Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 1

It was now ex­act­ly sev­en months since the bal­loon voy­agers had been thrown on Lin­coln Is­land. Dur­ing that time, notwith­stand­ing the re­search­es they had made, no hu­man be­ing had been dis­cov­ered. No smoke even had be­trayed the pres­ence of man on the sur­face of the is­land. No ves­tiges of his hand­iwork showed that ei­ther at an ear­ly or at a late pe­ri­od had man lived there. Not on­ly did it now ap­pear to be un­in­hab­it­ed by any but them­selves, but the colonists were com­pelled to be­lieve that it nev­er had been in­hab­it­ed. And now, all this scaf­fold­ing of rea­son­ings fell be­fore a sim­ple ball of met­al, found in the body of an in­of­fen­sive ro­dent! In fact, this bul­let must have is­sued from a firearm, and who but a hu­man be­ing could have used such a weapon?

When Pen­croft had placed the bul­let on the ta­ble, his com­pan­ions looked at it with in­tense as­ton­ish­ment. All the con­se­quences like­ly to re­sult from this in­ci­dent, notwith­stand­ing its ap­par­ent in­signif­icance, im­me­di­ate­ly took pos­ses­sion of their minds. The sud­den ap­pari­tion of a su­per­nat­ural be­ing could not have star­tled them more com­plete­ly.

Cyrus Hard­ing did not hes­itate to give ut­ter­ance to the sug­ges­tions which this fact, at once sur­pris­ing and un­ex­pect­ed, could not fail to raise in his mind. He took the bul­let, turned it over and over, rolled it be­tween his fin­ger and thumb; then, turn­ing to Pen­croft, he asked,–

Are you sure that the pec­ca­ry wound­ed by this bul­let was not more than three months old?”

“Not more, cap­tain,” replied Pen­croft. “It was still suck­ing its moth­er when I found it in the trap.”

“Well,” said the en­gi­neer, “that proves that with­in three months a gun- shot was fired in Lin­coln Is­land.”

“And that a bul­let,” added Gideon Spilett, “wound­ed, though not mor­tal­ly, this lit­tle an­imal.”

“That is un­ques­tion­able,” said Cyrus Hard­ing, “and these are the de­duc­tions which must be drawn from this in­ci­dent: that the is­land was in­hab­it­ed be­fore our ar­rival, or that men have land­ed here with­in three months. Did these men ar­rive here vol­un­tar­ily or in­vol­un­tar­ily, by dis­em­bark­ing on the shore or by be­ing wrecked? This point can on­ly be cleared up lat­er. As to what they were, Eu­ro­peans or Malays, en­emies or friends of our race, we can­not pos­si­bly guess; and if they still in­hab­it the is­land, or if they have left it, we know not. But these ques­tions are of too much im­por­tance to be al­lowed to re­main long un­set­tled.”

“No! a hun­dred times no! a thou­sand times no!” cried the sailor, spring­ing up from the ta­ble. “There are no oth­er men than our­selves on Lin­coln Is­land! By my faith! The is­land isn’t large and if it had been in­hab­it­ed, we should have seen some of the in­hab­itants long be­fore this!”

“In fact, the con­trary would be very as­ton­ish­ing,” said Her­bert.

“But it would be much more as­ton­ish­ing, I should think, ob­served the re­porter, “if this pec­ca­ry had been born with a bul­let in its in­side!”

“At least,” said Neb se­ri­ous­ly, “if Pen­croft has not had–“

“Look here, Neb,” burst out Pen­croft. “Do you think I could have a bul­let in my jaw for five or six months with­out find­ing it out? Where could it be hid­den?” he asked, open­ing his mouth to show the two-​and-​thir­ty teeth with which it was fur­nished. “Look well, Neb, and if you find one hol­low tooth in this set, I will let you pull out half a dozen!”

“Neb’s sup­po­si­tion is cer­tain­ly in­ad­mis­si­ble,” replied Hard­ing, who, notwith­stand­ing the grav­ity of his thoughts, could not re­strain a smile. “It is cer­tain that a gun has been fired in the is­land, with­in three months at most. But I am in­clined to think that the peo­ple who land­ed on this coast were on­ly here a very short time ago, or that they just touched here; for if, when we sur­veyed the is­land from the sum­mit of Mount Franklin, it had been in­hab­it­ed, we should have seen them or we should have been seen our­selves. It is there­fore, prob­able that with­in on­ly a few weeks cast­aways have been thrown by a storm on some part of the coast. How­ev­er that may be, it is of con­se­quence to us to have this point set­tled.”

“I think that we should act with cau­tion,” said the re­porter.

“Such is my ad­vice,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing, “for it is to be feared that Malay pi­rates have land­ed on the is­land!”

“Cap­tain,” asked the sailor, “would it not be a good plan, be­fore set­ting out, to build a ca­noe in which we could ei­ther as­cend the riv­er, or, if we liked, coast round the in­land? It will not do to be un­pro­vid­ed.”

“Your idea is good, Pen­croft,” replied the en­gi­neer, “but we can­not wait for that. It would take at least a month to build a boat.”

“Yes, a re­al boat,” replied the sailor; “but we do not want one for a sea voy­age, and in five days at the most, I will un­der­take to con­struct a ca­noe fit to nav­igate the Mer­cy.”

“Five days,” cried Neb, “to build a boat?”

“Yes, Neb; a boat in the In­di­an fash­ion.”

“Of wood?” asked the Ne­gro, look­ing still un­con­vinced.

“Of wood,” replied Pen­croft, “of rather of bark. I re­peat, cap­tain, that in five days the work will be fin­ished!”

“In five days, then, be it,” replied the en­gi­neer.

“But till that time we must be very watch­ful,” said Her­bert.

“Very watch­ful in­deed, my friends,” replied Hard­ing; “and I beg you to con­fine your hunt­ing ex­cur­sions to the neigh­bor­hood of Gran­ite House.”

The din­ner end­ed less gai­ly than Pen­croft had hoped.

So, then, the is­land was, or had been, in­hab­it­ed by oth­ers than the set­tlers. Proved as it was by the in­ci­dent of the bul­let, it was here­after an un­ques­tion­able fact, and such a dis­cov­ery could not but cause great un­easi­ness among the colonists.

Cyrus Hard­ing and Gideon Spilett, be­fore sleep­ing, con­versed long about the mat­ter. They asked them­selves if by chance this in­ci­dent might not have some con­nec­tion with the in­ex­pli­ca­ble way in which the en­gi­neer had been saved, and the oth­er pe­cu­liar cir­cum­stances which had struck them at dif­fer­ent times. How­ev­er, Cyrus Hard­ing, af­ter hav­ing dis­cussed the pros and cons of the ques­tion, end­ed by say­ing,–

“In short, would you like to know my opin­ion, my dear Spilett?”

“Yes, Cyrus.”

“Well, then, it is this: how­ev­er minute­ly we ex­plore the is­land, we shall find noth­ing.”

The next day Pen­croft set to work. He did not mean to build a boat with boards and plank­ing, but sim­ply a flat-​bot­tomed ca­noe, which would be well suit­ed for nav­igat­ing the Mer­cy–above all, for ap­proach­ing its source, where the wa­ter would nat­ural­ly be shal­low. Pieces of bark, fas­tened one to the oth­er, would form a light boat; and in case of nat­ural ob­sta­cles, which would ren­der a portage nec­es­sary, it would be eas­ily car­ried. Pen­croft in­tend­ed to se­cure the pieces of bark by means of nails, to in­sure the ca­noe be­ing wa­ter-​tight.

It was first nec­es­sary to se­lect the trees which would af­ford a strong and sup­ple bark for the work. Now the last storm had brought down a num­ber of large birch-​trees, the bark of which would be per­fect­ly suit­ed for their pur­pose. Some of these trees lay on the ground, and they had on­ly to be barked, which was the most dif­fi­cult thing of all, ow­ing to the im­per­fect tools which the set­tlers pos­sessed. How­ev­er, they over­came all dif­fi­cul­ties.

While the sailor, sec­ond­ed by the en­gi­neer, thus oc­cu­pied him­self with­out los­ing an hour, Gideon Spilett and Her­bert were not idle.

They were made pur­vey­ors to the colony. The re­porter could not but ad­mire the boy, who had ac­quired great skill in han­dling the bow and spear. Her­bert al­so showed great courage and much of that pres­ence of mind which may just­ly be called “the rea­son­ing of brav­ery.” These two com­pan­ions of the chase, re­mem­ber­ing Cyrus Hard­ing’s rec­om­men­da­tions, did not go be­yond a ra­dius of two miles round Gran­ite House; but the bor­ders of the for­est fur­nished a suf­fi­cient trib­ute of agoutis, capy­baras, kan­ga­roos, pec­ca­ries, etc.; and if the re­sult from the traps was less than dur­ing the cold, still the war­ren yield­ed its ac­cus­tomed quo­ta, which might have fed all the colony in Lin­coln Is­land.

Of­ten dur­ing these ex­cur­sions, Her­bert talked with Gideon Spilett on the in­ci­dent of the bul­let, and the de­duc­tions which the en­gi­neer drew from it, and one day–it was the 26th of Oc­to­ber–he said–“But, Mr. Spilett, do you not think it very ex­traor­di­nary that, if any cast­aways have land­ed on the is­land, they have not yet shown them­selves near Gran­ite House?”

“Very as­ton­ish­ing if they are still here,” replied the re­porter, “but not as­ton­ish­ing at all if they are here no longer!”

“So you think that these peo­ple have al­ready quit­ted the is­land?” re­turned Her­bert.

“It is more than prob­able, my boy; for if their stay was pro­longed, and above all, if they were still here, some ac­ci­dent would have at last be­trayed their pres­ence.”

“But if they were able to go away,” ob­served the lad, “they could not have been cast­aways.”

“No, Her­bert; or, at least, they were what might be called pro­vi­sion­al cast­aways. It is very pos­si­ble that a storm may have driv­en them to the is­land with­out de­stroy­ing their ves­sel, and that, the storm over, they went away again.”

“I must ac­knowl­edge one thing,” said Her­bert, “it is that Cap­tain Hard­ing ap­pears rather to fear than de­sire the pres­ence of hu­man be­ings on our is­land.”

“In short,” re­spond­ed the re­porter, “there are on­ly Malays who fre­quent these seas, and those fel­lows are ruf­fi­ans which it is best to avoid.”

“It is not im­pos­si­ble, Mr. Spilett,” said Her­bert, “that some day or oth­er we may find traces of their land­ing.”

“I do not say no, my boy. A de­sert­ed camp, the ash­es of a fire, would put us on the track, and this is what we will look for in our next ex­pe­di­tion.”

The day on which the hunters spoke thus, they were in a part of the for­est near the Mer­cy, re­mark­able for its beau­ti­ful trees. There, among oth­ers, rose, to a height of near­ly 200 feet above the ground, some of those su­perb conifer­ae, to which, in New Zealand, the na­tives give the name of Kau­ris.

“I have an idea, Mr. Spilett,” said Her­bert. “If I were to climb to the top of one of these kau­ris, I could sur­vey the coun­try for an im­mense dis­tance round.”

“The idea is good,” replied the re­porter; “but could you climb to the top of those gi­ants?”

“I can at least try,” replied Her­bert.

The light and ac­tive boy then sprang on the first branch­es, the ar­range­ment of which made the as­cent of the kau­ri easy, and in a few min­utes he ar­rived at the sum­mit, which emerged from the im­mense plain of ver­dure.

From this el­evat­ed sit­ua­tion his gaze ex­tend­ed over all the south­ern por­tion of the is­land, from Claw Cape on the south­east, to Rep­tile End on the south­west. To the north­west rose Mount Franklin, which con­cealed a great part of the hori­zon.

But Her­bert, from the height of his ob­ser­va­to­ry, could ex­am­ine all the yet un­known por­tion of the is­land, which might have giv­en shel­ter to the strangers whose pres­ence they sus­pect­ed.

The lad looked at­ten­tive­ly. There was noth­ing in sight on the sea, not a sail, nei­ther on the hori­zon nor near the is­land. How­ev­er, as the bank of trees hid the shore, it was pos­si­ble that a ves­sel, es­pe­cial­ly if de­prived of her masts, might lie close to the land and thus be in­vis­ible to Her­bert.

Nei­ther in the forests of the Far West was any­thing to be seen. The wood formed an im­pen­etra­ble screen, mea­sur­ing sev­er­al square miles, with­out a break or an open­ing. It was im­pos­si­ble even to fol­low the course of the Mer­cy, or to as­cer­tain in what part of the moun­tain it took its source. Per­haps oth­er creeks al­so ran to­wards the west, but they could not be seen.

But at last, if all in­di­ca­tion of an en­camp­ment es­caped Her­bert’s sight could he not even catch a glimpse of smoke, the faintest trace of which would be eas­ily dis­cernible in the pure at­mo­sphere?

For an in­stant Her­bert thought he could per­ceive a slight smoke in the west, but a more at­ten­tive ex­am­ina­tion showed that he was mis­tak­en. He strained his eyes in ev­ery di­rec­tion, and his sight was ex­cel­lent. No, de­cid­ed­ly there was noth­ing there.

Her­bert de­scend­ed to the foot of the kau­ri, and the two sports­men re­turned to Gran­ite House. There Cyrus Hard­ing lis­tened to the lad’s ac­count, shook his head and said noth­ing. It was very ev­ident that no de­cid­ed opin­ion could be pro­nounced on this ques­tion un­til af­ter a com­plete ex­plo­ration of the is­land.

Two days af­ter–the 28th of Oc­to­ber–an­oth­er in­ci­dent oc­curred, for which an ex­pla­na­tion was again re­quired.

While strolling along the shore about two miles from Gran­ite House, Her­bert and Neb were for­tu­nate enough to cap­ture a mag­nif­icent spec­imen of the or­der of ch­elo­nia. It was a tur­tle of the species Mi­das, the ed­ible green tur­tle, so called from the col­or both of its shell and fat.

Her­bert caught sight of this tur­tle as it was crawl­ing among the rocks to reach the sea.

“Help, Neb, help!” he cried.

Neb ran up.

“What a fine an­imal!” said Neb; “but how are we to catch it?”

“Noth­ing is eas­ier, Neb,” replied Her­bert. “We have on­ly to turn the tur­tle on its back, and it can­not pos­si­bly get away. Take your spear and do as I do.”

The rep­tile, aware of dan­ger, had re­tired be­tween its cara­pace and plas­tron. They no longer saw its head or feet, and it was mo­tion­less as a rock.

Her­bert and Neb then drove their sticks un­der­neath the an­imal, and by their unit­ed ef­forts man­aged with­out dif­fi­cul­ty to turn it on its back. The tur­tle, which was three feet in length, would have weighed at least four hun­dred pounds.

“Cap­ital!” cried Neb; “this is some­thing which will re­joice friend Pen­croft’s heart.”

In fact, the heart of friend Pen­croft could not fail to be re­joiced, for the flesh of the tur­tle, which feeds on wrack-​grass, is ex­treme­ly sa­vory. At this mo­ment the crea­ture’s head could be seen, which was small, flat, but widened be­hind by the large tem­po­ral fos­sae hid­den un­der the long roof.

“And now, what shall we do with our prize?” said Neb. “We can’t drag it to Gran­ite House!”

“Leave it here, since it can­not turn over,” replied Her­bert, “and we will come back with the cart to fetch it.”

“That is the best plan.”

How­ev­er, for greater pre­cau­tion, Her­bert took the trou­ble, which Neb deemed su­per­flu­ous, to wedge up the an­imal with great stones; af­ter which the two hunters re­turned to Gran­ite House, fol­low­ing the beach, which the tide had left un­cov­ered. Her­bert, wish­ing to sur­prise Pen­croft, said noth­ing about the “su­perb spec­imen of a ch­elo­ni­an” which they had turned over on the sand; but, two hours lat­er, he and Neb re­turned with the cart to the place where they had left it. The “su­perb spec­imen of a ch­elo­ni­an” was no longer there!

Neb and Her­bert stared at each oth­er first; then they stared about them. It was just at this spot that the tur­tle had been left. The lad even found the stones which he had used, and there­fore he was cer­tain of not be­ing mis­tak­en.

“Well!” said Neb, “these beasts can turn them­selves over, then?”

“It ap­pears so,” replied Her­bert, who could not un­der­stand it at all, and was gaz­ing at the stones scat­tered on the sand.

“Well, Pen­croft will be dis­gust­ed!”

“And Cap­tain Hard­ing will per­haps be very per­plexed how to ex­plain this dis­ap­pear­ance,” thought Her­bert.

“Look here,” said Neb, who wished to hide his ill-​luck, “we won’t speak about it.”

“On the con­trary, Neb, we must speak about it,” replied Her­bert.

And the two, tak­ing the cart, which there was now no use for, re­turned to Gran­ite House.

Ar­rived at the dock­yard, where the en­gi­neer and the sailor were work­ing to­geth­er, Her­bert re­count­ed what had hap­pened.

“Oh! the stupids!” cried the sailor, “to have let at least fifty meals es­cape!”

“But, Pen­croft,” replied Neb, “it wasn’t our fault that the beast got away; as I tell you, we had turned it over on its back!”

“Then you didn’t turn it over enough!” re­turned the ob­sti­nate sailor.

“Not enough!” cried Her­bert.

And he told how he had tak­en care to wedge up the tur­tle with stones.

“It is a mir­acle, then!” replied Pen­croft.

“I thought, cap­tain,” said Her­bert, “that tur­tles, once placed on their backs, could not re­gain their feet, es­pe­cial­ly when they are of a large size?’

“That is true, my boy,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing.

“Then how did it man­age?”

“At what dis­tance from the sea did you leave this tur­tle?” asked the en­gi­neer, who, hav­ing sus­pend­ed his work, was re­flect­ing on this in­ci­dent.

“Fif­teen feet at the most,” replied Her­bert.

“And the tide was low at the time?”

“Yes, cap­tain.”

“Well,” replied the en­gi­neer, “what the tur­tle could not do on the sand it might have been able to do in the wa­ter. It turned over when the tide over­took it, and then qui­et­ly re­turned to the deep sea.”

“Oh! what stupids we were!” cried Neb.

“That is pre­cise­ly what I had the hon­or of telling you be­fore!” re­turned the sailor.

Cyrus Hard­ing had giv­en this ex­pla­na­tion, which, no doubt, was ad­mis­si­ble. But was he him­self con­vinced of the ac­cu­ra­cy of this ex­pla­na­tion? It can­not be said that he was.