Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 20

The win­ter sea­son set in with the month of June, which cor­re­sponds with the month of De­cem­ber in the North­ern Hemi­sphere. It be­gan with show­ers and squalls, which suc­ceed­ed each oth­er with­out in­ter­mis­sion. The ten­ants of Gran­ite House could ap­pre­ci­ate the ad­van­tages of a dwelling which shel­tered them from the in­clement weath­er. The Chim­neys would have been quite in­suf­fi­cient to pro­tect them against the rig­or of win­ter, and it was to be feared that the high tides would make an­oth­er ir­rup­tion. Cyrus Hard­ing had tak­en pre­cau­tions against this con­tin­gen­cy, so as to pre­serve as much as pos­si­ble the forge and fur­nace which were es­tab­lished there.

Dur­ing the whole of the month of June the time was em­ployed in dif­fer­ent oc­cu­pa­tions, which ex­clud­ed nei­ther hunt­ing nor fish­ing, the larder be­ing, there­fore, abun­dant­ly sup­plied. Pen­croft, so soon as he had leisure, pro­posed to set some traps, from which he ex­pect­ed great re­sults. He soon made some snares with creep­ers, by the aid of which the war­ren hence­forth ev­ery day fur­nished its quo­ta of ro­dents. Neb em­ployed near­ly all his time in salt­ing or smok­ing meat, which in­sured their al­ways hav­ing plen­ty of pro­vi­sions. The ques­tion of clothes was now se­ri­ous­ly dis­cussed, the set­tlers hav­ing no oth­er gar­ments than those they wore when the bal­loon threw them on the is­land. These clothes were warm and good; they had tak­en great care of them as well as of their linen, and they were per­fect­ly whole, but they would soon need to be re­placed. More­over, if the win­ter was se­vere, the set­tlers would suf­fer great­ly from cold.

On this sub­ject the in­ge­nu­ity of Hard­ing was at fault. They must pro­vide for their most press­ing wants, set­tle their dwelling, and lay in a store of food; thus the cold might come up­on them be­fore the ques­tion of clothes had been set­tled. They must there­fore make up their minds to pass this first win­ter with­out ad­di­tion­al cloth­ing. When the fine sea­son came round again, they would reg­ular­ly hunt those mus­mons which had been seen on the ex­pe­di­tion to Mount Franklin, and the wool once col­lect­ed, the en­gi­neer would know how to make it in­to strong warm stuff…. How? He would con­sid­er.

“Well, we are free to roast our­selves at Gran­ite House!” said Pen­croft. “There are heaps of fu­el, and no rea­son for spar­ing it.”

“Be­sides,” added Gideon Spilett, “Lin­coln Is­land is not sit­uat­ed un­der a very high lat­itude, and prob­ably the win­ters here are not se­vere. Did you not say, Cyrus, that this thir­ty-​fifth par­al­lel cor­re­spond­ed to that of Spain in the oth­er hemi­sphere?”

“Doubt­less,” replied the en­gi­neer, “but some win­ters in Spain are very cold! No want of snow and ice; and per­haps Lin­coln Is­land is just as rigourous­ly tried. How­ev­er, it is an is­land, and as such, I hope that the tem­per­ature will be more mod­er­ate.”

“Why, cap­tain?” asked Her­bert.

“Be­cause the sea, my boy, may be con­sid­ered as an im­mense reser­voir, in which is stored the heat of the sum­mer. When win­ter comes, it re­stores this heat, which in­sures for the re­gions near the ocean a medi­um tem­per­ature, less high in sum­mer, but less low in win­ter.”

“We shall prove that,” replied Pen­croft. “But I don’t want to both­er my­self about whether it will be cold or not. One thing is cer­tain, that is that the days are al­ready short, and the evenings long. Sup­pose we talk about the ques­tion of light.”

“Noth­ing is eas­ier,” replied Hard­ing.

“To talk about?” asked the sailor.

“To set­tle.”

“And when shall we be­gin?”

“To-​mor­row, by hav­ing a seal hunt.”

“To make can­dles?”

“Yes.”

Such was the en­gi­neer’s project; and it was quite fea­si­ble, since he had lime and sul­phuric acid, while the am­phib­ians of the islet would fur­nish the fat nec­es­sary for the man­ufac­ture.

They were now at the 4th of June. It was Whit Sun­day and they agreed to ob­serve this feast. All work was sus­pend­ed, and prayers were of­fered to Heav­en. But these prayers were now thanks­giv­ings. The set­tlers in Lin­coln Is­land were no longer the mis­er­able cast­aways thrown on the islet. They asked for noth­ing more–they gave thanks. The next day, the 5th of June, in rather un­cer­tain weath­er, they set out for the islet. They had to prof­it by the low tide to cross the Chan­nel, and it was agreed that they would con­struct, for this pur­pose, as well as they could, a boat which would ren­der com­mu­ni­ca­tion so much eas­ier, and would al­so per­mit them to as­cend the Mer­cy, at the time of their grand ex­plo­ration of the south­west of the is­land, which was put off till the first fine days.

The seals were nu­mer­ous, and the hunters, armed with their iron-​tipped spears, eas­ily killed half-​a-​dozen. Neb and Pen­croft skinned them, and on­ly brought back to Gran­ite House their fat and skin, this skin be­ing in­tend­ed for the man­ufac­ture of boots.

The re­sult of the hunt was this: near­ly three hun­dred pounds of fat, all to be em­ployed in the fab­ri­ca­tion of can­dles.

The op­er­ation was ex­treme­ly sim­ple, and if it did not yield ab­so­lute­ly per­fect re­sults, they were at least very use­ful. Cyrus Hard­ing would on­ly have had at his dis­pos­al sul­phuric acid, but by heat­ing this acid with the neu­tral fat­ty bod­ies he could sep­arate the glyc­er­ine; then from this new com­bi­na­tion, he eas­ily sep­arat­ed the olein, the mar­garin, and the stearin, by em­ploy­ing boil­ing wa­ter. But to sim­pli­fy the op­er­ation, he pre­ferred to saponi­fy the fat by means of lime. By this he ob­tained a cal­care­ous soap, easy to de­com­pose by sul­phuric acid, which pre­cip­itat­ed the lime in­to the state of sul­phate, and lib­er­at­ed the fat­ty acids.

From these three acids-​ole­ic, mar­gar­ic, and stearic-​the first, be­ing liq­uid, was driv­en out by a suf­fi­cient pres­sure. As to the two oth­ers, they formed the very sub­stance of which the can­dles were to be mold­ed.

This op­er­ation did not last more than four and twen­ty hours. The wicks, af­ter sev­er­al tri­als, were made of veg­etable fibers, and dipped in the liq­ue­fied sub­stance, they formed reg­ular stearic can­dles, mold­ed by the hand, which on­ly want­ed white­ness and pol­ish. They would not doubt­less have the ad­van­tages of the wicks which are im­preg­nat­ed with bo­racic acid, and which vit­ri­fy as they burn and are en­tire­ly con­sumed, but Cyrus Hard­ing hav­ing man­ufac­tured a beau­ti­ful pair of snuffers, these can­dles would be great­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed dur­ing the long evenings in Gran­ite House.

Dur­ing this month there was no want of work in the in­te­ri­or of their new dwelling. The join­ers had plen­ty to do. They im­proved their tools, which were very rough, and added oth­ers al­so.

Scis­sors were made among oth­er things, and the set­tlers were at last able to cut their hair, and al­so to shave, or at least trim their beards. Her­bert had none, Neb but lit­tle, but their com­pan­ions were bristling in a way which jus­ti­fied the mak­ing of the said scis­sors.

The man­ufac­ture of a hand-​saw cost in­fi­nite trou­ble, but at last an in­stru­ment was ob­tained which, when vig­or­ous­ly han­dled, could di­vide the lig­neous fibers of the wood. They then made ta­bles, seats, cup­boards, to fur­nish the prin­ci­pal rooms, and bed­steads, of which all the bed­ding con­sist­ed of grass mat­tress­es. The kitchen, with its shelves, on which rest­ed the cook­ing uten­sils, its brick stove, looked very well, and Neb worked away there as earnest­ly as if he was in a chemist’s lab­ora­to­ry.

But the join­ers had soon to be re­placed by car­pen­ters. In fact, the wa­ter­fall cre­at­ed by the ex­plo­sion ren­dered the con­struc­tion of two bridges nec­es­sary, one on Prospect Heights, the oth­er on the shore. Now the plateau and the shore were trans­verse­ly di­vid­ed by a wa­ter­course, which had to be crossed to reach the north­ern part of the is­land. To avoid it the colonists had been obliged to make a con­sid­er­able de­tour, by climb­ing up to the source of the Red Creek. The sim­plest thing was to es­tab­lish on the plateau, and on the shore, two bridges from twen­ty to five and twen­ty feet in length. All the car­pen­ter’s work that was need­ed was to clear some trees of their branch­es: this was a busi­ness of some days. Di­rect­ly the bridges were es­tab­lished, Neb and Pen­croft prof­it­ed by them to go to the oys­ter-​bed which had been dis­cov­ered near the downs. They dragged with them a sort of rough cart, which re­placed the for­mer in­con­ve­nient hur­dle, and brought back some thou­sands of oys­ters, which soon in­creased among the rocks and formed a bed at the mouth of the Mer­cy. These mol­luscs were of ex­cel­lent qual­ity, and the colonists con­sumed some dai­ly.

It has been seen that Lin­coln Is­land, al­though its in­hab­itants had as yet on­ly ex­plored a small por­tion of it, al­ready con­tribut­ed to al­most all their wants. It was prob­able that if they hunt­ed in­to its most se­cret re­cess­es, in all the wood­ed part be­tween the Mer­cy and Rep­tile Point, they would find new trea­sures.

The set­tlers in Lin­coln Is­land had still one pri­va­tion. There was no want of meat, nor of veg­etable prod­ucts; those lig­neous roots which they had found, when sub­ject­ed to fer­men­ta­tion, gave them an acid drink, which was prefer­able to cold wa­ter; they al­so made sug­ar, with­out canes or beet- roots, by col­lect­ing the liquor which dis­tils from the “ac­er sace­har­inum,” a son of maple-​tree, which flour­ish­es in all the tem­per­ate zones, and of which the is­land pos­sessed a great num­ber; they made a very agree­able tea by em­ploy­ing the herbs brought from the war­ren; last­ly, they had an abun­dance of salt, the on­ly min­er­al which is used in food . . . but bread was want­ing.

Per­haps in time the set­tlers could re­place this want by some equiv­alent, it was pos­si­ble that they might find the sa­go or the bread­fruit tree among the forests of the south, but they had not as yet met with these pre­cious trees. How­ev­er, Prov­idence came di­rect­ly to their aid, in an in­finites­imal pro­por­tion it is true, but Cyrus Hard­ing, with all his in­tel­li­gence, all his in­ge­nu­ity, would nev­er have been able to pro­duce that which, by the great­est chance, Her­bert one day found in the lin­ing of his waist­coat, which he was oc­cu­pied in set­ting to rights.

On this day, as it was rain­ing in tor­rents, the set­tlers were as­sem­bled in the great hall in Gran­ite House, when the lad cried out all at once,–

“Look here, cap­tain–A grain of corn!”

And he showed his com­pan­ions a grain–a sin­gle grain–which from a hole in his pock­et had got in­to the lin­ing of his waist­coat.

The pres­ence of this grain was ex­plained by the fact that Her­bert, when at Rich­mond, used to feed some pi­geons, of which Pen­croft had made him a present.

“A grain of corn?” said the en­gi­neer quick­ly.

“Yes, cap­tain; but one, on­ly one!”

“Well, my boy,” said Pen­croft, laugh­ing, “we’re get­ting on cap­ital­ly, up­on my word! What shall we make with one grain of corn?”

“We will make bread of it,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing.

“Bread, cakes, tarts!” replied the sailor. “Come, the bread that this grain of corn will make won’t choke us very soon!”

Her­bert, not at­tach­ing much im­por­tance to his dis­cov­ery, was go­ing to throw away the grain in ques­tion; but Hard­ing took it, ex­am­ined it, found that it was in good con­di­tion, and look­ing the sailor full in the face– “Pen­croft,” he asked qui­et­ly, “do you know how many ears one grain of corn can pro­duce?”

“One, I sup­pose!” replied the sailor, sur­prised at the ques­tion.

“Ten, Pen­croft! And do you know how many grains one ear bears?”

“No, up­on my word.”

“About eighty!” said Cyrus Hard­ing. “Then, if we plant this grain, at the first crop we shall reap eight hun­dred grains which at the sec­ond will pro­duce six hun­dred and forty thou­sand; at the third, five hun­dred and twelve mil­lions; at the fourth, more than four hun­dred thou­sands of mil­lions! There is the pro­por­tion.”

Hard­ing’s com­pan­ions lis­tened with­out an­swer­ing. These num­bers as­ton­ished them. They were ex­act, how­ev­er.

“Yes, my friends,” con­tin­ued the en­gi­neer, “such are the arith­meti­cal pro­gres­sions of pro­lif­ic na­ture; and yet what is this mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of the grain of corn, of which the ear on­ly bears eight hun­dred grains, com­pared to the pop­py-​plant, which bears thir­ty-​two thou­sand seeds; to the to­bac­co- plant, which pro­duces three hun­dred and six­ty thou­sand? In a few years, with­out the nu­mer­ous caus­es of de­struc­tion, which ar­rests their fe­cun­di­ty, these plants would over­run the earth.”

But the en­gi­neer had not fin­ished his lec­ture.

“And now, Pen­croft,” he con­tin­ued, “do you know how many bushels four hun­dred thou­sand mil­lions of grains would make?”

“No,” replied the sailor; “but what I do know is, that I am noth­ing bet­ter than a fool!”

“Well, they would make more than three mil­lions, at a hun­dred and thir­ty thou­sand a bushel, Pen­croft.”

“Three mil­lions!” cried Pen­croft.

“Three mil­lions.”

“In four years?”

“In four years,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing, “and even in two years, if, as I hope, in this lat­itude we can ob­tain two crops a year.”

At that, ac­cord­ing to his usu­al cus­tom, Pen­croft could not re­ply oth­er­wise than by a tremen­dous hur­rah.

“So, Her­bert,” added the en­gi­neer, “you have made a dis­cov­ery of great im­por­tance to us. Ev­ery­thing, my friends, ev­ery­thing can serve us in the con­di­tion in which we are. Do not for­get that, I beg of you.”

“No, cap­tain, no, we shan’t for­get it,” replied Pen­croft; “and if ev­er I find one of those to­bac­co-​seeds, which mul­ti­ply by three hun­dred and six­ty thou­sand, I as­sure you I won’t throw it away! And now, what must we do?”

“We must plant this grain,” replied Her­bert.

“Yes,” added Gideon Spilett, “and with ev­ery pos­si­ble care, for it bears in it­self our fu­ture har­vests.”

“Pro­vid­ed it grows!” cried the sailor.

“It will grow,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing.

This was the 20th of June. The time was then pro­pi­tious for sow­ing this sin­gle pre­cious grain of corn. It was first pro­posed to plant it in a pot, but up­on re­flec­tion it was de­cid­ed to leave it to na­ture, and con­fide it to the earth. This was done that very day, and it is need­less to add, that ev­ery pre­cau­tion was tak­en that the ex­per­iment might suc­ceed.

The weath­er hav­ing cleared, the set­tlers climbed the height above Gran­ite House. There, on the plateau, they chose a spot, well shel­tered from the wind, and ex­posed to all the heat of the mid­day sun. The place was cleared, care­ful­ly weed­ed, and searched for in­sects and worms; then a bed of good earth, im­proved with a lit­tle lime, was made; it was sur­round­ed by a rail­ing; and the grain was buried in the damp earth.

Did it not seem as if the set­tlers were lay­ing the first stone of some ed­ifice? It re­called to Pen­croft the day on which he light­ed his on­ly match, and all the anx­iety of the op­er­ation. But this time the thing was more se­ri­ous. In fact, the cast­aways would have been al­ways able to pro­cure fire, in some mode or oth­er, but no hu­man pow­er could sup­ply an­oth­er grain of corn, if un­for­tu­nate­ly this should be lost!