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

CHAPTER XVI WHY THE “DUNCAN” WENT TO NEW ZEALAND

IT would be vain to at­tempt to de­pict the feel­ings of Gle­nar­van and his friends when the songs of old Sco­tia fell on their ears. The mo­ment they set foot on the deck of the DUN­CAN, the piper blew his bag­pipes, and com­menced the na­tion­al pi­broch of the Mal­colm clan, while loud hur­rahs rent the air.

Gle­nar­van and his whole par­ty, even the Ma­jor him­self, were cry­ing and em­brac­ing each oth­er. They were deliri­ous with joy. The ge­og­ra­pher was ab­so­lute­ly mad. He frisked about, tele­scope in hand, point­ing it at the last ca­noe ap­proach­ing the shore.

But at the sight of Gle­nar­van and his com­pan­ions, with their cloth­ing in rags, and thin, hag­gard faces, bear­ing marks of hor­ri­ble suf­fer­ings, the crew ceased their noisy demon­stra­tions. These were specters who had re­turned–not the bright, ad­ven­tur­ous trav­el­ers who had left the yacht three months be­fore, so full of hope! Chance, and chance on­ly, had brought them back to the deck of the yacht they nev­er thought to see again. And in what a state of ex­haus­tion and fee­ble­ness. But be­fore think­ing of fa­tigue, or at­tend­ing to the im­pe­ri­ous de­mands of hunger and thirst, Gle­nar­van ques­tioned Tom Austin about his be­ing on this coast.

Why had the DUN­CAN come to the east­ern coast of New Zealand? How was it not in the hands of Ben Joyce? By what prov­iden­tial fa­tal­ity had God brought them in the track of the fugi­tives?

Why? how? and for what pur­pose? Tom was stormed with ques­tions on all sides. The old sailor did not know which to lis­ten to first, and at last re­solved to hear no­body but Gle­nar­van, and to an­swer no­body but him.

“But the con­victs?” in­quired Gle­nar­van. “What did you do with them?”

“The con­victs?” replied Tom, with the air of a man who does not in the least un­der­stand what he is be­ing asked.

“Yes, the wretch­es who at­tacked the yacht.”

“What yacht? Your Hon­or’s?”

“Why, of course, Tom. The DUN­CAN, and Ben Joyce, who came on board.”

“I don’t know this Ben Joyce, and have nev­er seen him.”

“Nev­er seen him!” ex­claimed Pa­ganel, stu­pe­fied at the old sailor’s replies. “Then pray tell me, Tom, how it is that the DUN­CAN is cruis­ing at this mo­ment on the coast of New Zealand?”

But if Gle­nar­van and his friends were to­tal­ly at a loss to un­der­stand the be­wil­der­ment of the old sailor, what was their amaze­ment when he replied in a calm voice:

“The DUN­CAN is cruis­ing here by your Hon­or’s or­ders.”

“By my or­ders?” cried Gle­nar­van.

“Yes, my Lord. I on­ly act­ed in obe­di­ence to the in­struc­tions sent in your let­ter of Jan­uary four­teenth.”

“My let­ter! my let­ter!” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van.

The ten trav­el­ers pressed clos­er round Tom Austin, de­vour­ing him with their eyes. The let­ter dat­ed from Snowy Riv­er had reached the DUN­CAN, then.

“Let us come to ex­pla­na­tions, pray, for it seems to me I am dream­ing. You re­ceived a let­ter, Tom?”

“Yes, a let­ter from your Hon­or.”

“At Mel­bourne?”

“At Mel­bourne, just as our re­pairs were com­plet­ed.”

“And this let­ter?”

“It was not writ­ten by you, but bore your sig­na­ture, my Lord.”

“Just so; my let­ter was brought by a con­vict called Ben Joyce.”

“No, by a sailor called Ayr­ton, a quar­ter­mas­ter on the BRI­TAN­NIA.”

“Yes, Ayr­ton or Ben Joyce, one and the same in­di­vid­ual. Well, and what were the con­tents of this let­ter?”

“It con­tained or­ders to leave Mel­bourne with­out de­lay, and go and cruise on the east­ern coast of–“

“Aus­tralia!” said Gle­nar­van with such ve­he­mence that the old sailor was some­what dis­con­cert­ed.

“Of Aus­tralia?” re­peat­ed Tom, open­ing his eyes. “No, but New Zealand.”

“Aus­tralia, Tom! Aus­tralia!” they all cried with one voice.

Austin’s head be­gan to feel in a whirl. Gle­nar­van spoke with such as­sur­ance that he thought af­ter all he must have made a mis­take in read­ing the let­ter. Could a faith­ful, ex­act old ser­vant like him­self have been guilty of such a thing! He turned red and looked quite dis­turbed.

“Nev­er mind, Tom,” said La­dy He­le­na. “God so willed it.”

“But, no, madam, par­don me,” replied old Tom. “No, it is im­pos­si­ble, I was not mis­tak­en. Ayr­ton read the let­ter as I did, and it was he, on the con­trary, who wished to bring me to the Aus­tralian coast.”

“Ayr­ton!” cried Gle­nar­van.

“Yes, Ayr­ton him­self. He in­sist­ed it was a mis­take: that you meant to or­der me to Twofold Bay.”

“Have you the let­ter still, Tom?” asked the Ma­jor, ex­treme­ly in­ter­est­ed in this mys­tery.

“Yes, Mr. Mc­Nabbs,” replied Austin. “I’ll go and fetch it.”

V. IV Verne

He ran at once to his cab­in in the fore­cas­tle. Dur­ing his mo­men­tary ab­sence they gazed at each oth­er in si­lence, all but the Ma­jor, who crossed his arms and said:

“Well, now, Pa­ganel, you must own this would be go­ing a lit­tle too far.”

“What?” growled Pa­ganel, look­ing like a gi­gan­tic note of in­ter­ro­ga­tion, with his spec­ta­cles on his fore­head and his stoop­ing back.

Austin re­turned di­rect­ly with the let­ter writ­ten by Pa­ganel and signed by Gle­nar­van.

“Will your Hon­or read it?” he said, hand­ing it to him.

Gle­nar­van took the let­ter and read as fol­lows:

“Or­der to Tom Austin to put out to sea with­out de­lay, and to take the Dun­can, by lat­itude 37 de­grees to the east­ern coast of New Zealand!”

“New Zealand!” cried Pa­ganel, leap­ing up.

And he seized the let­ter from Gle­nar­van, rubbed his eyes, pushed down his spec­ta­cles on his nose, and read it for him­self.

“New Zealand!” he re­peat­ed in an in­de­scrib­able tone, let­ting the or­der slip be­tween his fin­gers.

That same mo­ment he felt a hand laid on his shoul­der, and turn­ing round found him­self face to face with the Ma­jor, who said in a grave tone:

“Well, my good Pa­ganel, af­ter all, it is a lucky thing you did not send the DUN­CAN to Cochin Chi­na!”

This pleas­antry fin­ished the poor ge­og­ra­pher. The crew burst out in­to loud Home­ric laugh­ter. Pa­ganel ran about like a mad­man, seized his head with both hands and tore his hair. He nei­ther knew what he was do­ing nor what he want­ed to do. He rushed down the poop stairs me­chan­ical­ly and paced the deck, nod­ding to him­self and go­ing straight be­fore with­out aim or ob­ject till he reached the fore­cas­tle. There his feet got en­tan­gled in a coil of rope. He stum­bled and fell, ac­ci­den­tal­ly catch­ing hold of a rope with both hands in his fall.

Sud­den­ly a tremen­dous ex­plo­sion was heard. The fore­cas­tle gun had gone off, rid­dling the qui­et calm of the waves with a vol­ley of small shot. The un­for­tu­nate Pa­ganel had caught hold of the cord of the load­ed gun. The ge­og­ra­pher was thrown down the fore­cas­tle lad­der and dis­ap­peared be­low.

A cry of ter­ror suc­ceed­ed the sur­prise pro­duced by the ex­plo­sion. Ev­ery­body thought some­thing ter­ri­ble must have hap­pened. The sailors rushed be­tween decks and lift­ed up Pa­ganel, al­most bent dou­ble. The ge­og­ra­pher ut­tered no sound.

They car­ried his long body on­to the poop. His com­pan­ions were in de­spair. The Ma­jor, who was al­ways the sur­geon on great oc­ca­sions, be­gan to strip the un­for­tu­nate that he might dress his wounds; but he had scarce­ly put his hands on the dy­ing man when he start­ed up as if touched by an elec­tri­cal ma­chine.

“Nev­er! nev­er!” he ex­claimed, and pulling his ragged coat tight­ly round him, he be­gan but­ton­ing it up in a strange­ly ex­cit­ed man­ner.

“But, Pa­ganel,” be­gan the Ma­jor.

“No, I tell you!”

“I must ex­am­ine–“

“You shall not ex­am­ine.”

“You may per­haps have bro­ken–” con­tin­ued Mc­Nabbs.

“Yes,” con­tin­ued Pa­ganel, get­ting up on his long legs, “but what I have bro­ken the car­pen­ter can mend.”

“What is it, then?”

“There.”

Bursts of laugh­ter from the crew greet­ed this speech. Pa­ganel’s friends were quite re­as­sured about him now. They were sat­is­fied that he had come off safe and sound from his ad­ven­ture with the fore­cas­tle gun.

“At any rate,” thought the Ma­jor, “the ge­og­ra­pher is won­der­ful­ly bash­ful.”

But now Pa­ganel was re­cov­ered a lit­tle, he had to re­ply to a ques­tion he could not es­cape.

“Now, Pa­ganel,” said Gle­nar­van, “tell us frankly all about it. I own that your blun­der was prov­iden­tial. It is sure and cer­tain that but for you the DUN­CAN would have fall­en in­to the hands of the con­victs; but for you we should have been re­cap­tured by the Maories. But for my sake tell me by what su­per­nat­ural aber­ra­tion of mind you were in­duced to write New Zealand in­stead of Aus­tralia?”

“Well, up­on my oath,” said Pa­ganel, “it is–“

But the same in­stant his eyes fell on Mary and Robert Grant, and he stopped short and then went on:

“What would you have me say, my dear Gle­nar­van? I am mad, I am an id­iot, an in­cor­ri­gi­ble fel­low, and I shall live and die the most ter­ri­ble ab­sent man. I can’t change my skin.”

“Un­less you get flayed alive.”

“Get flayed alive!” cried the ge­og­ra­pher, with a fu­ri­ous look. “Is that a per­son­al al­lu­sion?”

“An al­lu­sion to what?” asked Mc­Nabbs, qui­et­ly. This was all that passed. The mys­tery of the DUN­CAN’S pres­ence on the coast was ex­plained, and all that the trav­el­ers thought about now was to get back to their com­fort­able cab­ins, and to have break­fast.

How­ev­er, Gle­nar­van and John Man­gles stayed be­hind with Tom Austin af­ter the oth­ers had re­tired. They wished to put some fur­ther ques­tions to him.

“Now, then, old Austin,” said Gle­nar­van, “tell me, didn’t it strike you as strange to be or­dered to go and cruise on the coast of New Zealand?”

“Yes, your Hon­or,” replied Tom. “I was very much sur­prised, but it is not my cus­tom to dis­cuss any or­ders I re­ceive, and I obeyed. Could I do oth­er­wise? If some catas­tro­phe had oc­curred through not car­ry­ing out your in­junc­tions to the let­ter, should not I have been to blame? Would you have act­ed dif­fer­ent­ly, cap­tain?”

“No, Tom,” replied John Man­gles.

“But what did you think?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“I thought, your Hon­or, that in the in­ter­est of Har­ry Grant, it was nec­es­sary to go where I was told to go. I thought that in con­se­quence of fresh ar­range­ments, you were to sail over to New Zealand, and that I was to wait for you on the east coast of the is­land. More­over, on leav­ing Mel­bourne, I kept our des­ti­na­tion a se­cret, and the crew on­ly knew it when we were right out at sea, and the Aus­tralian con­ti­nent was fi­nal­ly out of sight. But one cir­cum­stance oc­curred which great­ly per­plexed me.”

“What was it, Tom?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“Just this, that when the quar­ter­mas­ter of the BRI­TAN­NIA heard our des­ti­na­tion–“

“Ayr­ton!” cried Gle­nar­van. “Then he is on board?”

“Yes, your Hon­or.”

“Ayr­ton here?” re­peat­ed Gle­nar­van, look­ing at John Man­gles.

“God has so willed!” said the young cap­tain.

In an in­stant, like light­ning, Ayr­ton’s con­duct, his long-​planned treach­ery, Gle­nar­van’s wound, Mul­rady’s as­sas­si­na­tion, the suf­fer­ings of the ex­pe­di­tion in the marsh­es of the Snowy Riv­er, the whole past life of the mis­cre­ant, flashed be­fore the eyes of the two men. And now, by the strangest con­course of events, the con­vict was in their pow­er.

“Where is he?” asked Gle­nar­van ea­ger­ly.

“In a cab­in in the fore­cas­tle, and un­der guard.”

“Why was he im­pris­oned?”

“Be­cause when Ayr­ton heard the ves­sel was go­ing to New Zealand, he was in a fury; be­cause he tried to force me to al­ter the course of the ship; be­cause he threat­ened me; and, last of all, be­cause he in­cit­ed my men to mutiny. I saw clear­ly he was a dan­ger­ous in­di­vid­ual, and I must take pre­cau­tions against him.”

“And since then?”

“Since then he has re­mained in his cab­in with­out at­tempt­ing to go out.”

“That’s well, Tom.”

Just at this mo­ment Gle­nar­van and John Man­gles were sum­moned to the sa­loon where break­fast, which they so sore­ly need­ed, was await­ing them. They seat­ed them­selves at the ta­ble and spoke no more of Ayr­ton.

But af­ter the meal was over, and the guests were re­freshed and in­vig­orat­ed, and they all went up­on deck, Gle­nar­van ac­quaint­ed them with the fact of the quar­ter­mas­ter’s pres­ence on board, and at the same time an­nounced his in­ten­tion of hav­ing him brought be­fore them.

“May I beg to be ex­cused from be­ing present at his ex­am­ina­tion?” said La­dy He­le­na. “I con­fess, dear Ed­ward, it would be ex­treme­ly painful for me to see the wretched man.”

“He must be con­front­ed with us, He­le­na,” replied Lord Gle­nar­van; “I beg you will stay. Ben Joyce must see all his vic­tims face to face.”

La­dy He­le­na yield­ed to his wish. Mary Grant sat be­side her, near Gle­nar­van. All the oth­ers formed a group round them, the whole par­ty that had been com­pro­mised so se­ri­ous­ly by the treach­ery of the con­vict. The crew of the yacht, with­out un­der­stand­ing the grav­ity of the sit­ua­tion, kept pro­found si­lence.

“Bring Ayr­ton here,” said Gle­nar­van.