Chapter 22
The Lightning Bolts of Captain NemoWITHOUT STANDING UP, we stared in the direction of the forest,
my hand stopping halfway to my mouth, Ned Land's completing its
assignment.
"Stones don't fall from the sky," Conseil said, "or else they
deserve to be called meteorites."
A second well–polished stone removed a tasty ringdove leg from
Conseil's hand, giving still greater relevance to his
observation.
We all three stood up, rifles to our shoulders, ready to answer
any attack.
"Apes maybe?" Ned Land exclaimed.
"Nearly," Conseil replied. "Savages."
"Head for the skiff!" I said, moving toward the sea.
Indeed, it was essential to beat a retreat because some twenty
natives, armed with bows and slings, appeared barely a hundred
paces off, on the outskirts of a thicket that
