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

CHAPTER XXVI THE RETURN ON BOARD

FOR two hours the OM­BU nav­igat­ed the im­mense lake with­out reach­ing _ter­ra fir­ma_. The flames which were de­vour­ing it had grad­ual­ly died out. The chief dan­ger of their fright­ful pas­sage was thus re­moved, and the Ma­jor went the length of say­ing, that he should not be sur­prised if they were saved af­ter all.

The di­rec­tion of the cur­rent re­mained un­changed, al­ways run­ning from south­west to north­east. Pro­found dark­ness had again set in, on­ly il­lu­mined here and there by a part­ing flash of light­ning. The storm was near­ly over. The rain had giv­en place to light mists, which a breath of wind dis­persed, and the heavy mass­es of cloud had sep­arat­ed, and now streaked the sky in long bands.

The OM­BU was borne on­ward so rapid­ly by the im­petu­ous tor­rent, that any­one might have sup­posed some pow­er­ful lo­co­mo­tive en­gine was hid­den in its trunk. It seemed like­ly enough they might con­tin­ue drift­ing in this way for days. About three o’clock in the morn­ing, how­ev­er, the Ma­jor no­ticed that the roots were be­gin­ning to graze the ground oc­ca­sion­al­ly, and by sound­ing the depth of the wa­ter with a long branch, Tom Austin found that they were get­ting on ris­ing ground. Twen­ty min­utes af­ter­ward, the OM­BU stopped short with a vi­olent jolt.

“Land! land!” shout­ed Pa­ganel, in a ring­ing tone.

The ex­trem­ity of the cal­cined bough had struck some hillock, and nev­er were sailors more glad; the rock to them was the port.

Al­ready Robert and Wil­son had leaped on to the sol­id plateau with a loud, joy­ful hur­rah! when a well-​known whis­tle was heard. The gal­lop of a horse re­sound­ed over the plain, and the tall form of Thal­cave emerged from the dark­ness.

“Thal­cave! Thal­cave!” they all cried with one voice.

“Ami­gos!” replied the Patag­oni­an, who had been wait­ing for the trav­el­ers here in the same place where the cur­rent had land­ed him­self.

As he spoke he lift­ed up Robert in his arms, and hugged him to his breast, nev­er imag­in­ing that Pa­ganel was hang­ing on to him. A gen­er­al and hearty hand-​shak­ing fol­lowed, and ev­ery­one re­joiced at see­ing their faith­ful guide again. Then the Patag­oni­an led the way in­to the HANGAR of a de­sert­ed ES­TANCIA, where there was a good, blaz­ing fire to warm them, and a sub­stan­tial meal of fine, juicy slices of veni­son soon broil­ing, of which they did not leave a crumb. When their minds had calmed down a lit­tle, and they were able to re­flect on the dan­gers they had come through from flood, and fire, and al­li­ga­tors, they could scarce­ly be­lieve they had es­caped.

Thal­cave, in a few words, gave Pa­ganel an ac­count of him­self since they part­ed, en­tire­ly as­crib­ing his de­liv­er­ance to his in­trepid horse. Then Pa­ganel tried to make him un­der­stand their new in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the doc­ument, and the con­se­quent hopes they were in­dulging. Whether the In­di­an ac­tu­al­ly un­der­stood his in­ge­nious hy­poth­esis was a ques­tion; but he saw that they were glad and con­fi­dent, and that was enough for him.

As can eas­ily be imag­ined, af­ter their com­pul­so­ry rest on the OM­BU, the trav­el­ers were up be­times and ready to start. At eight o’clock they set off. No means of trans­port be­ing procur­able so far south, they were com­pelled to walk. How­ev­er, it was not more than forty miles now that they had to go, and Thaou­ka would not refuse to give a lift oc­ca­sion­al­ly to a tired pedes­tri­an, or even to a cou­ple at a pinch. In thir­ty-​six hours they might reach the shores of the At­lantic.

The low-​ly­ing tract of marshy ground, still un­der wa­ter, soon lay be­hind them, as Thal­cave led them up­ward to the high­er plains. Here the Ar­gen­tine ter­ri­to­ry re­sumed its monotonous as­pect. A few clumps of trees, plant­ed by Eu­ro­pean hands, might chance to be vis­ible among the pas­turage, but quite as rarely as in Tandil and Tapalquem Sier­ras. The na­tive trees are on­ly found on the edge of long prairies and about Cape Cor­ri­entes.

Next day, though still fif­teen miles dis­tant, the prox­im­ity of the ocean was sen­si­bly felt. The VI­RA­ZON, a pe­cu­liar wind, which blows reg­ular­ly half of the day and night, bent down the heads of the tall grass­es. Thin­ly plant­ed woods rose to view, and small tree-​like mi­mosas, bush­es of aca­cia, and tufts of CUR­RA-​MAN­TEL. Here and there, shin­ing like pieces of bro­ken glass, were sali­nous la­goons, which in­creased the dif­fi­cul­ty of the jour­ney as the trav­el­ers had to wind round them to get past. They pushed on as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, hop­ing to reach Lake Sal­ado, on the shores of the ocean, the same day; and at 8 P. M., when they found them­selves in front of the sand hills two hun­dred feet high, which skirt the coast, they were all tol­er­ably tired. But when the long mur­mur of the dis­tant ocean fell on their ears, the ex­haust­ed men for­got their fa­tigue, and ran up the sand­hills with sur­pris­ing agili­ty. But it was get­ting quite dark al­ready, and their ea­ger gaze could dis­cov­er no traces of the DUN­CAN on the gloomy ex­panse of wa­ter that met their sight.

“But she is there, for all that,” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van, “wait­ing for us, and run­ning along­side.”

“We shall see her to-​mor­row,” replied Mc­Nabbs.

Tom Austin hailed the in­vis­ible yacht, but there was no re­sponse. The wind was very high and the sea rough. The clouds were scud­ding along from the west, and the spray of the waves dashed up even to the sand-​hills. It was lit­tle won­der, then, if the man on the look-​out could nei­ther hear nor make him­self heard, sup­pos­ing the DUN­CAN were there. There was no shel­ter on the coast for her, nei­ther bay nor cove, nor port; not so much as a creek. The shore was com­posed of sand-​banks which ran out in­to the sea, and were more dan­ger­ous to ap­proach than rocky shoals. The sand-​banks ir­ri­tate the waves, and make the sea so par­tic­ular­ly rough, that in heavy weath­er ves­sels that run aground there are in­vari­ably dashed to pieces.

Though, then, the DUN­CAN would keep far away from such a coast, John Man­gles is a pru­dent cap­tain to get near. Tom Austin, how­ev­er, was of the opin­ion that she would be able to keep five miles out.

The Ma­jor ad­vised his im­pa­tient rel­ative to re­strain him­self to cir­cum­stances. Since there was no means of dis­si­pat­ing the dark­ness, what was the use of strain­ing his eyes by vain­ly en­deav­or­ing to pierce through it.

He set to work im­me­di­ate­ly to pre­pare the night’s en­camp­ment be­neath the shel­ter of the sand-​hills; the last pro­vi­sions sup­plied the last meal, and af­ter­ward, each, fol­low­ing the Ma­jor’s ex­am­ple, scooped out a hole in the sand, which made a com­fort­able enough bed, and then cov­ered him­self with the soft ma­te­ri­al up to his chin, and fell in­to a heavy sleep.

But Gle­nar­van kept watch. There was still a stiff breeze of wind, and the ocean had not re­cov­ered its equi­lib­ri­um af­ter the re­cent storm. The waves, at all times tu­mul­tuous, now broke over the sand-​banks with a noise like thun­der. Gle­nar­van could not rest, know­ing the DUN­CAN was so near him. As to sup­pos­ing she had not ar­rived at the ap­point­ed ren­dezvous, that was out of the ques­tion. Gle­nar­van had left the Bay of Talc­ahuano on the 14th of Oc­to­ber, and ar­rived on the shores of the At­lantic on the 12th of Novem­ber. He had tak­en thir­ty days to cross Chili, the Cordilleras, the Pam­pas, and the Ar­gen­tine plains, giv­ing the DUN­CAN am­ple time to dou­ble Cape Horn, and ar­rive on the op­po­site side. For such a fast run­ner there were no im­ped­iments. Cer­tain­ly the storm had been very vi­olent, and its fury must have been ter­ri­ble on such a vast bat­tle­field as the At­lantic, but the yacht was a good ship, and the cap­tain was a good sailor. He was bound to be there, and he would be there.

These re­flec­tions, how­ev­er, did not calm Gle­nar­van. When the heart and the rea­son are strug­gling, it is gen­er­al­ly the heart that wins the mas­tery. The laird of Mal­colm Cas­tle felt the pres­ence of loved ones about him in the dark­ness as he wan­dered up and down the lone­ly strand. He gazed, and lis­tened, and even fan­cied he caught oc­ca­sion­al glimpses of a faint light.

“I am not mis­tak­en,” he said to him­self; “I saw a ship’s light, one of the lights on the DUN­CAN! Oh! why can’t I see in the dark?”

All at once the thought rushed across him that Pa­ganel said he was a nyc­ta­lope, and could see at night. He must go and wake him.

The learned ge­og­ra­pher was sleep­ing as sound as a mole. A strong arm pulled him up out of the sand and made him call out:

“Who goes there?”

“It is I, Pa­ganel.”

“Who?”

“Gle­nar­van. Come, I need your eyes.”

“My eyes,” replied Pa­ganel, rub­bing them vig­or­ous­ly.

“Yes, I need your eyes to make out the DUN­CAN in this dark­ness, so come.”

“Con­found the nyc­talop­ia!” said Pa­ganel, in­ward­ly, though de­light­ed to be of any ser­vice to his friend.

He got up and shook his stiff­ened limbs, and stretch­ing and yawn­ing as most peo­ple do when roused from sleep, fol­lowed Gle­nar­van to the beach.

Gle­nar­van begged him to ex­am­ine the dis­tant hori­zon across the sea, which he did most con­sci­en­tious­ly for some min­utes.

“Well, do you see noth­ing?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“Not a thing. Even a cat couldn’t see two steps be­fore her.”

V. IV Verne

“Look for a red light or a green one–her lar­board or star­board light.”

“I see nei­ther a red nor a green light, all is pitch dark,” replied Pa­ganel, his eyes in­vol­un­tar­ily be­gin­ning to close.

For half an hour he fol­lowed his im­pa­tient friend, me­chan­ical­ly let­ting his head fre­quent­ly drop on his chest, and rais­ing it again with a start. At last he nei­ther an­swered nor spoke, and he reeled about like a drunk­en man. Gle­nar­van looked at him, and found he was sound asleep!

With­out at­tempt­ing to wake him, he took his arm, led him back to his hole, and buried him again com­fort­ably.

At dawn next morn­ing, all the slum­ber­ers start­ed to their feet and rushed to the shore, shout­ing “Hur­rah, hur­rah!” as Lord Gle­nar­van’s loud cry, “The DUN­CAN, the DUN­CAN!” broke up­on his ear.

There she was, five miles out, her cours­es care­ful­ly reefed, and her steam half up. Her smoke was lost in the morn­ing mist. The sea was so vi­olent that a ves­sel of her ton­nage could not have ven­tured safe­ly near­er the sand-​banks.

Gle­nar­van, by the aid of Pa­ganel’s tele­scope, close­ly ob­served the move­ments of the yacht. It was ev­ident that John Man­gles had not per­ceived his pas­sen­gers, for he con­tin­ued his course as be­fore.

But at this very mo­ment Thal­cave fired his car­bine in the di­rec­tion of the yacht. They lis­tened and looked, but no sig­nal of recog­ni­tion was re­turned. A sec­ond and a third time the In­di­an fired, awak­en­ing the echoes among the sand-​hills.

At last a white smoke was seen is­su­ing from the side of the yacht.

“They see us!” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van. “That’s the can­non of the DUN­CAN.”

A few sec­onds, and the heavy boom of the can­non came across the wa­ter and died away on the shore. The sails were in­stant­ly al­tered, and the steam got up, so as to get as near the coast as pos­si­ble.

Present­ly, through the glass, they saw a boat low­ered.

“La­dy He­le­na will not be able to come,” said Tom Austin. “It is too rough.”

“Nor John Man­gles,” added Mc­Nabbs; “he can­not leave the ship.”

“My sis­ter, my sis­ter!” cried Robert, stretch­ing out his arms to­ward the yacht, which was now rolling vi­olent­ly.

“Oh, how I wish I could get on board!” said Gle­nar­van.

“Pa­tience, Ed­ward! you will be there in a cou­ple of hours,” replied the Ma­jor.

Two hours! But it was im­pos­si­ble for a boat–a six-​oared one– to come and go in a short­er space of time.

Gle­nar­van went back to Thal­cave, who stood be­side Thaou­ka, with his arms crossed, look­ing qui­et­ly at the trou­bled waves.

Gle­nar­van took his hand, and point­ing to the yacht, said: “Come!”

The In­di­an gen­tly shook his head.

“Come, friend,” re­peat­ed Gle­nar­van.

“No,” said Thal­cave, gen­tly. “Here is Thaou­ka, and there– the Pam­pas,” he added, em­brac­ing with a pas­sion­ate ges­ture the wide-​stretch­ing prairies.

Gle­nar­van un­der­stood his re­fusal. He knew that the In­di­an would nev­er for­sake the prairie, where the bones of his fa­thers were whiten­ing, and he knew the re­li­gious at­tach­ment of these sons of the desert for their na­tive land. He did not urge Thal­cave longer, there­fore, but sim­ply pressed his hand. Nor could he find it in his heart to in­sist, when the In­di­an, smil­ing as usu­al, would not ac­cept the price of his ser­vices, push­ing back the mon­ey, and say­ing:

“For the sake of friend­ship.”

Gle­nar­van could not re­ply; but he wished at least, to leave the brave fel­low some sou­venir of his Eu­ro­pean friends. What was there to give, how­ev­er? Arms, hors­es, ev­ery­thing had been de­stroyed in the un­for­tu­nate in­un­da­tion, and his friends were no rich­er than him­self.

He was quite at a loss how to show his recog­ni­tion of the dis­in­ter­est­ed­ness of this no­ble guide, when a hap­py thought struck him. He had an exquisite por­trait of La­dy He­le­na in his pock­et, a CHEF-​D’OEU­VRE of Lawrence. This he drew out, and of­fered to Thal­cave, sim­ply say­ing:

“My wife.”

The In­di­an gazed at it with a soft­ened eye, and said:

“Good and beau­ti­ful.”

Then Robert, and Pa­ganel, and the Ma­jor, and the rest, ex­changed touch­ing farewells with the faith­ful Patag­oni­an. Thal­cave em­braced them each, and pressed them to his broad chest. Pa­ganel made him ac­cept a map of South Amer­ica and the two oceans, which he had of­ten seen the In­di­an look­ing at with in­ter­est. It was the most pre­cious thing the ge­og­ra­pher pos­sessed. As for Robert, he had on­ly ca­ress­es to be­stow, and these he lav­ished on his friend, not for­get­ting to give a share to Thaou­ka.

The boat from the DUN­CAN was now fast ap­proach­ing, and in an­oth­er minute had glid­ed in­to a nar­row chan­nel be­tween the sand-​banks, and run ashore.

“My wife?” were Gle­nar­van’s first words.

“My sis­ter?” said Robert.

“La­dy He­le­na and Miss Grant are wait­ing for you on board,” replied the coxswain; “but lose no time your hon­or, we have not a minute, for the tide is be­gin­ning to ebb al­ready.”

The last kind­ly adieux were spo­ken, and Thal­cave ac­com­pa­nied his friends to the boat, which had been pushed back in­to the wa­ter. Just as Robert was go­ing to step in, the In­di­an took him in his arms, and gazed ten­der­ly in­to his face. Then he said:

“Now go. You are a man.”

“Good-​by, good-​by, friend!” said Gle­nar­van, once more.

“Shall we nev­er see each oth­er again?” Pa­ganel called out.

“_Quien sabe?_” (Who knows?) replied Thal­cave, lift­ing his arms to­ward heav­en.

These were the In­di­an’s last words, dy­ing away on the breeze, as the boat re­ced­ed grad­ual­ly from the shore. For a long time, his dark, mo­tion­less SIL­HOU­ETTE stood out against the sky, through the white, dash­ing spray of the waves. Then by de­grees his tall form be­gan to di­min­ish in size, till at last his friends of a day lost sight of him al­to­geth­er.

An hour af­ter­ward Robert was the first to leap on board the DUN­CAN. He flung his arms round Mary’s neck, amid the loud, joy­ous hur­rahs of the crew on the yacht.

Thus the jour­ney across South Amer­ica was ac­com­plished, the giv­en line of march be­ing scrupu­lous­ly ad­hered to through­out.

Nei­ther moun­tains nor rivers had made the trav­el­ers change their course; and though they had not had to en­counter any ill-​will from men, their gen­er­ous in­tre­pid­ity had been of­ten enough rough­ly put to the proof by the fury of the un­chained el­ements.

END OF BOOK ONE

In Search of the Cast­aways or The Chil­dren of Cap­tain Grant

Aus­tralia

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In Search of the Cast­aways

Aus­tralia