But, seeing that Ned Land let me speak without saying too much himself, I pressed him more closely. “Well, Ned,” said I, “is it possible that you are not convinced of the existence of this cetacean that we are following? Have you any particular reason for being so incredulous?” The harpooner looked at me fixedly for some moments before answering, struck his broad forehead with his hand (a habit of his), as if to collect himself, and said at last, “Perhaps I have, M. Aronnax.” “But, Ned, you, a whaler by profession, familiarised with all the great marine mammalia—you, whose imagination might easily accept the hypothesis of enormous cetaceans, you ought to be the last to doubt under such circumstances!” “That is just what deceives you, Professor,” replied Ned. “That the vulgar should believe in extraordinary comets traversing space, and in the existence of antediluvian monsters in the heart of the globe, may well be; but neither astronomer nor geologist believes in such chimeras. As a whaler I have followed many a cetacean, harpooned a great number, and killed several; but, however strong or well-armed they may have been, neither their tails nor their weapons would have been able even to scratch the iron plates of a steamer.” “But, Ned, they tell of ships which the teeth of the narwhal have pierced through and through.”