FIRST PART
CHAPTER 14: The Black Current
(continued)
Ned Land and Conseil returned to their cabin. As for me,
I repaired to my stateroom. There I found dinner ready for me.
It consisted of turtle soup made from the daintiest hawksbill,
a red mullet with white, slightly flaky flesh, whose liver,
when separately prepared, makes delicious eating, plus loin of
imperial angelfish, whose flavor struck me as even better than salmon.
I spent the evening in reading, writing, and thinking.
Then drowsiness overtook me, I stretched out on my eelgrass mattress,
and I fell into a deep slumber, while the Nautilus glided through
the swiftly flowing Black Current.
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