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

CHAPTER I A ROUGH CAPTAIN

IF ev­er the searchers af­ter Cap­tain Grant were tempt­ed to de­spair, sure­ly it was at this mo­ment when all their hopes were de­stroyed at a blow. To­ward what quar­ter of the world should they di­rect their en­deav­ors? How were they to ex­plore new coun­tries? The DUN­CAN was no longer avail­able, and even an im­me­di­ate re­turn to their own land was out of the ques­tion. Thus the en­ter­prise of these gen­er­ous Scots had failed! Failed! a de­spair­ing word that finds no echo in a brave soul; and yet un­der the re­peat­ed blows of ad­verse fate, Gle­nar­van him­self was com­pelled to ac­knowl­edge his in­abil­ity to pros­ecute his de­vot­ed ef­forts.

Mary Grant at this cri­sis nerved her­self to the res­olu­tion nev­er to ut­ter the name of her fa­ther. She sup­pressed her own an­guish, when she thought of the un­for­tu­nate crew who had per­ished. The daugh­ter was merged in the friend, and she now took up­on her to con­sole La­dy Gle­nar­van, who till now had been her faith­ful com­forter. She was the first to speak of re­turn­ing to Scot­land. John Man­gles was filled with ad­mi­ra­tion at see­ing her so coura­geous and so re­signed. He want­ed to say a word fur­ther in the Cap­tain’s in­ter­est, but Mary stopped him with a glance, and af­ter­ward said to him: “No, Mr. John, we must think of those who ven­tured their lives. Lord Gle­nar­van must re­turn to Eu­rope!”

“You are right, Miss Mary,” an­swered John Man­gles; “he must. Be­side, the En­glish au­thor­ities must be in­formed of the fate of the DUN­CAN. But do not de­spair. Rather than aban­don our search I will re­sume it alone! I will ei­ther find Cap­tain Grant or per­ish in the at­tempt!”

It was a se­ri­ous un­der­tak­ing to which John Man­gles bound him­self; Mary ac­cept­ed, and gave her hand to the young cap­tain, as if to rat­ify the treaty. On John Man­gles’ side it was a life’s de­vo­tion; on Mary’s undy­ing grat­itude.

Dur­ing that day, their de­par­ture was fi­nal­ly ar­ranged; they re­solved to reach Mel­bourne with­out de­lay. Next day John went to in­quire about the ships ready to sail. He ex­pect­ed to find fre­quent com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween Eden and Vic­to­ria.

He was dis­ap­point­ed; ships were scarce. Three or four ves­sels, an­chored in Twofold Bay, con­sti­tut­ed the mer­can­tile fleet of the place; none of them were bound for Mel­bourne, nor Syd­ney, nor Point de Galle, at any of which ports Gle­nar­van would have found ships load­ing for Eng­land. In fact, the Penin­su­lar and Ori­en­tal Com­pa­ny has a reg­ular line of pack­ets be­tween these points and Eng­land.

Un­der these cir­cum­stances, what was to be done? Wait­ing for a ship might be a te­dious af­fair, for Twofold Bay is not much fre­quent­ed. Num­bers of ships pass by with­out touch­ing. Af­ter due re­flec­tion and dis­cus­sion, Gle­nar­van had near­ly de­cid­ed to fol­low the coast road to Syd­ney, when Pa­ganel made an un­ex­pect­ed propo­si­tion.

The ge­og­ra­pher had vis­it­ed Twofold Bay on his own ac­count, and was aware that there were no means of trans­port for Syd­ney or Mel­bourne. But of the three ves­sels an­chored in the road­stead one was load­ing for Auck­land, the cap­ital of the north­ern is­land of New Zealand. Pa­ganel’s pro­pos­al was to take the ship in ques­tion, and get to Auck­land, whence it would be easy to re­turn to Eu­rope by the boats of the Penin­su­lar and Ori­en­tal Com­pa­ny.

This propo­si­tion was tak­en in­to se­ri­ous con­sid­er­ation. Pa­ganel on this oc­ca­sion dis­pensed with the vol­ley of ar­gu­ments he gen­er­al­ly in­dulged in. He con­fined him­self to the bare propo­si­tion, adding that the voy­age to New Zealand was on­ly five or six days– the dis­tance, in fact, be­ing on­ly about a thou­sand miles.

By a sin­gu­lar co­in­ci­dence Auck­land is sit­uat­ed on the self-​same par­al­lel– the thir­ty-​sev­enth–which the ex­plor­ers had per­se­ver­ing­ly fol­lowed since they left the coast of Arau­ca­nia. Pa­ganel might fair­ly have used this as an ar­gu­ment in fa­vor of his scheme; in fact, it was a nat­ural op­por­tu­ni­ty of vis­it­ing the shores of New Zealand.

But Pa­ganel did not lay stress on this ar­gu­ment. Af­ter two mis­takes, he prob­ably hes­itat­ed to at­tempt a third in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the doc­ument. Be­sides, what could he make of it? It said pos­itive­ly that a “con­ti­nent” had served as a refuge for Cap­tain Grant, not an is­land. Now, New Zealand was noth­ing but an is­land. This seemed de­ci­sive. Whether, for this rea­son, or for some oth­er, Pa­ganel did not con­nect any idea of fur­ther search with this propo­si­tion of reach­ing Auck­land. He mere­ly ob­served that reg­ular com­mu­ni­ca­tion ex­ist­ed be­tween that point and Great Britain, and that it was easy to take ad­van­tage of it.

John Man­gles sup­port­ed Pa­ganel’s pro­pos­al. He ad­vised its adop­tion, as it was hope­less to await the prob­lem­at­ical ar­rival of a ves­sel in Twofold Bay. But be­fore com­ing to any de­ci­sion, he thought it best to vis­it the ship men­tioned by the ge­og­ra­pher. Gle­nar­van, the Ma­jor, Pa­ganel, Robert, and Man­gles him­self, took a boat, and a few strokes brought them along­side the ship an­chored two ca­bles’ length from the quay.

It was a brig of 150 tons, named the MAC­QUAR­IE. It was en­gaged in the coast­ing trade be­tween the var­ious ports of Aus­tralia and New Zealand. The cap­tain, or rather the “mas­ter,” re­ceived his vis­itors gruffly enough. They per­ceived that they had to do with a man of no ed­uca­tion, and whose man­ners were in no de­gree su­pe­ri­or to those of the five sailors of his crew. With a coarse, red face, thick hands, and a bro­ken nose, blind of an eye, and his lips stained with the pipe, Will Hal­ley was a sad­ly bru­tal look­ing per­son. But they had no choice, and for so short a voy­age it was not nec­es­sary to be very par­tic­ular.

“What do you want?” asked Will Hal­ley, when the strangers stepped on the poop of his ship.

“The cap­tain,” an­swered John Man­gles.

“I am the cap­tain,” said Hal­ley. “What else do you want?”

“The MAC­QUAR­IE is load­ing for Auck­land, I be­lieve?”

“Yes. What else?”

“What does she car­ry?”

“Ev­ery­thing sal­able and pur­chasable. What else?”

“When does she sail?”

“To-​mor­row at the mid-​day tide. What else?”

“Does she take pas­sen­gers?”

“That de­pends on who the pas­sen­gers are, and whether they are sat­is­fied with the ship’s mess.”

“They would bring their own pro­vi­sions.”

“What else?”

“What else?”

“Yes. How many are there?”

“Nine; two of them are ladies.”

“I have no cab­ins.”

“We will man­age with such space as may be left at their dis­pos­al.”

“What else?”

“Do you agree?” said John Man­gles, who was not in the least put out by the cap­tain’s pe­cu­liar­ities.

“We’ll see,” said the mas­ter of the MAC­QUAR­IE.

Will Hal­ley took two or three turns on the poop, mak­ing it re­sound with iron-​heeled boots, and then he turned abrupt­ly to John Man­gles.

“What would you pay?” said he.

“What do you ask?” replied John.

“Fifty pounds.”

Gle­nar­van looked con­sent.

“Very good! Fifty pounds,” replied John Man­gles.

“But pas­sage on­ly,” added Hal­ley.

“Yes, pas­sage on­ly.”

“Food ex­tra.”

“Ex­tra.”

“Agreed. And now,” said Will, putting out his hand, “what about the de­posit mon­ey?”

“Here is half of the pas­sage-​mon­ey, twen­ty-​five pounds,” said Man­gles, count­ing out the sum to the mas­ter.

“All aboard to-​mor­row,” said he, “be­fore noon. Whether or no, I weigh an­chor.”

“We will be punc­tu­al.”

This said, Gle­nar­van, the Ma­jor, Robert, Pa­ganel, and John Man­gles left the ship, Hal­ley not so much as touch­ing the oil­skin that adorned his red locks.

“What a brute,” ex­claimed John.

“He will do,” an­swered Pa­ganel. “He is a reg­ular sea-​wolf.”

“A down­right bear!” added the Ma­jor.

“I fan­cy,” said John Man­gles, “that the said bear has dealt in hu­man flesh in his time.”

“What mat­ter?” an­swered Gle­nar­van, “as long as he com­mands the MAC­QUAR­IE, and the MAC­QUAR­IE goes to New Zealand. From Twofold Bay to Auck­land we shall not see much of him; af­ter Auck­land we shall see him no more.”

La­dy He­le­na and Mary Grant were de­light­ed to hear that their de­par­ture was ar­ranged for to-​mor­row. Gle­nar­van warned them that the MAC­QUAR­IE was in­fe­ri­or in com­fort to the DUN­CAN. But af­ter what they had gone through, they were in­dif­fer­ent to tri­fling an­noy­ances. Wil­son was told off to ar­range the ac­com­mo­da­tion on board the MAC­QUAR­IE. Un­der his busy brush and broom things soon changed their as­pect.

Will Hal­ley shrugged his shoul­ders, and let the sailor have his way. Gle­nar­van and his par­ty gave him no con­cern. He nei­ther knew, nor cared to know, their names. His new freight rep­re­sent­ed fifty pounds, and he rat­ed it far be­low the two hun­dred tons of cured hides which were stowed away in his hold. Skins first, men af­ter. He was a mer­chant. As to his sailor qual­ifi­ca­tion, he was said to be skill­ful enough in nav­igat­ing these seas, whose reefs make them very dan­ger­ous.

As the day drew to a close, Gle­nar­van had a de­sire to go again to the point on the coast cut by the 37th par­al­lel. Two mo­tives prompt­ed him. He want­ed to ex­am­ine once more the pre­sumed scene of the wreck. Ayr­ton had cer­tain­ly been quar­ter­mas­ter on the BRI­TAN­NIA, and the BRI­TAN­NIA might have been lost on this part of the Aus­tralian coast; on the east coast if not on the west. It would not do to leave with­out thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion, a lo­cal­ity which they were nev­er to re­vis­it.

And then, fail­ing the BRI­TAN­NIA, the DUN­CAN cer­tain­ly had fall­en in­to the hands of the con­victs. Per­haps there had been a fight? There might yet be found on the coast traces of a strug­gle, a last re­sis­tance. If the crew had per­ished among the waves, the waves prob­ably had thrown some bod­ies on the shore.

Gle­nar­van, ac­com­pa­nied by his faith­ful John, went to car­ry out the fi­nal search. The land­lord of the Vic­to­ria Ho­tel lent them two hors­es, and they set out on the north­ern road that skirts Twofold Bay.

It was a melan­choly jour­ney. Gle­nar­van and Cap­tain John trot­ted along with­out speak­ing, but they un­der­stood each oth­er. The same thoughts, the same an­guish har­rowed both their hearts. They looked at the sea-​worn rocks; they need­ed no words of ques­tion or an­swer. John’s well-​tried zeal and in­tel­li­gence were a guar­an­tee that ev­ery point was scrupu­lous­ly ex­am­ined, the least like­ly places, as well as the slop­ing beach­es and sandy plains where even the slight tides of the Pa­cif­ic might have thrown some frag­ments of wreck. But no in­di­ca­tion was seen that could sug­gest fur­ther search in that quar­ter–all trace of the wreck es­caped them still.

As to the DUN­CAN, no trace ei­ther. All that part of Aus­tralia, bor­der­ing the ocean, was desert.

Still John Man­gles dis­cov­ered on the skirts of the shore ev­ident traces of camp­ing, re­mains of fires re­cent­ly kin­dled un­der soli­tary Myall-​trees. Had a tribe of wan­der­ing blacks passed that way late­ly? No, for Gle­nar­van saw a to­ken which fur­nished in­con­testable proof that the con­victs had fre­quent­ed that part of the coast.

This to­ken was a grey and yel­low gar­ment worn and patched, an ill-​omened rag thrown down at the foot of a tree. It bore the con­vict’s orig­inal num­ber at the Perth Pen­iten­tiary. The felon was not there, but his filthy gar­ments be­trayed his pas­sage. This liv­ery of crime, af­ter hav­ing clothed some mis­cre­ant, was now de­cay­ing on this desert shore.

“You see, John,” said Gle­nar­van, “the con­victs got as far as here! and our poor com­rades of the DUN­CAN–“

“Yes,” said John, in a low voice, “they nev­er land­ed, they per­ished!”

“Those wretch­es!” cried Gle­nar­van. “If ev­er they fall in­to my hands I will avenge my crew–“

Grief had hard­ened Gle­nar­van’s fea­tures. For some min­utes he gazed at the ex­panse be­fore him, as if tak­ing a last look at some ship dis­ap­pear­ing in the dis­tance. Then his eyes be­came dim; he re­cov­ered him­self in a mo­ment, and with­out a word or look, set off at a gal­lop to­ward Eden.

The wan­der­ers passed their last evening sad­ly enough. Their thoughts re­called all the mis­for­tunes they had en­coun­tered in this coun­try. They re­mem­bered how full of well-​war­rant­ed hope they had been at Cape Bernouil­li, and how cru­el­ly dis­ap­point­ed at Twofold Bay!

Pa­ganel was full of fever­ish ag­ita­tion. John Man­gles, who had watched him since the af­fair at Snowy Riv­er, felt that the ge­og­ra­pher was hes­itat­ing whether to speak or not to speak. A thou­sand times he had pressed him with ques­tions, and failed in ob­tain­ing an an­swer.

But that evening, John, in light­ing him to his room, asked him why he was so ner­vous.

“Friend John,” said Pa­ganel, eva­sive­ly, “I am not more ner­vous to-​night than I al­ways am.”

“Mr. Pa­ganel,” an­swered John, “you have a se­cret that chokes you.”

“Well!” cried the ge­og­ra­pher, ges­tic­ulat­ing, “what can I do? It is stronger than I!”

“What is stronger?”

“My joy on the one hand, my de­spair on the oth­er.”

“You re­joice and de­spair at the same time!”

“Yes; at the idea of vis­it­ing New Zealand.”

“Why! have you any trace?” asked John, ea­ger­ly. “Have you re­cov­ered the lost tracks?”

“No, friend John. No one re­turns from New Zealand; but still– you know hu­man na­ture. All we want to nour­ish hope is breath. My de­vice is ‘_Spiro spero_,’ and it is the best mot­to in the world!”