Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 9

The weath­er changed dur­ing the first week of March. There had been a full moon at the com­mence­ment of the month, and the heat was ex­ces­sive. The at­mo­sphere was felt to be full of elec­tric­ity, and a pe­ri­od of some length of tem­pes­tu­ous weath­er was to be feared.

In­deed, on the 2nd, peals of thun­der were heard, the wind blew from the east, and hail rat­tled against the fa­cade of Gran­ite House like vol­leys of grape-​shot. The door and win­dows were im­me­di­ate­ly closed, or ev­ery­thing in the rooms would have been drenched. On see­ing these hail­stones, some of which were the size of a pi­geon’s egg, Pen­croft’s first thought was that his corn­field was in se­ri­ous dan­ger.

He di­rect­ly rushed to his field, where lit­tle green heads were al­ready ap­pear­ing, and by means of a great cloth, he man­aged to pro­tect his crop.

This bad weath­er last­ed a week, dur­ing which time the thun­der rolled with­out ces­sa­tion in the depths of the sky.

The colonists, not hav­ing any press­ing work out of doors, prof­it­ed by the bad weath­er to work at the in­te­ri­or of Gran­ite House, the ar­range­ment of which was be­com­ing more com­plete from day to day. The en­gi­neer made a turn­ing-​lathe, with which he turned sev­er­al ar­ti­cles both for the toi­let and the kitchen, par­tic­ular­ly but­tons, the want of which was great­ly felt. A gun­rack had been made for the firearms, which were kept with ex­treme care, and nei­ther ta­bles nor cup­boards were left in­com­plete. They sawed, they planed, they filed, they turned; and dur­ing the whole of this bad sea­son, noth­ing was heard but the grind­ing of tools or the hum­ming of the turn­ing-​lathe which re­spond­ed to the growl­ing of the thun­der.

Mas­ter Jup had not been for­got­ten, and he oc­cu­pied a room at the back, near the store­room, a sort of cab­in with a cot al­ways full of good lit­ter, which per­fect­ly suit­ed his taste.

“With good old Jup there is nev­er any quar­rel­ing,” of­ten re­peat­ed Pen­croft, “nev­er any im­prop­er re­ply. What a ser­vant, Neb, what a ser­vant!”

Of course Jup was now well used to ser­vice. He brushed their clothes, he turned the spit, he wait­ed at ta­ble, he swept the rooms, he gath­ered wood, and he per­formed an­oth­er ad­mirable piece of ser­vice which de­light­ed Pen­croft–he nev­er went to sleep with­out first com­ing to tuck up the wor­thy sailor in his bed.

As to the health of the mem­bers of the colony, bipeds or bi­mana, quadru­mana or quadrupeds, it left noth­ing to be de­sired. With their life in the open air, on this salu­bri­ous soil, un­der that tem­per­ate zone, work­ing both with head and hands, they could not sup­pose that ill­ness would ev­er at­tack them.

All were in­deed won­der­ful­ly well. Her­bert had al­ready grown two inch­es in the year. His fig­ure was form­ing and be­com­ing more man­ly, and he promised to be an ac­com­plished man, phys­ical­ly as well as moral­ly. Be­sides he im­proved him­self dur­ing the leisure hours which man­ual oc­cu­pa­tions left to him; he read the books found in the case; and af­ter the prac­ti­cal lessons which were taught by the very ne­ces­si­ty of their po­si­tion, he found in the en­gi­neer for sci­ence, and the re­porter for lan­guages, mas­ters who were de­light­ed to com­plete his ed­uca­tion.

The tem­pest end­ed about the 9th of March, but the sky re­mained cov­ered with clouds dur­ing the whole of this last sum­mer month. The at­mo­sphere, vi­olent­ly ag­itat­ed by the elec­tric com­mo­tions, could not re­cov­er its for­mer pu­ri­ty, and there was al­most in­vari­ably rain and fog, ex­cept for three or four fine days on which sev­er­al ex­cur­sions were made. About this time the fe­male on­ag­er gave birth to a young one which be­longed to the same sex as its moth­er, and which throve cap­ital­ly. In the cor­ral, the flock of mus­mons had al­so in­creased, and sev­er­al lambs al­ready bleat­ed in the sheds, to the great de­light of Neb and Her­bert, who had each their fa­vorite among these new­com­ers. An at­tempt was al­so made for the do­mes­ti­ca­tion of the pec­ca­ries, which suc­ceed­ed well. A sty was con­struct­ed un­der the poul­try-​yard, and soon con­tained sev­er­al young ones in the way to be­come civ­ilized, that is to say, to be­come fat un­der Neb’s care. Mas­ter Jup, en­trust­ed with car­ry­ing them their dai­ly nour­ish­ment, leav­ings from the kitchen, etc., ac­quit­ted him­self con­sci­en­tious­ly of his task. He some­times amused him­self at the ex­pense of his lit­tle pen­sion­ers by tweak­ing their tails; but this was mis­chief, and not wicked­ness, for these lit­tle twist­ed tails amused him like a play­thing, and his in­stinct was that of a child. One day in this month of March, Pen­croft, talk­ing to the en­gi­neer, re­mind­ed Cyrus Hard­ing of a promise which the lat­ter had not as yet had time to ful­fil.

“You once spoke of an ap­pa­ra­tus which would take the place of the long lad­ders at Gran­ite House, cap­tain,” said he; “won’t you make it some day?”

“Noth­ing will be eas­ier; but is this a re­al­ly use­ful thing?”

“Cer­tain­ly, cap­tain. Af­ter we have giv­en our­selves nec­es­saries, let us think a lit­tle of lux­ury. For us it may be lux­ury, if you like, but for things it is nec­es­sary. It isn’t very con­ve­nient to climb up a long lad­der when one is heav­ily load­ed.”

“Well, Pen­croft, we will try to please you,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing.

“But you have no ma­chine at your dis­pos­al.”

“We will make one.”

“A steam ma­chine?”

“No, a wa­ter ma­chine.”

And, in­deed, to work his ap­pa­ra­tus there was al­ready a nat­ural force at the dis­pos­al of the en­gi­neer which could be used with­out great dif­fi­cul­ty. For this, it was enough to aug­ment the flow of the lit­tle stream which sup­plied the in­te­ri­or of Gran­ite House with wa­ter. The open­ing among the stones and grass was then in­creased, thus pro­duc­ing a strong fall at the bot­tom of the pas­sage, the over­flow from which es­caped by the in­ner well. Be­low this fall the en­gi­neer fixed a cylin­der with pad­dles, which was joined on the ex­te­ri­or with a strong ca­ble rolled on a wheel, sup­port­ing a bas­ket. In this way, by means of a long rope reach­ing to the ground, which en­abled them to reg­ulate the mo­tive pow­er, they could rise in the bas­ket to the door of Gran­ite House.

It was on the 17th of March that the lift act­ed for the first time, and gave uni­ver­sal sat­is­fac­tion. Hence­for­ward all the loads, wood, coal, pro­vi­sions, and even the set­tlers them­selves, were hoist­ed by this sim­ple sys­tem, which re­placed the prim­itive lad­der, and, as may be sup­posed, no one thought of re­gret­ting the change. Top par­tic­ular­ly was en­chant­ed with this im­prove­ment, for he had not, and nev­er could have pos­sessed Mas­ter Jup’s skill in climb­ing lad­ders, and of­ten it was on Neb’s back, or even on that of the orang that he had been obliged to make the as­cent to Gran­ite House. About this time, too, Cyrus Hard­ing at­tempt­ed to man­ufac­ture glass, and he at first put the old pot­tery-​kiln to this new use. There were some dif­fi­cul­ties to be en­coun­tered; but, af­ter sev­er­al fruit­less at­tempts, he suc­ceed­ed in set­ting up a glass man­ufac­to­ry, which Gideon Spilett and Her­bert, his usu­al as­sis­tants, did not leave for sev­er­al days. As to the sub­stances used in the com­po­si­tion of glass, they are sim­ply sand, chalk, and so­da, ei­ther car­bon­ate or sul­phate. Now the beach sup­plied sand, lime sup­plied chalk, sea-​weeds sup­plied so­da, pyrites sup­plied sul­phuric acid, and the ground sup­plied coal to heat the kiln to the wished-​for tem­per­ature. Cyrus Hard­ing thus soon had ev­ery­thing ready for set­ting to work.

The tool, the man­ufac­ture of which pre­sent­ed the most dif­fi­cul­ty, was the pipe of the glass-​mak­er, an iron tube, five or six feet long, which col­lects on one end the ma­te­ri­al in a state of fu­sion. But by means of a long, thin piece of iron rolled up like the bar­rel of a gun, Pen­croft suc­ceed­ed in mak­ing a tube soon ready for use.

On the 28th of March the tube was heat­ed. A hun­dred parts of sand, thir­ty-​five of chalk, forty of sul­phate of so­da, mixed with two or three parts of pow­dered coal, com­posed the sub­stance, which was placed in cru­cibles. When the high tem­per­ature of the oven had re­duced it to a liq­uid, or rather a pasty state, Cyrus Hard­ing col­lect­ed with the tube a quan­ti­ty of the paste: he turned it about on a met­al plate, pre­vi­ous­ly ar­ranged, so as to give it a form suit­able for blow­ing, then he passed the tube to Her­bert, telling him to blow at the oth­er ex­trem­ity.

And Her­bert, swelling out his cheeks, blew so much and so well in­to the tube-​tak­ing care to twirl it round at the same time–that his breath di­lat­ed the glassy mass. Oth­er quan­ti­ties of the sub­stance in a state of fu­sion were added to the first, and in a short time the re­sult was a bub­ble which mea­sured a foot in di­am­eter. Hard­ing then took the tube out of Her­bert’s hands, and, giv­ing it a pen­du­lous mo­tion, he end­ed by length­en­ing the mal­leable bub­ble so as to give it a cylin­dro­con­ic shape.

The blow­ing op­er­ation had giv­en a cylin­der of glass ter­mi­nat­ed by two hemi­spher­ic caps, which were eas­ily de­tached by means of a sharp iron dipped in cold wa­ter; then, by the same pro­ceed­ing, this cylin­der was cut length­ways, and af­ter hav­ing been ren­dered mal­leable by a sec­ond heat­ing, it was ex­tend­ed on a plate and spread out with a wood­en roller.

The first pane was thus man­ufac­tured, and they had on­ly to per­form this op­er­ation fifty times to have fifty panes. The win­dows at Gran­ite House were soon fur­nished with panes; not very white, per­haps, but still suf­fi­cient­ly trans­par­ent.

As to bot­tles and tum­blers, that was on­ly play. They were sat­is­fied with them, be­sides, just as they came from the end of the tube. Pen­croft had asked to be al­lowed to “blow” in his turn, and it was great fun for him; but he blew so hard that his pro­duc­tions took the most ridicu­lous shapes, which he ad­mired im­mense­ly.

Cyrus Hard­ing and Her­bert, while hunt­ing one day, had en­tered the for­est of the Far West, on the left bank of the Mer­cy, and, as usu­al, the lad was ask­ing a thou­sand ques­tions of the en­gi­neer, who an­swered them hearti­ly. Now, as Hard­ing was not a sports­man, and as, on the oth­er side, Her­bert was talk­ing chem­istry and nat­ural phi­los­ophy, num­bers of kan­ga­roos, capy­baras, and agouties came with­in range, which, how­ev­er, es­caped the lad’s gun; the con­se­quence was that the day was al­ready ad­vanced, and the two hunters were in dan­ger of hav­ing made a use­less ex­cur­sion, when Her­bert, stop­ping, and ut­ter­ing a cry of joy, ex­claimed,–

“Oh, Cap­tain Hard­ing, do you see that tree?” and he point­ed to a shrub, rather than a tree, for it was com­posed of a sin­gle stem, cov­ered with a scaly bark, which bore leaves streaked with lit­tle par­al­lel veins.

“And what is this tree which re­sem­bles a lit­tle palm?” asked Hard­ing.

“It is a ‘cy­cas rev­olu­ta,’ of which I have a pic­ture in our dic­tio­nary of Nat­ural His­to­ry!” said Her­bert.

“But I can’t see any fruit on this shrub!” ob­served his com­pan­ion.

“No, cap­tain,” replied Her­bert; “but its stem con­tains a flour with which na­ture has pro­vid­ed us all ready ground.”

“It is, then, the bread-​tree?”

“Yes, the bread-​tree.”

“Well, my boy,” replied the en­gi­neer, “this is a valu­able dis­cov­ery, since our wheat har­vest is not yet ripe; I hope that you are not mis­tak­en!”

Her­bert was not mis­tak­en: he broke the stem of a cy­cas, which was com­posed of a glan­du­lous tis­sue, con­tain­ing a quan­ti­ty of floury pith, tra­versed with woody fiber, sep­arat­ed by rings of the same sub­stance, ar­ranged con­cen­tri­cal­ly. With this fec­ula was min­gled a mu­cilagi­nous juice of dis­agree­able fla­vor, but which it would be easy to get rid of by pres­sure. This cel­lu­lar sub­stance was reg­ular flour of a su­pe­ri­or qual­ity, ex­treme­ly nour­ish­ing; its ex­por­ta­tion was for­mer­ly for­bid­den by the Japanese laws.

Cyrus Hard­ing and Her­bert, af­ter hav­ing ex­am­ined that part of the Far West where the cy­cas grew, took their bear­ings, and re­turned to Gran­ite House, where they made known their dis­cov­ery.

The next day the set­tlers went to col­lect some, and re­turned to Gran­ite House with an am­ple sup­ply of cy­cas stems. The en­gi­neer con­struct­ed a press, with which to ex­tract the mu­cilagi­nous juice min­gled with the fec­ula, and he ob­tained a large quan­ti­ty of flour, which Neb soon trans­formed in­to cakes and pud­dings. This was not quite re­al wheat­en bread, but it was very like it.

Now, too, the on­ag­er, the goats, and the sheep in the cor­ral fur­nished dai­ly the milk nec­es­sary to the colony. The cart, or rather a sort of light car­riole which had re­placed it, made fre­quent jour­neys to the cor­ral, and when it was Pen­croft’s turn to go he took Jup, and let him drive, and Jup, crack­ing his whip, ac­quit­ted him­self with his cus­tom­ary in­tel­li­gence.

Ev­ery­thing pros­pered, as well in the cor­ral as in Gran­ite House, and cer­tain­ly the set­tlers, if it had not been that they were so far from their na­tive land, had no rea­son to com­plain. They were so well suit­ed to this life, and were, be­sides, so ac­cus­tomed to the is­land, that they could not have left its hos­pitable soil with­out re­gret!

And yet so deeply is the love of his coun­try im­plant­ed in the heart of man, that if a ship had un­ex­pect­ed­ly come in sight of the is­land, the colonists would have made sig­nals, would have at­tract­ed her at­ten­tion, and would have de­part­ed!

It was the 1st of April, a Sun­day, East­er Day, which Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions sanc­ti­fied by rest and prayer. The day was fine, such as an Oc­to­ber day in the North­ern Hemi­sphere might be.

All, to­wards the evening af­ter din­ner, were seat­ed un­der the ve­ran­da on the edge of Prospect Heights, and they were watch­ing the dark­ness creep­ing up from the hori­zon. Some cups of the in­fu­sion of el­der-​berries, which took the place of cof­fee, had been served by Neb. They were speak­ing of the is­land and of its iso­lat­ed sit­ua­tion in the Pa­cif­ic, which led Gideon Spilett to say,–

“My dear Cyrus, have you ev­er, since you pos­sessed the sex­tant found in the case, again tak­en the po­si­tion of our is­land?”

“No,” replied the en­gi­neer.

“But it would per­haps be a good thing to do it with this in­stru­ment, which is more per­fect than that which you be­fore used.”

“What is the good?” said Pen­croft. “The is­land is quite com­fort­able where it is!”

“Well, who knows,” re­turned the re­porter, “who knows but that we may be much near­er in­hab­it­ed land than we think?”

“We shall know to-​mor­row,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing, “and if it had not been for the oc­cu­pa­tions which left me no leisure, we should have known it al­ready.”

“Good!” said Pen­croft. “The cap­tain is too good an ob­serv­er to be mis­tak­en, and, if it has not moved from its place, the is­land is just where he put it.”

“We shall see.”

On the next day, there­fore, by means of the sex­tant, the en­gi­neer made the nec­es­sary ob­ser­va­tions to ver­ify the po­si­tion which he had al­ready ob­tained, and this was the re­sult of his op­er­ation. His first ob­ser­va­tion had giv­en him the sit­ua­tion of Lin­coln Is­land,–

In west lon­gi­tude: from 1500 to 1550;

In south lat­itude: from 300 to 350

The sec­ond gave ex­act­ly:

In lon­gi­tude: 1500 30′

In south lat­itude: 340 57′

So then, notwith­stand­ing the im­per­fec­tion of his ap­pa­ra­tus, Cyrus Hard­ing had op­er­at­ed with so much skill that his er­ror did not ex­ceed five de­grees.

“Now,” said Gideon Spilett, “since we pos­sess an at­las as well as a sex­tant, let us see, my dear Cyrus, the ex­act po­si­tion which Lin­coln Is­land oc­cu­pies in the Pa­cif­ic.”

Her­bert fetched the at­las, and the map of the Pa­cif­ic was opened, and the en­gi­neer, com­pass in hand, pre­pared to de­ter­mine their po­si­tion.

Sud­den­ly the com­pass­es stopped, and he ex­claimed,

“But an is­land ex­ists in this part of the Pa­cif­ic al­ready!”

“An is­land?” cried Pen­croft.

“Ta­bor Is­land.”

“An im­por­tant is­land?”

“No, an islet lost in the Pa­cif­ic, and which per­haps has nev­er been vis­it­ed.”

“Well, we will vis­it it,” said Pen­croft.

“We?”

“Yes, cap­tain. We will build a decked boat, and I will un­der­take to steer her. At what dis­tance are we from this Ta­bor Is­land?”

“About a hun­dred and fifty miles to the north­east,” replied Hard­ing.

“A hun­dred and fifty miles! And what’s that?” re­turned Pen­croft. “In forty-​eight hours, with a good wind, we should sight it!”

And, on this re­ply, it was de­cid­ed that a ves­sel should be con­struct­ed in time to be launched to­wards the month of next Oc­to­ber, on the re­turn of the fine sea­son.