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

CHAPTER XIX A CRY IN THE NIGHT

THE crew soon heard that no light had been thrown on the sit­ua­tion of Cap­tain Grant by the rev­ela­tions of Ayr­ton, and it caused pro­found dis­ap­point­ment among them, for they had count­ed on the quar­ter­mas­ter, and the quar­ter­mas­ter knew noth­ing which could put the DUN­CAN on the right track.

The yacht there­fore con­tin­ued her course. They had yet to se­lect the is­land for Ayr­ton’s ban­ish­ment.

Pa­ganel and John Man­gles con­sult­ed the charts on board, and ex­act­ly on the 37th par­al­lel found a lit­tle isle marked by the name of Maria There­sa, a sunken rock in the mid­dle of the Pa­cif­ic Ocean, 3,500 miles from the Amer­ican coast, and 1,500 miles from New Zealand. The near­est land on the north was the Archipela­go of Po­mo­tou, un­der the pro­tec­torate of France; on the south there was noth­ing but the eter­nal ice-​belt of the Po­lar Sea. No ship would come to re­con­noi­ter this soli­tary isle. No echoes from the world would ev­er reach it. The storm birds on­ly would rest awhile on it dur­ing their long flight, and in many charts the rock was not even marked.

If ev­er com­plete iso­la­tion was to be found on earth, it was on this lit­tle out-​of-​the-​way is­land. Ayr­ton was in­formed of its sit­ua­tion, and ex­pressed his will­ing­ness to live there apart from his fel­lows. The head of the ves­sel was in con­se­quence turned to­ward it im­me­di­ate­ly.

Two days lat­er, at two o’clock, the man on watch sig­naled land on the hori­zon. This was Maria There­sa, a low, elon­gat­ed is­land, scarce­ly raised above the waves, and look­ing like an enor­mous whale. It was still thir­ty miles dis­tant from the yacht, whose stem was rapid­ly cut­ting her way over the wa­ter at the rate of six­teen knots an hour.

Grad­ual­ly the form of the is­land grew more dis­tinct on the hori­zon. The orb of day sink­ing in the west, threw up its pe­cu­liar out­lines in sharp re­lief. A few peaks of no great el­eva­tion stood out here and there, tipped with sun­light. At five o’clock John Man­gles could dis­cern a light smoke ris­ing from it.

“Is it a vol­cano?” he asked of Pa­ganel, who was gaz­ing at this new land through his tele­scope.

“I don’t know what to think,” replied the ge­og­ra­pher; “Maria There­sa is a spot lit­tle known; nev­er­the­less, it would not be sur­pris­ing if its ori­gin were due to some sub­ma­rine up­heaval, and con­se­quent­ly it may be vol­canic.”

“But in that case,” said Gle­nar­van, “is there not rea­son to fear that if an erup­tion pro­duced it, an erup­tion may car­ry it away?”

“That is not pos­si­ble,” replied Pa­ganel. “We know of its ex­is­tence for sev­er­al cen­turies, which is our se­cu­ri­ty. When the Isle Ju­lia emerged from the Mediter­ranean, it did not re­main long above the waves, and dis­ap­peared a few months af­ter its birth.”

“Very good,” said Gle­nar­van. “Do you think, John, we can get there to-​night?”

“No, your hon­or, I must not risk the DUN­CAN in the dark, for I am un­ac­quaint­ed with the coast. I will keep un­der steam, but go very slow­ly, and to-​mor­row, at day­break, we can send off a boat.”

At eight o’clock in the evening, Maria There­sa, though five miles to lee­ward, ap­peared on­ly an elon­gat­ed shad­ow, scarce­ly vis­ible. The DUN­CAN was al­ways get­ting near­er.

At nine o’clock, a bright glare be­came vis­ible, and flames shot up through the dark­ness. The light was steady and con­tin­ued.

“That con­firms the sup­po­si­tion of a vol­cano,” said Pa­ganel, ob­serv­ing it at­ten­tive­ly.

“Yet,” replied John Man­gles, “at this dis­tance we ought to hear the noise which al­ways ac­com­pa­nies an erup­tion, and the east wind brings no sound what­ev­er to our ear.”

“That’s true,” said Pa­ganel. “It is a vol­cano that blazes, but does not speak. The gleam seems in­ter­mit­tent too, some­times, like that of a light­house.”

“You are right,” said John Man­gles, “and yet we are not on a light­ed coast.”

“Ah!” he ex­claimed, “an­oth­er fire? On the shore this time! Look! It moves! It has changed its place!”

John was not mis­tak­en. A fresh fire had ap­peared, which seemed to die out now and then, and sud­den­ly flare up again.

“Is the is­land in­hab­it­ed then?” said Gle­nar­van.

“By sav­ages, ev­ident­ly,” replied Pa­ganel.

“But in that case, we can­not leave the quar­ter­mas­ter there.”

“No,” replied the Ma­jor, “he would be too bad a gift even to be­stow on sav­ages.”

“We must find some oth­er un­in­hab­it­ed is­land,” said Gle­nar­van, who could not help smil­ing at the del­ica­cy of Mc­Nabbs. “I promised Ayr­ton his life, and I mean to keep my promise.”

“At all events, don’t let us trust them,” added Pa­ganel. “The New Zealan­ders have the bar­barous cus­tom of de­ceiv­ing ships by mov­ing lights, like the wreck­ers on the Cor­nish coast in for­mer times. Now the na­tives of Maria There­sa may have heard of this pro­ceed­ing.”

“Keep her off a point,” called out John to the man at the helm. “To-​mor­row at sun­rise we shall know what we’re about.”

At eleven o’clock, the pas­sen­gers and John Man­gles re­tired to their cab­ins. In the forepart of the yacht the man on watch was pac­ing the deck, while aft, there was no one but the man at the wheel.

At this mo­ment Mary Grant and Robert came on the poop.

The two chil­dren of the cap­tain, lean­ing over the rail, gazed sad­ly at the phos­pho­res­cent waves and the lu­mi­nous wake of the DUN­CAN. Mary was think­ing of her broth­er’s fu­ture, and Robert of his sis­ter’s. Their fa­ther was up­per­most in the minds of both. Was this idol­ized par­ent still in ex­is­tence? Must they give him up? But no, for what would life be with­out him? What would be­come of them with­out him? What would have be­come of them al­ready, but for Lord Gle­nar­van and La­dy He­le­na?

The young boy, old above his years through trou­ble, di­vined the thoughts that trou­bled his sis­ter, and tak­ing her hand in his own, said, “Mary, we must nev­er de­spair. Re­mem­ber the lessons our fa­ther gave us. Keep your courage up and no mat­ter what be­falls you, let us show this ob­sti­nate courage which can rise above ev­ery­thing. Up to this time, sis­ter, you have been work­ing for me, it is my turn now, and I will work for you.”

“Dear Robert!” replied the young girl.

“I must tell you some­thing,” re­sumed Robert. “You mustn’t be vexed, Mary!”

“Why should I be vexed, my child?”

“And you will let me do it?”

“What do you mean?” said Mary, get­ting un­easy.

“Sis­ter, I am go­ing to be a sailor!”

“You are go­ing to leave me!” cried the young girl, press­ing her broth­er’s hand.

“Yes, sis­ter; I want to be a sailor, like my fa­ther and Cap­tain John. Mary, dear Mary, Cap­tain John has not lost all hope, he says. You have con­fi­dence in his de­vo­tion to us, and so have I. He is go­ing to make a grand sailor out of me some day, he has promised me he will; and then we are go­ing to look for our fa­ther to­geth­er. Tell me you are will­ing, sis­ter mine. What our fa­ther would have done for us it is our du­ty, mine, at least, to do for him. My life has one pur­pose to which it should be en­tire­ly con­se­crat­ed– that is to search, and nev­er cease search­ing for my fa­ther, who would nev­er have giv­en us up. Ah, Mary, how good our fa­ther was!”

“And so no­ble, so gen­er­ous!” added Mary. “Do you know, Robert, he was al­ready a glo­ry to our coun­try, and that he would have been num­bered among our great men if fate had not ar­rest­ed his course.”

“Yes, I know it,” said Robert.

Mary put her arm around the boy, and hugged him fond­ly as he felt her tears fall on his fore­head.

“Mary, Mary!” he cried, “it doesn’t mat­ter what our friends say, I still hope, and will al­ways hope. A man like my fa­ther doesn’t die till he has fin­ished his work.”

Mary Grant could not re­ply. Sobs choked her voice. A thou­sand feel­ings strug­gled in her breast at the news that fresh at­tempts were about to be made to re­cov­er Har­ry Grant, and that the de­vo­tion of the cap­tain was so un­bound­ed.

“And does Mr. John still hope?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied Robert. “He is a broth­er that will nev­er for­sake us, nev­er! I will be a sailor, you’ll say yes, won’t you, sis­ter? And let me join him in look­ing for my fa­ther. I am sure you are will­ing.”

“Yes, I am will­ing,” said Mary. “But the sep­ara­tion!” she mur­mured.

“You will not be alone, Mary, I know that. My friend John told me so. La­dy He­le­na will not let you leave her. You are a wom­an; you can and should ac­cept her kind­ness. To refuse would be un­grate­ful, but a man, my fa­ther has said a hun­dred times, must make his own way.”

“But what will be­come of our own dear home in Dundee, so full of mem­ories?”

“We will keep it, lit­tle sis­ter! All that is set­tled, and set­tled so well, by our friend John, and al­so by Lord Gle­nar­van. He is to keep you at Mal­colm Cas­tle as if you were his daugh­ter. My Lord told my friend John so, and he told me. You will be at home there, and have some­one to speak to about our fa­ther, while you are wait­ing till John and I bring him back to you some day. Ah! what a grand day that will be!” ex­claimed Robert, his face glow­ing with en­thu­si­asm.

“My boy, my broth­er,” replied Mary, “how hap­py my fa­ther would be if he could hear you. How much you are like him, dear Robert, like our dear, dear fa­ther. When you grow up you’ll be just him­self.”

“I hope I may,” said Robert, blush­ing with fil­ial and sa­cred pride.

“But how shall we re­quite Lord and La­dy Gle­nar­van?” said Mary Grant.

“Oh, that will not be dif­fi­cult,” replied Robert, with boy­ish con­fi­dence. “We will love and re­vere them, and we will tell them so; and we will give them plen­ty of kiss­es, and some day, when we can get the chance, we will die for them.”

“We’ll live for them, on the con­trary,” replied the young girl, cov­er­ing her broth­er’s fore­head with kiss­es. “They will like that bet­ter, and so shall I.”

The two chil­dren then re­lapsed in­to si­lence, gaz­ing out in­to the dark night, and giv­ing way to long rever­ies, in­ter­rupt­ed oc­ca­sion­al­ly by a ques­tion or re­mark from one to the oth­er. A long swell un­du­lat­ed the sur­face of the calm sea, and the screw turned up a lu­mi­nous fur­row in the dark­ness.

A strange and al­to­geth­er su­per­nat­ural in­ci­dent now oc­curred. The broth­er and sis­ter, by some of those mag­net­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tions which link souls mys­te­ri­ous­ly to­geth­er, were the sub­jects at the same time and the same in­stant of the same hal­lu­ci­na­tion.

Out of the midst of these waves, with their al­ter­na­tions of light and shad­ow, a deep plain­tive voice sent up a cry, the tones of which thrilled through ev­ery fiber of their be­ing.

“Come! come!” were the words which fell on their ears.

They both start­ed up and leaned over the rail­ing, and peered in­to the gloom with ques­tion­ing eyes.

“Mary, you heard that? You heard that?” cried Robert.

But they saw noth­ing but the long shad­ow that stretched be­fore them.

“Robert,” said Mary, pale with emo­tion, “I thought–yes, I thought as you did, that–We must both be ill with fever, Robert.”

A sec­ond time the cry reached them, and this time the il­lu­sion was so great, that they both ex­claimed si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, “My fa­ther! My fa­ther!”

It was too much for Mary. Over­come with emo­tion, she fell faint­ing in­to Robert’s arms.

“Help!” shout­ed Robert. “My sis­ter! my fa­ther! Help! Help!”

The man at the wheel dart­ed for­ward to lift up the girl. The sailors on watch ran to as­sist, and John Man­gles, La­dy He­le­na, and Gle­nar­van were hasti­ly roused from sleep.

“My sis­ter is dy­ing, and my fa­ther is there!” ex­claimed Robert, point­ing to the waves.

They were whol­ly at a loss to un­der­stand him.

“Yes!” he re­peat­ed, “my fa­ther is there! I heard my fa­ther’s voice; Mary heard it too!”

Just at this mo­ment, Mary Grant re­cov­er­ing con­scious­ness, but wan­der­ing and ex­cit­ed, called out, “My fa­ther! my fa­ther is there!”

And the poor girl start­ed up, and lean­ing over the side of the yacht, want­ed to throw her­self in­to the sea.

“My Lord–La­dy He­le­na!” she ex­claimed, clasp­ing her hands, “I tell you my fa­ther is there! I can de­clare that I heard his voice come out of the waves like a wail, as if it were a last adieu.”

The young girl went off again in­to con­vul­sions and spasms, which be­came so vi­olent that she had to be car­ried to her cab­in, where La­dy He­le­na lav­ished ev­ery care on her. Robert kept on re­peat­ing, “My fa­ther! my fa­ther is there! I am sure of it, my Lord!”

The spec­ta­tors of this painful scene saw that the cap­tain’s chil­dren were la­bor­ing un­der an hal­lu­ci­na­tion. But how were they to be un­de­ceived?

Gle­nar­van made an at­tempt, how­ev­er. He took Robert’s hand, and said, “You say you heard your fa­ther’s voice, my dear boy?”

“Yes, my Lord; there, in the mid­dle of the waves. He cried out, ‘Come! come!’”

“And did you rec­og­nize his voice?”

“Yes, I rec­og­nized it im­me­di­ate­ly. Yes, yes; I can swear to it! My sis­ter heard it, and rec­og­nized it as well. How could we both be de­ceived? My Lord, do let us go to my fa­ther’s help. A boat! a boat!”

Gle­nar­van saw it was im­pos­si­ble to un­de­ceive the poor boy, but he tried once more by say­ing to the man at the wheel:

“Hawkins, you were at the wheel, were you not, when Miss Mary was so strange­ly at­tacked?”

“Yes, your Hon­or,” replied Hawkins.

“And you heard noth­ing, and saw noth­ing?”

“Noth­ing.”

“Now Robert, see?”

“If it had been Hawkins’s fa­ther,” re­turned the boy, with in­domitable en­er­gy, “Hawkins would not say he had heard noth­ing. It was my fa­ther, my lord! my fa­ther.”

Sobs choked his voice; he be­came pale and silent, and present­ly fell down in­sen­si­ble, like his sis­ter.

Gle­nar­van had him car­ried to his bed, where he lay in a deep swoon.

“Poor or­phans,” said John Man­gles. “It is a ter­ri­ble tri­al they have to bear!”

“Yes,” said Gle­nar­van; “ex­ces­sive grief has pro­duced the same hal­lu­ci­na­tion in both of them, and at the same time.”

“In both of them!” mut­tered Pa­ganel; “that’s strange, and pure sci­ence would say in­ad­mis­si­ble.”

He leaned over the side of the ves­sel, and lis­tened at­ten­tive­ly, mak­ing a sign to the rest to keep still.

But pro­found si­lence reigned around. Pa­ganel shout­ed his loud­est. No re­sponse came.

“It is strange,” re­peat­ed the ge­og­ra­pher, go­ing back to his cab­in. “Close sym­pa­thy in thought and grief does not suf­fice to ex­plain this phe­nomenon.”

Next day, March 4, at 5 A. M., at dawn, the pas­sen­gers, in­clud­ing Mary and Robert, who would not stay be­hind, were all as­sem­bled on the poop, each one ea­ger to ex­am­ine the land they had on­ly caught a glimpse of the night be­fore.

The yacht was coast­ing along the is­land at the dis­tance of about a mile, and its small­est de­tails could be seen by the eye.

Sud­den­ly Robert gave a loud cry, and ex­claimed he could see two men run­ning about and ges­tic­ulat­ing, and a third was wav­ing a flag.

“The Union Jack,” said John Man­gles, who had caught up a spy-​glass.

“True enough,” said Pa­ganel, turn­ing sharply round to­ward Robert.

“My Lord,” said Robert, trem­bling with emo­tion, “if you don’t want me to swim to the shore, let a boat be low­ered. Oh, my Lord, I im­plore you to let me be the first to land.”

No one dared to speak. What! on this lit­tle isle, crossed by the 37th par­al­lel, there were three men, ship­wrecked En­glish­men! In­stan­ta­neous­ly ev­ery­one thought of the voice heard by Robert and Mary the pre­ced­ing night. The chil­dren were right, per­haps, in the af­fir­ma­tion. The sound of a voice might have reached them, but this voice– was it their fa­ther’s? No, alas, most as­sured­ly no. And as they thought of the dread­ful dis­ap­point­ment that await­ed them, they trem­bled lest this new tri­al should crush them com­plete­ly. But who could stop them from go­ing on shore? Lord Gle­nar­van had not the heart to do it.

“Low­er a boat,” he called out.

An­oth­er minute and the boat was ready. The two chil­dren of Cap­tain Grant, Gle­nar­van, John Man­gles, and Pa­ganel, rushed in­to it, and six sailors, who rowed so vig­or­ous­ly that they were present­ly al­most close to the shore.

At ten fath­oms’ dis­tance a pierc­ing cry broke from Mary’s lips.

“My fa­ther!” she ex­claimed.

A man was stand­ing on the beach, be­tween two oth­ers. His tall, pow­er­ful form, and his phys­iog­no­my, with its min­gled ex­pres­sion of bold­ness and gen­tle­ness, bore a re­sem­blance both to Mary and Robert. This was in­deed the man the chil­dren had so of­ten de­scribed. Their hearts had not de­ceived them. This was their fa­ther, Cap­tain Grant!

The cap­tain had heard Mary’s cry, for he held out his arms, and fell flat on the sand, as if struck by a thun­der­bolt.