Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 19

The next day, the 22nd of May, the ar­range­ment of their new dwelling was com­menced. In fact, the set­tlers longed to ex­change the in­suf­fi­cient shel­ter of the Chim­neys for this large and healthy re­treat, in the midst of sol­id rock, and shel­tered from the wa­ter both of the sea and sky. Their for­mer dwelling was not, how­ev­er, to be en­tire­ly aban­doned, for the en­gi­neer in­tend­ed to make a man­ufac­to­ry of it for im­por­tant works. Cyrus Hard­ing’s first care was to find out the po­si­tion of the front of Gran­ite House from the out­side. He went to the beach, and as the pick­axe when it es­caped from the hands of the re­porter must have fall­en per­pen­dic­ular­ly to the foot of the cliff, the find­ing it would be suf­fi­cient to show the place where the hole had been pierced in the gran­ite.

The pick­axe was eas­ily found, and the hole could be seen in a per­pen­dic­ular line above the spot where it was stuck in the sand. Some rock pi­geons were al­ready fly­ing in and out of the nar­row open­ing; they ev­ident­ly thought that Gran­ite House had been dis­cov­ered on pur­pose for them. It was the en­gi­neer’s in­ten­tion to di­vide the right por­tion of the cav­ern in­to sev­er­al rooms, pre­ced­ed by an en­trance pas­sage, and to light it by means of five win­dows and a door, pierced in the front. Pen­croft was much pleased with the five win­dows, but he could not un­der­stand the use of the door, since the pas­sage of­fered a nat­ural stair­case, through which it would al­ways be easy to en­ter Gran­ite House.

“My friend,” replied Hard­ing, “if it is easy for us to reach our dwelling by this pas­sage, it will be equal­ly easy for oth­ers be­sides us. I mean, on the con­trary, to block up that open­ing, to seal it her­met­ical­ly, and, if it is nec­es­sary, to com­plete­ly hide the en­trance by mak­ing a dam, and thus caus­ing the wa­ter of the lake to rise.”

“And how shall we get in?” asked the sailor.

“By an out­side lad­der,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing, “a rope lad­der, which, once drawn up, will ren­der ac­cess to our dwelling im­pos­si­ble.”

“But why so many pre­cau­tions?” asked Pen­croft. “As yet we have seen no dan­ger­ous an­imals. As to our is­land be­ing in­hab­it­ed by na­tives, I don’t be­lieve it!”

“Are you quite sure of that, Pen­croft?” asked the en­gi­neer, look­ing at the sailor.

“Of course we shall not be quite sure, till we have ex­plored it in ev­ery di­rec­tion,” replied Pen­croft.

“Yes,” said Hard­ing, “for we know on­ly a small por­tion of it as yet. But at any rate, if we have no en­emies in the in­te­ri­or, they may come from the ex­te­ri­or, for parts of the Pa­cif­ic are very dan­ger­ous. We must be pro­vid­ed against ev­ery con­tin­gen­cy.”

Cyrus Hard­ing spoke wise­ly; and with­out mak­ing any fur­ther ob­jec­tion, Pen­croft pre­pared to ex­ecute his or­ders.

The front of Gran­ite House was then to be light­ed by five win­dows and a door, be­sides a large bay win­dow and some small­er oval ones, which would ad­mit plen­ty of light to en­ter in­to the mar­velous nave which was to be their chief room. This fa­cade, sit­uat­ed at a height of eighty feet above the ground, was ex­posed to the east, and the ris­ing sun salut­ed it with its first rays. It was found to be just at that part of the cliff which was be­tween the pro­jec­tion at the mouth of the Mer­cy and a per­pen­dic­ular line traced above the heap of rocks which formed the Chim­neys. Thus the winds from the north­east would on­ly strike it oblique­ly, for it was pro­tect­ed by the pro­jec­tion. Be­sides, un­til the win­dow-​frames were made, the en­gi­neer meant to close the open­ings with thick shut­ters, which would pre­vent ei­ther wind or rain from en­ter­ing, and which could be con­cealed in need.

The first work was to make the open­ings. This would have tak­en too long with the pick­axe alone, and it is known that Hard­ing was an in­ge­nious man. He had still a quan­ti­ty of ni­tro-​glyc­er­ine at his dis­pos­al, and he em­ployed it use­ful­ly. By means of this ex­plo­sive sub­stance the rock was bro­ken open at the very places cho­sen by the en­gi­neer. Then, with the pick­axe and spade, the win­dows and doors were prop­er­ly shaped, the jagged edges were smoothed off, and a few days al­ter the be­gin­ning of the work, Gran­ite House was abun­dant­ly light­ed by the ris­ing sun, whose rays pen­etrat­ed in­to its most se­cret re­cess­es. Fol­low­ing the plan pro­posed by Cyrus Hard­ing, the space was to be di­vid­ed in­to five com­part­ments look­ing out on the sea; to the right, an en­try with a door, which would meet the lad­der; then a kitchen, thir­ty feet long; a din­ing-​room, mea­sur­ing forty feet; a sleep­ing- room, of equal size; and last­ly, a “Vis­itor’s room,” pe­ti­tioned for by Pen­croft, and which was next to the great hall. These rooms, or rather this suite of rooms, would not oc­cu­py all the depth of the cave. There would be al­so a cor­ri­dor and a store­house, in which their tools, pro­vi­sions, and stores would be kept. All the pro­duc­tions of the is­land, the flo­ra as well as the fau­na, were to be there in the best pos­si­ble state of preser­va­tion, and com­plete­ly shel­tered from the damp. There was no want of space, so that each ob­ject could be me­thod­ical­ly ar­ranged. Be­sides, the colonists had still at their dis­pos­al the lit­tle grot­to above the great cav­ern, which was like the gar­ret of the new dwelling.

This plan set­tled, it had on­ly to be put in­to ex­ecu­tion. The min­ers be­came brick­mak­ers again, then the bricks were brought to the foot of Gran­ite House. Till then, Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions had on­ly en­tered the cav­ern by the long pas­sage. This mode of com­mu­ni­ca­tion obliged them first to climb Prospect Heights, mak­ing a de­tour by the riv­er’s bank, and then to de­scend two hun­dred feet through the pas­sage, hav­ing to climb as far when they wished to re­turn to the plateau. This was a great loss of time, and was al­so very fa­tigu­ing. Cyrus Hard­ing, there­fore, re­solved to pro­ceed with­out any fur­ther de­lay to the fab­ri­ca­tion of a strong rope lad­der, which, once raised, would ren­der Gran­ite House com­plete­ly in­ac­ces­si­ble.

This lad­der was man­ufac­tured with ex­treme care, and its up­rights, formed of the twist­ed fibers of a species of cane, had the strength of a thick ca­ble. As to the rounds, they were made of a sort of red cedar, with light, strong branch­es; and this ap­pa­ra­tus was wrought by the mas­ter­ly hand of Pen­croft.

Oth­er ropes were made with veg­etable fibers, and a sort of crane with a tack­le was fixed at the door. In this way bricks could eas­ily be raised in­to Gran­ite House. The trans­port of the ma­te­ri­als be­ing thus sim­pli­fied, the ar­range­ment of the in­te­ri­or could be­gin im­me­di­ate­ly. There was no want of lime, and some thou­sands of bricks were there ready to be used. The frame­work of the par­ti­tions was soon raised, very rough­ly at first, and in a short time, the cave was di­vid­ed in­to rooms and store­hous­es, ac­cord­ing to the plan agreed up­on.

These dif­fer­ent works pro­gressed rapid­ly un­der the di­rec­tion of the en­gi­neer, who him­self han­dled the ham­mer and the trow­el. No la­bor came amiss to Cyrus Hard­ing, who thus set an ex­am­ple to his in­tel­li­gent and zeal­ous com­pan­ions. They worked with con­fi­dence, even gai­ly, Pen­croft al­ways hav­ing some joke to crack, some­times car­pen­ter, some­times rope- mak­er, some­times ma­son, while he com­mu­ni­cat­ed his good hu­mor to all the mem­bers of their lit­tle world. His faith in the en­gi­neer was com­plete; noth­ing could dis­turb it. He be­lieved him ca­pa­ble of un­der­tak­ing any­thing and suc­ceed­ing in ev­ery­thing. The ques­tion of boots and clothes–as­sured­ly a se­ri­ous ques­tion,–that of light dur­ing the win­ter months, uti­liz­ing the fer­tile parts of the is­land, trans­form­ing the wild flo­ra in­to cul­ti­vat­ed flo­ra, it all ap­peared easy to him; Cyrus Hard­ing help­ing, ev­ery­thing would be done in time. He dreamed of canals fa­cil­itat­ing the trans­port of the rich­es of the ground; work­ings of quar­ries and mines; ma­chines for ev­ery in­dus­tri­al man­ufac­ture; rail­roads; yes, rail­roads! of which a net­work would cer­tain­ly one day cov­er Lin­coln Is­land.

The en­gi­neer let Pen­croft talk. He did not put down the as­pi­ra­tions of this brave heart. He knew how com­mu­ni­ca­ble con­fi­dence is; he even smiled to hear him speak, and said noth­ing of the un­easi­ness for the fu­ture which he felt. In fact, in that part of the Pa­cif­ic, out of the course of ves­sels, it was to be feared that no help would ev­er come to them. It was on them­selves, on them­selves alone, that the set­tlers must de­pend, for the dis­tance of Lin­coln Is­land from all oth­er land was such, that to haz­ard them­selves in a boat, of a nec­es­sar­ily in­fe­ri­or con­struc­tion, would be a se­ri­ous and per­ilous thing.

“But,” as the sailor said, “they quite took the wind out of the sails of the Robin­sons, for whom ev­ery­thing was done by a mir­acle.”

In fact, they were en­er­get­ic; an en­er­get­ic man will suc­ceed where an in­do­lent one would veg­etate and in­evitably per­ish.

Her­bert dis­tin­guished him­self in these works. He was in­tel­li­gent and ac­tive; un­der­stand­ing quick­ly, he per­formed well; and Cyrus Hard­ing be­came more and more at­tached to the boy. Her­bert had a live­ly and rev­er­ent love for the en­gi­neer. Pen­croft saw the close sym­pa­thy which ex­ist­ed be­tween the two, but he was not in the least jeal­ous. Neb was Neb: he was what he would be al­ways, courage, zeal, de­vo­tion, self-​de­nial per­son­ified. He had the same faith in his mas­ter that Pen­croft had, but he showed it less ve­he­ment­ly. When the sailor was en­thu­si­as­tic, Neb al­ways looked as if he would say, “Noth­ing could be more nat­ural.” Pen­croft and he were great friends.

As to Gideon Spilett, he took part in the com­mon work, and was not less skil­ful in it than his com­pan­ions, which al­ways rather as­ton­ished the sailor. A “jour­nal­ist,” clever, not on­ly in un­der­stand­ing, but in per­form­ing ev­ery­thing.

The lad­der was fi­nal­ly fixed on the 28th of May. There were not less than a hun­dred rounds in this per­pen­dic­ular height of eighty feet. Hard­ing had been able, for­tu­nate­ly, to di­vide it in two parts, prof­it­ing by an over­hang­ing of the cliff which made a pro­jec­tion forty feet above the ground. This pro­jec­tion, care­ful­ly lev­eled by the pick­axe, made a sort of plat­form, to which they fixed the first lad­der, of which the os­cil­la­tion was thus di­min­ished one-​half, and a rope per­mit­ted it to be raised to the lev­el of Gran­ite House. As to the sec­ond lad­der, it was se­cured both at its low­er part, which rest­ed on the pro­jec­tion, and at its up­per end, which was fas­tened to the door. In short the as­cent had been made much eas­ier. Be­sides, Cyrus Hard­ing hoped lat­er to es­tab­lish an hy­draulic ap­pa­ra­tus, which would avoid all fa­tigue and loss of time, for the in­hab­itants of Gran­ite House.

The set­tlers soon be­came ha­bit­uat­ed to the use of this lad­der. They were light and ac­tive, and Pen­croft, as a sailor, ac­cus­tomed to run up the masts and shrouds, was able to give them lessons. But it was al­so nec­es­sary to give them to Top. The poor dog, with his four paws, was not formed for this sort of ex­er­cise. But Pen­croft was such a zeal­ous mas­ter, that Top end­ed by prop­er­ly per­form­ing his as­cents, and soon mount­ed the lad­der as read­ily as his brethren in the cir­cus. It need not be said that the sailor was proud of his pupil. How­ev­er, more than once Pen­croft hoist­ed him on his back, which Top nev­er com­plained of.

It must be men­tioned here, that dur­ing these works, which were ac­tive­ly con­duct­ed, for the bad sea­son was ap­proach­ing, the al­imen­ta­ry ques­tion was not ne­glect­ed. Ev­ery day, the re­porter and Her­bert, who had been vot­ed pur­vey­ors to the colony, de­vot­ed some hours to the chase. As yet, they on­ly hunt­ed in Ja­ca­mar Wood, on the left of the riv­er, be­cause, for want of a bridge or boat, the Mer­cy had not yet been crossed. All the im­mense woods, to which the name of the Forests of the Far West had been giv­en, were not ex­plored. They re­served this im­por­tant ex­cur­sion for the first fine days of the next spring. But Ja­ca­mar Wood was full of game; kan­ga­roos and boars abound­ed, and the hunters iron-​tipped spears and bows and ar­rows did won­ders. Be­sides, Her­bert dis­cov­ered to­wards the south­west point of the la­goon a nat­ural war­ren, a slight­ly damp mead­ow, cov­ered with wil­lows and aro­mat­ic herbs which scent­ed the air, such as thyme, basil, sa­vory, all the sweet-​scent­ed species of the labi­at­ed plants, which the rab­bits ap­peared to be par­tic­ular­ly fond of.

On the re­porter ob­serv­ing that since the ta­ble was spread for the rab­bits, it was strange that the rab­bits them­selves should be want­ing, the two sports­men care­ful­ly ex­plored the war­ren. At any rate, it pro­duced an abun­dance of use­ful plants, and a nat­ural­ist would have had a good op­por­tu­ni­ty of study­ing many spec­imens of the veg­etable king­dom. Her­bert gath­ered sev­er­al shoots of the basil, rose­mary, balm, betony, etc., which pos­sess dif­fer­ent medic­inal prop­er­ties, some pec­toral, as­trin­gent, febrifuge, oth­ers an­ti-​spas­mod­ic, or an­ti-​rheumat­ic. When, af­ter­wards, Pen­croft asked the use of this col­lec­tion of herbs,–

“For medicine,” replied the lad, “to treat us when we are ill.”

“Why should we be ill, since there are no doc­tors in the is­land?” asked Pen­croft quite se­ri­ous­ly.

There was no re­ply to be made to that, but the lad went on with his col­lec­tion all the same, and it was well re­ceived at Gran­ite House. Be­sides these medic­inal herbs, he added a plant known in North Amer­ica as “Os­wego tea,” which made an ex­cel­lent bev­er­age.

At last, by search­ing thor­ough­ly, the hunters ar­rived at the re­al site of the war­ren. There the ground was per­fo­rat­ed like a sieve.

“Here are the bur­rows!” cried Her­bert.

“Yes,” replied the re­porter, “so I see.”

“But are they in­hab­it­ed?”

“That is the ques­tion.”

This was soon an­swered. Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, hun­dreds of lit­tle an­imals, sim­ilar to rab­bits, fled in ev­ery di­rec­tion, with such ra­pid­ity that even Top could not over­take them. Hunters and dog ran in vain; these ro­dents es­caped them eas­ily. But the re­porter re­solved not to leave the place, un­til he had cap­tured at least half-​a-​dozen of the quadrupeds. He wished to stock their larder first, and do­mes­ti­cate those which they might take lat­er. It would not have been dif­fi­cult to do this, with a few snares stretched at the open­ings of the bur­rows. But at this mo­ment they had nei­ther snares, nor any­thing to make them of. They must, there­fore, be sat­is­fied with vis­it­ing each hole, and rum­mag­ing in it with a stick, hop­ing by dint of pa­tience to do what could not be done in any oth­er way.

At last, af­ter half an hour, four ro­dents were tak­en in their holes. They were sim­ilar to their Eu­ro­pean brethren, and are com­mon­ly known by the name of Amer­ican rab­bits.

This pro­duce of the chase was brought back to Gran­ite House, and fig­ured at the evening repast. The ten­ants of the war­ren were not at all to be de­spised, for they were de­li­cious. It was a valu­able re­source of the colony, and it ap­peared to be in­ex­haustible.

On the 31st of May the par­ti­tions were fin­ished. The rooms had now on­ly to be fur­nished, and this would be work for the long win­ter days. A chim­ney was es­tab­lished in the first room, which served as a kitchen. The pipe des­tined to con­duct the smoke out­side gave some trou­ble to these am­ateur brick­lay­ers. It ap­peared sim­plest to Hard­ing to make it of brick clay; as cre­at­ing an out­let for it to the up­per plateau was not to be thought of, a hole was pierced in the gran­ite above the win­dow of the kitchen, and the pipe met it like that of an iron stove. Per­haps the winds which blew di­rect­ly against the fa­cade would make the chim­ney smoke, but these winds were rare, and be­sides, Mas­ter Neb, the cook, was not so very par­tic­ular about that.

When these in­te­ri­or ar­range­ments were fin­ished, the en­gi­neer oc­cu­pied him­self in block­ing up the out­let by the lake, so as to pre­vent any ac­cess by that way. Mass­es of rock were rolled to the en­trance and strong­ly ce­ment­ed to­geth­er. Cyrus Hard­ing did not yet re­al­ize his plan of drown­ing this open­ing un­der the wa­ters of the lake, by restor­ing them to their for­mer lev­el by means of a dam. He con­tent­ed him­self with hid­ing the ob­struc­tion with grass and shrubs, which were plant­ed in the in­ter­stices of the rocks, and which next spring would sprout thick­ly. How­ev­er, he used the wa­ter­fall so as to lead a small stream of fresh wa­ter to the new dwelling. A lit­tle trench, made be­low their lev­el, pro­duced this re­sult; and this deriva­tion from a pure and in­ex­haustible source yield­ed twen­ty-​five or thir­ty gal­lons a day. There would nev­er be any want of wa­ter at Gran­ite House. At last all was fin­ished, and it was time, for the bad sea­son was near. Thick shut­ters closed the win­dows of the fa­cade, un­til the en­gi­neer had time to make glass.

Gideon Spilett had very ar­tis­ti­cal­ly ar­ranged on the rocky pro­jec­tions around the win­dows plants of dif­fer­ent kinds, as well as long stream­ing grass, so that the open­ings were pic­turesque­ly framed in green, which had a pleas­ing ef­fect.

The in­hab­itants of this sol­id, healthy, and se­cure dwelling, could not but be charmed with their work. The view from the win­dows ex­tend­ed over a bound­less hori­zon, which was closed by the two Mandible Capes on the north, and Claw Cape on the south. All Union Bay was spread be­fore them. Yes, our brave set­tlers had rea­son to be sat­is­fied, and Pen­croft was lav­ish in his praise of what he hu­mor­ous­ly called, “his apart­ments on the fifth floor above the ground!”