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

CHAPTER XX CAPTAIN GRANT’S STORY

JOY does not kill, for both fa­ther and chil­dren re­cov­ered be­fore they had reached the yacht. The scene which fol­lowed, who can de­scribe? Lan­guage fails. The whole crew wept aloud at the sight of these three clasped to­geth­er in a close, silent em­brace.

The mo­ment Har­ry Grant came on deck, he knelt down rev­er­ent­ly. The pi­ous Scotch­man’s first act on touch­ing the yacht, which to him was the soil of his na­tive land, was to re­turn thanks to the God of his de­liv­er­ance. Then, turn­ing to La­dy He­le­na and Lord Gle­nar­van, and his com­pan­ions, he thanked them in bro­ken words, for his heart was too full to speak. Dur­ing the short pas­sage from the isle to the yacht, his chil­dren had giv­en him a brief sketch of the DUN­CAN’S his­to­ry.

What an im­mense debt he owed to this no­ble la­dy and her friends! From Lord Gle­nar­van, down to the low­est sailor on board, how all had strug­gled and suf­fered for him! Har­ry Grant ex­pressed his grat­itude with such sim­plic­ity and no­ble­ness, his man­ly face suf­fused with pure and sweet emo­tion, that the whole crew felt am­ply rec­om­pensed for the tri­als they had un­der­gone. Even the im­pass­able Ma­jor him­self felt a tear steal down his cheek in spite of all his self-​com­mand; while the good, sim­ple Pa­ganel cried like a child who does not care who sees his tears.

Har­ry Grant could not take his eyes off his daugh­ter. He thought her beau­ti­ful, charm­ing; and he not on­ly said so to him­self, but re­peat­ed it aloud, and ap­pealed to La­dy He­le­na for con­fir­ma­tion of his opin­ion, as if to con­vince him­self that he was not blind­ed by his pa­ter­nal af­fec­tion. His boy, too, came in for ad­mi­ra­tion. “How he has grown! he is a man!” was his de­light­ed ex­cla­ma­tion. And he cov­ered the two chil­dren so dear to him with the kiss­es he had been heap­ing up for them dur­ing his two years of ab­sence.

Robert then pre­sent­ed all his friends suc­ces­sive­ly, and found means al­ways to vary the for­mu­la of in­tro­duc­tion, though he had to say the same thing about each. The fact was, each and all had been per­fect in the chil­dren’s eyes.

John Man­gles blushed like a child when his turn came, and his voice trem­bled as he spoke to Mary’s fa­ther.

La­dy He­le­na gave Cap­tain Grant a nar­ra­tive of the voy­age, and made him proud of his son and daugh­ter. She told him of the young hero’s ex­ploits, and how the lad had al­ready paid back part of the pa­ter­nal debt to Lord Gle­nar­van. John Man­gles sang Mary’s prais­es in such terms, that Har­ry Grant, act­ing on a hint from La­dy He­le­na, put his daugh­ter’s hand in­to that of the brave young cap­tain, and turn­ing to Lord and La­dy Gle­nar­van, said: “My Lord, and you, Madam, al­so give your bless­ing to our chil­dren.”

When ev­ery­thing had been said and re-​said over and over again, Gle­nar­van in­formed Har­ry Grant about Ayr­ton. Grant con­firmed the quar­ter­mas­ter’s con­fes­sion as far as his dis­em­barka­tion on the coast of Aus­tralia was con­cerned.

“He is an in­tel­li­gent, in­trepid man,” he added, “whose pas­sions have led him astray. May re­flec­tion and re­pen­tance bring him to a bet­ter mind!”

But be­fore Ayr­ton was trans­ferred, Har­ry Grant wished to do the hon­ors of his rock to his friends. He in­vit­ed them to vis­it his wood­en house, and dine with him in Robin­son Cru­soe fash­ion.

Gle­nar­van and his friends ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion most will­ing­ly. Robert and Mary were ea­ger­ly long­ing to see the soli­tary house where their fa­ther had so of­ten wept at the thought of them. A boat was manned, and the Cap­tain and his two chil­dren, Lord and La­dy Gle­nar­van, the Ma­jor, John Man­gles, and Pa­ganel, land­ed on the shores of the is­land.

A few hours suf­ficed to ex­plore the whole do­main of Har­ry Grant. It was in fact the sum­mit of a sub­ma­rine moun­tain, a plateau com­posed of basaltic rocks and vol­canic DE­BRIS. Dur­ing the ge­olog­ical epochs of the earth, this moun­tain had grad­ual­ly emerged from the depths of the Pa­cif­ic, through the ac­tion of the sub­ter­ranean fires, but for ages back the vol­cano had been a peace­ful moun­tain, and the filled-​up crater, an is­land ris­ing out of the liq­uid plain. Then soil formed. The veg­etable king­dom took pos­ses­sion of this new land. Sev­er­al whalers land­ed do­mes­tic an­imals there in pass­ing; goats and pigs, which mul­ti­plied and ran wild, and the three king­doms of na­ture were now dis­played on this is­land, sunk in mid ocean.

When the sur­vivors of the ship­wrecked BRI­TAN­NIA took refuge there, the hand of man be­gan to or­ga­nize the ef­forts of na­ture. In two years and a half, Har­ry Grant and his two sailors had meta­mor­phosed the is­land. Sev­er­al acres of well-​cul­ti­vat­ed land were stocked with veg­eta­bles of ex­cel­lent qual­ity.

The house was shad­ed by lux­uri­ant gum-​trees. The mag­nif­icent ocean stretched be­fore the win­dows, sparkling in the sun­light. Har­ry Grant had the ta­ble placed be­neath the grand trees, and all the guests seat­ed them­selves. A hind quar­ter of a goat, nar­dou bread, sev­er­al bowls of milk, two or three roots of wild en­dive, and pure fresh wa­ter, com­posed the sim­ple repast, wor­thy of the shep­herds of Ar­ca­dia.

Pa­ganel was en­chant­ed. His old fan­cies about Robin­son Cru­soe re­vived in full force. “He is not at all to be pitied, that scoundrel, Ayr­ton!” he ex­claimed, en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly. “This lit­tle isle is just a par­adise!”

“Yes,” replied Har­ry Grant, “a par­adise to these poor, ship­wrecked fel­lows that Heav­en had pity on, but I am sor­ry that Maria There­sa was not an ex­ten­sive and fer­tile is­land, with a riv­er in­stead of a stream, and a port in­stead of a tiny bay ex­posed to the open sea.”

“And why, cap­tain?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“Be­cause I should have made it the foun­da­tion of the colony with which I mean to dow­er Scot­land.”

“Ah, Cap­tain Grant, you have not giv­en up the project, then, which made you so pop­ular in our old coun­try?”

“No, my Lord, and God has on­ly saved me through your ef­forts that I might ac­com­plish my task. My poor broth­ers in old Cale­do­nia, all who are needy must have a refuge pro­vid­ed for them in an­oth­er land against their mis­ery, and my dear coun­try must have a colony of her own, for her­self alone, some­where in these seas, where she may find that in­de­pen­dence and com­fort she so lacks in Eu­rope.”

“Ah, that is very true, Cap­tain Grant,” said La­dy He­le­na. “This is a grand project of yours, and wor­thy of a no­ble heart. But this lit­tle isle–“

“No, madam, it is a rock on­ly fit at most to sup­port a few set­tlers; while what we need is a vast coun­try, whose vir­gin soil abounds in un­touched stores of wealth,” replied the cap­tain.

“Well, cap­tain,” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van, “the fu­ture is ours, and this coun­try we will seek for to­geth­er.”

And the two brave Scotch­men joined hands in a hearty grip and so sealed the com­pact.

A gen­er­al wish was ex­pressed to hear, while they were on the is­land, the ac­count of the ship­wreck of the BRI­TAN­NIA, and of the two years spent by the sur­vivors in this very place. Har­ry Grant was de­light­ed to grat­ify their cu­rios­ity, and com­menced his nar­ra­tion forth­with.

“My sto­ry,” he said, “is that of all the Robin­son Cru-​soes cast up­on an is­land, with on­ly God and them­selves to re­ly on, and feel­ing it a du­ty to strug­gle for life with the el­ements.

“It was dur­ing the night of the 26th or 27th of June, 1862, that the BRI­TAN­NIA, dis­abled by a six days’ storm, struck against the rocks of Maria There­sa. The sea was moun­tains high, and lifeboats were use­less. My un­for­tu­nate crew all per­ished, ex­cept Bob Learce and Joe Bell, who with my­self man­aged to reach shore af­ter twen­ty un­suc­cess­ful at­tempts.

“The land which re­ceived us was on­ly an un­in­hab­it­ed is­land, two miles broad and five long, with about thir­ty trees in the in­te­ri­or, a few mead­ows, and a brook of fresh wa­ter, which for­tu­nate­ly nev­er dried up. Alone with my sailors, in this cor­ner of the globe, I did not de­spair. I put my trust in God, and ac­cus­tomed my­self to strug­gle res­olute­ly for ex­is­tence. Bob and Joe, my brave com­pan­ions in mis­for­tune, my friends, sec­ond­ed me en­er­get­ical­ly.

“We be­gan like the fic­ti­tious Robin­son Cru­soe of De­foe, our mod­el, by col­lect­ing the planks of the ship, the tools, a lit­tle pow­der, and firearms, and a bag of pre­cious seeds. The first few days were painful enough, but hunt­ing and fish­ing soon af­ford­ed us a sure sup­ply of food, for wild goats were in abun­dance in the in­te­ri­or of the is­land, and ma­rine an­imals abound­ed on the coast. By de­grees we fell in­to reg­ular ways and habits of life.

“I had saved my in­stru­ments from the wreck, and knew ex­act­ly the po­si­tion of the is­land. I found we were out of the route of ves­sels, and could not be res­cued un­less by some prov­iden­tial chance. I ac­cept­ed our try­ing lot com­pos­ed­ly, al­ways think­ing, how­ev­er, of my dear ones, re­mem­ber­ing them ev­ery day in my prayers, though nev­er hop­ing to see them again.

“How­ev­er, we toiled on res­olute­ly, and be­fore long sev­er­al acres of land were sown with the seed off the BRI­TAN­NIA; pota­toes, en­dive, sor­rel, and oth­er veg­eta­bles be­sides, gave whole­some va­ri­ety to our dai­ly fare. We caught some young kids, which soon grew quite tame. We had milk and but­ter. The nar­dou, which grew abun­dant­ly in dried up creeks, sup­plied us with tol­er­ably sub­stan­tial bread, and we had no longer any fears for our ma­te­ri­al life.

“We had built a log hut with the DE­BRIS of the BRI­TAN­NIA, and this was cov­ered over with sail cloth, care­ful­ly tarred over, and be­neath this se­cure shel­ter the rainy sea­son passed com­fort­ably. Many a plan was dis­cussed here, and many a dream in­dulged in, the bright­est of which is this day re­al­ized.

“I had at first the idea of try­ing to brave the per­ils of the ocean in a ca­noe made out of the spars of the ship, but 1,500 miles lay be­tween us and the near­est coast, that is to say the is­lands of the Archipela­go of Po­mo­tou. No boat could have stood so long a voy­age. I there­fore re­lin­quished my scheme, and looked for no de­liv­er­ance ex­cept from a di­vine hand.

“Ah, my poor chil­dren! how of­ten we have stood on the top of the rocks and watched the few ves­sels pass­ing in the dis­tance far out at sea. Dur­ing the whole pe­ri­od of our ex­ile on­ly two or three ves­sels ap­peared on the hori­zon, and those on­ly to dis­ap­pear again im­me­di­ate­ly. Two years and a half were spent in this man­ner. We gave up hop­ing, but yet did not de­spair. At last, ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, when I was stand­ing on the high­est peak of the is­land, I no­ticed a light smoke ris­ing in the west. It in­creased, and soon a ship ap­peared in sight. It seemed to be com­ing to­ward us. But would it not rather steer clear of an is­land where there was no har­bor.

“Ah, what a day of agony that was! My heart was al­most burst­ing. My com­rades kin­dled a fire on one of the peaks. Night came on, but no sig­nal came from the yacht. De­liv­er­ance was there, how­ev­er. Were we to see it van­ish from our eyes?

“I hes­itat­ed no longer. The dark­ness was grow­ing deep­er. The ship might dou­ble the is­land dur­ing the night. I jumped in­to the sea, and at­tempt­ed to make my way to­ward it. Hope tre­bled my strength, I cleft the waves with su­per­hu­man vig­or, and had got so near the yacht that I was scarce­ly thir­ty fath­oms off, when it tacked about.

“This pro­voked me to the de­spair­ing cry, which on­ly my two chil­dren heard. It was no il­lu­sion.

“Then I came back to the shore, ex­haust­ed and over­come with emo­tion and fa­tigue. My two sailors re­ceived me half dead. It was a hor­ri­ble night this last we spent on the is­land, and we be­lieved our­selves aban­doned for­ev­er, when day dawned, and there was the yacht sail­ing near­ly along­side, un­der easy steam. Your boat was low­ered–we were saved–and, oh, won­der of Di­vine good­ness, my chil­dren, my beloved chil­dren, were there hold­ing out their arms to me!”

Robert and Mary al­most smoth­ered their fa­ther with kiss­es and ca­ress­es as he end­ed his nar­ra­tive.

It was now for the first time that the cap­tain heard that he owed his de­liv­er­ance to the some­what hi­ero­glyph­ical

V. IV Verne doc­ument which he had placed in a bot­tle and con­fined to the mer­cy of the ocean.

But what were Jacques Pa­ganel’s thoughts dur­ing Cap­tain Grant’s recital? The wor­thy ge­og­ra­pher was turn­ing over in his brain for the thou­sandth time the words of the doc­ument. He pon­dered his three suc­ces­sive in­ter­pre­ta­tions, all of which had proved false. How had this is­land, called Maria There­sa, been in­di­cat­ed in the pa­pers orig­inal­ly?

At last Pa­ganel could con­tain him­self no longer, and seiz­ing Har­ry Grant’s hand, he ex­claimed:

“Cap­tain! will you tell me at last what re­al­ly was in your in­de­ci­pher­able doc­ument?”

A gen­er­al cu­rios­ity was ex­cit­ed by this ques­tion of the ge­og­ra­pher, for the enig­ma which had been for nine months a mys­tery was about to be ex­plained.

“Well, cap­tain,” re­peat­ed Pa­ganel, “do you re­mem­ber the pre­cise words of the doc­ument?”

“Ex­act­ly,” replied Har­ry Grant; “and not a day has passed with­out my re­call­ing to mem­ory words with which our last hopes were linked.”

“And what are they, cap­tain?” asked Gle­nar­van. “Speak, for our _amour pro­pre_ is wound­ed to the quick!”

“I am ready to sat­is­fy you,” replied Har­ry Grant; “but, you know, to mul­ti­ply the chances of safe­ty, I had in­closed three doc­uments in the bot­tle, in three dif­fer­ent lan­guages. Which is it you wish to hear?”

“They are not iden­ti­cal, then?” cried Pa­ganel.

“Yes, they are, al­most to a word.”

“Well, then, let us have the French doc­ument,” replied Gle­nar­van. “That is the one that is most re­spect­ed by the waves, and the one on which our in­ter­pre­ta­tions have been most­ly found­ed.”

“My Lord, I will give it you word for word,” replied Har­ry Grant.

“LE 27 JUIN, 1862, _le trois-​mats Bri­tan­nia, de Glas­gow, s’est per­du a quinze cents lieues de la Patag­onie, dans l’hemi­sphere aus­tral. Partes a terre, deux matelots et le Cap­itaine Grant ont at­teint l’ile Ta­bor_–“

“Oh!” ex­claimed Pa­ganel.

“LA,” con­tin­ued Har­ry Grant, “_con­tin­uelle­ment en proie a une cru­elle in­di­gence, ils ont jete ce doc­ument par_ 153 de­grees _de lon­gi­tude et_ 37 de­grees 11′ _de lat­itude. Venes a leur sec­ours, ou ils sont per­dus_.”

At the name of Ta­bor, Pa­ganel had start­ed up hasti­ly, and now be­ing un­able to re­strain him­self longer, he called out:

“How can it be Isle Ta­bor? Why, this is Maria There­sa!”

“Un­doubt­ed­ly, Mon­sieur Pa­ganel,” replied Har­ry Grant. “It is Maria There­sa on the En­glish and Ger­man charts, but is named Ta­bor on the French ones!”

At this mo­ment a vig­or­ous thump on Pa­ganel’s shoul­der al­most bent him dou­ble. Truth obliges us to say it was the Ma­jor that dealt the blow, though strange­ly con­trary to his usu­al strict po­lite­ness.

“Ge­og­ra­pher!” said Mc­Nabbs, in a tone of the most supreme con­tempt.

But Pa­ganel had not even felt the Ma­jor’s hand. What was that com­pared to the ge­ograph­ical blow which had stunned him?

He had been grad­ual­ly get­ting near­er the truth, how­ev­er, as he learned from Cap­tain Grant. He had al­most en­tire­ly de­ci­phered the in­de­ci­pher­able doc­ument. The names Patag­onia, Aus­tralia, New Zealand, had ap­peared to him in turn with ab­so­lute cer­tain­ty. CON­TIN, at first CON­TI­NENT, had grad­ual­ly reached its true mean­ing, _con­tin­uelle. In­di_ had suc­ces­sive­ly sig­ni­fied _in­di­ens, in­di­genes_, and at last the right word was found–IN­DI­GENCE. But one mu­ti­lat­ed word, ABOR, had baf­fled the ge­og­ra­pher’s sagac­ity. Pa­ganel had per­sist­ed in mak­ing it the root of the verb ABOR­DER, and it turned out to be a prop­er name, the French name of the Isle Ta­bor, the isle which had been a refuge for the ship­wrecked sailors of the BRI­TAN­NIA. It was dif­fi­cult to avoid falling in­to the er­ror, how­ev­er, for on the En­glish plani­spheres on the DUN­CAN, the lit­tle isle was marked Maria There­sa.

“No mat­ter?” cried Pa­ganel, tear­ing his hair; “I ought not to have for­got­ten its dou­ble ap­pel­la­tion. It is an un­par­don­able mis­take, one un­wor­thy of a sec­re­tary of the Ge­ograph­ical So­ci­ety. I am dis­graced!”

“Come, come, Mon­sieur Pa­ganel,” said La­dy He­le­na; “mod­er­ate your grief.”

“No, madam, no; I am a mere ass!”

“And not even a learned one!” added the Ma­jor, by way of con­so­la­tion.

When the meal was over, Har­ry Grant put ev­ery­thing in or­der in his house. He took noth­ing away, wish­ing the guilty to in­her­it the rich­es of the in­no­cent. Then they re­turned to the ves­sel, and, as Gle­nar­van had de­ter­mined to start the same day, he gave im­me­di­ate or­ders for the dis­em­barka­tion of the quar­ter­mas­ter. Ayr­ton was brought up on the poop, and found him­self face to face with Har­ry Grant.

“It is I, Ayr­ton!” said Grant

“Yes, it is you, cap­tain,” replied Ayr­ton, with­out the least sign of sur­prise at Har­ry Grant’s re­cov­ery. “Well, I am not sor­ry to see you again in good health.”

“It seems, Ayr­ton, that I made a mis­take in land­ing you on an in­hab­it­ed coast.”

“It seems so, cap­tain.”

“You are go­ing to take my place on this un­in­hab­it­ed is­land. May Heav­en give you re­pen­tance!”

“Amen,” said Ayr­ton, calm­ly.

Gle­nar­van then ad­dressed the quar­ter­mas­ter.

“It is still your wish, then, Ayr­ton, to be left be­hind?”

“Yes, my Lord!”

“And Isle Ta­bor meets your wish­es?”

“Per­fect­ly.”

“Now then, lis­ten to my last words, Ayr­ton. You will be cut off here from all the world, and no com­mu­ni­ca­tion with your fel­lows is pos­si­ble. Mir­acles are rare, and you will not be able to quit this isle. You will be alone, with no eye up­on you but that of God, who reads the deep­est se­crets of the heart; but you will be nei­ther lost nor for­sak­en, as Cap­tain Grant was. Un­wor­thy as you are of any­one’s re­mem­brance, you will not be dropped out of rec­ol­lec­tion. I know where you are, Ayr­ton; I know where to find you– I shall nev­er for­get.”

“God keep your Hon­or,” was all Ayr­ton’s re­ply.

These were the fi­nal words ex­changed be­tween Gle­nar­van and the quar­ter­mas­ter. The boat was ready and Ayr­ton got in­to it.

John Man­gles had pre­vi­ous­ly con­veyed to the is­land sev­er­al cas­es of pre­served food, be­sides cloth­ing, and tools and firearms, and a sup­ply of pow­der and shot. The quar­ter­mas­ter could com­mence a new life of hon­est la­bor. Noth­ing was lack­ing, not even books; among oth­ers, the Bible, so dear to En­glish hearts.

The part­ing hour had come. The crew and all the pas­sen­gers were as­sem­bled on deck. More than one felt his heart swell with emo­tion. Mary Grant and La­dy He­le­na could not re­strain their feel­ings.

“Must it be done?” said the young wife to her hus­band. “Must the poor man be left there?”

“He must, He­le­na,” replied Lord Gle­nar­van. “It is in ex­pi­ation of his crimes.”

At that mo­ment the boat, in charge of John Man­gles, turned away. Ayr­ton, who re­mained stand­ing, and still un­moved, took off his cap and bowed grave­ly.

Gle­nar­van un­cov­ered, and all the crew fol­lowed his ex­am­ple, as if in pres­ence of a man who was about to die, and the boat went off in pro­found si­lence.

On reach­ing land, Ayr­ton jumped on the sandy shore, and the boat re­turned to the yacht. It was then four o’clock in the af­ter­noon, and from the poop the pas­sen­gers could see the quar­ter­mas­ter gaz­ing at the ship, stand­ing with fold­ed arms on a rock, mo­tion­less as a stat­ue.

“Shall we set sail, my Lord?” asked John Man­gles.

“Yes, John,” replied Gle­nar­van, hasti­ly, more moved than he cared to show.

“Go on!” shout­ed John to the en­gi­neer.

The steam hissed and puffed out, the screw be­gan to stir the waves, and by eight o’clock the last peaks of Isle Ta­bor dis­ap­peared in the shad­ows of the night.