Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 5

Cyrus Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions slept like in­no­cent mar­mots in the cave which the jaguar had so po­lite­ly left at their dis­pos­al.

At sun­rise all were on the shore at the ex­trem­ity of the promon­to­ry, and their gaze was di­rect­ed to­wards the hori­zon, of which two-​thirds of the cir­cum­fer­ence were vis­ible. For the last time the en­gi­neer could as­cer­tain that not a sail nor the wreck of a ship was on the sea, and even with the tele­scope noth­ing sus­pi­cious could be dis­cov­ered.

There was noth­ing ei­ther on the shore, at least, in the straight line of three miles which formed the south side of the promon­to­ry, for be­yond that, ris­ing ground had the rest of the coast, and even from the ex­trem­ity of the Ser­pen­tine Penin­su­la Claw Cape could not be seen.

The south­ern coast of the is­land still re­mained to be ex­plored. Now should they un­der­take it im­me­di­ate­ly, and de­vote this day to it?

This was not in­clud­ed in their first plan. In fact, when the boat was aban­doned at the sources of the Mer­cy, it had been agreed that af­ter hav­ing sur­veyed the west coast, they should go back to it, and re­turn to Gran­ite House by the Mer­cy. Hard­ing then thought that the west­ern coast would have of­fered refuge, ei­ther to a ship in dis­tress, or to a ves­sel in her reg­ular course; but now, as he saw that this coast pre­sent­ed no good an­chor­age, he wished to seek on the south what they had not been able to find on the west.

Gideon Spilett pro­posed to con­tin­ue the ex­plo­ration, that the ques­tion of the sup­posed wreck might be com­plete­ly set­tled, and he asked at what dis­tance Claw Cape might be from the ex­trem­ity of the penin­su­la.

“About thir­ty miles,” replied the en­gi­neer, “if we take in­to con­sid­er­ation the curv­ings of the coast.”

“Thir­ty miles!” re­turned Spilett. “That would be a long day’s march. Nev­er­the­less, I think that we should re­turn to Gran­ite House by the south coast.”

“But,” ob­served Her­bert, “from Claw Cape to Gran­ite House there must be at least an­oth­er ten miles.

“Make it forty miles in all,” replied the en­gi­neer, “and do not hes­itate to do it. At least we should sur­vey the un­known shore, and then we shall not have to be­gin the ex­plo­ration again.”

“Very good,” said Pen­croft. “But the boat?”

“The boat has re­mained by it­self for one day at the sources of the Mer­cy,” replied Gideon Spilett; “it may just as well stay there two days! As yet, we have had no rea­son to think that the is­land is in­fest­ed by thieves!”

“Yet,” said the sailor, “when I re­mem­ber the his­to­ry of the tur­tle, I am far from con­fi­dent of that.”

“The tur­tle! the tur­tle!” replied the re­porter. “Don’t you know that the sea turned it over?”

“Who knows?” mur­mured the en­gi­neer.

“But,–” said Neb.

Neb had ev­ident­ly some­thing to say, for he opened his mouth to speak and yet said noth­ing.

“What do you want to say, Neb?” asked the en­gi­neer.

“If we re­turn by the shore to Claw Cape,” replied Neb, “af­ter hav­ing dou­bled the Cape, we shall be stopped–“

“By the Mer­cy! of course,” replied Her­bert, “and we shall have nei­ther bridge nor boat by which to cross.”

“But, cap­tain,” added Pen­croft, “with a few float­ing trunks we shall have no dif­fi­cul­ty in cross­ing the riv­er.”

“Nev­er mind,” said Spilett, “it will be use­ful to con­struct a bridge if we wish to have an easy ac­cess to the Far West!”

“A bridge!” cried Pen­croft. “Well, is not the cap­tain the best en­gi­neer in his pro­fes­sion? He will make us a bridge when we want one. As to trans­port­ing you this evening to the oth­er side of the Mer­cy, and that with­out wet­ting one thread of your clothes, I will take care of that. We have pro­vi­sions for an­oth­er day, and be­sides we can get plen­ty of game. For­ward!”

The re­porter’s pro­pos­al, so strong­ly sec­ond­ed by the sailor, re­ceived gen­er­al ap­pro­ba­tion, for each wished to have their doubts set at rest, and by re­turn­ing by Claw Cape the ex­plo­ration would he end­ed. But there was not an hour to lose, for forty miles was a long march, and they could not hope to reach Gran­ite House be­fore night.

At six o’clock in the morn­ing the lit­tle band set out. As a pre­cau­tion the guns were load­ed with ball, and Top, who led the van, re­ceived or­ders to beat about the edge of the for­est.

From the ex­trem­ity of the promon­to­ry which formed the tail of the penin­su­la the coast was round­ed for a dis­tance of five miles, which was rapid­ly passed over, with­out even the most minute in­ves­ti­ga­tions bring­ing to light the least trace of any old or re­cent land­ings; no de­bris, no mark of an en­camp­ment, no cin­ders of a fire, nor even a foot­print!

From the point of the penin­su­la on which the set­tlers now were their gaze could ex­tend along the south­west. Twen­ty-​five miles off the coast ter­mi­nat­ed in the Claw Cape, which loomed dim­ly through the morn­ing mists, and which, by the phe­nomenon of the mi­rage, ap­peared as if sus­pend­ed be­tween land and wa­ter.

Be­tween the place oc­cu­pied by the colonists and the oth­er side of the im­mense bay, the shore was com­posed, first, of a tract of low land, bor­dered in the back­ground by trees; then the shore be­came more ir­reg­ular, pro­ject­ing sharp points in­to the sea, and fi­nal­ly end­ed in the black rocks which, ac­cu­mu­lat­ed in pic­turesque dis­or­der, formed Claw Cape.

Such was the de­vel­op­ment of this part of the is­land, which the set­tlers took in at a glance, while stop­ping for an in­stant.

“If a ves­sel ran in here,” said Pen­croft, “she would cer­tain­ly be lost. Sand­banks and reefs ev­ery­where! Bad quar­ters!”

“But at least some­thing would be left of the ship,” ob­served the re­porter.

“There might be pieces of wood on the rocks, but noth­ing on the sands,” replied the sailor.

“Why?”

“Be­cause the sands are still more dan­ger­ous than the rocks, for they swal­low up ev­ery­thing that is thrown on them. In a few days the hull of a ship of sev­er­al hun­dred tons would dis­ap­pear en­tire­ly in there!”

“So, Pen­croft,” asked the en­gi­neer, “if a ship has been wrecked on these banks, is it not as­ton­ish­ing that there is now no trace of her re­main­ing?”

“No, cap­tain, with the aid of time and tem­pest. How­ev­er, it would be sur­pris­ing, even in this case, that some of the masts or spars should not have been thrown on the beach, out of reach of the waves.”

“Let us go on with our search, then,” re­turned Cyrus Hard­ing.

At one o’clock the colonists ar­rived at the oth­er side of Wash­ing­ton Bay, they hav­ing now gone a dis­tance of twen­ty miles.

They then halt­ed for break­fast.

Here be­gan the ir­reg­ular coast, cov­ered with lines of rocks and sand­banks. The long sea-​swell could be seen break­ing over the rocks in the bay, form­ing a foamy fringe. From this point to Claw Cape the beach was very nar­row be­tween the edge of the for­est and the reefs.

Walk­ing was now more dif­fi­cult, on ac­count of the nu­mer­ous rocks which en­cum­bered the beach. The gran­ite cliff al­so grad­ual­ly in­creased in height, and on­ly the green tops of the trees which crowned it could be seen.

Af­ter half an hour’s rest, the set­tlers re­sumed their jour­ney, and not a spot among the rocks was left un­ex­am­ined. Pen­croft and Neb even rushed in­to the surf when­ev­er any ob­ject at­tract­ed their at­ten­tion. But they found noth­ing, some cu­ri­ous for­ma­tions of the rocks hav­ing de­ceived them. They as­cer­tained, how­ev­er, that eat­able shell­fish abound­ed there, but these could not be of any great ad­van­tage to them un­til some easy means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion had been es­tab­lished be­tween the two banks of the Mer­cy, and un­til the means of trans­port had been per­fect­ed.

Noth­ing there­fore which threw any light on the sup­posed wreck could be found on this shore, yet an ob­ject of any im­por­tance, such as the hull of a ship, would have been seen di­rect­ly, or any of her masts and spans would have been washed on shore, just as the chest had been, which was found twen­ty miles from here. But there was noth­ing.

To­wards three o’clock Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions ar­rived at a snug lit­tle creek. It formed quite a nat­ural har­bor, in­vis­ible from the sea, and was en­tered by a nar­row chan­nel.

At the back of this creek some vi­olent con­vul­sion had torn up the rocky bor­der, and a cut­ting, by a gen­tle slope, gave ac­cess to an up­per plateau, which might be sit­uat­ed at least ten miles from Claw Cape, and con­se­quent­ly four miles in a straight line from Prospect Heights. Gideon Spilett pro­posed to his com­pan­ions that they should make a halt here. They agreed read­ily, for their walk had sharp­ened their ap­petites; and al­though it was not their usu­al din­ner-​hour, no one re­fused to strength­en him­self with a piece of veni­son. This lun­cheon would sus­tain them un­til their sup­per, which they in­tend­ed to take at Gran­ite House. In a few min­utes the set­tlers, seat­ed un­der a clump of fine sea-​pines, were de­vour­ing the pro­vi­sions which Neb pro­duced from his bag.

This spot was raised from fifty to six­ty feet above the lev­el of the sea. The view was very ex­ten­sive, but be­yond the cape it end­ed in Union Bay. Nei­ther the islet nor Prospect Heights was vis­ible, and could not be from thence, for the ris­ing ground and the cur­tain of trees closed the north­ern hori­zon.

It is use­less to add that notwith­stand­ing the wide ex­tent of sea which the ex­plor­ers could sur­vey, and though the en­gi­neer swept the hori­zon with his glass, no ves­sel could be found.

The shore was of course ex­am­ined with the same care from the edge of the wa­ter to the cliff, and noth­ing could be dis­cov­ered even with the aid of the in­stru­ment.

“Well,” said Gideon Spilett, “it seems we must make up our minds to con­sole our­selves with think­ing that no one will come to dis­pute with us the pos­ses­sion of Lin­coln Is­land!”

“But the bul­let,” cried Her­bert. “That was not imag­inary, I sup­pose!”

“Hang it, no!” ex­claimed Pen­croft, think­ing of his ab­sent tooth.

“Then what con­clu­sion may be drawn?” asked the re­porter.

“This,” replied the en­gi­neer, “that three months or more ago, a ves­sel, ei­ther vol­un­tar­ily or not, came here.”

“What! then you ad­mit, Cyrus, that she was swal­lowed up with­out leav­ing any trace?” cried the re­porter.

“No, my dear Spilett; but you see that if it is cer­tain that a hu­man be­ing set foot on the is­land, it ap­pears no less cer­tain that he has now left it.”

“Then, if I un­der­stand you right, cap­tain,” said Her­bert, “the ves­sel has left again?”

“Ev­ident­ly.”

“And we have lost an op­por­tu­ni­ty to get back to our coun­try?” said Neb.

“I fear so.”

“Very well, since the op­por­tu­ni­ty is lost, let us go on; it can’t be helped,” said Pen­croft, who felt home-​sick­ness for Gran­ite House.

But just as they were ris­ing, Top was heard loud­ly bark­ing; and the dog is­sued from the wood, hold­ing in his mouth a rag soiled with mud.

Neb seized it. It was a piece of strong cloth!

Top still barked, and by his go­ing and com­ing, seemed to in­vite his mas­ter to fol­low him in­to the for­est.

“Now there’s some­thing to ex­plain the bul­let!” ex­claimed Pen­croft.

“A cast­away!” replied Her­bert.

“Wound­ed, per­haps!” said Neb.

“Or dead!” added the re­porter.

All ran af­ter the dog, among the tall pines on the bor­der of the for­est. Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions made ready their firearms, in case of an emer­gen­cy.

They ad­vanced some way in­to the wood, but to their great dis­ap­point­ment, they as yet saw no signs of any hu­man be­ing hav­ing passed that way. Shrubs and creep­ers were un­in­jured, and they had even to cut them away with the axe, as they had done in the deep­est re­cess­es of the for­est. It was dif­fi­cult to fan­cy that any hu­man crea­ture had ev­er passed there, but yet Top went back­ward and for­ward, not like a dog who search­es at ran­dom, but like a dog be­ing en­dowed with a mind, who is fol­low­ing up an idea.

In about sev­en or eight min­utes Top stopped in a glade sur­round­ed with tall trees. The set­tlers gazed around them, but saw noth­ing, nei­ther un­der the bush­es nor among the trees.

“What is the mat­ter, Top?” said Cyrus Hard­ing.

Top barked loud­er, bound­ing about at the foot of a gi­gan­tic pine. All at once Pen­croft shout­ed,–“Ho, splen­did! cap­ital!”

“What is it?” asked Spilett.

“We have been look­ing for a wreck at sea or on land!”

“Well?”

“Well; and here we’ve found one in the air!”

And the sailor point­ed to a great white rag, caught in the top of the pine, a fall­en scrap of which the dog had brought to them.

“But that is not a wreck!” cried Gideon Spilett.

“I beg your par­don!” re­turned Pen­croft.

“Why? is it–?”

“It is all that re­mains of our airy boat, of our bal­loon, which has been caught up aloft there, at the top of that tree!”

Pen­croft was not mis­tak­en, and he gave vent to his feel­ings in a tremen­dous hur­rah, adding,–

“There is good cloth! There is what will fur­nish us with linen for years. There is what will make us hand­ker­chiefs and shirts! Ha, ha, Mr. Spilett, what do you say to an is­land where shirts grow on the trees?”

It was cer­tain­ly a lucky cir­cum­stance for the set­tlers in Lin­coln Is­land that the bal­loon, af­ter hav­ing made its last bound in­to the air, had fall­en on the is­land and thus giv­en them the op­por­tu­ni­ty of find­ing it again, whether they kept the case un­der its present form, or whether they wished to at­tempt an­oth­er es­cape by it, or whether they use­ful­ly em­ployed the sev­er­al hun­dred yards of cot­ton, which was of fine qual­ity. Pen­croft’s joy was there­fore shared by all.

But it was nec­es­sary to bring down the re­mains of the bal­loon from the tree, to place it in se­cu­ri­ty, and this was no slight task. Neb, Her­bert, and the sailor, climb­ing to the sum­mit of the tree, used all their skill to dis­en­gage the now re­duced bal­loon.

The op­er­ation last­ed two hours, and then not on­ly the case, with its valve, its springs, its brass­work, lay on the ground, but the net, that is to say a con­sid­er­able quan­ti­ty of ropes and cordage, and the cir­cle and the an­chor. The case, ex­cept for the frac­ture, was in good con­di­tion, on­ly the low­er por­tion be­ing torn.

It was a for­tune which had fall­en from the sky.

“All the same, cap­tain,” said the sailor, “if we ev­er de­cide to leave the is­land, it won’t be in a bal­loon, will it? These air­boats won’t go where we want them to go, and we have had some ex­pe­ri­ence in that way! Look here, we will build a craft of some twen­ty tons, and then we can make a main-​sail, a fore­sail, and a jib out of that cloth. As to the rest of it, that will help to dress us.”

“We shall see, Pen­croft,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing; “we shall see.”

“In the mean­time, we must put it in a safe place,” said Neb.

They cer­tain­ly could not think of car­ry­ing this load of cloth, ropes, and cordage, to Gran­ite House, for the weight of it was very con­sid­er­able, and while wait­ing for a suit­able ve­hi­cle in which to con­vey it, it was of im­por­tance that this trea­sure should not be left longer ex­posed to the mer­cies of the first storm. The set­tlers, unit­ing their ef­forts, man­aged to drag it as far as the shore, where they dis­cov­ered a large rocky cav­ity, which ow­ing to its po­si­tion could not be vis­it­ed ei­ther by the wind or rain.

“We need­ed a lock­er, and now we have one,” said Pen­croft; “but as we can­not lock it up, it will be pru­dent to hide the open­ing. I don’t mean from two-​legged thieves, but from those with four paws!”

At six o’clock, all was stowed away, and af­ter hav­ing giv­en the creek the very suit­able name of “Port Bal­loon,” the set­tlers pur­sued their way along Claw Cape. Pen­croft and the en­gi­neer talked of the dif­fer­ent projects which it was agreed to put in­to ex­ecu­tion with the briefest pos­si­ble de­lay. It was nec­es­sary first of all to throw a bridge over the Mer­cy, so as to es­tab­lish an easy com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the south of the is­land; then the cart must be tak­en to bring back the bal­loon, for the ca­noe alone could not car­ry it, then they would build a decked boat, and Pen­croft would rig it as a cut­ter, and they would be able to un­der­take voy­ages of cir­cum­nav­iga­tion round the is­land, etc.

In the mean­while night came on, and it was al­ready dark when the set­tlers reached Flot­sam Point, where they had found the pre­cious chest.

The dis­tance be­tween Flot­sam Point and Gran­ite House was an­oth­er four miles, and it was mid­night when, af­ter hav­ing fol­lowed the shore to the mouth of the Mer­cy, the set­tlers ar­rived at the first an­gle formed by the Mer­cy.

There the riv­er was eighty feet in breadth, which was awk­ward to cross, but as Pen­croft had tak­en up­on him­self to con­quer this dif­fi­cul­ty, he was com­pelled to do it. The set­tlers cer­tain­ly had rea­son to be pret­ty tired. The jour­ney had been long, and the task of get­ting down the bal­loon had not rest­ed ei­ther their arms or legs. They were anx­ious to reach Gran­ite House to eat and sleep, and if the bridge had been con­struct­ed, in a quar­ter of an hour they would have been at home.

The night was very dark. Pen­croft pre­pared to keep his promise by con­struct­ing a sort of raft, on which to make the pas­sage of the Mer­cy. He and Neb, armed with ax­es, chose two trees near the wa­ter, and be­gan to at­tack them at the base.

Cyrus Hard­ing and Spilett, seat­ed on the bank, wait­ed till their com­pan­ions were ready for their help, while Her­bert roamed about, though with­out go­ing to any dis­tance. All at once, the lad, who had strolled by the riv­er, came run­ning back, and, point­ing up the Mer­cy, ex­claimed,–

“What is float­ing there?”

Pen­croft stopped work­ing, and see­ing an in­dis­tinct ob­ject mov­ing through the gloom,–

“A ca­noe!” cried he.

All ap­proached, and saw to their ex­treme sur­prise, a boat float­ing down the cur­rent.

“Boat ahoy!” shout­ed the sailor, with­out think­ing that per­haps it would be best to keep si­lence.

No re­ply. The boat still drift­ed on­ward, and it was not more than twelve feet off, when the sailor ex­claimed,–

“But it is our own boat! she has bro­ken her moor­ings, and float­ed down the cur­rent. I must say she has ar­rived very op­por­tune­ly.”

“Our boat?” mur­mured the en­gi­neer.

Pen­croft was right. It was in­deed the ca­noe, of which the rope had un­doubt­ed­ly bro­ken, and which had come alone from the sources of the Mer­cy. It was very im­por­tant to seize it be­fore the rapid cur­rent should have swept it away out of the mouth of the riv­er, but Neb and Pen­croft clev­er­ly man­aged this by means of a long pole.

The ca­noe touched the shore. The en­gi­neer leaped in first, and found, on ex­am­in­ing the rope, that it had been re­al­ly worn through by rub­bing against the rocks.

“Well,” said the re­porter to him, in a low voice, “this is a strange thing.”

“Strange in­deed!” re­turned Cyrus Hard­ing.

Strange or not, it was very for­tu­nate. Her­bert, the re­porter, Neb, and Pen­croft, em­barked in turn. There was no doubt about the rope hav­ing been worn through, but the as­ton­ish­ing part of the af­fair was, that the boat should ar­rive just at the mo­ment when the set­tlers were there to seize it on its way, for a quar­ter of an hour ear­li­er or lat­er it would have been lost in the sea.

If they had been liv­ing in the time of genii, this in­ci­dent would have giv­en them the right to think that the is­land was haunt­ed by some su­per­nat­ural be­ing, who used his pow­er in the ser­vice of the cast­aways!

A few strokes of the oar brought the set­tlers to the mouth of the Mer­cy. The ca­noe was hauled up on the beach near the Chim­neys, and all pro­ceed­ed to­wards the lad­der of Gran­ite House.

But at that mo­ment, Top barked an­gri­ly, and Neb, who was look­ing for the first steps, ut­tered a cry.

There was no longer a lad­der!