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We rushed to the window , where a horrible monster was swimming beside the Nautilus . It was eight yards long , and its green eyes stared at us . Its eight arms were twice as long as its body and covered with suckers , and its beak opened and closed . Its colour changed quickly from grey to reddish brown , but I forced myself to stay calm and began to draw it . Soon seven of these animals were swimming around the ship , and we could hear their beaks striking the steel . Suddenly the Nautilus stopped , and the captain came in , looking dark and serious . “ One of these squid is caught in our screw , ” he said . “ We must go up and fight them , man to beast . Our electric bullets are useless against their soft bodies , so we shall attack them with axes . ” “ And with a harpoon , Captain , ” said Ned , “ if you will accept my help . ” “ I accept it , Master Land . ” About ten sailors were waiting at the ladder with axes . When the hatch was opened , a long arm slid down like a snake , and the captain cut it off with one blow . Then two more arms caught the sailor who stood in front of him and lifted him into the air . We rushed up onto the platform after the captain . The poor man was hanging in the air , held by the suckers , and he was crying , “ Help ! Help ! ” He was crying in French ! I had a countryman on board , perhaps several . I shall hear that cry for the rest of my life . The captain and his officer cut off seven of the eight arms . But just as they reached the last one , the squid shot out a cloud of black ink and blinded us . When the cloud cleared , the squid had disappeared , and my poor countryman with it . Ten or twelve more of these monsters now climbed onto the platform . We fought among their arms in a sea of blood and ink . Suddenly Ned was thrown down , and a huge beak opened above him . I ran to help him , but the captain was there first . He drove his axe between the jaws , and Ned rose and plunged his harpoon into the monster’s heart . “ I owed myself this revenge , ” said the captain to Ned . After a quarter of an hour the squid gave up and sank under the waves . Captain Nemo , covered with blood , stood by the rail and looked at the sea which had swallowed one of his companions . Great tears were running down his face . XV . The Avenger After the fight Captain Nemo shut himself in his room , and for ten days the Nautilus drifted without any direction , as if it could not leave the place where one of its men had died . At the beginning of May it entered the Gulf Stream , the great warm current that flows like a river through the Atlantic , and began to move north along the coast of America . Ned Land could bear it no longer , because the Nautilus was now close to his own country , and every day his face grew darker .
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