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

CHAPTER II THE THREE DOCUMENTS

ALL that could be dis­cov­ered, how­ev­er, on these pieces of pa­per was a few words here and there, the re­main­der of the lines be­ing al­most com­plete­ly oblit­er­at­ed by the ac­tion of the wa­ter. Lord Gle­nar­van ex­am­ined them at­ten­tive­ly for a few min­utes, turn­ing them over on all sides, hold­ing them up to the light, and try­ing to de­ci­pher the least scrap of writ­ing, while the oth­ers looked on with anx­ious eyes. At last he said: “There are three dis­tinct doc­uments here, ap­par­ent­ly copies of the same doc­ument in three dif­fer­ent lan­guages. Here is one in En­glish, one in French, and one in Ger­man.”

“But can you make any sense out of them?” asked La­dy He­le­na.

“That’s hard to say, my dear He­le­na, the words are quite in­com­plete.”

“Per­haps the one may sup­ple­ment the oth­er,” sug­gest­ed Ma­jor Mc­Nabbs.

“Very like­ly they will,” said the cap­tain. “It is im­pos­si­ble that the very same words should have been ef­faced in each doc­ument, and by putting the scraps to­geth­er we might gath­er some in­tel­li­gi­ble mean­ing out of them.”

“That’s what we will do,” re­joined Lord Gle­nar­van; “but let us pro­ceed me­thod­ical­ly. Here is the En­glish doc­ument first.”

All that re­mained of it was the fol­low­ing:

62 _Bri gow sink stra aland skipp Gr that monit of long and ssis­tance lost_

“There’s not much to be made out of that,” said the Ma­jor, look­ing dis­ap­point­ed.

“No, but it is good En­glish any­how,” re­turned the cap­tain.

“There’s no doubt of it,” said Gle­nar­van. “The words SINK, ALAND, LOST are en­tire; SKIPP is ev­ident­ly part of the word SKIP­PER, and that’s what they call ship cap­tains of­ten in Eng­land. There seems a Mr. Gr. men­tioned, and that most like­ly is the cap­tain of the ship­wrecked ves­sel.”

“Well, come, we have made out a good deal al­ready,” said La­dy He­le­na.

“Yes, but un­for­tu­nate­ly there are whole lines want­ing,” said the Ma­jor, “and we have nei­ther the name of the ship nor the place where she was ship­wrecked.”

“We’ll get that by and by,” said Ed­ward.

“Oh, yes; there is no doubt of it,” replied the Ma­jor, who al­ways echoed his neigh­bor’s opin­ion. “But how?”

“By com­par­ing one doc­ument with the oth­er.”

“Let us try them,” said his wife.

The sec­ond piece of pa­per was even more de­stroyed than the first; on­ly a few scat­tered words re­mained here and there.

It ran as fol­lows:

7 Ju­ni Glas zwei atrosen graus bringt ih­nen

“This is writ­ten in Ger­man,” said John Man­gles the mo­ment he looked at it.

“And you un­der­stand that lan­guage, don’t you?” asked Lord Gle­nar­van.

“Per­fect­ly.”

“Come, then, tell us the mean­ing of these words.”

The cap­tain ex­am­ined the doc­ument care­ful­ly, and said:

“Well, here’s the date of the oc­cur­rence first: 7 Ju­ni means June 7; and if we put that be­fore the fig­ures 62 we have in the oth­er doc­ument, it gives us the ex­act date, 7th of June, 1862.”

“Cap­ital!” ex­claimed La­dy He­le­na. “Go on, John!”

“On the same line,” re­sumed the young cap­tain, “there is the syl­la­ble GLAS and if we add that to the GOW we found in the En­glish pa­per, we get the whole word GLAS­GOW at once. The doc­uments ev­ident­ly re­fer to some ship that sailed out of the port of Glas­gow.” “That is my opin­ion, too,” said the Ma­jor.

“The sec­ond line is com­plete­ly ef­faced,” con­tin­ued the Cap­tain; “but here are two im­por­tant words on the third. There is ZWEI, which means TWO, and ATROSEN or MA­TROSEN, the Ger­man for SAILORS.”

“Then I sup­pose it is about a cap­tain and two sailors,” said La­dy He­le­na.

“It seems so,” replied Lord Gle­nar­van.

“I must con­fess, your Lord­ship, that the next word puz­zles me. I can make noth­ing of it. Per­haps the third doc­ument may throw some light on it. The last two words are plain enough. BRINGT IH­NEN means BRING THEM; and, if you rec­ol­lect, in the En­glish pa­per we had SSIS­TANCE, so by putting the parts to­geth­er, it reads thus, I think: ‘BRING THEM AS­SIS­TANCE.’”

“Yes, that must be it,” replied Lord Gle­nar­van. “But where are the poor fel­lows? We have not the slight­est in­di­ca­tion of the place, mean­time, nor of where the catas­tro­phe hap­pened.”

“Per­haps the French copy will be more ex­plic­it,” sug­gest­ed La­dy He­le­na.

“Here it is, then,” said Lord Gle­nar­van, “and that is in a lan­guage we all know.”

The words it con­tained were these:

troi ats tan­nia go­nie aus­tral abor con­tin pr cru­el in­di jete on­git et 37 de­grees 11″ LAT

“There are fig­ures!” ex­claimed La­dy He­le­na. “Look!”

“Let us go steadi­ly to work,” said Lord Gle­nar­van, “and be­gin at the be­gin­ning. I think we can make out from the in­com­plete words in the first line that a three-​mast ves­sel is in ques­tion, and there is lit­tle doubt about the name; we get that from the frag­ments of the oth­er pa­pers; it is the BRI­TAN­NIA. As to the next two words, GO­NIE and AUS­TRAL, it is on­ly AUS­TRAL that has any mean­ing to us.”

“But that is a valu­able scrap of in­for­ma­tion,” said John Man­gles. “The ship­wreck oc­curred in the south­ern hemi­sphere.”

“That’s a wide world,” said the Ma­jor.

“Well, we’ll go on,” re­sumed Gle­nar­van. “Here is the word ABOR; that is clear­ly the root of the verb ABOR­DER. The poor men have land­ed some­where; but where? CON­TIN–does that mean con­ti­nent? CRU­EL!”

“CRU­EL!” in­ter­rupt­ed John Man­gles. “I see now what GRAUS is part of in the sec­ond doc­ument. It is GRAUSAM, the word in Ger­man for CRU­EL!”

“Let’s go on,” said Lord Gle­nar­van, be­com­ing quite ex­cit­ed over his task, as the in­com­plete words be­gan to fill up and de­vel­op their mean­ing. “IN­DI,–is it In­dia where they have been ship­wrecked? And what can this word ON­GIT be part of? Ah! I see–it is LON­GI­TUDE; and here is the lat­itude, 37 de­grees 11″. That is the pre­cise in­di­ca­tion at last, then!”

“But we haven’t the lon­gi­tude,” ob­ject­ed Mc­Nabbs.

“But we can’t get ev­ery­thing, my dear Ma­jor; and it is some­thing at all events, to have the ex­act lat­itude. The French doc­ument is de­cid­ed­ly the most com­plete of the three; but it is plain enough that each is the lit­er­al trans­la­tion of the oth­er, for they all con­tain ex­act­ly the same num­ber of lines. What we have to do now is to put to­geth­er all the words we have found, and trans­late them in­to one lan­guage, and try to as­cer­tain their most prob­able and log­ical sense.”

“Well, what lan­guage shall we choose?” asked the Ma­jor.

“I think we had bet­ter keep to the French, since that was the most com­plete doc­ument of the three.”

“Your Lord­ship is right,” said John Man­gles, “and be­sides, we’re all fa­mil­iar with the lan­guage.”

“Very well, then, I’ll set to work.”

In a few min­utes he had writ­ten as fol­lows:

7 Juin 1862 trois-​mats Bri­tan­nia Glas­gow som­bre go­nie aus­tral a terre deux matelots cap­itaine Gr abor con­tin pr cru­el in­di jete ce doc­ument de lon­gi­tude et 37 de­grees 11″ de lat­itude Portez-​leur sec­ours per­dus.

[7th of June, 1862 three-​mast BRI­TAN­NIA Glas­gow] foundered go­nie south­ern on the coast two sailors Gr Cap­tain land­ed con­tin pr cru­el in­di thrown this doc­ument in lon­gi­tude and 37 de­grees 11″ lat­itude Bring them as­sis­tance lost

Just at that mo­ment one of the sailors came to in­form the cap­tain that they were about en­ter­ing the Firth of Clyde, and to ask what were his or­ders.

“What are your Lord­ship’s in­ten­tions?” said John Man­gles, ad­dress­ing Lord Gle­nar­van.

“To get to Dun­bar­ton as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, John; and La­dy He­le­na will re­turn to Mal­colm Cas­tle, while I go on to Lon­don and lay this doc­ument be­fore the Ad­mi­ral­ty.”

The sailor re­ceived or­ders ac­cord­ing­ly, and went out to de­liv­er them to the mate.

“Now, friends,” said Lord Gle­nar­van, “let us go on with our in­ves­ti­ga­tions, for we are on the track of a great catas­tro­phe, and the lives of sev­er­al hu­man be­ings de­pend on our sagac­ity. We must give our whole minds to the so­lu­tion of this enig­ma.”

“First of all, there are three very dis­tinct things to be con­sid­ered in this doc­ument–the things we know, the things we may con­jec­ture, the things we do not know.”

“What are those we know? We know that on the 7th of June a three-​mast ves­sel, the BRI­TAN­NIA of Glas­gow, foundered; that two sailors and the cap­tain threw this doc­ument in­to the sea in 37 de­grees 11″ lat­itude, and they en­treat help.”

“Ex­act­ly so,” said the Ma­jor.

“What are those now we may con­jec­ture?” con­tin­ued Gle­nar­van. “That the ship­wreck oc­curred in the south­ern seas; and here I would draw your at­ten­tion at once to the in­com­plete word GO­NIE. Doesn’t the name of the coun­try strike you even in the mere men­tion of it?”

“Patag­onia!” ex­claimed La­dy He­le­na.

“Un­doubt­ed­ly.”

“But is Patag­onia crossed by the 37th par­al­lel?” asked the Ma­jor.

“That is eas­ily as­cer­tained,” said the cap­tain, open­ing a map of South Amer­ica. “Yes, it is; Patag­onia just touch­es the 37th par­al­lel. It cuts through Arau­ca­nia, goes along over the Pam­pas to the north, and los­es it­self in the At­lantic.”

“Well, let us pro­ceed then with our con­jec­tures. The two sailors and the cap­tain LAND–land where? CON­TIN–on a con­ti­nent; on a con­ti­nent, mark you, not an is­land. What be­comes of them? There are two let­ters here prov­iden­tial­ly which give a clew to their fate–PR, that must mean pris­on­ers, and CRU­EL IN­DI­AN is ev­ident­ly the mean­ing of the next two words. These un­for­tu­nate men are cap­tives in the hands of cru­el In­di­ans. Don’t you see it? Don’t the words seem to come of them­selves, and fill up the blanks? Isn’t the doc­ument quite clear now? Isn’t the sense self-​ev­ident?”

Gle­nar­van spoke in a tone of ab­so­lute con­vic­tion, and his en­thu­si­as­tic con­fi­dence ap­peared con­ta­gious, for the oth­ers all ex­claimed, too, “Yes, it is ev­ident, quite ev­ident!”

Af­ter an in­stant, Lord Ed­ward said again, “To my own mind the hy­poth­esis is so plau­si­ble, that I have no doubt what­ev­er the event oc­curred on the coast of Patag­onia, but still I will have in­quiries made in Glas­gow, as to the des­ti­na­tion of the BRI­TAN­NIA, and we shall know if it is pos­si­ble she could have been wrecked on those shores.”

“Oh, there’s no need to send so far to find out that,” said John Man­gles. “I have the _Mer­can­tile and Ship­ping Gazette_ here, and we’ll see the name on the list, and all about it.”

“Do look at once, then,” said Lord Gle­nar­van.

The file of pa­pers for the year 1862 was soon brought, and John be­gan to turn over the leaves rapid­ly, run­ning down each page with his eye in search of the name re­quired. But his quest was not long, for in a few min­utes he called out: “I’ve got it! ‘May 30, 1862, Pe­ru-​Callao, with car­go for Glas­gow, the BRI­TAN­NIA, Cap­tain Grant.’”

“Grant!” ex­claimed Lord Gle­nar­van. “That is the ad­ven­tur­ous Scotch­man that at­tempt­ed to found a new Scot­land on the shores of the Pa­cif­ic.”

“Yes,” re­joined John Man­gles, “it is the very man. He sailed from Glas­gow in the BRI­TAN­NIA in 1861, and has not been heard of since.”

“There isn’t a doubt of it, not a shad­ow of doubt,” re­peat­ed Lord Gle­nar­van. “It is just that same Cap­tain Grant. The BRI­TAN­NIA left Callao on the 30th of May, and on the 7th of June, a week af­ter­ward, she is lost on the coast of Patag­onia. The few bro­ken dis­joint­ed words we find in these doc­uments tell us the whole sto­ry. You see, friends, our con­jec­tures hit the mark very well; we know all now ex­cept one thing, and that is the lon­gi­tude.”

“That is not need­ed now, we know the coun­try. With the lat­itude alone, I would en­gage to go right to the place where the wreck hap­pened.”

“Then have we re­al­ly all the par­tic­ulars now?” asked La­dy He­le­na.

“All, dear He­le­na; I can fill up ev­ery one of these blanks the sea has made in the doc­ument as eas­ily as if Cap­tain Grant were dic­tat­ing to me.”

And he took up the pen, and dashed off the fol­low­ing lines im­me­di­ate­ly: “On the 7th of June, 1862, the three-​mast ves­sel, BRI­TAN­NIA, of Glas­gow, has sunk on the coast of Patag­onia, in the south­ern hemi­sphere. Mak­ing for the shore, two sailors and Cap­tain Grant are about to land on the con­ti­nent, where they will be tak­en pris­on­ers by cru­el In­di­ans. They have thrown this doc­ument in­to the sea, in lon­gi­tude and lat­itude 37 de­grees 11″. Bring them as­sis­tance, or they are lost.”

“Cap­ital! cap­ital! dear Ed­ward,” said La­dy He­le­na. “If those poor crea­tures ev­er see their na­tive land again, it is you they will have to thank for it.”

“And they will see it again,” re­turned Lord Gle­nar­van; “the state­ment is too ex­plic­it, and clear, and cer­tain for Eng­land to hes­itate about go­ing to the aid of her three sons cast away on a desert coast. What she has done for Franklin and so many oth­ers, she will do to-​day for these poor ship­wrecked fel­lows of the BRI­TAN­NIA.”

“Most like­ly the un­for­tu­nate men have fam­ilies who mourn their loss. Per­haps this ill-​fat­ed Cap­tain Grant had a wife and chil­dren,” sug­gest­ed La­dy He­le­na.

“Very true, my dear, and I’ll not for­get to let them know that there is still hope. But now, friends, we had bet­ter go up on deck, as the boat must be get­ting near the har­bor.”

A car­riage and post-​hors­es wait­ed there, in readi­ness to con­vey La­dy He­le­na and Ma­jor Mc­Nabbs to Mal­colm Cas­tle, and Lord Gle­nar­van bade adieu to his young wife, and jumped in­to the ex­press train for Glas­gow.

But be­fore start­ing he con­fid­ed an im­por­tant mis­sive to a swifter agent than him­self, and a few min­utes af­ter­ward it flashed along the elec­tric wire to Lon­don, to ap­pear next day in the _Times and Morn­ing Chron­icle_ in the fol­low­ing words: “For in­for­ma­tion re­spect­ing the fate of the three-​mast ves­sel BRI­TAN­NIA, of Glas­gow, Cap­tain Grant, ap­ply to Lord Gle­nar­van, Mal­colm Cas­tle, Luss, Dum­bar­ton­shire, Scot­land.”