After a regular fainting spell several minutes long, the Captain was the
first man to return to consciousness and the full recovery of his
intellectual faculties. His first feelings were far from pleasant. His
stomach gnawed him as if he had not eaten for a week, though he had
taken breakfast only a few hours before; his eyes were dim, his brain
throbbing, and his limbs shaking. In short, he presented every symptom
usually seen in a man dying of starvation. Picking himself up with much
care and difficulty, he roared out to Ardan for something to eat. Seeing
that the Frenchman was unable or unwilling to respond, he concluded to
help himself, by beginning first of all to prepare a little tea. To do
this, fire was necessary; so, to light his lamp, he struck a match.
But what was his surprise at seeing the sulphur tip of the match blazing
with a light so bright and dazzling that his eyes could hardly bear it!
Touching it to the gas burner, a stream of light flashed forth equal in
its intensity to the flame of an electric lamp. Then he understood it
all in an instant. The dazzling glare, his maddened brain, his gnawing
stomach--all were now clear as the noon-day Sun.
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