In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER XIII A SUDDEN DESCENT

ANY­ONE else but Mc­Nabbs might have passed the hut a hun­dred times, and gone all round it, and even over it with­out sus­pect­ing its ex­is­tence. It was cov­ered with snow, and scarce­ly dis­tin­guish­able from the sur­round­ing rocks; but Wil­son and Mul­rady suc­ceed­ed in dig­ging it out and clear­ing the open­ing af­ter half an hour’s hard work, to the great joy of the whole par­ty, who ea­ger­ly took pos­ses­sion of it.

They found it was a CA­SUCHA, con­struct­ed by the In­di­ans, made of ADOBES, a species of bricks baked in the sun. Its form was that of a cube, 12 feet on each side, and it stood on a block of basalt. A stone stair led up to the door, the on­ly open­ing; and nar­row as this door was, the hur­ri­cane, and snow, and hail found their way in when the TEM­PO­RALES were un­chained in the moun­tains.

Ten peo­ple could eas­ily find room in it, and though the walls might be none too wa­ter-​tight in the rainy sea­son, at this time of the year, at any rate, it was suf­fi­cient pro­tec­tion against the in­tense cold, which, ac­cord­ing to the ther­mome­ter, was ten de­grees be­low ze­ro. Be­sides, there was a sort of fire­place in it, with a chim­ney of bricks, bad­ly enough put to­geth­er, cer­tain­ly, but still it al­lowed of a fire be­ing light­ed.

“This will shel­ter us, at any rate,” said Gle­nar­van, “even if it is not very com­fort­able. Prov­idence has led us to it, and we can on­ly be thank­ful.”

“Why, it is a per­fect palace, I call it,” said Pa­ganel; “we on­ly want flunkeys and courtiers. We shall do cap­ital here.”

“Es­pe­cial­ly when there is a good fire blaz­ing on the hearth, for we are quite as cold as we are hun­gry. For my part, I would rather see a good fag­got just now than a slice of veni­son.”

“Well, Tom, we’ll try and get some com­bustible or oth­er,” said Pa­ganel.

“Com­bustibles on the top of the Cordilleras!” ex­claimed Mul­rady, in a du­bi­ous tone.

“Since there is a chim­ney in the CA­SUCHA,” said the Ma­jor, “the prob­abil­ity is that we shall find some­thing to burn in it.”

“Our friend Mc­Nabbs is right,” said Gle­nar­van. “Get ev­ery­thing in readi­ness for sup­per, and I’ll go out and turn wood­cut­ter.”

“Wil­son and I will go with you,” said Pa­ganel.

“Do you want me?” asked Robert, get­ting up.

“No, my brave boy, rest your­self. You’ll be a man, when oth­ers are on­ly chil­dren at your age,” replied Gle­nar­van.

On reach­ing the lit­tle mound of por­phyry, Gle­nar­van and his two com­pan­ions left the CA­SUCHA. In spite of the per­fect calm­ness of the at­mo­sphere, the cold was sting­ing. Pa­ganel con­sult­ed his barom­eter, and found that the de­pres­sion of the mer­cury cor­re­spond­ed to an el­eva­tion of 11,000 feet, on­ly 910 me­ters low­er than Mont Blanc. But if these moun­tains had pre­sent­ed the dif­fi­cul­ties of the gi­ant of the Swiss Alps, not one of the trav­el­ers could have crossed the great chain of the New World.

On reach­ing a lit­tle mound of por­phyry, Gle­nar­van and Pa­ganel stopped to gaze about them and scan the hori­zon on all sides. They were now on the sum­mit of the Nevadas of the Cordilleras, and could see over an area of forty miles. The val­ley of the Col­orado was al­ready sunk in shad­ow, and night was fast draw­ing her man­tle over the east­ern slopes of the An­des. The west­ern side was il­lu­mined by the rays of the set­ting sun, and peaks and glaciers flashed back his gold­en beams with daz­zling ra­di­ance. On the south the view was mag­nif­icent. Across the wild val­ley of the Tor­bido, about two miles dis­tant, rose the vol­cano of An­tu­co. The moun­tain roared like some enor­mous mon­ster, and vom­it­ed red smoke, min­gled with tor­rents of sooty flame. The sur­round­ing peaks ap­peared on fire. Show­ers of red-​hot stones, clouds of red­dish va­por and rock­ets of la­va, all com­bined, pre­sent­ed the ap­pear­ance of glow­ing sparkling streams. The splen­dor of the spec­ta­cle in­creased ev­ery in­stant as night deep­ened, and the whole sky be­came light­ed up with a daz­zling re­flec­tion of the blaz­ing crater, while the sun, grad­ual­ly be­com­ing shorn of his sun­set glo­ries, dis­ap­peared like a star lost in the dis­tant dark­ness of the hori­zon.

Pa­ganel and Gle­nar­van would have re­mained long enough gaz­ing at the sub­lime strug­gle be­tween the fires of earth and heav­en, if the more prac­ti­cal Wil­son had not re­mind­ed them of the busi­ness on hand. There was no wood to be found, how­ev­er, but for­tu­nate­ly the rocks were cov­ered with a poor, dry species of lichen. Of this they made an am­ple pro­vi­sion, as well as of a plant called LLARET­TA, the root of which burns tol­er­ably well. This pre­cious com­bustible was car­ried back to the CA­SUCHA and heaped up on the hearth. It was a dif­fi­cult mat­ter to kin­dle it, though, and still more to keep it alight. The air was so rar­efied that there was scarce­ly oxy­gen enough in it to sup­port com­bus­tion. At least, this was the rea­son as­signed by the Ma­jor.

“By way of com­pen­sa­tion, how­ev­er,” he added, “wa­ter will boil at less than 100 de­grees heat. It will come to the point of ebul­li­tion be­fore 99 de­grees.”

Mc­Nabbs was right, as the ther­mome­ter proved, for it was plunged in­to the ket­tle when the wa­ter boiled, and the mer­cury on­ly rose to 99 de­grees. Cof­fee was soon ready, and ea­ger­ly gulped down by ev­ery­body. The dry meat cer­tain­ly seemed poor fare, and Pa­ganel couldn’t help say­ing:

“I tell you what, some grilled lla­ma wouldn’t be bad with this, would it? They say that the lla­ma is sub­sti­tute for the ox and the sheep, and I should like to know if it is, in an al­imen­ta­ry re­spect.”

“What!” replied the Ma­jor. “You’re not con­tent with your sup­per, most learned Pa­ganel.”

“En­chant­ed with it, my brave Ma­jor; still I must con­fess I should not say no to a dish of lla­ma.”

“You are a Sybarite.”

“I plead guilty to the charge. But come, now, though you call me that, you wouldn’t sulk at a beef­steak your­self, would you?”

“Prob­ably not.”

“And if you were asked to lie in wait for a lla­ma, notwith­stand­ing the cold and the dark­ness, you would do it with­out the least hes­ita­tion?”

“Of course; and if it will give you the slight­est plea­sure–“

His com­pan­ions had hard­ly time to thank him for his oblig­ing good na­ture, when dis­tant and pro­longed howls broke on their ear, plain­ly not pro­ceed­ing from one or two soli­tary an­imals, but from a whole troop, and one, more­over, that was rapid­ly ap­proach­ing.

Prov­idence had sent them a sup­per, as well as led them to a hut. This was the ge­og­ra­pher’s con­clu­sion; but Gle­nar­van damped his joy some­what by re­mark­ing that the quadrupeds of the Cordilleras are nev­er met with in such a high lat­itude.

“Then where can these an­imals come from?” asked Tom Austin. “Don’t you hear them get­ting near­er!”

“An avalanche,” sug­gest­ed Mul­rady.

“Im­pos­si­ble,” re­turned Pa­ganel. “That is reg­ular howl­ing.”

“Let us go out and see,” said Gle­nar­van.

“Yes, and be ready for hunt­ing,” replied Mc­Nabbs, arm­ing him­self with his car­bine.

They all rushed forth­with out of the CA­SUCHA. Night had com­plete­ly set in, dark and star­ry. The moon, now in her last quar­ter, had not yet risen. The peaks on the north and east had dis­ap­peared from view, and noth­ing was vis­ible save the fan­tas­tic SIL­HOU­ETTE of some tow­er­ing rocks here and there. The howls, and clear­ly the howls of ter­ri­fied an­imals, were re­dou­bled. They pro­ceed­ed from that part of the Cordilleras which lay in dark­ness. What could be go­ing on there? Sud­den­ly a fu­ri­ous avalanche came down, an avalanche of liv­ing an­imals mad with fear. The whole plateau seemed to trem­ble. There were hun­dreds, per­haps thou­sands, of these an­imals, and in spite of the rar­efied at­mo­sphere, their noise was deaf­en­ing. Were they wild beasts from the Pam­pas, or herds of lla­mas and vi­cu­nas? Gle­nar­van, Mc­Nabbs, Robert, Austin, and the two sailors, had just time to throw them­selves flat on the ground be­fore they swept past like a whirl­wind, on­ly a few paces dis­tant. Pa­ganel, who had re­mained stand­ing, to take ad­van­tage of his pe­cu­liar pow­ers of sight, was knocked down in a twin­kling. At the same mo­ment the re­port of firearms was heard. The Ma­jor had fired, and it seemed to him that an an­imal had fall­en close by, and that the whole herd, yelling loud­er than ev­er, had rushed down and dis­ap­peared among the de­cliv­ities light­ed up by the re­flec­tion of the vol­cano.

“Ah, I’ve got them,” said a voice, the voice of Pa­ganel.

“Got what?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“My spec­ta­cles,” was the re­ply. “One might ex­pect to lose that much in such a tu­mult as this.”

“You are not wound­ed, I hope?”

“No, on­ly knocked down; but by what?”

“By this,” replied the Ma­jor, hold­ing up the an­imal he had killed.

They all has­tened ea­ger­ly in­to the hut, to ex­am­ine Mc­Nabbs’ prize by the light of the fire.

It was a pret­ty crea­ture, like a small camel with­out a hump. The head was small and the body flat­tened, the legs were long and slen­der, the skin fine, and the hair the col­or of _cafe au lait_.

Pa­ganel had scarce­ly looked at it be­fore he ex­claimed, “A gua­na­co!”

“What sort of an an­imal is that?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“One you can eat.”

“And it is good sa­vory meat, I as­sure you; a dish of Olym­pus! I knew we should have fresh meat for sup­per, and such meat! But who is go­ing to cut up the beast?”

“I will,” said Wil­son.

“Well, I’ll un­der­take to cook it,” said Pa­ganel.

“Can you cook, then, Mon­sieur Pa­ganel?” asked Robert.

“I should think so, my boy. I’m a French­man, and in ev­ery French­man there is a cook.”

Five min­utes af­ter­ward Pa­ganel be­gan to grill large slices of veni­son on the em­bers made by the use of the LLARET­TAS, and in about ten min­utes a dish was ready, which he served up to his com­pan­ions by the tempt­ing name of gua­na­co cut­lets. No one stood on cer­emo­ny, but fell to with a hearty good will.

To the ab­so­lute stu­pe­fac­tion of the ge­og­ra­pher, how­ev­er, the first mouth­ful was greet­ed with a gen­er­al gri­mace, and such ex­cla­ma­tions as–“Tough!” “It is hor­ri­ble.” “It is not eat­able.”

The poor SA­VANT was obliged to own that his cut­lets could not be rel­ished, even by hun­gry men. They be­gan to ban­ter him about his “Olympian dish,” and in­dulge in jokes at his ex­pense; but all he cared about was to find out how it hap­pened that the flesh of the gua­na­co, which was cer­tain­ly good and eat­able food, had turned out so bad­ly in his hands. At last light broke in on him, and he called out:

“I see through it now! Yes, I see through it. I have found out the se­cret now.”

“The meat was too long kept, was it?” asked Mc­Nabbs, qui­et­ly.

“No, but the meat had walked too much. How could I have for­got­ten that?”

“What do you mean?” asked Tom Austin.

“I mean this: the gua­na­co is on­ly good for eat­ing when it is killed in a state of rest. If it has been long hunt­ed, and gone over much ground be­fore it is cap­tured, it is no longer eat­able. I can af­firm the fact by the mere taste, that this an­imal has come a great dis­tance, and con­se­quent­ly the whole herd has.”

“You are cer­tain of this?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“Ab­so­lute­ly cer­tain.”

“But what could have fright­ened the crea­tures so, and driv­en them from their haunts, when they ought to have been qui­et­ly sleep­ing?”

“That’s a ques­tion, my dear Gle­nar­van, I could not pos­si­bly an­swer. Take my ad­vice, and let us go to sleep with­out trou­bling our heads about it. I say, Ma­jor, shall we go to sleep?”

“Yes, we’ll go to sleep, Pa­ganel.”

Each one, there­upon, wrapped him­self up in his pon­cho, and the fire was made up for the night.

Loud snores in ev­ery tune and key soon re­sound­ed from all sides of the hut, the deep bass con­tri­bu­tion of Pa­ganel com­plet­ing the har­mo­ny.

But Gle­nar­van could not sleep. Se­cret un­easi­ness kept him in a con­tin­ual state of wake­ful­ness. His thoughts re­vert­ed in­vol­un­tar­ily to those fright­ened an­imals fly­ing in one com­mon di­rec­tion, im­pelled by one com­mon ter­ror. They could not be pur­sued by wild beasts, for at such an el­eva­tion there were al­most none to be met with, and of hunters still few­er. What ter­ror then could have driv­en them among the precipices of the An­des? Gle­nar­van felt a pre­sen­ti­ment of ap­proach­ing dan­ger.

But grad­ual­ly he fell in­to a half-​drowsy state, and his ap­pre­hen­sions were lulled. Hope took the place of fear. He saw him­self on the mor­row on the plains of the An­des, where the search would ac­tu­al­ly com­mence, and per­haps suc­cess was close at hand. He thought of Cap­tain Grant and his two sailors, and their de­liv­er­ance from cru­el bondage. As these vi­sions passed rapid­ly through his mind, ev­ery now and then he was roused by the crack­ling of the fire, or sparks fly­ing out, or some lit­tle jet of flame would sud­den­ly flare up and il­lu­mine the faces of his slum­ber­ing com­pan­ions.

Then his pre­sen­ti­ments re­turned in greater strength than be­fore, and he lis­tened anx­ious­ly to the sounds out­side the hut.

At cer­tain in­ter­vals he fan­cied he could hear rum­bling nois­es in the dis­tance, dull and threat­en­ing like the mut­ter-​in­gs of thun­der be­fore a storm. There sure­ly must be a storm rag­ing down be­low at the foot of the moun­tains. He got up and went out to see.

The moon was ris­ing. The at­mo­sphere was pure and calm. Not a cloud vis­ible ei­ther above or be­low. Here and there was a pass­ing re­flec­tion from the flames of An­tu­co, but nei­ther storm nor light­ning, and myr­iads of bright stars stud­ded the zenith. Still the rum­bling nois­es con­tin­ued. They seemed to meet to­geth­er and cross the chain of the An­des. Gle­nar­van re­turned to the CA­SUCHA more un­easy than ev­er, ques­tion­ing with­in him­self as to the con­nec­tion be­tween these sounds and the flight of the gua­na­cos. He looked at his watch and found the time was about two in the morn­ing. As he had no cer­tain­ty, how­ev­er, of any im­me­di­ate dan­ger, he did not wake his com­pan­ions, who were sleep­ing sound­ly af­ter their fa­tigue, and af­ter a lit­tle dozed off him­self, and slum­bered heav­ily for some hours.

All of a sud­den a vi­olent crash made him start to his feet. A deaf­en­ing noise fell on his ear like the roar of ar­tillery. He felt the ground giv­ing way be­neath him, and the CA­SUCHA rocked to and fro, and opened.

He shout­ed to his com­pan­ions, but they were al­ready awake, and tum­bling pell-​mell over each oth­er. They were be­ing rapid­ly dragged down a steep de­cliv­ity. Day dawned and re­vealed a ter­ri­ble scene. The form of the moun­tains changed in an in­stant. Cones were cut off. Tot­ter­ing peaks dis­ap­peared as if some trap had opened at their base. Ow­ing to a pe­cu­liar phe­nomenon of the Cordilleras, an enor­mous mass, many miles in ex­tent, had been dis­placed en­tire­ly, and was speed­ing down to­ward the plain.

“An earth­quake!” ex­claimed Pa­ganel. He was not mis­tak­en. It was one of those cat­aclysms fre­quent in Chili, and in this very re­gion where Copi­apo had been twice de­stroyed, and San­ti­ago four times laid in ru­ins in four­teen years. This re­gion of the globe is so un­der­laid with vol­canic fires and the vol­ca­noes of re­cent ori­gin are such in­suf­fi­cient safe­ty valves for the sub­ter­ranean va­pors, that shocks are of fre­quent oc­cur­rence, and are called by the peo­ple TREM­BLORES.

The plateau to which the sev­en men were cling­ing, hold­ing on by tufts of lichen, and gid­dy and ter­ri­fied in the ex­treme, was rush­ing down the de­cliv­ity with the swift­ness of an ex­press, at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Not a cry was pos­si­ble, nor an at­tempt to get off or stop. They could not even have heard them­selves speak. The in­ter­nal rum­blings, the crash of the avalanch­es, the fall of mass­es of gran­ite and basalt, and the whirl­wind of pul­ver­ized snow, made all com­mu­ni­ca­tion im­pos­si­ble. Some­times they went per­fect­ly smooth­ly along with­out jolts or jerks, and some­times on the con­trary, the plateau would reel and roll like a ship in a storm, coast­ing past abysses in which frag­ments of the moun­tain were falling, tear­ing up trees by the roots, and lev­el­ing, as if with the keen edge of an im­mense scythe, ev­ery pro­jec­tion of the de­cliv­ity.

How long this in­de­scrib­able de­scent would last, no one could cal­cu­late, nor what it would end in ul­ti­mate­ly. None of the par­ty knew whether the rest were still alive, whether one or an­oth­er were not al­ready ly­ing in the depths of some abyss. Al­most breath­less with the swift mo­tion, frozen with the cold air, which pierced them through, and blind­ed with the whirling snow, they gasped for breath, and be­came ex­haust­ed and near­ly inan­imate, on­ly re­tain­ing their hold of the rocks by a pow­er­ful in­stinct of self-​preser­va­tion. Sud­den­ly a tremen­dous shock pitched them right off, and sent them rolling to the very foot of the moun­tain. The plateau had stopped.

For some min­utes no one stirred. At last one of the par­ty picked him­self up, and stood on his feet, stunned by the shock, but still firm on his legs. This was the Ma­jor. He shook off the blind­ing snow and looked around him. His com­pan­ions lay in a close cir­cle like the shots from a gun that has just been dis­charged, piled one on top of an­oth­er.

The Ma­jor count­ed them. All were there ex­cept one–that one was Robert Grant.