ODD? Read Free Page B

strength could bear. I fainted.
    When I opened my eyes again, the swarm of vampires had disappeared, all had tumbled into the gaping maw, the gale raged solitarily above the desolate horizon; but an inexplicable modification had been produced in the appearance of the mountain: it shined now all over with a milky phosphorescence. I had before me a wall of livid light, the impression of which was terrible beyond what you could imagine.
    I was not able to stop myself from thinking of those glowworms of the tropics who cast their fire only once full; now, no doubt, the Leviathan was digesting.
    I was shattered with exhaustion and fear, sick, nauseated. There remained to me not even curiosity anymore; I had only one thought: to flee forever this accursed place.
    Ah! Why had I left Earth, the good maternal Earth, for this bloody planet where the laws of competition were exercised in so atrocious and so harsh a fashion!
    I had only one idea, I repeat: to flee, to flee at any price, no matter where, no matter at the price of what dangers.
    I didn’t even consider the gale which whipped with its lashes of lightning the flock of waves into frenzied foam. I untied my skiff and I seized my oars with a sort of madness; but I was hardly two cable-lengths from the shore when a ground swell lifted the nacelle and made it swirl about like a wisp of straw. I held on tightly to the edging and I proceeded to the crest of the waves with a stupefying speed.
    I think now that I certainly owe not having sunk to the bottom to the extreme lightness of my craft.
    I was thrown over the points of rock, cast brutally onto a beach of pebbles, then taken again by the flood and thrown again; a large wave engulfed me, my arms went slack and I sunk to the bottom. . .
    By what miracle did I not perish?
    When I opened my eyes again to the hot rays of the sun already high in the sky, I was stretched out on a bank of stones and at the first movement that I tried to make I experienced lively pains all over my body.
    I was broken like a man that would have been beaten by blows of a stick, the acute points of the rocks had covered me with cuts and bruises, finally the seawater that I had swallowed had caused me violent stomach cramps.
    I believed my last hour had come. Yet, I had the strength to drag myself outside the reach of the waves; a few paces from me, I glimpsed the debris of my tortoiseshell barque, punctured and broken apart, and also several of the objects that had made up its load.
    I crawled in this direction; but I was so weakened that I certainly needed more than a half hour to cross the ten paces which separated me from the flotsam. Each movement tore from me a moan of pain and I was tortured by thirst.
    It was with a feeling of unutterable happiness that I recognized, more or less intact among the pebbles, the bamboo keg which contained my warming liquor. With a lot of time and effort, I managed again to drag myself up to it and undo the cover.
    With rapture I swallowed several gulps and almost immediately the effect of the noble elixir made itself felt; I found myself better and, although my injuries made me suffer a lot, I was able to stand and pull aside the debris of my bark, in the vague hope of repairing it later.
    I barely could stand and the sun, quite blazing at that moment, started to bother me.
    It was only then that I thought to examine the shore where the gale had cast me. Facing me, at a little distance from the sea, extended the petrified forest with strange glints of graphite, that the night before I had seen crowned with electric flashes: very far behind, the cone of a volcano plumed with smoke; to my right, the accursed mountain blocked the view with its vast white mass, of which the rounded summit was lost in the clouds.
    The terrible vision of the scenes of the night rose in my memory.
    I trembled with horror; I believe that I would have believed myself more in safety under the claw of a lion than in this awful vicinity. I knew