Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 22

This in­tense cold last­ed till the 15th of Au­gust, with­out, how­ev­er, pass­ing the de­gree of Fahren­heit al­ready men­tioned. When the at­mo­sphere was calm, the low tem­per­ature was eas­ily borne, but when the wind blew, the poor set­tlers, in­suf­fi­cient­ly clothed, felt it severe­ly. Pen­croft re­gret­ted that Lin­coln Is­land was not the home of a few fam­ilies of bears rather than of so many fox­es and seals.

“Bears,” said he, “are gen­er­al­ly very well dressed, and I ask no more than to bor­row for the win­ter the warm cloaks which they have on their backs.”

“But,” replied Neb, laugh­ing, “per­haps the bears would not con­sent to give you their cloaks, Pen­croft. These beasts are not St. Mar­tins.”

“We would make them do it, Neb, we would make them,” replied Pen­croft, in quite an au­thor­ita­tive tone.

But these formidable car­nivo­ra did not ex­ist in the is­land, or at any rate they had not yet shown them­selves.

In the mean­while, Her­bert, Pen­croft, and the re­porter oc­cu­pied them­selves with mak­ing traps on Prospect Heights and at the bor­der of the for­est.

Ac­cord­ing to the sailor, any an­imal, what­ev­er it was, would be a law­ful prize, and the ro­dents or car­nivo­ra which might get in­to the new snares would be well re­ceived at Gran­ite House.

The traps were be­sides ex­treme­ly sim­ple; be­ing pits dug in the ground, a plat­form of branch­es and grass above, which con­cealed the open­ing, and at the bot­tom some bait, the scent of which would at­tract an­imals. It must be men­tioned al­so, that they had not been dug at ran­dom, but at cer­tain places where nu­mer­ous foot­prints showed that quadrupeds fre­quent­ed the ground. They were vis­it­ed ev­ery day, and at three dif­fer­ent times, dur­ing the first days, spec­imens of those Antarc­tic fox­es which they had al­ready seen on the right bank of the Mer­cy were found in them.

“Why, there are noth­ing but fox­es in this coun­try!” cried Pen­croft, when for the third time he drew one of the an­imals out of the pit. Look­ing at it in great dis­gust, he added, “beasts which are good for noth­ing!”

“Yes,” said Gideon Spilett, “they are good for some­thing!”

“And what is that?”

“To make bait to at­tract oth­er crea­tures!”

The re­porter was right, and the traps were hence­for­ward bait­ed with the fox­es car­cass­es.

The sailor had al­so made snares from the long tough fibers of a cer­tain plant, and they were even more suc­cess­ful than the traps. Rarely a day passed with­out some rab­bits from the war­ren be­ing caught. It was al­ways rab­bit, but Neb knew how to vary his sauces and the set­tlers did not think of com­plain­ing.

How­ev­er, once or twice in the sec­ond week of Au­gust, the traps sup­plied the hunters with oth­er an­imals more use­ful than fox­es, name­ly, sev­er­al of those small wild boars which had al­ready been seen to the north of the lake. Pen­croft had no need to ask if these beasts were eat­able. He could see that by their re­sem­blance to the pig of Amer­ica and Eu­rope.

“But these are not pigs,” said Her­bert to him, “I warn you of that, Pen­croft.”

“My boy,” replied the sailor, bend­ing over the trap and draw­ing out one of these rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the fam­ily of sus by the lit­tle ap­pendage which served it as a tail. “Let me be­lieve that these are pigs.”

“Why?”

“Be­cause that pleas­es me!”

“Are you very fond of pig then, Pen­croft?”

“I am very fond of pig,” replied the sailor, “par­tic­ular­ly of its feet, and if it had eight in­stead of four, I should like it twice as much!”

As to the an­imals in ques­tion, they were pec­ca­ries be­long­ing to one of the four species which are in­clud­ed in the fam­ily, and they were al­so of the species of Ta­jacu, rec­og­niz­able by their deep col­or and the ab­sence of those long teeth with which the mouths of their con­geners are armed. These pec­ca­ries gen­er­al­ly live in herds, and it was prob­able that they abound­ed in the woody parts of the is­land.

At any rate, they were eat­able from head to foot, and Pen­croft did not ask more from them.

To­wards the 15th of Au­gust, the state of the at­mo­sphere was sud­den­ly mod­er­at­ed by the wind shift­ing to the north­west. The tem­per­ature rose some de­grees, and the ac­cu­mu­lat­ed va­por in the air was not long in re­solv­ing in­to snow. All the is­land was cov­ered with a sheet of white, and showed it­self to its in­hab­itants un­der a new as­pect. The snow fell abun­dant­ly for sev­er­al days, and it soon reached a thick­ness of two feet.

The wind al­so blew with great vi­olence, and at the height of Gran­ite House the sea could be heard thun­der­ing against the reefs. In some places, the wind, ed­dy­ing round the cor­ners, formed the snow in­to tall whirling columns, re­sem­bling those wa­ter­spouts which turn round on their base, and which ves­sels at­tack with a shot from a gun. How­ev­er, the storm, com­ing from the north­west, blew across the is­land, and the po­si­tion of Gran­ite House pre­served it from a di­rect at­tack.

But in the midst of this snow-​storm, as ter­ri­ble as if it had been pro­duced in some po­lar coun­try, nei­ther Cyrus Hard­ing nor his com­pan­ions could, notwith­stand­ing their wish for it, ven­ture forth, and they re­mained shut up for five days, from the 20th to the 25th of Au­gust. They could hear the tem­pest rag­ing in Ja­ca­mar Wood, which would sure­ly suf­fer from it. Many of the trees would no doubt be torn up by the roots, but Pen­croft con­soled him­self by think­ing that he would not have the trou­ble of cut­ting them down.

“The wind is turn­ing wood­man, let it alone,” he re­peat­ed.

Be­sides, there was no way of stop­ping it, if they had wished to do so.

How grate­ful the in­hab­itants of Gran­ite House then were to Heav­en for hav­ing pre­pared for them this sol­id and im­mov­able re­treat! Cyrus Hard­ing had al­so his le­git­imate share of thanks, but af­ter all, it was Na­ture who had hol­lowed out this vast cav­ern, and he had on­ly dis­cov­ered it. There all were in safe­ty, and the tem­pest could not reach them. If they had con­struct­ed a house of bricks and wood on Prospect Heights, it cer­tain­ly would not have re­sist­ed the fury of this storm. As to the Chim­neys, it must have been ab­so­lute­ly un­in­hab­it­able, for the sea, pass­ing over the islet, would beat fu­ri­ous­ly against it. But here, in Gran­ite House, in the mid­dle of a sol­id mass, over which nei­ther the sea nor air had any in­flu­ence, there was noth­ing to fear.

Dur­ing these days of seclu­sion the set­tlers did not re­main in­ac­tive.

There was no want of wood, cut up in­to planks, in the store­room, and lit­tle by lit­tle they com­plet­ed their fur­nish­ing; con­struct­ing the most sol­id of ta­bles and chairs, for ma­te­ri­al was not spared. Neb and Pen­croft were very proud of this rather heavy fur­ni­ture, which they would not have changed on any ac­count.

Then the car­pen­ters be­came bas­ket-​mak­ers, and they did not suc­ceed bad­ly in this new man­ufac­ture. At the point of the lake which pro­ject­ed to the north, they had dis­cov­ered an osier-​bed in which grew a large num­ber of pur­ple osiers. Be­fore the rainy sea­son, Pen­croft and Her­bert had cut down these use­ful shrubs, and their branch­es, well pre­pared, could now be ef­fec­tive­ly em­ployed. The first at­tempts were some­what crude, but in con­se­quence of the clev­er­ness and in­tel­li­gence of the work­men, by con­sult­ing, and re­call­ing the mod­els which they had seen, and by em­ulat­ing each oth­er, the pos­ses­sions of the colony were soon in­creased by sev­er­al bas­kets of dif­fer­ent sizes. The store­room was pro­vid­ed with them, and in spe­cial bas­kets Neb placed his col­lec­tion of rhi­zomes, stone-​pine al­monds, etc.

Dur­ing the last week of the month of Au­gust the weath­er mod­er­at­ed again. The tem­per­ature fell a lit­tle, and the tem­pest abat­ed. The colonists sal­lied out di­rect­ly. There was cer­tain­ly two feet of snow on the shore, but they were able to walk with­out much dif­fi­cul­ty on the hard­ened sur­face. Cyrus Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions climbed Prospect Heights.

What a change! The woods, which they had left green, es­pe­cial­ly in the part at which the firs pre­dom­inat­ed, had dis­ap­peared un­der a uni­form col­or. All was white, from the sum­mit of Mount Franklin to the shore, the forests, the plains, the lake, the riv­er. The wa­ters of the Mer­cy flowed un­der a roof of ice, which, at each ris­ing and ebbing of the tide, broke up with loud crash­es. Nu­mer­ous birds flut­tered over the frozen sur­face of the lake. Ducks and snipe, teal and guille­mots were as­sem­bled in thou­sands. The rocks among which the cas­cade flowed were bristling with ici­cles. One might have said that the wa­ter es­caped by a mon­strous gar­goyle, shaped with all the imag­ina­tion of an artist of the Re­nais­sance. As to the dam­age caused by the storm in the for­est, that could not as yet be as­cer­tained; they would have to wait till the snowy cov­er­ing was dis­si­pat­ed.

Gideon Spilett, Pen­croft, and Her­bert did not miss this op­por­tu­ni­ty of go­ing to vis­it their traps. They did not find them eas­ily, un­der the snow with which they were cov­ered. They had al­so to be care­ful not to fall in­to one or oth­er of them, which would have been both dan­ger­ous and hu­mil­iat­ing; to be tak­en in their own snares! But hap­pi­ly they avoid­ed this un­pleas­ant­ness, and found their traps per­fect­ly in­tact. No an­imal had fall­en in­to them, and yet the foot­prints in the neigh­bor­hood were very nu­mer­ous, among oth­ers, cer­tain very clear marks of claws. Her­bert did not hes­itate to af­firm that some an­imal of the fe­line species had passed there, which jus­ti­fied the en­gi­neer’s opin­ion that dan­ger­ous beasts ex­ist­ed in Lin­coln Is­land. These an­imals doubt­less gen­er­al­ly lived in the forests of the Far West, but pressed by hunger, they had ven­tured as far as Prospect Heights. Per­haps they had smelled out the in­hab­itants of Gran­ite House. “Now, what are these fe­line crea­tures?” asked Pen­croft. “They are tigers,” replied Her­bert. “I thought those beasts were on­ly found in hot coun­tries?”

“On the new con­ti­nent,” replied the lad, “they are found from Mex­ico to the Pam­pas of Buenos Aires. Now, as Lin­coln Is­land is near­ly un­der the same lat­itude as the provinces of La Pla­ta, it is not sur­pris­ing that tigers are to be met with in it.”

“Well, we must look out for them,” replied Pen­croft.

How­ev­er, the snow soon dis­ap­peared, quick­ly dis­solv­ing un­der the in­flu­ence of the ris­ing tem­per­ature. Rain fell, and the sheet of white soon van­ished. Notwith­stand­ing the bad weath­er, the set­tlers re­newed their stores of dif­fer­ent things, stone-​pine al­monds, rhi­zomes, syrup from the maple-​tree, for the veg­etable part; rab­bits from the war­ren, agouties, and kan­ga­roos for the an­imal part. This ne­ces­si­tat­ed sev­er­al ex­cur­sions in­to the for­est, and they found that a great num­ber of trees had been blown down by the last hur­ri­cane. Pen­croft and Neb al­so pushed with the cart as far as the vein of coal, and brought back sev­er­al tons of fu­el. They saw in pass­ing that the pot­tery kiln had been severe­ly dam­aged by the wind, at least six feet of it hav­ing been blown off.

At the same time as the coal, the store of wood was re­newed at Gran­ite House, and they prof­it­ed by the cur­rent of the Mer­cy hav­ing again be­come free, to float down sev­er­al rafts. They could see that the cold pe­ri­od was not end­ed.

A vis­it was al­so paid to the Chim­neys, and the set­tlers could not but con­grat­ulate them­selves on not hav­ing been liv­ing there dur­ing the hur­ri­cane. The sea had left un­ques­tion­able traces of its rav­ages. Sweep­ing over the islet, it had fu­ri­ous­ly as­sailed the pas­sages, half fill­ing them with sand, while thick beds of sea­weed cov­ered the rocks. While Neb, Her­bert, and Pen­croft hunt­ed or col­lect­ed wood, Cyrus Hard­ing and Gideon Spilett bus­ied them­selves in putting the Chim­neys to rights, and they found the forge and the bel­lows al­most un­hurt, pro­tect­ed as they had been from the first by the heaps of sand.

The store of fu­el had not been made use­less­ly. The set­tlers had not done with the rig­or­ous cold. It is known that, in the North­ern Hemi­sphere, the month of Febru­ary is prin­ci­pal­ly dis­tin­guished by rapid fallings of the tem­per­ature. It is the same in the South­ern Hemi­sphere, and the end of the month of Au­gust, which is the Febru­ary of North Amer­ica, does not es­cape this cli­mat­ic law.

About the 25th, af­ter an­oth­er change from snow to rain, the wind shift­ed to the south­east, and the cold be­came, sud­den­ly, very se­vere. Ac­cord­ing to the en­gi­neer’s cal­cu­la­tion, the mer­cu­ri­al col­umn of a Fahren­heit ther­mome­ter would not have marked less than eight de­grees be­low ze­ro, and this in­tense cold, ren­dered still more painful by a sharp gale, last­ed for sev­er­al days. The colonists were again shut up in Gran­ite House, and as it was nec­es­sary to her­met­ical­ly seal all the open­ings of the fa­cade, on­ly leav­ing a nar­row pas­sage for re­new­ing the air, the con­sump­tion of can­dles was con­sid­er­able. To econ­omize them, the cav­ern was of­ten on­ly light­ed by the blaz­ing hearths, on which fu­el was not spared. Sev­er­al times, one or oth­er of the set­tlers de­scend­ed to the beach in the midst of ice which the waves heaped up at each tide, but they soon climbed up again to Gran­ite House, and it was not with­out pain and dif­fi­cul­ty that their hands could hold to the rounds of the lad­der. In con­se­quence of the in­tense cold, their fin­gers felt as if burned when they touched the rounds. To oc­cu­py the leisure hours, which the ten­ants of Gran­ite House now had at their dis­pos­al, Cyrus Hard­ing un­der­took an op­er­ation which could be per­formed in­doors.

We know that the set­tlers had no oth­er sug­ar at their dis­pos­al than the liq­uid sub­stance which they drew from the maple, by mak­ing deep in­ci­sions in the tree. They con­tent­ed them­selves with col­lect­ing this liquor in jars and em­ploy­ing it in this state for dif­fer­ent culi­nary pur­pos­es, and the more so, as on grow­ing old, this liq­uid be­gan to be­come white and to be of a syrupy con­sis­tence.

But there was some­thing bet­ter to be made of it, and one day Cyrus Hard­ing an­nounced that they were go­ing to turn in­to re­fin­ers.

“Re­fin­ers!” replied Pen­croft. “That is rather a warm trade, I think.”

“Very warm,” an­swered the en­gi­neer.

“Then it will be sea­son­able!” said the sailor.

This word re­fin­ing need not awake in the mind thoughts of an elab­orate man­ufac­to­ry with ap­pa­ra­tus and nu­mer­ous work­men. No! to crys­tal­lize this liquor, on­ly an ex­treme­ly easy op­er­ation is re­quired. Placed on the fire in large earth­en pots, it was sim­ply sub­ject­ed to evap­ora­tion, and soon a scum arose to its sur­face. As soon as this be­gan to thick­en, Neb care­ful­ly re­moved it with a wood­en spat­ula; this ac­cel­er­at­ed the evap­ora­tion, and at the same time pre­vent­ed it from con­tract­ing an empyreumat­ic fla­vor.

Af­ter boil­ing for sev­er­al hours on a hot fire, which did as much good to the op­er­ators as the sub­stance op­er­at­ed up­on, the lat­ter was trans­formed in­to a thick syrup. This syrup was poured in­to clay molds, pre­vi­ous­ly fab­ri­cat­ed in the kitchen stove, and to which they had giv­en var­ious shapes. The next day this syrup had be­come cold, and formed cakes and tablets. This was sug­ar of rather a red­dish col­or, but near­ly trans­par­ent and of a de­li­cious taste.

The cold con­tin­ued to the mid­dle of Septem­ber, and the pris­on­ers in Gran­ite House be­gan to find their cap­tiv­ity rather te­dious. Near­ly ev­ery day they at­tempt­ed sor­ties which they could not pro­long. They con­stant­ly worked at the im­prove­ment of their dwelling. They talked while work­ing. Hard­ing in­struct­ed his com­pan­ions in many things, prin­ci­pal­ly ex­plain­ing to them the prac­ti­cal ap­pli­ca­tions of sci­ence. The colonists had no li­brary at their dis­pos­al; but the en­gi­neer was a book which was al­ways at hand, al­ways open at the page which one want­ed, a book which an­swered all their ques­tions, and which they of­ten con­sult­ed. The time thus passed away pleas­ant­ly, these brave men not ap­pear­ing to have any fears for the fu­ture.

How­ev­er, all were anx­ious to see, if not the fine sea­son, at least the ces­sa­tion of the in­sup­port­able cold. If on­ly they had been clothed in a way to meet it, how many ex­cur­sions they would have at­tempt­ed, ei­ther to the downs or to Ta­dorn’s Fens! Game would have been eas­ily ap­proached, and the chase would cer­tain­ly have been most pro­duc­tive. But Cyrus Hard­ing con­sid­ered it of im­por­tance that no one should in­jure his health, for he had need of all his hands, and his ad­vice was fol­lowed.

But it must be said, that the one who was most im­pa­tient of this im­pris­on­ment, af­ter Pen­croft per­haps, was Top. The faith­ful dog found Gran­ite House very nar­row. He ran back­wards and for­wards from one room to an­oth­er, show­ing in his way how weary he was of be­ing shut up. Hard­ing of­ten re­marked that when he ap­proached the dark well which com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the sea, and of which the ori­fice opened at the back of the store­room, Top ut­tered sin­gu­lar growl­ings. He ran round and round this hole, which had been cov­ered with a wood­en lid. Some­times even he tried to put his paws un­der the lid, as if he wished to raise it. He then yelped in a pe­cu­liar way, which showed at once anger and un­easi­ness.

The en­gi­neer ob­served this ma­neu­ver sev­er­al times.

What could there be in this abyss to make such an im­pres­sion on the in­tel­li­gent an­imal? The well led to the sea, that was cer­tain. Could nar­row pas­sages spread from it through the foun­da­tions of the is­land? Did some ma­rine mon­ster come from time to time, to breathe at the bot­tom of this well? The en­gi­neer did not know what to think, and could not re­frain from dream­ing of many strange im­prob­abil­ities. Ac­cus­tomed to go far in­to the re­gions of sci­en­tif­ic re­al­ity, he would not al­low him­self to be drawn in­to the re­gions of the strange and al­most of the su­per­nat­ural; but yet how to ex­plain why Top, one of those sen­si­ble dogs who nev­er waste their time in bark­ing at the moon, should per­sist in try­ing with scent and hear­ing to fath­om this abyss, if there was noth­ing there to cause his un­easi­ness? Top’s con­duct puz­zled Cyrus Hard­ing even more than he cared to ac­knowl­edge to him­self.

At all events, the en­gi­neer on­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed his im­pres­sions to Gideon Spilett, for he thought it use­less to ex­plain to his com­pan­ions the sus­pi­cions which arose from what per­haps was on­ly Top’s fan­cy.

At last the cold ceased. There had been rain, squalls min­gled with snow, hail­storms, gusts of wind, but these in­clemen­cies did not last. The ice melt­ed, the snow dis­ap­peared; the shore, the plateau, the banks of the Mer­cy, the for­est, again be­came prac­ti­ca­ble. This re­turn of spring de­light­ed the ten­ants of Gran­ite House, and they soon on­ly passed it in the hours nec­es­sary for eat­ing and sleep­ing.

They hunt­ed much in the sec­ond part of Septem­ber, which led Pen­croft to again en­treat for the firearms, which he as­sert­ed had been promised by Cyrus Hard­ing. The lat­ter, know­ing well that with­out spe­cial tools it would be near­ly im­pos­si­ble for him to man­ufac­ture a gun which would be of any use, still drew back and put off the op­er­ation to some fu­ture time, ob­serv­ing in his usu­al dry way, that Her­bert and Spilett had be­come very skil­ful archers, so that many sorts of ex­cel­lent an­imals, agouties, kan­ga­roos, capy­baras, pi­geons, bus­tards, wild ducks, snipes, in short, game both with fur and feath­ers, fell vic­tims to their ar­rows, and that, con­se­quent­ly, they could wait. But the ob­sti­nate sailor would lis­ten to noth­ing of this, and he would give the en­gi­neer no peace till he promised to sat­is­fy his de­sire. Gideon Spilett, how­ev­er, sup­port­ed Pen­croft.

“If, which may be doubt­ed,” said he, “the is­land is in­hab­it­ed by wild beasts, we must think how to fight with and ex­ter­mi­nate them. A time may come when this will be our first du­ty.”

But at this pe­ri­od, it was not the ques­tion of firearms which oc­cu­pied Hard­ing, but that of clothes. Those which the set­tlers wore had passed this win­ter, but they would not last un­til next win­ter. Skins of car­nivo­ra or the wool of ru­mi­nants must be pro­cured at any price, and since there were plen­ty of mus­mons, it was agreed to con­sult on the means of form­ing a flock which might be brought up for the use of the colony. An en­clo­sure for the do­mes­tic an­imals, a poul­try-​yard for the birds, in a word to es­tab­lish a sort of farm in the is­land, such were the two im­por­tant projects for the fine sea­son.

In con­se­quence and in view of these fu­ture es­tab­lish­ments, it be­came of much im­por­tance that they should pen­etrate in­to all the yet un­known parts of Lin­coln Is­land, that is to say, through that thick for­est which ex­tend­ed on the right bank of the Mer­cy, from its mouth to the ex­trem­ity of the Ser­pen­tine Penin­su­la, as well as on the whole of its west­ern side. But this need­ed set­tled weath­er, and a month must pass be­fore this ex­plo­ration could be prof­itably un­der­tak­en.

They there­fore wait­ed with some im­pa­tience, when an in­ci­dent oc­curred which in­creased the de­sire the set­tlers had to vis­it the whole of their do­main.

It was the 24th of Oc­to­ber. On this day, Pen­croft had gone to vis­it his traps, which he al­ways kept prop­er­ly bait­ed. In one of them he found three an­imals which would be very wel­come for the larder. They were a fe­male pec­ca­ry and her two young ones.

Pen­croft then re­turned to Gran­ite House, en­chant­ed with his cap­ture, and, as usu­al, he made a great show of his game.

“Come, we shall have a grand feast, cap­tain!” he ex­claimed. “And you too, Mr. Spilett, you will eat some!”

“I shall be very hap­py,” replied the re­porter; “but what is it that I am go­ing to eat?”

“Suck­ling-​pig.”

“Oh, in­deed, suck­ling-​pig, Pen­croft? To hear you, I thought that you were bring­ing back a young par­tridge stuffed with truf­fles!”

“What?” cried Pen­croft. “Do you mean to say that you turn up your nose at suck­ling-​pig?’

“No,” replied Gideon Spilett, with­out show­ing any en­thu­si­asm; “pro­vid­ed one doesn’t eat too much”

“That’s right, that’s right,” re­turned the sailor, who was not pleased when­ev­er he heard his chase made light of. “You like to make ob­jec­tions. Sev­en months ago, when we land­ed on the is­land, you would have been on­ly too glad to have met with such game!”

“Well, well,” replied the re­porter, “man is nev­er per­fect, nor con­tent­ed.”

“Now,” said Pen­croft, “I hope that Neb will dis­tin­guish him­self. Look here! These two lit­tle pec­ca­ries are not more than three months old! They will be as ten­der as quails! Come along, Neb, come! I will look af­ter the cook­ing my­self.”

And the sailor, fol­lowed by Neb, en­tered the kitchen, where they were soon ab­sorbed in their culi­nary labors.

They were al­lowed to do it in their own way. Neb, there­fore, pre­pared a mag­nif­icent repast–the two lit­tle pec­ca­ries, kan­ga­roo soup, a smoked ham, stone-​pine al­monds, Os­wego tea; in fact, all the best that they had, but among all the dish­es fig­ured in the first rank the sa­vory pec­ca­ries.

At five o’clock din­ner was served in the din­ing-​room of Gran­ite House. The kan­ga­roo soup was smok­ing on the ta­ble. They found it ex­cel­lent.

To the soup suc­ceed­ed the pec­ca­ries, which Pen­croft in­sist­ed on carv­ing him­self, and of which he served out mon­strous por­tions to each of the guests.

These suck­ling-​pigs were re­al­ly de­li­cious, and Pen­croft was de­vour­ing his share with great gus­to, when all at once a cry and an oath es­caped him.

“What’s the mat­ter?” asked Cyrus Hard­ing.

“The mat­ter? the mat­ter is that I have just bro­ken a tooth!” replied the sailor.

“What, are there peb­bles in your pec­ca­ries?” said Gideon Spilett.

“I sup­pose so,” replied Pen­croft, draw­ing from his lips the ob­ject which had cost him a grinder!–

It was not a peb­ble–it was a lead­en bul­let.

PART 2

ABAN­DONED