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

CHAPTER XV SUSPICIOUS OCCURRENCES

AN im­mense bar­ri­er lay across the route to the south­east. It was the Aus­tralian Alps, a vast for­ti­fi­ca­tion, the fan­tas­tic cur­tain of which ex­tend­ed 1,500 miles, and pierced the clouds at the height of 4,000 feet.

The cloudy sky on­ly al­lowed the heat to reach the ground through a close veil of mist. The tem­per­ature was just bear­able, but the road was toil­some from its un­even char­ac­ter. The ex­tumes­cences on the plain be­came more and more marked. Sev­er­al mounds plant­ed with green young gum trees ap­peared here and there. Fur­ther on these pro­tu­ber­ances ris­ing sharply, formed the first steps of the great Alps. From this time their course was a con­tin­ual as­cent, as was soon ev­ident in the strain it made on the bul­locks to drag along the cum­brous wag­on. Their yoke creaked, they breathed heav­ily, and the mus­cles of their houghs were stretched as if they would burst. The planks of the ve­hi­cle groaned at the un­ex­pect­ed jolts, which Ayr­ton with all his skill could not pre­vent. The ladies bore their share of dis­com­fort brave­ly.

John Man­gles and his two sailors act­ed as scouts, and went about a hun­dred steps in ad­vance. They found out prac­ti­cal paths, or pass­es, in­deed they might be called, for these pro­jec­tions of the ground were like so many rocks, be­tween which the wag­on had to steer care­ful­ly. It re­quired ab­so­lute nav­iga­tion to find a safe way over the bil­lowy re­gion.

It was a dif­fi­cult and of­ten per­ilous task. Many a time Wil­son’s hatch­et was obliged to open a pas­sage through thick tan­gles of shrubs. The damp argilla­ceous soil gave way un­der their feet. The route was in­def­inite­ly pro­longed ow­ing to the in­sur­mount­able ob­sta­cles, huge blocks of gran­ite, deep ravines, sus­pect­ed la­goons, which obliged them to make a thou­sand de­tours. When night came they found they had on­ly gone over half a de­gree. They camped at the foot of the Alps, on the banks of the creek of Cobon­gra, on the edge of a lit­tle plain, cov­ered with lit­tle shrubs four feet high, with bright red leaves which glad­dened the eye.

“We shall have hard work to get over,” said Gle­nar­van, look­ing at the chain of moun­tains, the out­lines of which were fast fad­ing away in the deep­en­ing dark­ness. “The very name Alps gives plen­ty of room for re­flec­tion.”

“It is not quite so big as it sounds, my dear Gle­nar­van. Don’t sup­pose you have a whole Switzer­land to tra­verse. In Aus­tralia there are the Grampians, the Pyre­nees, the Alps, the Blue Moun­tains, as in Eu­rope and Amer­ica, but in minia­ture. This sim­ply im­plies ei­ther that the imag­ina­tion of ge­og­ra­phers is not in­fi­nite, or that their vo­cab­ulary of prop­er names is very poor.”

“Then these Aus­tralian Alps,” said Lord Gle­nar­van, “are–“

“Mere pock­et moun­tains,” put in Pa­ganel; “we shall get over them with­out know­ing it.”

“Speak for your­self,” said the Ma­jor. “It would cer­tain­ly take a very ab­sent man who could cross over a chain of moun­tains and not know it.”

“Ab­sent! But I am not an ab­sent man now. I ap­peal to the ladies. Since ev­er I set foot on the Aus­tralian con­ti­nent, have I been once at fault? Can you re­proach me with a sin­gle blun­der?”

“Not one. Mon­sieur Pa­ganel,” said Mary Grant. “You are now the most per­fect of men.”

“Too per­fect,” added La­dy He­le­na, laugh­ing; “your blun­ders suit­ed you ad­mirably.”

“Didn’t they, Madam? If I have no faults now, I shall soon get like ev­ery­body else. I hope then I shall make some out­ra­geous mis­take be­fore long, which will give you a good laugh. You see, un­less I make mis­takes, it seems to me I fail in my vo­ca­tion.”

Next day, the 9th of Jan­uary, notwith­stand­ing the as­sur­ances of the con­fi­dent ge­og­ra­pher, it was not with­out great dif­fi­cul­ty that the lit­tle troop made its way through the Alpine pass. They were obliged to go at a ven­ture, and en­ter the depths of nar­row gorges with­out any cer­tain­ty of an out­let. Ayr­ton would doubt­less have found him­self very much em­bar­rassed if a lit­tle inn, a mis­er­able pub­lic house, had not sud­den­ly pre­sent­ed it­self.

“My good­ness!” cried Pa­ganel, “the land­lord of this inn won’t make his for­tune in a place like this. What is the use of it here?”

“To give us the in­for­ma­tion we want about the route,” replied Gle­nar­van. “Let us go in.”

Gle­nar­van, fol­lowed by Ayr­ton, en­tered the inn forth­with. The land­lord of the “Bush Inn,” as it was called, was a coarse man with an ill-​tem­pered face, who must have con­sid­ered him­self his prin­ci­pal cus­tomer for the gin, brandy and whisky he had to sell. He sel­dom saw any one but the squat­ters and rovers. He an­swered all the ques­tions put to him in a surly tone. But his replies suf­ficed to make the route clear to Ayr­ton, and that was all that was want­ed. Gle­nar­van re­ward­ed him with a hand­ful of sil­ver for his trou­ble, and was about to leave the tav­ern, when a plac­ard against the wall ar­rest­ed his at­ten­tion.

It was a po­lice no­tice, and an­nounc­ing the es­cape of the con­victs from Perth, and of­fer­ing a re­ward for the cap­ture of Ben Joyce of pounds 100 ster­ling.

“He’s a fel­low that’s worth hang­ing, and no mis­take,” said Gle­nar­van to the quar­ter­mas­ter.

“And worth cap­tur­ing still more. But what a sum to of­fer! He is not worth it!”

“I don’t feel very sure of the innkeep­er though, in spite of the no­tice,” said Gle­nar­van.

“No more do I,” replied Ayr­ton.

They went back to the wag­on, to­ward the point where the route to Luc­know stopped. A nar­row path wound away from this which led across the chain in a slant­ing di­rec­tion. They had com­menced the as­cent.

It was hard work. More than once both the ladies and gen­tle­men had to get down and walk. They were obliged to help to push round the wheels of the heavy ve­hi­cle, and to sup­port it fre­quent­ly in dan­ger­ous de­cliv­ities, to un­har-​ness the bul­locks when the team could not go well round sharp turn­ings, prop up the wag­on when it threat­ened to roll back, and more than once Ayr­ton had to re­in­force his bul­locks by har­ness­ing the hors­es, al­though they were tired out al­ready with drag­ging them­selves along.

Whether it was this pro­longed fa­tigue, or from some oth­er cause al­to­geth­er, was not known, but one of the hors­es sank sud­den­ly, with­out the slight­est symp­tom of ill­ness. It was Mul­rady’s horse that fell, and on at­tempt­ing to pull it up, the an­imal was found to be dead. Ayr­ton ex­am­ined it im­me­di­ate­ly, but was quite at a loss to ac­count for the dis­as­ter.

“The beast must have bro­ken some blood ves­sels,” said Gle­nar­van.

“Ev­ident­ly,” replied Ayr­ton.

“Take my horse, Mul­rady,” added Gle­nar­van. “I will join La­dy He­le­na in the wag­on.”

Mul­rady obeyed, and the lit­tle par­ty con­tin­ued their fa­tigu­ing as­cent, leav­ing the car­cass of the dead an­imal to the ravens.

The Aus­tralian Alps are of no great thick­ness, and the base is not more than eight miles wide. Con­se­quent­ly if the pass cho­sen by Ayr­ton came out on the east­ern side, they might hope to get over the high bar­ri­er with­in forty-​eight hours more. The dif­fi­cul­ty of the route would then be sur­mount­ed, and they would on­ly have to get to the sea.

Dur­ing the 18th the trav­el­ers reached the top-​most point of the pass, about 2,000 feet high. They found them­selves on an open plateau, with noth­ing to in­ter­cept the view. To­ward the north the qui­et wa­ters of Lake Om­co, all alive with aquat­ic birds, and be­yond this lay the vast plains of the Mur­ray. To the south were the wide spread­ing plains of Gipp­sland, with its abun­dant gold-​fields and tall forests. There na­ture was still mis­tress of the prod­ucts and wa­ter, and great trees where the wood­man’s ax was as yet un­known, and the squat­ters, then five in num­ber, could not strug­gle against her. It seemed as if this chain of the Alps sep­arat­ed two dif­fer­ent coun­tries, one of which had re­tained its prim­itive wild­ness. The sun went down, and a few soli­tary rays pierc­ing the rosy clouds, light­ed up the Mur­ray dis­trict, leav­ing Gipp­sland in deep shad­ow, as if night had sud­den­ly fall­en on the whole re­gion. The con­trast was pre­sent­ed very vivid­ly to the spec­ta­tors placed be­tween these two coun­tries so di­vid­ed, and some emo­tion filled the minds of the trav­el­ers, as they con­tem­plat­ed the al­most un­known dis­trict they were about to tra­verse right to the fron­tiers of Vic­to­ria.

They camped on the plateau that night, and next day the de­scent com­menced. It was tol­er­ably rapid. A hail­storm of ex­treme vi­olence as­sailed the trav­el­ers, and obliged them to seek a shel­ter among the rocks. It was not hail-​stones, but reg­ular lumps of ice, as large as one’s hand, which fell from the stormy clouds. A wa­ter­spout could not have come down with more vi­olence, and sundry big bruis­es warned Pa­ganel and Robert to re­treat. The wag­on was rid­dled in sev­er­al places, and few cov­er­ings would have held out against those sharp ici­cles, some of which had fas­tened them­selves in­to the trunks of the trees. It was im­pos­si­ble to go on till this tremen­dous show­er was over, un­less the trav­el­ers wished to be stoned. It last­ed about an hour, and then the march com­menced anew over slant­ing rocks still slip­pery af­ter the hail.

To­ward evening the wag­on, very much shak­en and dis­joint­ed in sev­er­al parts, but still stand­ing firm on its wood­en disks, came down the last slopes of the Alps, among great iso­lat­ed pines. The pas­sage end­ed in the plains of Gipp­sland. The chain of the Alps was safe­ly passed, and the usu­al ar­range­ments were made for the night­ly en­camp­ment.

On the 21st, at day­break, the jour­ney was re­sumed with an ar­dor which nev­er re­laxed. Ev­ery­one was ea­ger to reach the goal–that is to say the Pa­cif­ic Ocean–at that part where the wreck of the BRI­TAN­NIA had oc­curred. Noth­ing could be done in the lone­ly wilds of Gipp­sland, and Ayr­ton urged Lord Gle­nar­van to send or­ders at once for the DUN­CAN to re­pair to the coast, in or­der to have at hand all means of re­search. He thought it would cer­tain­ly be ad­vis­able to take ad­van­tage of the Luc­know route to Mel­bourne. If they wait­ed it would be dif­fi­cult to find any way of di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the cap­ital.

This ad­vice seemed good, and Pa­ganel rec­om­mend­ed that they should act up­on it. He al­so thought that the pres­ence of the yacht would be very use­ful, and he added, that if the Luc­know road was once passed, it would be im­pos­si­ble to com­mu­ni­cate with Mel­bourne.

Gle­nar­van was un­de­cid­ed what to do, and per­haps he would have yield­ed to Ayr­ton’s ar­gu­ments, if the Ma­jor had not com­bat­ed this de­ci­sion vig­or­ous­ly. He main­tained that the pres­ence of Ayr­ton was nec­es­sary to the ex­pe­di­tion, that he would know the coun­try about the coast, and that if any chance should put them on the track of Har­ry Grant, the quar­ter­mas­ter would be bet­ter able to fol­low it up than any one else, and, fi­nal­ly, that he alone could point out the ex­act spot where the ship­wreck oc­curred.

Mc­Nabbs vot­ed there­fore for the con­tin­ua­tion of the voy­age, with­out mak­ing the least change in their pro­gramme. John Man­gles was of the same opin­ion. The young cap­tain said even that or­ders would reach the DUN­CAN more eas­ily from Twofold Bay, than if a mes­sage was sent two hun­dred miles over a wild coun­try.

His coun­sel pre­vailed. It was de­cid­ed that they should wait till they came to Twofold Bay. The Ma­jor watched Ayr­ton nar­row­ly, and no­ticed his dis­ap­point­ed look. But he said noth­ing, keep­ing his ob­ser­va­tions, as usu­al, to him­self.

The plains which lay at the foot of the Aus­tralian Alps were lev­el, but slight­ly in­clined to­ward the east. Great clumps of mi­mosas and eu­ca­lyp­tus, and var­ious odor­ous gum-​trees, broke the uni­form monotony here and there. The _gas­trolo­bi­um gran­di­flo­rum_ cov­ered the ground, with its bush­es cov­ered with gay flow­ers. Sev­er­al unim­por­tant creeks, mere streams full of lit­tle rush­es, and half cov­ered up with or­chids, of­ten in­ter­rupt­ed the route. They had to ford these. Flocks of bus­tards and emus fled at the ap­proach of the trav­el­ers. Be­low the shrubs, kan­ga­roos were leap­ing and spring­ing like danc­ing jacks. But the hunters of the par­ty were not think­ing much of the sport, and the hors­es lit­tle need­ed any ad­di­tion­al fa­tigue.

More­over, a sul­try heat op­pressed the plain. The at­mo­sphere was com­plete­ly sat­urat­ed with elec­tric­ity, and its in­flu­ence was felt by men and beasts. They just dragged them­selves along, and cared for noth­ing else. The si­lence was on­ly in­ter­rupt­ed by the cries of Ayr­ton urg­ing on his bur­dened team.

From noon to two o’clock they went through a cu­ri­ous for­est of ferns, which would have ex­cit­ed the ad­mi­ra­tion of less weary trav­el­ers. These plants in full flow­er mea­sured thir­ty feet in height. Hors­es and rid­ers passed eas­ily be­neath their droop­ing leaves, and some­times the spurs would clash against the woody stems. Be­neath these im­mov­able para­sols there was a re­fresh­ing cool­ness which ev­ery one ap­pre­ci­at­ed. Jacques Pa­ganel, al­ways demon­stra­tive, gave such deep sighs of sat­is­fac­tion that the paro­quets and cock­atoos flew out in alarm, mak­ing a deaf­en­ing cho­rus of noisy chat­ter.

The ge­og­ra­pher was go­ing on with his sighs and ju­bi­la­tions with the ut­most cool­ness, when his com­pan­ions sud­den­ly saw him reel for­ward, and he and his horse fell down in a lump. Was it gid­di­ness, or worse still, suf­fo­ca­tion, caused by the high tem­per­ature? They ran to him, ex­claim­ing: “Pa­ganel! Pa­ganel! what is the mat­ter?”

“Just this. I have no horse, now!” he replied, dis­en­gag­ing his feet from the stir­rups.

“What! your horse?”

“Dead like Mul­rady’s, as if a thun­der­bolt had struck him.”

Gle­nar­van, John Man­gles, and Wil­son ex­am­ined the an­imal; and found Pa­ganel was right. His horse had been sud­den­ly struck dead.

“That is strange,” said John.

“Very strange, tru­ly,” mut­tered the Ma­jor.

Gle­nar­van was great­ly dis­turbed by this fresh ac­ci­dent. He could not get a fresh horse in the desert, and if an epi­dem­ic was go­ing to seize their steeds, they would be se­ri­ous­ly em­bar­rassed how to pro­ceed.

Be­fore the close of the day, it seemed as if the word epi­dem­ic was re­al­ly go­ing to be jus­ti­fied. A third horse, Wil­son’s, fell dead, and what was, per­haps equal­ly dis­as­trous, one of the bul­locks al­so. The means of trac­tion and trans­port were now re­duced to three bul­locks and four hors­es.

The sit­ua­tion be­came grave. The un­mount­ed horse­men might walk, of course, as many squat­ters had done al­ready; but if they aban­doned the wag­on, what would the ladies do? Could they go over the one hun­dred and twen­ty miles which lay be­tween them and Twofold Bay? John Man­gles and Lord Gle­nar­van ex­am­ined the sur­viv­ing hors­es with great un­easi­ness, but there was not the slight­est symp­tom of ill­ness or fee­ble­ness in them. The an­imals were in per­fect health, and brave­ly bear­ing the fa­tigues of the voy­age. This some­what re­as­sured Gle­nar­van, and made him hope the mal­ady would strike no more vic­tims. Ayr­ton agreed with him, but was un­able to find the least so­lu­tion of the mys­tery.

They went on again, the wag­on serv­ing, from time to time, as a house of rest for the pedes­tri­ans. In the evening, af­ter a march of on­ly ten miles, the sig­nal to halt was giv­en, and the tent pitched. The night passed with­out in­con­ve­nience be­neath a vast mass of bushy ferns, un­der which enor­mous bats, prop­er­ly called fly­ing fox­es, were flap­ping about.

The next day’s jour­ney was good; there were no new calami­ties. The health of the ex­pe­di­tion re­mained sat­is­fac­to­ry; hors­es and cat­tle did their task cheer­ily. La­dy He­le­na’s draw­ing-​room was very live­ly, thanks to the num­ber of vis­itors. M. Ol­bi­nett bus­ied him­self in pass­ing round re­fresh­ments which were very ac­cept­able in such hot weath­er. Half a bar­rel of Scotch ale was sent in bod­ily. Bar­clay and Co. was de­clared to be the great­est man in Great Britain, even above Welling­ton, who could nev­er have man­ufac­tured such good beer. This was a Scotch es­ti­mate. Jacques Pa­ganel drank large­ly, and dis­coursed still more _de om­ni re sci­bili_.

A day so well com­menced seemed as if it could not but end well; they had gone fif­teen good miles, and man­aged to get over a pret­ty hilly dis­trict where the soil was red­dish. There was ev­ery rea­son to hope they might camp that same night on the banks of the Snowy Riv­er, an im­por­tant riv­er which throws it­self in­to the Pa­cif­ic, south of Vic­to­ria.

Al­ready the wheels of the wag­on were mak­ing deep ruts on the wide plains, cov­ered with black­ish al­lu­vi­um, as it passed on be­tween tufts of lux­uri­ant grass and fresh fields of gas­trolo­bi­um. As evening came on, a white mist on the hori­zon marked the course of the Snowy Riv­er. Sev­er­al ad­di­tion­al miles were got over, and a for­est of tall trees came in sight at a bend of the road, be­hind a gen­tle em­inence. Ayr­ton turned his team a lit­tle to­ward the great trunks, lost in shad­ow, and he had got to the skirts of the wood, about half-​a-​mile from the riv­er, when the wag­on sud­den­ly sank up to the mid­dle of the wheels.

“Stop!” he called out to the horse­men fol­low­ing him.

“What is wrong?” in­quired Gle­nar­van.

“We have stuck in the mud,” replied Ayr­ton.

He tried to stim­ulate the bul­locks to a fresh ef­fort by voice and goad, but the an­imals were buried half-​way up their legs, and could not stir.

“Let us camp here,” sug­gest­ed John Man­gles.

“It would cer­tain­ly be the best place,” said Ayr­ton. “We shall see by day­light to-​mor­row how to get our­selves out.”

Gle­nar­van act­ed on their ad­vice, and came to a halt. Night came on rapid­ly af­ter a brief twi­light, but the heat did not with­draw with the light. Sti­fling va­pors filled the air, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly bright flash­es of light­ning, the re­flec­tions of a dis­tant storm, light­ed up the sky with a fiery glare. Ar­range­ments were made for the night im­me­di­ate­ly. They did the best they could with the sunk wag­on, and the tent was pitched be­neath the shel­ter of the great trees; and if the rain did not come, they had not much to com­plain about.

Ayr­ton suc­ceed­ed, though with some dif­fi­cul­ty, in ex­tri­cat­ing the three bul­locks. These coura­geous beasts were en­gulfed up to their flanks. The quar­ter­mas­ter turned them out with the four hors­es, and al­lowed no one but him­self to see af­ter their pas­turage. He al­ways ex­ecut­ed his task wise­ly, and this evening Gle­nar­van no­ticed he re­dou­bled his care, for which he took oc­ca­sion to thank him, the preser­va­tion of the team be­ing of supreme im­por­tance.

Mean­time, the trav­el­ers were dis­patch­ing a hasty sup­per. Fa­tigue and heat de­stroy ap­petite, and sleep was need­ed more than food. La­dy He­le­na and Miss Grant speed­ily bade the com­pa­ny good-​night, and re­tired. Their com­pan­ions soon stretched them­selves un­der the tent or out­side un­der the trees, which is no great hard­ship in this salu­bri­ous cli­mate.

Grad­ual­ly they all fell in­to a heavy sleep. The dark­ness deep­ened ow­ing to a thick cur­rent of clouds which over­spread the sky. There was not a breath of wind. The si­lence of night was on­ly in­ter­rupt­ed by the cries of the “more­pork” in the mi­nor key, like the mourn­ful cuck­oos of Eu­rope.

To­wards eleven o’clock, af­ter a wretched, heavy, unre-​fresh­ing sleep, the Ma­jor woke. His half-​closed eyes were struck with a faint light run­ning among the great trees. It looked like a white sheet, and glit­tered like a lake, and Mc­Nabbs thought at first it was the com­mence­ment of a fire.

He start­ed up, and went to­ward the wood; but what was his sur­prise to per­ceive a pure­ly nat­ural phe­nomenon! Be­fore him lay an im­mense bed of mush­rooms, which emit­ted a phos­pho­res­cent light. The lu­mi­nous spores of the cryp­tograms shone in the dark­ness with in­ten­si­ty.

The Ma­jor, who had no self­ish­ness about him, was go­ing to wak­en Pa­ganel, that he might see this phe­nomenon with his own eyes, when some­thing oc­curred which ar­rest­ed him. This phos­pho­res­cent light il­lu­mined the dis­tance half a mile, and Mc­Nabbs fan­cied he saw a shad­ow pass across the edge of it. Were his eyes de­ceiv­ing him? Was it some hal­lu­ci­na­tion?

Mc­Nabbs lay down on the ground, and, af­ter a close scruti­ny, he could dis­tinct­ly see sev­er­al men stoop­ing down and lift­ing them­selves up al­ter­nate­ly, as if they were look­ing on the ground for re­cent marks.

The Ma­jor re­solved to find out what these fel­lows were about, and with­out the least hes­ita­tion or so much as arous­ing his com­pan­ions, crept along, ly­ing flat on the ground, like a sav­age on the prairies, com­plete­ly hid­den among the long grass.