SECOND PART
CHAPTER 3: A Pearl Worth Ten Million
(continued)
Then, following the captain's example, I let myself be crowned with my
heavy copper sphere, and our air tanks immediately went into action.
An instant later, the longboat's sailors helped us overboard one after
the other, and we set foot on level sand in a meter and a half of water.
Captain Nemo gave us a hand signal. We followed him down a gentle
slope and disappeared under the waves.
There the obsessive fears in my brain left me. I became surprisingly
calm again. The ease with which I could move increased my confidence,
and the many strange sights captivated my imagination.
The sun was already sending sufficient light under these waves.
The tiniest objects remained visible. After ten minutes of walking,
we were in five meters of water, and the terrain had become almost flat.
Like a covey of snipe over a marsh, there rose underfoot schools
of unusual fish from the genus Monopterus, whose members have no fin
but their tail. I recognized the Javanese eel, a genuine eight-decimeter
serpent with a bluish gray belly, which, without the gold lines
over its flanks, could easily be confused with the conger eel.
From the butterfish genus, whose oval bodies are very flat,
I observed several adorned in brilliant colors and sporting a dorsal
fin like a sickle, edible fish that, when dried and marinated, make an
excellent dish known by the name "karawade"; then some sea poachers,
fish belonging to the genus Aspidophoroides, whose bodies are covered
with scaly armor divided into eight lengthwise sections.
Meanwhile, as the sun got progressively higher, it lit up the watery
mass more and more. The seafloor changed little by little.
Its fine-grained sand was followed by a genuine causeway
of smooth crags covered by a carpet of mollusks and zoophytes.
Among other specimens in these two branches, I noted some windowpane
oysters with thin valves of unequal size, a type of ostracod unique
to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, then orange-hued lucina with
circular shells, awl-shaped auger shells, some of those Persian
murex snails that supply the Nautilus with such wonderful dye,
spiky periwinkles fifteen centimeters long that rose under the waves
like hands ready to grab you, turban snails with shells made of horn
and bristling all over with spines, lamp shells, edible duck clams
that feed the Hindu marketplace, subtly luminous jellyfish of the species
Pelagia panopyra, and finally some wonderful Oculina flabelliforma,
magnificent sea fans that fashion one of the most luxuriant tree
forms in this ocean.
|