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

CHAPTER XXIII A SINGULAR ABODE

THE tree on which Gle­nar­van and his com­pan­ions had just found refuge, re­sem­bled a wal­nut-​tree, hav­ing the same glossy fo­liage and round­ed form. In re­al­ity, how­ev­er, it was the OM­BU, which grows soli­tar­ily on the Ar­gen­tine plains. The enor­mous and twist­ed trunk of this tree is plant­ed firm­ly in the soil, not on­ly by its great roots, but still more by its vig­or­ous shoots, which fas­ten it down in the most tena­cious man­ner. This was how it stood proof against the shock of the mighty bil­low.

This OM­BU mea­sured in height a hun­dred feet, and cov­ered with its shad­ow a cir­cum­fer­ence of one hun­dred and twen­ty yards. All this scaf­fold­ing rest­ed on three great boughs which sprang from the trunk. Two of these rose al­most per­pen­dic­ular­ly, and sup­port­ed the im­mense para­sol of fo­liage, the branch­es of which were so crossed and in­ter­twined and en­tan­gled, as if by the hand of a bas­ket-​mak­er, that they formed an im­pen­etra­ble shade. The third arm, on the con­trary, stretched right out in a hor­izon­tal po­si­tion above the roar­ing wa­ters, in­to which the low­er leaves dipped. There was no want of room in the in­te­ri­or of this gi­gan­tic tree, for there were great gaps in the fo­liage, per­fect glades, with air in abun­dance, and fresh­ness ev­ery­where. To see the in­nu­mer­able branch­es ris­ing to the clouds, and the creep­ers run­ning from bough to bough, and at­tach­ing them to­geth­er while the sun­light glint­ed here and there among the leaves, one might have called it a com­plete for­est in­stead of a soli­tary tree shel­ter­ing them all.

On the ar­rival of the fugi­tives a myr­iad of the feath­ered tribes fled away in­to the top­most branch­es, protest­ing by their out­cries against this fla­grant usurpa­tion of their domi­cile. These birds, who them­selves had tak­en refuge in the soli­tary OM­BU, were in hun­dreds, com­pris­ing black­birds, star­lings, isacas, HILGUEROS, and es­pe­cial­ly the pi­ca-​flor, hum­ming-​birds of most re­splen­dent col­ors. When they flew away it seemed as though a gust of wind had blown all the flow­ers off the tree.

Such was the asy­lum of­fered to the lit­tle band of Gle­nar­van. Young Grant and the ag­ile Wil­son were scarce­ly perched on the tree be­fore they had climbed to the up­per branch­es and put their heads through the leafy dome to get a view of the vast hori­zon. The ocean made by the in­un­da­tion sur­round­ed them on all sides, and, far as the eye could reach, seemed to have no lim­its. Not a sin­gle tree was vis­ible on the liq­uid plain; the OM­BU stood alone amid the rolling wa­ters, and trem­bled be­fore them. In the dis­tance, drift­ing from south to north, car­ried along by the im­petu­ous tor­rent, they saw trees torn up by the roots, twist­ed branch­es, roofs torn off, de­stroyed RAN­CHOS, planks of sheds stolen by the del­uge from ES­TANCIAS, car­cass­es of drowned an­imals, blood-​stained skins, and on a shaky tree a com­plete fam­ily of jaguars, howl­ing and clutch­ing hold of their frail raft. Still far­ther away, a black spot al­most in­vis­ible, al­ready caught Wil­son’s eye. It was Thal­cave and his faith­ful Thaou­ka.

“Thal­cave, Thal­cave!” shout­ed Robert, stretch­ing out his hands to­ward the coura­geous Patag­oni­an.

“He will save him­self, Mr. Robert,” replied Wil­son; “we must go down to his Lord­ship.”

Next minute they had de­scend­ed the three stages of boughs, and land­ed safe­ly on the top of the trunk, where they found Gle­nar­van, Pa­ganel, the Ma­jor, Austin, and Mul­rady, sit­ting ei­ther astride or in some po­si­tion they found more com­fort­able. Wil­son gave an ac­count of their in­ves­ti­ga­tions aloft, and all shared his opin­ion with re­spect to Thal­cave. The on­ly ques­tion was whether it was Thal­cave who would save Thaou­ka, or Thaou­ka save Thal­cave.

Their own sit­ua­tion mean­time was much more alarm­ing than his. No doubt the tree would be able to re­sist the cur­rent, but the wa­ters might rise high­er and high­er, till the top­most branch­es were cov­ered, for the de­pres­sion of the soil made this part of the plain a deep reser­voir. Gle­nar­van’s first care, con­se­quent­ly, was to make notch­es by which to as­cer­tain the progress of the in­un­da­tion. For the present it was sta­tion­ary, hav­ing ap­par­ent­ly reached its height. This was re­as­sur­ing.

“And now what are we go­ing to do?” said Gle­nar­van.

“Make our nest, of course!” replied Pa­ganel

“Make our nest!” ex­claimed Robert.

“Cer­tain­ly, my boy, and live the life of birds, since we can’t that of fish­es.”

“All very well, but who will fill our bills for us?” said Gle­nar­van.

“I will,” said the Ma­jor.

All eyes turned to­ward him im­me­di­ate­ly, and there he sat in a nat­ural arm-​chair, formed of two elas­tic boughs, hold­ing out his AL­FOR­JAS damp, but still in­tact.

“Oh, Mc­Nabbs, that’s just like you,” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van, “you think of ev­ery­thing even un­der cir­cum­stances which would drive all out of your head.”

“Since it was set­tled we were not go­ing to be drowned, I had no in­ten­tion of starv­ing of hunger.”

“I should have thought of it, too,” said Pa­ganel, “but I am so DIS­TRAIT.”

“And what is in the AL­FOR­JAS?” asked Tom Austin.

“Food enough to last sev­en men for two days,” replied Mc­Nabbs.

“And I hope the in­un­da­tion will have gone down in twen­ty-​four hours,” said Gle­nar­van.

“Or that we shall have found some way of re­gain­ing _ter­ra fir­ma_,” added Pa­ganel.

“Our first busi­ness, then, now is to break­fast,” said Gle­nar­van.

“I sup­pose you mean af­ter we have made our­selves dry,” ob­served the Ma­jor.

“And where’s the fire?” asked Wil­son.

“We must make it,” re­turned Pa­ganel.

“Where?”

“On the top of the trunk, of course.”

“And what with?”

“With the dead wood we cut off the tree.”

“But how will you kin­dle it?” asked Gle­nar­van. “Our tin­der is just like wet sponge.”

“We can dis­pense with it,” replied Pa­ganel. “We on­ly want a lit­tle dry moss and a ray of sun­shine, and the lens of my tele­scope, and you’ll see what a fire I’ll get to dry my­self by. Who will go and cut wood in the for­est?”

“I will,” said Robert.

And off he scam­pered like a young cat in­to the depths of the fo­liage, fol­lowed by his friend Wil­son. Pa­ganel set to work to find dry moss, and had soon gath­ered suf­fi­cient. This he laid on a bed of damp leaves, just where the large branch­es be­gan to fork out, form­ing a nat­ural hearth, where there was lit­tle fear of con­fla­gra­tion.

Robert and Wil­son speed­ily reap­peared, each with an arm­ful of dry wood, which they threw on the moss. By the help of the lens it was eas­ily kin­dled, for the sun was blaz­ing over­head. In or­der to en­sure a prop­er draught, Pa­ganel stood over the hearth with his long legs strad­dled out in the Arab man­ner. Then stoop­ing down and rais­ing him­self with a rapid mo­tion, he made a vi­olent cur­rent of air with his pon­cho, which made the wood take fire, and soon a bright flame roared in the im­pro­vised brasi­er. Af­ter dry­ing them­selves, each in his own fash­ion, and hang­ing their pon­chos on the tree, where they were swung to and fro in the breeze, they break­fast­ed, care­ful­ly how­ev­er ra­tioning out the pro­vi­sions, for the mor­row had to be thought of; the im­mense basin might not emp­ty so soon as Gle­nar­van ex­pect­ed, and, any­way, the sup­ply was very lim­it­ed. The OM­BU pro­duced no fruit, though for­tu­nate­ly, it would like­ly abound in fresh eggs, thanks to the nu­mer­ous nests stowed away among the leaves, not to speak of their feath­ered pro­pri­etors. These re­sources were by no means to be de­spised.

The next busi­ness was to in­stall them­selves as com­fort­ably as they could, in prospect of a long stay.

“As the kitchen and din­ing-​room are on the ground floor,” said Pa­ganel, “we must sleep on the first floor. The house is large, and as the rent is not dear, we must not cramp our­selves for room. I can see up yon­der nat­ural cra­dles, in which once safe­ly tucked up we shall sleep as if we were in the best beds in the world. We have noth­ing to fear. Be­sides, we will watch, and we are nu­mer­ous enough to re­pulse a fleet of In­di­ans and oth­er wild an­imals.”

“We on­ly want fire-​arms.”

“I have my re­volvers,” said Gle­nar­van.

“And I have mine,” replied Robert.

“But what’s the good of them?” said Tom Austin, “un­less Mon­sieur Pa­ganel can find out some way of mak­ing pow­der.”

“We don’t need it,” replied Mc­Nabbs, ex­hibit­ing a pow­der flask in a per­fect state of preser­va­tion.

“Where did you get it from, Ma­jor,” asked Pa­ganel.

“From Thal­cave. He thought it might be use­ful to us, and gave it to me be­fore he plunged in­to the wa­ter to save Thaou­ka.”

“Gen­er­ous, brave In­di­an!” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van.

“Yes,” replied Tom Austin, “if all the Patag­oni­ans are cut af­ter the same pat­tern, I must com­pli­ment Patag­onia.”

“I protest against leav­ing out the horse,” said Pa­ganel. “He is part and par­cel of the Patag­oni­an, and I’m much mis­tak­en if we don’t see them again, the one on the oth­er’s back.”

“What dis­tance are we from the At­lantic?” asked the Ma­jor.

“About forty miles at the out­side,” replied Pa­ganel; “and now, friends, since this is Lib­er­ty Hall, I beg to take leave of you. I am go­ing to choose an ob­ser­va­to­ry for my­self up there, and by the help of my tele­scope, let you know how things are go­ing on in the world.”

Forth­with the ge­og­ra­pher set off, hoist­ing him­self up very clev­er­ly from bough to bough, till he dis­ap­peared be­yond the thick fo­liage. His com­pan­ions be­gan to ar­range the night quar­ters, and pre­pare their beds. But this was nei­ther a long nor dif­fi­cult task, and very soon they re­sumed their seats round the fire to have a talk.

As usu­al their theme was Cap­tain Grant. In three days, should the wa­ter sub­side, they would be on board the DUN­CAN once more. But Har­ry Grant and his two sailors, those poor ship­wrecked fel­lows, would not be with them. In­deed, it even seemed af­ter this ill suc­cess and this use­less jour­ney across Amer­ica, that all chance of find­ing them was gone for­ev­er. Where could they com­mence a fresh quest? What grief La­dy He­le­na and Mary Grant would feel on hear­ing there was no fur­ther hope.

“Poor sis­ter!” said Robert. “It is all up with us.”

For the first time Gle­nar­van could not find any com­fort to give him. What could he say to the lad?

Had they not searched ex­act­ly where the doc­ument stat­ed?

“And yet,” he said, “this thir­ty-​sev­enth de­gree of lat­itude is not a mere fig­ure, and that it ap­plies to the ship­wreck or cap­tiv­ity of Har­ry Grant, is no mere guess or sup­po­si­tion. We read it with our own eyes.”

“All very true, your Hon­or,” replied Tom Austin, “and yet our search has been un­suc­cess­ful.”

“It is both a pro­vok­ing and hope­less busi­ness,” replied Gle­nar­van.

“Pro­vok­ing enough, cer­tain­ly,” said the Ma­jor, “but not hope­less. It is pre­cise­ly be­cause we have an un­con-​testable fig­ure, pro­vid­ed for us, that we should fol­low it up to the end.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gle­nar­van. “What more can we do?”

“A very log­ical and sim­ple thing, my dear Ed­ward. When we go on board the DUN­CAN, turn her beak head to the east, and go right along the thir­ty-​sev­enth par­al­lel till we come back to our start­ing point if nec­es­sary.”

“Do you sup­pose that I have not thought of that, Mr. Mc­Nabbs?” replied Gle­nar­van. “Yes, a hun­dred times. But what chance is there of suc­cess? To leave the Amer­ican con­ti­nent, wouldn’t it be to go away from the very spot in­di­cat­ed by Har­ry Grant, from this very Patag­onia so dis­tinct­ly named in the doc­ument.”

“And would you recom­mence your search in the Pam­pas, when you have the cer­tain­ty that the ship­wreck of the BRI­TAN­NIA nei­ther oc­curred on the coasts of the Pa­cif­ic nor the At­lantic?”

Gle­nar­van was silent.

“And how­ev­er small the chance of find­ing Har­ry Grant by fol­low­ing up the giv­en par­al­lel, ought we not to try?”

“I don’t say no,” replied Gle­nar­van.

“And are you not of my opin­ion, good friends,” added the Ma­jor, ad­dress­ing the sailors.

“En­tire­ly,” said Tom Austin, while Mul­rady and Wil­son gave an as­sent­ing nod.

“Lis­ten to me, friends,” said Gle­nar­van af­ter a few min­utes’ re­flec­tion; “and re­mem­ber, Robert, this is a grave dis­cus­sion. I will do my ut­most to find Cap­tain Grant; I am pledged to it, and will de­vote my whole life to the task if needs be. All Scot­land would unite with me to save so de­vot­ed a son as he has been to her. I too quite think with you that we must fol­low the thir­ty-​sev­enth par­al­lel round the globe if nec­es­sary, how­ev­er slight our chance of find­ing him. But that is not the ques­tion we have to set­tle. There is one much more im­por­tant than that is–should we from this time, and all to­geth­er, give up our search on the Amer­ican con­ti­nent?”

No one made any re­ply. Each one seemed afraid to pro­nounce the word.

“Well?” re­sumed Gle­nar­van, ad­dress­ing him­self es­pe­cial­ly to the Ma­jor.

“My dear Ed­ward,” replied Mc­Nabbs, “it would be in­cur­ring too great a re­spon­si­bil­ity for me to re­ply _hic et nunc_. It is a ques­tion which re­quires re­flec­tion. I must know first, through which coun­tries the thir­ty-​sev­enth par­al­lel of south­ern lat­itude pass­es?”

“That’s Pa­ganel’s busi­ness; he will tell you that,” said Gle­nar­van.

“Let’s ask him, then,” replied the Ma­jor.

But the learned ge­og­ra­pher was nowhere to be seen. He was hid­den among the thick leafage of the OM­BU, and they must call out if they want­ed him.

“Pa­ganel, Pa­ganel!” shout­ed Gle­nar­van.

“Here,” replied a voice that seemed to come from the clouds.

“Where are you?”

“In my tow­er.”

“What are you do­ing there?”

“Ex­am­in­ing the wide hori­zon.”

“Could you come down for a minute?”

“Do you want me?”

“Yes.”

“What for?”

“To know what coun­tries the thir­ty-​sev­enth par­al­lel pass­es through.”

“That’s eas­ily said. I need not dis­turb my­self to come down for that.”

“Very well, tell us now.”

“Lis­ten, then. Af­ter leav­ing Amer­ica the thir­ty-​sev­enth par­al­lel cross­es the At­lantic Ocean.”

“And then?”

“It en­coun­ters Isle Tris­tan d’Acun­ha.”

“Yes.”

“It goes on two de­grees be­low the Cape of Good Hope.”

“And af­ter­wards?”

“Runs across the In­di­an Ocean, and just touch­es Isle St. Pierre, in the Am­ster­dam group.”

“Go on.”

“It cuts Aus­tralia by the province of Vic­to­ria.”

“And then.”

“Af­ter leav­ing Aus­tralia in–“

This last sen­tence was not com­plet­ed. Was the ge­og­ra­pher hes­itat­ing, or didn’t he know what to say?

No; but a ter­ri­ble cry re­sound­ed from the top of the tree. Gle­nar­van and his friends turned pale and looked at each oth­er. What fresh catas­tro­phe had hap­pened now? Had the un­for­tu­nate Pa­ganel slipped his foot­ing?

Al­ready Wil­son and Mul­rady had rushed to his res­cue when his long body ap­peared tum­bling down from branch to branch.

But was he liv­ing or dead, for his hands made no at­tempt to seize any­thing to stop him­self. A few min­utes more, and he would have fall­en in­to the roar­ing wa­ters had not the Ma­jor’s strong arm barred his pas­sage.

“Much obliged, Mc­Nabbs,” said Pa­ganel.

“How’s this? What is the mat­ter with you? What came over you? An­oth­er of your ab­sent fits.”

“Yes, yes,” replied Pa­ganel, in a voice al­most inar­tic­ulate with emo­tion. “Yes, but this was some­thing ex­traor­di­nary.”

“What was it?”

“I said we had made a mis­take. We are mak­ing it still, and have been all along.”

“Ex­plain your­self.”

“Gle­nar­van, Ma­jor, Robert, my friends,” ex­claimed Pa­ganel, “all you that hear me, we are look­ing for Cap­tain Grant where he is not to be found.”

“What do you say?” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van.

“Not on­ly where he is not now, but where he has nev­er been.”