Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 4

It was six o’ clock in the morn­ing when the set­tlers, af­ter a hasty break­fast, set out to reach by the short­est way, the west­ern coast of the is­land. And how long would it take to do this? Cyrus Hard­ing had said two hours, but of course that de­pend­ed on the na­ture of the ob­sta­cles they might meet with As it was prob­able that they would have to cut a path through the grass, shrubs, and creep­ers, they marched axe in hand, and with guns al­so ready, wise­ly tak­ing warn­ing from the cries of the wild beasts heard in the night.

The ex­act po­si­tion of the en­camp­ment could be de­ter­mined by the bear­ing of Mount Franklin, and as the vol­cano arose in the north at a dis­tance of less than three miles, they had on­ly to go straight to­wards the south­west to reach the west­ern coast. They set out, hav­ing first care­ful­ly se­cured the ca­noe. Pen­croft and Neb car­ried suf­fi­cient pro­vi­sion for the lit­tle band for at least two days. It would not thus be nec­es­sary to hunt. The en­gi­neer ad­vised his com­pan­ions to re­frain from fir­ing, that their pres­ence might not be be­trayed to any one near the shore. The first hatch­et blows were giv­en among the brush­wood in the midst of some mas­tic-​trees, a lit­tle above the cas­cade; and his com­pass in his hand, Cyrus Hard­ing led the way.

The for­est here was com­posed for the most part of trees which had al­ready been met with near the lake and on Prospect Heights. There were de­odars, Dou­glas firs, ca­suar­inas, gum trees, eu­ca­lyp­ti, hi­bis­cus, cedars, and oth­er trees, gen­er­al­ly of a mod­er­ate size, for their num­ber pre­vent­ed their growth.

Since their de­par­ture, the set­tlers had de­scend­ed the slopes which con­sti­tut­ed the moun­tain sys­tem of the is­land, on to a dry soil, but the lux­uri­ant veg­eta­tion of which in­di­cat­ed it to be wa­tered ei­ther by some sub­ter­ranean marsh or by some stream. How­ev­er, Cyrus Hard­ing did not re­mem­ber hav­ing seen, at the time of his ex­cur­sion to the crater, any oth­er wa­ter­cours­es but the Red Creek and the Mer­cy.

Dur­ing the first part of their ex­cur­sion, they saw nu­mer­ous troops of mon­keys who ex­hib­it­ed great as­ton­ish­ment at the sight of men, whose ap­pear­ance was so new to them. Gideon Spilett jok­ing­ly asked whether these ac­tive and mer­ry quadrupeds did not con­sid­er him and his com­pan­ions as de­gen­er­ate broth­ers.

And cer­tain­ly, pedes­tri­ans, hin­dered at each step by bush­es, caught by creep­ers, barred by trunks of trees, did not shine be­side those sup­ple an­imals, who, bound­ing from branch to branch, were hin­dered by noth­ing on their course. The mon­keys were nu­mer­ous, but hap­pi­ly they did not man­ifest any hos­tile dis­po­si­tion.

Sev­er­al pigs, agoutis, kan­ga­roos, and oth­er ro­dents were seen, al­so two or three koalas, at which Pen­croft longed to have a shot.

“But,” said he, “you may jump and play just now; we shall have one or two words to say to you on our way back!”

At half-​past nine the way was sud­den­ly found to be barred by an un­known stream, from thir­ty to forty feet broad, whose rapid cur­rent dashed foam­ing over the nu­mer­ous rocks which in­ter­rupt­ed its course. This creek was deep and clear, but it was ab­so­lute­ly un­nav­iga­ble.

“We are cut off!” cried Neb.

“No,” replied Her­bert, “it is on­ly a stream, and we can eas­ily swim over.”

“What would be the use of that?” re­turned Hard­ing. “This creek ev­ident­ly runs to the sea. Let us re­main on this side and fol­low the bank, and I shall be much as­ton­ished if it does not lead us very quick­ly to the coast. For­ward!”

“One minute,” said the re­porter. “The name of this creek, my friends? Do not let us leave our ge­og­ra­phy in­com­plete.”

“All right!” said Pen­croft.

“Name it, my boy,” said the en­gi­neer, ad­dress­ing the lad.

“Will it not be bet­ter to wait un­til we have ex­plored it to its mouth?” an­swered Her­bert.

“Very well,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing. “Let us fol­low it as fast as we can with­out stop­ping.”

“Still an­oth­er minute!” said Pen­croft.

“What’s the mat­ter?” asked the re­porter.

“Though hunt­ing is for­bid­den, fish­ing is al­lowed, I sup­pose,” said the sailor.

“We have no time to lose,” replied the en­gi­neer.

“Oh! five min­utes!” replied Pen­croft, “I on­ly ask for five min­utes to use in the in­ter­est of our break­fast!”

And Pen­croft, ly­ing down on the bank, plunged his arm in­to the wa­ter, and soon pulled up sev­er­al dozen of fine cray­fish from among the stones.

“These will be good!” cried Neb, go­ing to the sailor’s aid.

“As I said, there is ev­ery­thing in this is­land, ex­cept to­bac­co!” mut­tered Pen­croft with a sigh.

The fish­ing did not take five min­utes, for the cray­fish were swarm­ing in the creek. A bag was filled with the crus­taceae, whose shells were of a cobalt blue. The set­tlers then pushed on.

They ad­vanced more rapid­ly and eas­ily along the bank of the riv­er than in the for­est. From time to time they came up­on the traces of an­imals of a large size who had come to quench their thirst at the stream, but none were ac­tu­al­ly seen, and it was ev­ident­ly not in this part of the for­est that the pec­ca­ry had re­ceived the bul­let which had cost Pen­croft a grinder.

In the mean­while, con­sid­er­ing the rapid cur­rent, Hard­ing was led to sup­pose that he and his com­pan­ions were much far­ther from the west­ern coast than they had at first sup­posed. In fact, at this hour, the ris­ing tide would have turned back the cur­rent of the creek, if its mouth had on­ly been a few miles dis­tant. Now, this ef­fect was not pro­duced, and the wa­ter pur­sued its nat­ural course. The en­gi­neer was much as­ton­ished at this, and fre­quent­ly con­sult­ed his com­pass, to as­sure him­self that some turn of the riv­er was not lead­ing them again in­to the Far West.

How­ev­er, the creek grad­ual­ly widened and its wa­ters be­came less tu­mul­tuous. The trees on the right bank were as close to­geth­er as on the left bank, and it was im­pos­si­ble to dis­tin­guish any­thing be­yond them; but these mass­es of wood were ev­ident­ly un­in­hab­it­ed, for Top did not bark, and the in­tel­li­gent an­imal would not have failed to sig­nal the pres­ence of any stranger in the neigh­bor­hood.

At half-​past ten, to the great sur­prise of Cyrus Hard­ing, Her­bert, who was a lit­tle in front, sud­den­ly stopped and ex­claimed,–

“The sea!”

In a few min­utes more, the whole west­ern shore of the is­land lay ex­tend­ed be­fore the eyes of the set­tlers.

But what a con­trast be­tween this and the east­ern coast, up­on which chance had first thrown them. No gran­ite cliff, no rocks, not even a sandy beach. The for­est reached the shore, and the tall trees bend­ing over the wa­ter were beat­en by the waves. It was not such a shore as is usu­al­ly formed by na­ture, ei­ther by ex­tend­ing a vast car­pet of sand, or by group­ing mass­es of rock, but a beau­ti­ful bor­der con­sist­ing of the most splen­did trees. The bank was raised a lit­tle above the lev­el of the sea, and on this lux­uri­ant soil, sup­port­ed by a gran­ite base, the fine for­est trees seemed to be as firm­ly plant­ed as in the in­te­ri­or of the is­land.

The colonists were then on the shore of an unim­por­tant lit­tle har­bor, which would scarce­ly have con­tained even two or three fish­ing-​boats. It served as a neck to the new creek, of which the cu­ri­ous thing was that its wa­ters, in­stead of join­ing the sea by a gen­tle slope, fell from a height of more than forty feet, which ex­plained why the ris­ing tide was not felt up the stream. In fact, the tides of the Pa­cif­ic, even at their max­imum el­eva­tion, could nev­er reach the lev­el of the riv­er, and, doubt­less, mil­lions of years would pass be­fore the wa­ter would have worn away the gran­ite and hol­lowed a prac­ti­ca­ble mouth.

It was set­tled that the name of Falls Riv­er should be giv­en to this stream. Be­yond, to­wards the north, the for­est bor­der was pro­longed for a space of near­ly two miles; then the trees be­came scarcer, and be­yond that again the pic­turesque heights de­scribed a near­ly straight line, which ran north and south. On the con­trary, all the part of the shore be­tween Falls Riv­er and Rep­tile End was a mass of wood, mag­nif­icent trees, some straight, oth­ers bent, so that the long sea-​swell bathed their roots. Now, it was this coast, that is, all the Ser­pen­tine Penin­su­la, that was to be ex­plored, for this part of the shore of­fered a refuge to cast­aways, which the oth­er wild and bar­ren side must have re­fused.

The weath­er was fine and clear, and from a height of a hillock on which Neb and Pen­croft had ar­ranged break­fast, a wide view was ob­tained. There was, how­ev­er, not a sail in sight; noth­ing could be seen along the shore as far as the eye could reach. But the en­gi­neer would take noth­ing for grant­ed un­til he had ex­plored the coast to the very ex­trem­ity of the Ser­pen­tine Penin­su­la.

Break­fast was soon despatched, and at half-​past eleven the cap­tain gave the sig­nal for de­par­ture. In­stead of pro­ceed­ing over the sum­mit of a cliff or along a sandy beach, the set­tlers were obliged to re­main un­der cov­er of the trees so that they might con­tin­ue on the shore.

The dis­tance which sep­arat­ed Falls Riv­er from Rep­tile End was about twelve miles. It would have tak­en the set­tlers four hours to do this, on a clear ground and with­out hur­ry­ing them­selves; but as it was they need­ed dou­ble the time, for what with trees to go round, bush­es to cut down, and creep­ers to chop away, they were im­ped­ed at ev­ery step, these ob­sta­cles great­ly length­en­ing their jour­ney.

There was, how­ev­er, noth­ing to show that a ship­wreck had tak­en place re­cent­ly. It is true that, as Gideon Spilett ob­served, any re­mains of it might have drift­ed out to sea, and they must not take it for grant­ed that be­cause they could find no traces of it, a ship had not been cast­away on the coast.

The re­porter’s ar­gu­ment was just, and be­sides, the in­ci­dent of the bul­let proved that a shot must have been fired in Lin­coln Is­land with­in three months.

It was al­ready five o’clock, and there were still two miles be­tween the set­tlers and the ex­trem­ity of the Ser­pen­tine Penin­su­la. It was ev­ident that af­ter hav­ing reached Rep­tile End, Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions would not have time to re­turn be­fore dark to their en­camp­ment near the source of the Mer­cy. It would there­fore be nec­es­sary to pass the night on the promon­to­ry. But they had no lack of pro­vi­sions, which was lucky, for there were no an­imals on the shore, though birds, on the con­trary, abound–ja­ca­mars, couroucous, tragopans, grouse, lo­ries, par­rots, cock­atoos, pheas­ants, pi­geons, and a hun­dred oth­ers. There was not a tree with­out a nest, and not a nest which was not full of flap­ping wings.

To­wards sev­en o’clock the weary ex­plor­ers ar­rived at Rep­tile End. Here the sea­side for­est end­ed, and the shore re­sumed the cus­tom­ary ap­pear­ance of a coast, with rocks, reefs, and sands. It was pos­si­ble that some­thing might be found here, but dark­ness came on, and the fur­ther ex­plo­ration had to be put off to the next day.

Pen­croft and Her­bert has­tened on to find a suit­able place for their camp. Among the last trees of the for­est of the Far West, the boy found sev­er­al thick clumps of bam­boos.

“Good,” said he; “this is a valu­able dis­cov­ery.”

“Valu­able?” re­turned Pen­croft.

“Cer­tain­ly,” replied Her­bert. “I may say, Pen­croft, that the bark of the bam­boo, cut in­to flex­ible laths, is used for mak­ing bas­kets; that this bark, mashed in­to a paste, is used for the man­ufac­ture of Chi­nese pa­per; that the stalks fur­nish, ac­cord­ing to their size, canes and pipes and are used for con­duct­ing wa­ter; that large bam­boos make ex­cel­lent ma­te­ri­al for build­ing, be­ing light and strong, and be­ing nev­er at­tacked by in­sects. I will add that by saw­ing the bam­boo in two at the joint, keep­ing for the bot­tom the part of the trans­verse film which forms the joint, use­ful cups are ob­tained, which are much in use among the Chi­nese. No! you don’t care for that. But–“

“But what?”

“But I can tell you, if you are ig­no­rant of it, that in In­dia these bam­boos are eat­en like as­para­gus.”

“As­para­gus thir­ty feet high!” ex­claimed the sailor. “And are they good?”

“Ex­cel­lent,” replied Her­bert. “On­ly it is not the stems of thir­ty feet high which are eat­en, but the young shoots.”

“Per­fect, my boy, per­fect!” replied Pen­croft.

“I will al­so add that the pith of the young stalks, pre­served in vine­gar, makes a good pick­le.”

“Bet­ter and bet­ter, Her­bert!”

“And last­ly, that the bam­boos ex­ude a sweet liquor which can be made in­to a very agree­able drink.”

“Is that all?” asked the sailor.

“That is all!”

“And they don’t hap­pen to do for smok­ing?”

“No, my poor Pen­croft.”

Her­bert and the sailor had not to look long for a place in which to pass the night. The rocks, which must have been vi­olent­ly beat­en by the sea un­der the in­flu­ence of the winds of the south­west, pre­sent­ed many cav­ities in which shel­ter could be found against the night air. But just as they were about to en­ter one of these caves a loud roar­ing ar­rest­ed them.

“Back!” cried Pen­croft. “Our guns are on­ly load­ed with small shot, and beasts which can roar as loud as that would care no more for it than for grains of salt!” And the sailor, seiz­ing Her­bert by the arm, dragged him be­hind a rock, just as a mag­nif­icent an­imal showed it­self at the en­trance of the cav­ern.

It was a jaguar of a size at least equal to its Asi­at­ic con­geners, that is to say, it mea­sured five feet from the ex­trem­ity of its head to the be­gin­ning of its tail. The yel­low col­or of its hair was re­lieved by streaks and reg­ular ob­long spots of black, which con­trast­ed with the white of its chest. Her­bert rec­og­nized it as the fe­ro­cious ri­val of the tiger, as formidable as the puma, which is the ri­val of the largest wolf!

The jaguar ad­vanced and gazed around him with blaz­ing eyes, his hair bristling as if this was not the first time he had scent­ed men.

At this mo­ment the re­porter ap­peared round a rock, and Her­bert, think­ing that he had not seen the jaguar, was about to rush to­wards him, when Gideon Spilett signed to him to re­main where he was. This was not his first tiger, and ad­vanc­ing to with­in ten feet of the an­imal he re­mained mo­tion­less, his gun to his shoul­der, with­out mov­ing a mus­cle. The jaguar col­lect­ed it­self for a spring, but at that mo­ment a shot struck it in the eyes, and it fell dead.

Her­bert and Pen­croft rushed to­wards the jaguar. Neb and Hard­ing al­so ran up, and they re­mained for some in­stants con­tem­plat­ing the an­imal as it lay stretched on the ground, think­ing that its mag­nif­icent skin would be a great or­na­ment to the hall at Gran­ite House.

“Oh, Mr. Spilett, how I ad­mire and en­vy you!” cried Her­bert, in a fit of very nat­ural en­thu­si­asm.

“Well, my boy,” replied the re­porter, “you could have done the same.”

“I! with such cool­ness!–“

“Imag­ine to your­self, Her­bert, that the jaguar is on­ly a hare, and you would fire as qui­et­ly as pos­si­ble.”

“That is,” re­joined Pen­croft, “that it is not more dan­ger­ous than a hare!”

“And now,” said Gideon Spilett, “since the jaguar has left its abode, I do not see, my friends, why we should not take pos­ses­sion of it for the night.”

“But oth­ers may come,” said Pen­croft.

“It will be enough to light a fire at the en­trance of the cav­ern,” said the re­porter, “and no wild beasts will dare to cross the thresh­old.”

“In­to the jaguar’s house, then!” replied the sailor, drag­ging af­ter him the body of the an­imal.

While Neb skinned the jaguar, his com­pan­ions col­lect­ed an abun­dant sup­ply of dry wood from the for­est, which they heaped up at the cave.

Cyrus Hard­ing, see­ing the clump of bam­boos, cut a quan­ti­ty, which he min­gled with the oth­er fu­el.

This done, they en­tered the grot­to, of which the floor was strewn with bones, the guns were care­ful­ly load­ed, in case of a sud­den at­tack, they had sup­per, and then just be­fore they lay down to rest, the heap of wood piled at the en­trance was set fire to. Im­me­di­ate­ly, a reg­ular ex­plo­sion, or rather a se­ries of re­ports, broke the si­lence! The noise was caused by the bam­boos, which, as the flames reached them, ex­plod­ed like fire­works. The noise was enough to ter­ri­fy even the bold­est of wild beasts.

It was not the en­gi­neer who had in­vent­ed this way of caus­ing loud ex­plo­sions, for, ac­cord­ing to Mar­co Po­lo, the Tar­tars have em­ployed it for many cen­turies to drive away from their en­camp­ments the formidable wild beasts of Cen­tral Asia.