Verne sugared his coffee and briefly recapped the interview for their benefit. Samuelson chuckled.
“What do you want to bet tomorrow’s papers carry drawings of behemoth, horned whales with tusks like woolly mammoths beneath the headline, ‘Eminent Author and Scientist Describes Sea Monster’?”
Verne looked wounded.
“Oh, now don’t look that way, Verne. It wasn’t your fault. Newspapermen hear only what they want to hear and they write it up the way they feel their readers will wish to read it.”
“Never talk to ‘em, myself,” growled Vandenburg.
“This is most distressing,” Verne said. “I was most careful to say I was only speaking in terms of theory and supposition-”
“Don’t you worry about it, mate,” said Land. “It’ll all be old news in another week or so and nobody’ll remember it.”
“Well, what did you tell them, Mr. Land?” said Verne.
Land threw back his head and laughed. “What, me? Hell, they didn’t want to talk to me! I’m no scientist fellow like you folks and I’m no famous writer, either. I ain’t important enough for them to bother with.”
“May one inquire, then, what it is you do, Mr. Land?” said Verne, politely.
“Me, I’m a harpooner by trade.”
“A harpooner!”
“That’s right. Best there is, too.” In French, he added, “I’m the one that’s going to catch that fish so these stuffed shirts here can fillet it.”
Lucas, Finn, and Andre smiled, while Devries cleared his throat softly.
“I’m afraid one of the hazards of associating with learned people is they might be multilingual,” Verne said, smiling and giving a sidelong look to Devries. Vandenburg alone seemed to have missed the comment. “You are Canadian?”
“Quebec, born and bred,” said Land, not at all apologetic for his comment. “I come from a long line of whalers. Makes no difference to me whether this whale has tusks or horns or what-have-you. A fish is a fish, far as I’m concerned.”
“Mr. Land, here, does not believe in our aquatic mammal,” said Devries. “It seems only we stuffed shirts are quite so gullible as to give credence to such a theory.”
“Is that so, Mr. Land?” said Verne.
“Just call me Ned,” said Land. “All this Mister this, Professor that, and Doctor whoever makes my head swim.”
“Well, all right, then, Ned. And you must call me Jules.”
“And a fine French name, it is,” said Land. “My grand father was named Jules. But to answer your question, no, I do not.”
“But, Ned, you, a whaler by profession, familiar with all the great marine mammalia, surely you ought to be the last to doubt under such circumstances!”
“That’s just the point, Jules,” Land said. “As a harpooner, I’ve followed many a whale, killed a great number, too. No matter how strong or how large or, like your narwhal, how well armed they may have been, not a one of ‘em would even have been able to scratch the iron plates of a steamer.”
“But, Ned, they tell of ships which the horns of the narwhal have pierced through and through,” said Verne.
“Wooden ships, may be,” said Land. “Me, I’ve never seen it done. Till I see some proof, I deny that whales, cetaceans, sea-unicorns or whatever you want to call ‘em could ever do what you say.”
“Well, Ned, I repeat it with a conviction resting on the logic of facts,” said Verne, while the others followed the animated exchange. “I believe in the existence of a mammal powerfully organized, belonging to the branch of Vertebrata, like the whales, the chachalots or the dolphins, and furnished with a horn of defense of great penetrating power.”
“Humpf!” said Land.
“Keep in mind one thing, my Canadian friend,” said Verne. “If such an animal exists, it inhabits the very depths of the ocean, frequenting the strata lying miles below the surface. It must, therefore, necessarily possess an organization the strength of which would defy all comparison.”
“And why would that be?” Land said.