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

CHAPTER XVI A STARTLING DISCOVERY

IT was a fright­ful night. At two A. M. the rain be­gan to fall in tor­rents from the stormy clouds, and con­tin­ued till day­break. The tent be­came an in­suf­fi­cient shel­ter. Gle­nar­van and his com­pan­ions took refuge in the wag­on; they did not sleep, but talked of one thing and an­oth­er. The Ma­jor alone, whose brief ab­sence had not been no­ticed, con­tent­ed him­self with be­ing a silent lis­ten­er. There was rea­son to fear that if the storm last­ed longer the Snowy Riv­er would over­flow its banks, which would be a very un­lucky thing for the wag­on, stuck fast as it was al­ready in the soft ground. Mul­rady, Ayr­ton and Man­gles went sev­er­al times to as­cer­tain the height of the wa­ter, and came back drip­ping from head to foot.

At last day ap­peared; the rain ceased, but sun­light could not break through the thick clouds. Large patch­es of yel­low­ish wa­ter– mud­dy, dirty ponds in­deed they were–cov­ered the ground. A hot steam rose from the soak­ing earth, and sat­urat­ed the at­mo­sphere with un­healthy hu­mid­ity.

Gle­nar­van’s first con­cern was the wag­on; this was the main thing in his eyes. They ex­am­ined the pon­der­ous ve­hi­cle, and found it sunk in the mud in a deep hol­low in the stiff clay. The forepart had dis­ap­peared com­plete­ly, and the hind part up to the axle. It would be a hard job to get the heavy con­veyance out, and would need the unit­ed strength of men, bul­locks, and hors­es.

“At any rate, we must make haste,” said John Man­gles. “If the clay dries, it will make our task still more dif­fi­cult.”

“Let us be quick, then,” replied Ayr­ton.

Gle­nar­van, his two sailors, John Man­gles, and Ayr­ton went off at once in­to the wood, where the an­imals had passed the night. It was a gloomy-​look­ing for­est of tall gum-​trees; noth­ing but dead trees, with wide spaces be­tween, which had been barked for ages, or rather skinned like the cork-​oak at har­vest time. A mis­er­able net­work of bare branch­es was seen above two hun­dred feet high in the air. Not a bird built its nest in these aeri­al skele­tons; not a leaf trem­bled on the dry branch­es, which rat­tled to­geth­er like bones. To what cat­aclysm is this phe­nomenon to be at­tribut­ed, so fre­quent in Aus­tralia, en­tire forests struck dead by some epi­dem­ic; no one knows; nei­ther the old­est na­tives, nor their an­ces­tors who have lain long buried in the groves of the dead, have ev­er seen them green.

Gle­nar­van as he went along kept his eye fixed on the gray sky, on which the small­est branch of the gum-​trees was sharply de­fined. Ayr­ton was as­ton­ished not to dis­cov­er the hors­es and bul­locks where he had left them the pre­ced­ing night. They could not have wan­dered far with the hob­bles on their legs.

They looked over the wood, but saw no signs of them, and Ayr­ton re­turned to the banks of the riv­er, where mag­nif­icent mi­mosas were grow­ing. He gave a cry well known to his team, but there was no re­ply. The quar­ter­mas­ter seemed un­easy, and his com­pan­ions looked at him with dis­ap­point­ed faces. An hour had passed in vain en­deav­ors, and Gle­nar­van was about to go back to the wag­on, when a neigh struck on his ear, and im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter a bel­low.

“They are there!” cried John Man­gles, slip­ping be­tween the tall branch­es of gas­trolo­bi­um, which grew high enough to hide a whole flock. Gle­nar­van, Mul­rady, and Ayr­ton dart­ed af­ter him, and speed­ily shared his stu­pe­fac­tion at the spec­ta­cle which met their gaze.

Two bul­locks and three hors­es lay stretched on the ground, struck down like the rest. Their bod­ies were al­ready cold, and a flock of half-​starved look­ing ravens croak­ing among the mi­mosas were watch­ing the un­ex­pect­ed prey. Gle­nar­van and his par­ty gazed at each oth­er and Wil­son could not keep back the oath that rose to his lips.

“What do you mean, Wil­son?” said Gle­nar­van, with dif­fi­cul­ty con­trol­ling him­self. “Ayr­ton, bring away the bul­lock and the horse we have left; they will have to serve us now.”

“If the wag­on were not sunk in the mud,” said John Man­gles, “these two an­imals, by mak­ing short jour­neys, would be able to take us to the coast; so we must get the ve­hi­cle out, cost what it may.”

“We will try, John,” replied Gle­nar­van. “Let us go back now, or they will be un­easy at our long ab­sence.”

Ayr­ton re­moved the hob­bles from the bul­lock and Mul­rady from the horse, and they be­gan to re­turn to the en­camp­ment, fol­low­ing the wind­ing mar­gin of the riv­er. In half an hour they re­joined Pa­ganel, and Mc­Nabbs, and the ladies, and told them of this fresh dis­as­ter.

“Up­on my hon­or, Ayr­ton,” the Ma­jor could not help say­ing, “it is a pity that you hadn’t had the shoe­ing of all our beasts when we ford­ed the Wimer­ra.”

“Why, sir?” asked Ayr­ton.

“Be­cause out of all our hors­es on­ly the one your black­smith had in his hands has es­caped the com­mon fate.”

“That’s true,” said John Man­gles. “It’s strange it hap­pens so.”

“A mere chance, and noth­ing more,” replied the quar­ter­mas­ter, look­ing firm­ly at the Ma­jor.

Ma­jor Mc­Nabbs bit his lips as if to keep back some­thing

V. IV Verne he was about to say. Gle­nar­van and the rest wait­ed for him to speak out his thoughts, but the Ma­jor was silent, and went up to the wag­on, which Ayr­ton was ex­am­in­ing.

“What was he go­ing to say. Man­gles?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“I don’t know,” replied the young cap­tain; “but the Ma­jor is not at all a man to speak with­out rea­son.”

“No, John,” said La­dy He­le­na. “Mc­Nabbs must have sus­pi­cions about Ayr­ton.”

“Sus­pi­cions!” ex­claimed Pa­ganel, shrug­ging his shoul­ders.

“And what can they be?” asked Gle­nar­van. “Does he sup­pose him ca­pa­ble of hav­ing killed our hors­es and bul­locks? And for what pur­pose? Is not Ayr­ton’s in­ter­est iden­ti­cal with our own?”

“You are right, dear Ed­ward,” said La­dy He­le­na! “and what is more, the quar­ter­mas­ter has giv­en us in­con­testable proofs of his de­vo­tion ev­er since the com­mence­ment of the jour­ney.”

“Cer­tain­ly he has,” replied Man­gles; “but still, what could the Ma­jor mean? I wish he would speak his mind plain­ly out.”

“Does he sup­pose him act­ing in con­cert with the con­victs?” asked Pa­ganel, im­pru­dent­ly.

“What con­victs?” said Miss Grant.

“Mon­sieur Pa­ganel is mak­ing a mis­take,” replied John Man­gles, in­stant­ly. “He knows very well there are no con­victs in the province of Vic­to­ria.”

“Ah, that is true,” re­turned Pa­ganel, try­ing to get out of his un­lucky speech. “What­ev­er had I got in my head? Con­victs! who ev­er heard of con­victs be­ing in Aus­tralia? Be­sides, they would scarce­ly have dis­em­barked be­fore they would turn in­to good, hon­est men. The cli­mate, you know, Miss Mary, the re­gen­er­ative cli­mate–“

Here the poor SA­VANT stuck fast, un­able to get fur­ther, like the wag­on in the mud. La­dy He­le­na looked at him in sur­prise, which quite de­prived him of his re­main­ing _sang-​froid;_ but see­ing his em­bar­rass­ment, she took Mary away to the side of the tent, where M. Ol­bi­nett was lay­ing out an elab­orate break­fast.

“I de­serve to be trans­port­ed my­self,” said Pa­ganel, woe­ful­ly.

“I think so,” said Gle­nar­van.

And af­ter this grave re­ply, which com­plete­ly over­whelmed the wor­thy ge­og­ra­pher, Gle­nar­van and John Man­gles went to­ward the wag­on.

They found Ayr­ton and the two sailors do­ing their best to get it out of the deep ruts, and the bul­lock and horse, yoked to­geth­er, were strain­ing ev­ery mus­cle. Wil­son and Mul­rady were push­ing the wheels, and the quar­ter­mas­ter urg­ing on the team with voice and goad; but the heavy ve­hi­cle did not stir, the clay, al­ready dry, held it as firm­ly as if sealed by some hy­draulic ce­ment.

John Man­gles had the clay wa­tered to loosen it, but it was of no use. Af­ter re­newed vig­or­ous ef­forts, men and an­imals stopped. Un­less the ve­hi­cle was tak­en to pieces, it would be im­pos­si­ble to ex­tri­cate it from the mud; but they had no tools for the pur­pose, and could not at­tempt such a task.

How­ev­er, Ayr­ton, who was for con­quer­ing this ob­sta­cle at all costs, was about to com­mence afresh, when Gle­nar­van stopped him by say­ing: “Enough, Ayr­ton, enough. We must hus­band the strength of our re­main­ing horse and bul­lock. If we are obliged to con­tin­ue our jour­ney on foot, the one an­imal can car­ry the ladies and the oth­er the pro­vi­sions. They may thus still be of great ser­vice to us.”

“Very well, my Lord,” replied the quar­ter­mas­ter, un-​yok­ing the ex­haust­ed beasts.

“Now, friends,” added Gle­nar­van, “let us re­turn to the en­camp­ment and de­lib­er­ate­ly ex­am­ine our sit­ua­tion, and de­ter­mine on our course of ac­tion.”

Af­ter a tol­er­ably good break­fast to make up for their bad night, the dis­cus­sion was opened, and ev­ery one of the par­ty was asked to give his opin­ion. The first point was to as­cer­tain their ex­act po­si­tion, and this was re­ferred to Pa­ganel, who in­formed them, with his cus­tom­ary rig­or­ous ac­cu­ra­cy, that the ex­pe­di­tion had been stopped on the 37th par­al­lel, in lon­gi­tude 147 de­grees 53 min­utes, on the banks of the Snowy Riv­er.

“What is the ex­act lon­gi­tude of Twofold Bay?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“One hun­dred and fifty de­grees,” replied Pa­ganel; “two de­grees sev­en min­utes dis­tant from this, and that is equal to sev­en­ty-​five miles.”

“And Mel­bourne is?”

“Two hun­dred miles off at least.”

“Very good. Our po­si­tion be­ing then set­tled, what is best to do?”

The re­sponse was unan­imous to get to the coast with­out de­lay. La­dy He­le­na and Mary Grant un­der­took to go five miles a day. The coura­geous ladies did not shrink, if nec­es­sary, from walk­ing the whole dis­tance be­tween the Snowy Riv­er and Twofold Bay.

“You are a brave trav­el­ing com­pan­ion, dear He­le­na,” said Lord Gle­nar­van. “But are we sure of find­ing at the bay all we want when we get there?”

“With­out the least doubt,” replied Pa­ganel. “Eden is a mu­nic­ipal­ity which al­ready num­bers many years in ex­is­tence; its port must have fre­quent com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Mel­bourne. I sup­pose even at Delegete, on the Vic­to­ria fron­tier, thir­ty-​five miles from here, we might re­vict­ual our ex­pe­di­tion, and find fresh means of trans­port.”

“And the DUN­CAN?” asked Ayr­ton. “Don’t you think it ad­vis­able to send for her to come to the bay?”

“What do you think, John?” said Gle­nar­van.

“I don’t think your lord­ship should be in any hur­ry about it,” replied the young cap­tain, af­ter brief re­flec­tion. “There will be time enough to give or­ders to Tom Austin, and sum­mon him to the coast.”

“That’s quite cer­tain,” added Pa­ganel.

“You see,” said John, “in four or five days we shall reach Eden.”

“Four or five days!” re­peat­ed Ayr­ton, shak­ing his head; “say fif­teen or twen­ty, Cap­tain, if you don’t want to re­pent your mis­take when it is too late.”

“Fif­teen or twen­ty days to go sev­en­ty-​five miles?” cried Gle­nar­van.

“At the least, my Lord. You are go­ing to tra­verse the most dif­fi­cult por­tion of Vic­to­ria, a desert, where ev­ery­thing is want­ing, the squat­ters say; plains cov­ered with scrub, where is no beat­en track and no sta­tions. You will have to walk hatch­et or torch in hand, and, be­lieve me, that’s not quick work.”

Ayr­ton had spo­ken in a firm tone, and Pa­ganel, at whom all the oth­ers looked in­quir­ing­ly, nod­ded his head in to­ken of his agree­ment in opin­ion with the quar­ter­mas­ter.

But John Man­gles said, “Well, ad­mit­ting these dif­fi­cul­ties, in fif­teen days at most your Lord­ship can send or­ders to the DUN­CAN.”

“I have to add,” said Ayr­ton, “that the prin­ci­pal dif­fi­cul­ties are not the ob­sta­cles in the road, but the Snowy Riv­er has to be crossed, and most prob­ably we must wait till the wa­ter goes down.”

“Wait!” cried John. “Is there no ford?”

“I think not,” replied Ayr­ton. “This morn­ing I was look­ing for some prac­ti­cal cross­ing, but could not find any. It is un­usu­al to meet with such a tu­mul­tuous riv­er at this time of the year, and it is a fa­tal­ity against which I am pow­er­less.”

“Is this Snowy Riv­er wide?” asked La­dy He­le­na.

“Wide and deep, Madam,” replied Ayr­ton; “a mile wide, with an im­petu­ous cur­rent. A good swim­mer could not go over with­out dan­ger.”

“Let us build a boat then,” said Robert, who nev­er stuck at any­thing. “We have on­ly to cut down a tree and hol­low it out, and get in and be off.”

“He’s go­ing ahead, this boy of Cap­tain Grant’s!” said Pa­ganel.

“And he’s right,” re­turned John Man­gles. “We shall be forced to come to that, and I think it is use­less to waste our time in idle dis­cus­sion.”

“What do you think of it, Ayr­ton?” asked Gle­nar­van se­ri­ous­ly.

“I think, my Lord, that a month hence, un­less some help ar­rives, we shall find our­selves still on the banks of the Snowy.”

“Well, then, have you any bet­ter plan to pro­pose?” said John Man­gles, some­what im­pa­tient­ly.

“Yes, that the DUN­CAN should leave Mel­bourne, and go to the east coast.”

“Oh, al­ways the same sto­ry! And how could her pres­ence at the bay fa­cil­itate our means of get­ting there?”

Ayr­ton wait­ed an in­stant be­fore an­swer­ing, and then said, rather eva­sive­ly: “I have no wish to ob­trude my opin­ions. What I do is for our com­mon good, and I am ready to start the mo­ment his hon­or gives the sig­nal.” And he crossed his arms and was silent.

“That is no re­ply, Ayr­ton,” said Gle­nar­van. “Tell us your plan, and we will dis­cuss it. What is it you pro­pose?”

Ayr­ton replied in a calm tone of as­sur­ance: “I pro­pose that we should not ven­ture be­yond the Snowy in our present con­di­tion. It is here we must wait till help comes, and this help can on­ly come from the DUN­CAN. Let us camp here, where we have pro­vi­sions, and let one of us take your or­ders to Tom Austin to go on to Twofold Bay.”

This un­ex­pect­ed propo­si­tion was greet­ed with as­ton­ish­ment, and by John Man­gles with open­ly-​ex­pressed op­po­si­tion.

“Mean­time,” con­tin­ued Ayr­ton, “ei­ther the riv­er will get low­er, and al­low us to ford it, or we shall have time to make a ca­noe. This is the plan I sub­mit for your Lord­ship’s ap­proval.”

“Well, Ayr­ton,” replied Gle­nar­van, “your plan is wor­thy of se­ri­ous con­sid­er­ation. The worst thing about it is the de­lay it would cause; but it would save us great fa­tigue, and per­haps dan­ger. What do you think of it, friends?”

“Speak your mind, Mc­Nabbs,” said La­dy He­le­na. “Since the be­gin­ning of the dis­cus­sion you have been on­ly a lis­ten­er, and very spar­ing of your words.”

“Since you ask my ad­vice,” said the Ma­jor, “I will give it you frankly. I think Ayr­ton has spo­ken wise­ly and well, and I side with him.”

Such a re­ply was hard­ly looked for, as hith­er­to the Ma­jor had been strong­ly op­posed to Ayr­ton’s project. Ayr­ton him­self was sur­prised, and gave a hasty glance at the Ma­jor. How­ev­er, Pa­ganel, La­dy He­le­na, and the sailors were all of the same way of think­ing; and since Mc­Nabbs had come over to his opin­ion, Gle­nar­van de­cid­ed that the quar­ter­mas­ter’s plan should be adopt­ed in prin­ci­ple.

“And now, John,” he added, “don’t you think your­self it would be pru­dent to en­camp here, on the banks of the riv­er Snowy, till we can get some means of con­veyance.”

“Yes,” replied John Man­gles, “if our mes­sen­ger can get across the Snowy when we can­not.”

All eyes were turned on the quar­ter­mas­ter, who said, with the air of a man who knew what he was about: “The mes­sen­ger will not cross the riv­er.”

“In­deed!” said John Man­gles.

“He will sim­ply go back to the Luc­know Road which leads straight to Mel­bourne.”

“Go two hun­dred and fifty miles on foot!” cried the young Cap­tain.

“On horse­back,” replied Ayr­ton. “There is one horse sound enough at present. It will on­ly be an af­fair of four days. Al­low the DUN­CAN two days more to get to the bay and twen­ty hours to get back to the camp, and in a week the mes­sen­ger can be back with the en­tire crew of the ves­sel.”

The Ma­jor nod­ded ap­prov­ing­ly as Ayr­ton spoke, to the pro­found as­ton­ish­ment of John Man­gles; but as ev­ery one was in fa­vor of the plan all there was to do was to car­ry it out as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

“Now, then, friends,” said Gle­nar­van, “we must set­tle who is to be our mes­sen­ger. It will be a fa­tigu­ing, per­ilous mis­sion. I would not con­ceal the fact from you. Who is dis­posed, then, to sac­ri­fice him­self for his com­pan­ions and car­ry our in­struc­tions to Mel­bourne?”

Wil­son and Mul­rady, and al­so Pa­ganel, John Man­gles and Robert in­stant­ly of­fered their ser­vices. John par­tic­ular­ly in­sist­ed that he should be in­trust­ed with the busi­ness; but Ayr­ton, who had been silent till that mo­ment, now said: “With your Hon­or’s per­mis­sion I will go my­self. I am ac­cus­tomed to all the coun­try round. Many a time I have been across worse parts. I can go through where an­oth­er would stick. I ask then, for the good of all, that I may be sent to Mel­bourne. A word from you will ac­cred­it me with your chief of­fi­cer, and in six days I guar­an­tee the DUN­CAN shall be in Twofold Bay.”

“That’s well spo­ken,” replied Gle­nar­van. “You are a clever, dar­ing fel­low, and you will suc­ceed.”

It was quite ev­ident the quar­ter­mas­ter was the fittest man for the mis­sion. All the rest with­drew from the com­pe­ti­tion. John Man­gles made this one last ob­jec­tion, that the pres­ence of Ayr­ton was nec­es­sary to dis­cov­er traces of the BRI­TAN­NIA or Har­ry Grant. But the Ma­jor just­ly ob­served that the ex­pe­di­tion would re­main on the banks of the Snowy till the re­turn of Ayr­ton, that they had no idea of re­sum­ing their search with­out him, and that con­se­quent­ly his ab­sence would not in the least prej­udice the Cap­tain’s in­ter­ests.

“Well, go, Ayr­ton,” said Gle­nar­van. “Be as quick as you can, and come back by Eden to our camp.”

A gleam of sat­is­fac­tion shot across the quar­ter­mas­ter’s face. He turned away his head, but not be­fore John Man­gles caught the look and in­stinc­tive­ly felt his old dis­trust of Ayr­ton re­vive.

The quar­ter­mas­ter made im­me­di­ate prepa­ra­tions for de­par­ture, as­sist­ed by the two sailors, one of whom saw to the horse and the oth­er to the pro­vi­sions. Gle­nar­van, mean­time, wrote his let­ter for Tom Austin. He or­dered his chief of­fi­cer to re­pair with­out de­lay to Twofold Bay. He in­tro­duced the quar­ter­mas­ter to him as a man wor­thy of all con­fi­dence. On ar­riv­ing at the coast, Tom was to dis­patch a de­tach­ment of sailors from the yacht un­der his or­ders.

Gle­nar­van was just at this part of his let­ter, when Mc­Nabbs, who was fol­low­ing him with his eyes, asked him in a sin­gu­lar tone, how he wrote Ayr­ton’s name.

“Why, as it is pro­nounced, of course,” replied Gle­nar­van.

“It is a mis­take,” replied the Ma­jor qui­et­ly. “He pro­nounces it AYR­TON, but he writes it _Ben Joyce!_”