had disentangled.

The captain, who, getting up without any wound, went straight to the Indian, quickly cut the cord which held him to his stone, took him in his arms, and with a sharp blow of his heel, mounted to the surface.

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 deathblow.

Happily, with the captain's, and concealed 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 singhlese was accepted with a trembling hand.

His wondering eyes showed that he knew not to what superhuman beings he owed both fortune and 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 helmet.

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 passed across the captain's lips.

And 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, so properly called, it was more than 25ft long.

Its enormous mouth occupied one third of its body.

It was an adult, as was known by its six doors of teeth placed an isosceles triangle in the upper jaw.

While I was contemplating this inert mass, a dozen of these voracious beasts appeared round the boat and, without noticing us, threw themselves upon the dead body and fought with one another for the pieces.

30 we were again on board the nautilus.

There I reflected on the incidents which had taken place in our excursion to the menar bank.

Two conclusions I must inevitably draw from it, one bearing upon the unparalleled courage of Captain Nemo, the other upon his devotion to a human being, a representative of that race from which he fled beneath the sea.

Whatever he might say, this strange man had not yet succeeded in entirely crushing his heart.

When I made this observation to him, he answered, in a slightly moved tone, that indian, sir, is an inhabitant of an oppressed country, and I am still and shall be to my last breath, one of them.

Thank you for joining bite at a time books today while we read a.

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