Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 19

Two years al­ready! and for two years the colonists had had no com­mu­ni­ca­tion with their fel­low-​crea­tures! They were with­out news from the civ­ilized world, lost on this is­land, as com­plete­ly as if they had been on the most minute star of the ce­les­tial hemi­sphere!

What was now hap­pen­ing in their coun­try? The pic­ture of their na­tive land was al­ways be­fore their eyes, the land torn by civ­il war at the time they left it, and which the South­ern re­bel­lion was per­haps still stain­ing with blood! It was a great sor­row to them, and they of­ten talked to­geth­er of these things, with­out ev­er doubt­ing how­ev­er that the cause of the North must tri­umph, for the hon­or of the Amer­ican Con­fed­er­ation.

Dur­ing these two years not a ves­sel had passed in sight of the is­land; or, at least, not a sail had been seen. It was ev­ident that Lin­coln Is­land was out of the usu­al track, and al­so that it was un­known,–as was be­sides proved by the maps,–for though there was no port, ves­sels might have vis­it­ed it for the pur­pose of re­new­ing their store of wa­ter. But the sur­round­ing ocean was de­sert­ed as far as the eye could reach, and the colonists must re­ly on them­selves for re­gain­ing their na­tive land.

How­ev­er, one chance of res­cue ex­ist­ed, and this chance was dis­cussed one day on the first week of April, when the colonists were gath­ered to­geth­er in the din­ing-​room of Gran­ite House.

They had been talk­ing of Amer­ica, of their na­tive coun­try, which they had so lit­tle hope of ev­er see­ing again.

“De­cid­ed­ly we have on­ly one way, said Spilett, “one sin­gle way for leav­ing Lin­coln Is­land, and that is, to build a ves­sel large enough to sail sev­er­al hun­dred miles. It ap­pears to me, that when one has built a boat it is just as easy to build a ship!”

“And in which we might go to the Po­moutous,” added Her­bert, “just as eas­ily as we went to Ta­bor Is­land.”

“I do not say no,” replied Pen­croft, who had al­ways the cast­ing vote in mar­itime ques­tions; “I do not say no, al­though it is not ex­act­ly the same thing to make a long as a short voy­age! If our lit­tle craft had been caught in any heavy gale of wind dur­ing the voy­age to Ta­bor Is­land, we should have known that land was at no great dis­tance ei­ther way; but twelve hun­dred miles is a pret­ty long way, and the near­est land is at least that dis­tance!”

“Would you not, in that case, Pen­croft, at­tempt the ad­ven­ture?” asked the re­porter.

“I will at­tempt any­thing that is de­sired, Mr. Spilett,” an­swered the sailor, “and you know well that I am not a man to flinch!”

“Re­mem­ber, be­sides, that we num­ber an­oth­er sailor amongst us now,” re­marked Neb.

“Who is that?” asked Pen­croft.

“Ayr­ton.”

“If he will con­sent to come,” said Pen­croft.

“Non­sense!” re­turned the re­porter; “do you think that if Lord Gle­nar­van’s yacht had ap­peared at Ta­bor Is­land, while he was still liv­ing there, Ayr­ton would have re­fused to de­part?”

“You for­get, my friends,” then said Cyrus Hard­ing, “that Ayr­ton was not in pos­ses­sion of his rea­son dur­ing the last years of his stay there. But that is not the ques­tion. The point is to know if we may count among our chances of be­ing res­cued, the re­turn of the Scotch ves­sel. Now, Lord Gle­nar­van promised Ayr­ton that he would re­turn to take him off from Ta­bor Is­land when he con­sid­ered that his crimes were ex­pi­at­ed, and I be­lieve that he will re­turn.”

“Yes,” said the re­porter, “and I will add that he will re­turn soon, for it is twelve years since Ayr­ton was aban­doned.”

“Well!” an­swered Pen­croft, “I agree with you that the no­ble­man will re­turn, and soon too. But where will he touch? At Ta­bor Is­land, and not at Lin­coln Is­land.”

“That is the more cer­tain,” replied Her­bert, “as Lin­coln Is­land is not even marked on the map.”

“There­fore, my friends,” said the en­gi­neer, “we ought to take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions for mak­ing our pres­ence and that of Ayr­ton on Lin­coln Is­land known at Ta­bor Is­land.”

“Cer­tain­ly,” an­swered the re­porter, “and noth­ing is eas­ier than to place in the hut, which was Cap­tain Grant’s and Ayr­ton’s dwelling, a no­tice which Lord Gle­nar­van and his crew can­not help find­ing, giv­ing the po­si­tion of our is­land.”

“It is a pity,” re­marked the sailor, “that we for­got to take that pre­cau­tion on our first vis­it to Ta­bor Is­land.”

“And why should we have done it?” asked Her­bert. “At that time we did not know Ayr­ton’s his­to­ry; we did not know that any one was like­ly to come some day to fetch him, and when we did know his his­to­ry, the sea­son was too ad­vanced to al­low us to re­turn then to Ta­bor Is­land.”

“Yes,” replied Hard­ing, “it was too late, and we must put off the voy­age un­til next spring.”

“But sup­pose the Scotch yacht comes be­fore that,” said Pen­croft.

“That is not prob­able,” replied the en­gi­neer, “for Lord Gle­nar­van would not choose the win­ter sea­son to ven­ture in­to these seas. Ei­ther he has al­ready re­turned to Ta­bor Is­land, since Ayr­ton has been with us, that is to say, dur­ing the last five months and has left again; or he will not come till lat­er, and it will be time enough in the first fine Oc­to­ber days to go to Ta­bor Is­land, and leave a no­tice there.”

“We must al­low,” said Neb, “that it will be very un­for­tu­nate if the ‘Dun­can’ has re­turned to these parts on­ly a few months ago!”

“I hope that it is not so,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing, “and that Heav­en has not de­prived us of the best chance which re­mains to us.”

“I think,” ob­served the re­porter, “that at any rate we shall know what we have to de­pend on when we have been to Ta­bor Is­land, for if the yacht has re­turned there, they will nec­es­sar­ily have left some traces of their vis­it.”

“That is ev­ident,” an­swered the en­gi­neer. “So then, my friends, since we have this chance of re­turn­ing to our coun­try, we must wait pa­tient­ly, and if it is tak­en from us we shall see what will be best to do.”

“At any rate,” re­marked Pen­croft, “it is well un­der­stood that if we do leave Lin­coln Is­land, it will not be be­cause we were un­com­fort­able there!”

“No, Pen­croft,” replied the en­gi­neer, “it will be be­cause we are far from all that a man holds dear­est in the world, his fam­ily, his friends, his na­tive land!”

Mat­ters be­ing thus de­cid­ed, the build­ing of a ves­sel large enough to sail ei­ther to the Archipela­goes in the north, or to New Zealand in the west, was no longer talked of, and they bus­ied them­selves in their ac­cus­tomed oc­cu­pa­tions, with a view to win­ter­ing a third time in Gran­ite House.

How­ev­er, it was agreed that be­fore the stormy weath­er came on, their lit­tle ves­sel should be em­ployed in mak­ing a voy­age round the is­land. A com­plete sur­vey of the coast had not yet been made, and the colonists had but an im­per­fect idea of the shore to the west and north, from the mouth of Falls Riv­er to the Mandible Capes, as well as of the nar­row bay be­tween them, which opened like a shark’s jaws.

The plan of this ex­cur­sion was pro­posed by Pen­croft, and Cyrus Hard­ing ful­ly ac­qui­esced in it, for he him­self wished to see this part of his do­main.

The weath­er was vari­able, but the barom­eter did not fluc­tu­ate by sud­den move­ments, and they could there­fore count on tol­er­able weath­er. How­ev­er, dur­ing the first week of April, af­ter a sud­den baro­met­ri­cal fall, a re­newed rise was marked by a heavy gale of wind, last­ing five or six days; then the nee­dle of the in­stru­ment re­mained sta­tion­ary at a height of twen­ty-​nine inch­es and nine-​tenths, and the weath­er ap­peared pro­pi­tious for an ex­cur­sion.

The de­par­ture was fixed for the 16th of April, and the “Bonad­ven­ture,” an­chored in Port Bal­loon, was pro­vi­sioned for a voy­age which might be of some du­ra­tion.

Cyrus Hard­ing in­formed Ayr­ton of the pro­ject­ed ex­pe­di­tion, and pro­posed that he should take part in it, but Ayr­ton pre­fer­ring to re­main on shore, it was de­cid­ed that he should come to Gran­ite House dur­ing the ab­sence of his com­pan­ions. Mas­ter Jup was or­dered to keep him com­pa­ny, and made no re­mon­strance.

On the morn­ing of the 16th of April all the colonists, in­clud­ing Top, em­barked. A fine breeze blew from the south-​west, and the “Bonad­ven­ture” tacked on leav­ing Port Bal­loon so as to reach Rep­tile End. Of the nine­ty miles which the perime­ter of the is­land mea­sured, twen­ty in­clud­ed the south coast be­tween the port and the promon­to­ry. The wind be­ing right ahead it was nec­es­sary to hug the shore.

It took the whole day to reach the promon­to­ry, for the ves­sel on leav­ing port had on­ly two hours of ebb tide and had there­fore to make way for six hours against the flood. It was night­fall be­fore the promon­to­ry was dou­bled.

The sailor then pro­posed to the en­gi­neer that they should con­tin­ue sail­ing slow­ly with two reefs in the sail. But Hard­ing pre­ferred to an­chor a few ca­ble-​lengths from the shore, so as to sur­vey that part of the coast dur­ing the day. It was agreed al­so that as they were anx­ious for a minute ex­plo­ration of the coast they should not sail dur­ing the night, but would al­ways, when the weath­er per­mit­ted it, be at an­chor near the shore.

The night was passed un­der the promon­to­ry, and the wind hav­ing fall­en, noth­ing dis­turbed the si­lence. The pas­sen­gers, with the ex­cep­tion of the sailor, scarce­ly slept as well on board the “Bonad­ven­ture” as they would have done in their rooms at Gran­ite House, but they did sleep how­ev­er. Pen­croft set sail at break of day, and by go­ing on the lar­board tack they could keep close to the shore.

The colonists knew this beau­ti­ful wood­ed coast, since they had al­ready ex­plored it on foot, and yet it again ex­cit­ed their ad­mi­ra­tion. They coast­ed along as close in as pos­si­ble, so as to no­tice ev­ery­thing, avoid­ing al­ways the trunks of trees which float­ed here and there. Sev­er­al times al­so they an­chored, and Gideon Spilett took pho­tographs of the su­perb scenery.

About noon the “Bonad­ven­ture” ar­rived at the mouth of Falls Riv­er. Be­yond, on the left bank, a few scat­tered trees ap­peared, and three miles fur­ther even these dwin­dled in­to soli­tary groups among the west­ern spurs of the moun­tain, whose arid ridge sloped down to the shore.

What a con­trast be­tween the north­ern and south­ern part of the coast! In pro­por­tion as one was woody and fer­tile so was the oth­er rugged and bar­ren! It might have been des­ig­nat­ed as one of those iron coasts, as they are called in some coun­tries, and its wild con­fu­sion ap­peared to in­di­cate that a sud­den crys­tal­liza­tion had been pro­duced in the yet liq­uid basalt of some dis­tant ge­olog­ical sea. These stu­pen­dous mass­es would have ter­ri­fied the set­tlers if they had been cast at first on this part of the is­land! They had not been able to per­ceive the sin­is­ter as­pect of this shore from the sum­mit of Mount Franklin, for they over­looked it from too great a height, but viewed from the sea it pre­sent­ed a wild ap­pear­ance which could not per­haps be equaled in any cor­ner of the globe.

The “Bonad­ven­ture” sailed along this coast for the dis­tance of half a mile. It was easy to see that it was com­posed of blocks of all sizes, from twen­ty to three hun­dred feet in height, and of all shapes, round like tow­ers, pris­mat­ic like steeples, pyra­mi­dal like obelisks, con­ical like fac­to­ry chim­neys. An ice­berg of the Po­lar seas could not have been more capri­cious in its ter­ri­ble sub­lim­ity! Here, bridges were thrown from one rock to an­oth­er; there, arch­es like those of a wave, in­to the depths of which the eye could not pen­etrate; in one place, large vault­ed ex­ca­va­tions pre­sent­ed a mon­umen­tal as­pect; in an­oth­er, a crowd of columns, spires, and arch­es, such as no Goth­ic cathe­dral ev­er pos­sessed. Ev­ery caprice of na­ture, still more var­ied than those of the imag­ina­tion, ap­peared on this grand coast, which ex­tend­ed over a length of eight or nine miles.

Cyrus Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions gazed, with a feel­ing of sur­prise bor­der­ing on stu­pe­fac­tion. But, al­though they re­mained silent, Top, not be­ing trou­bled with feel­ings of this sort, ut­tered barks which were re­peat­ed by the thou­sand echoes of the basaltic cliff. The en­gi­neer even ob­served that these barks had some­thing strange in them, like those which the dog had ut­tered at the mouth of the well in Gran­ite House.

“Let us go close in,” said he.

And the “Bonad­ven­ture” sailed as near as pos­si­ble to the rocky shore. Per­haps some cave, which it would be ad­vis­able to ex­plore, ex­ist­ed there? But Hard­ing saw noth­ing, not a cav­ern, not a cleft which could serve as a re­treat to any be­ing what­ev­er, for the foot of the cliff was washed by the surf. Soon Top’s barks ceased, and the ves­sel con­tin­ued her course at a few ca­bles-​length from the coast.

In the north­west part of the is­land the shore be­came again flat and sandy. A few trees here and there rose above a low, marshy ground, which the colonists had al­ready sur­veyed, and in vi­olent con­trast to the oth­er desert shore, life was again man­ifest­ed by the pres­ence of myr­iads of wa­ter-​fowl. That evening the “Bonad­ven­ture” an­chored in a small bay to the north of the is­land, near the land, such was the depth of wa­ter there. The night passed qui­et­ly, for the breeze died away with the last light of day, and on­ly rose again with the first streaks of dawn.

As it was easy to land, the usu­al hunters of the colony, that is to say, Her­bert and Gideon Spilett, went for a ram­ble of two hours or so, and re­turned with sev­er­al strings of wild duck and snipe. Top had done won­ders, and not a bird had been lost, thanks to his zeal and clev­er­ness.

At eight o’clock in the morn­ing the “Bonad­ven­ture” set sail, and ran rapid­ly to­wards North Mandible Cape, for the wind was right astern and fresh­en­ing rapid­ly.

“How­ev­er,” ob­served Pen­croft, “I should not be sur­prised if a gale came up from the west. Yes­ter­day the sun set in a very red-​look­ing hori­zon, and now, this morn­ing, those mares-​tails don’t for­bode any­thing good.”

These mares-​tails are cir­rus clouds, scat­tered in the zenith, their height from the sea be­ing less than five thou­sand feet. They look like light pieces of cot­ton wool, and their pres­ence usu­al­ly an­nounces some sud­den change in the weath­er.

“Well,” said Hard­ing, “let us car­ry as much sail as pos­si­ble, and run for shel­ter in­to Shark Gulf. I think that the ‘Bonad­ven­ture’ will be safe there.”

“Per­fect­ly,” replied Pen­croft, “and be­sides, the north coast is mere­ly sand, very un­in­ter­est­ing to look at.”

“I shall not be sor­ry,” re­sumed the en­gi­neer, “to pass not on­ly to-​night but to-​mor­row in that bay, which is worth be­ing care­ful­ly ex­plored.”

“I think that we shall be obliged to do so, whether we like it or not,” an­swered Pen­croft, “for the sky looks very threat­en­ing to­wards the west. Dirty weath­er is com­ing on!”

“At any rate we have a fa­vor­able wind for reach­ing Cape Mandible,” ob­served the re­porter.

“A very fine wind,” replied the sailor; “but we must tack to en­ter the gulf, and I should like to see my way clear in these un­known quar­ters.”

“Quar­ters which ap­pear to be filled with rocks,” added Her­bert, “if we judge by what we saw on the south coast of Shark Gulf.”

“Pen­croft,” said Cyrus Hard­ing, “do as you think best, we will leave it to you.”

“Don’t make your mind un­easy, cap­tain,” replied the sailor, “I shall not ex­pose my­self need­less­ly! I would rather a knife were run in­to my ribs than a sharp rock in­to those of my ‘Bonad­ven­ture!’”

That which Pen­croft called ribs was the pan of his ves­sel un­der wa­ter, and he val­ued it more than his own skin.

“What o’clock is it?” asked Pen­croft.

“Ten o’clock,” replied Gideon Spilett.

“And what dis­tance is it to the Cape, cap­tain?”

“About fif­teen miles,” replied the en­gi­neer.

“That’s a mat­ter of two hours and a half,” said the sailor, “and we shall be off the Cape be­tween twelve and one o’clock. Un­luck­ily, the tide will be turn­ing at that mo­ment, and will be ebbing out of the gulf. I am afraid that it will be very dif­fi­cult to get in, hav­ing both wind and tide against us.”

“And the more so that it is a full moon to-​day,” re­marked Her­bert, “and these April tides are very strong.”

“Well, Pen­croft,” asked Hard­ing, “can you not an­chor off the Cape?”

“An­chor near land, with bad weath­er com­ing on!” ex­claimed the sailor. “What are you think­ing of, cap­tain? We should run aground, of a cer­tain­ty!”

“What will you do then?”

“I shall try to keep in the off­ing un­til the flood, that is to say, till about sev­en in the evening, and if there is still light enough I will try to en­ter the gulf; if not, we must stand off and on dur­ing the night, and we will en­ter to-​mor­row at sun­rise.”

“As I told you, Pen­croft, we will leave it to you,” an­swered Hard­ing.

“Ah!” said Pen­croft, “if there was on­ly a light­house on the coast, it would be much more con­ve­nient for sailors.”

“Yes,” replied Her­bert, “and this time we shall have no oblig­ing en­gi­neer to light a fire to guide us in­to port!”

“Why, in­deed, my dear Cyrus,” said Spilett, “we have nev­er thanked you; but frankly, with­out that fire we should nev­er have been able–“

“A fire?” asked Hard­ing, much as­ton­ished at the re­porter’s words.

“We mean, cap­tain,” an­swered Pen­croft, “that on board the ‘Bonad­ven­ture’ we were very anx­ious dur­ing the few hours be­fore our re­turn, and we should have passed to wind­ward of the is­land, if it had not been for the pre­cau­tion you took of light­ing a fire the night of the 19th of Oc­to­ber, on Prospect Heights.”

“Yes, yes! That was a lucky idea of mine!” replied the en­gi­neer.

“And this time,” con­tin­ued the sailor. “un­less the idea oc­curs to Ayr­ton, there will be no one to do us that lit­tle ser­vice!”

“No! No one!” an­swered Cyrus Hard­ing.

A few min­utes af­ter, find­ing him­self alone in the bows of the ves­sel, with the re­porter, the en­gi­neer bent down and whis­pered,–

“If there is one thing cer­tain in this world, Spilett, it is that I nev­er light­ed any fire dur­ing the night of the 19th of Oc­to­ber, nei­ther on Prospect Heights nor on any oth­er part of the is­land!”