Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 20

Things hap­pened as Pen­croft had pre­dict­ed, he be­ing sel­dom mis­tak­en in his prog­nos­ti­ca­tions. The wind rose, and from a fresh breeze it soon in­creased to a reg­ular gale; that is to say, it ac­quired a speed of from forty to forty-​five miles an hour, be­fore which a ship in the open sea would have run un­der close-​reefed top­sails. Now, as it was near­ly six o’clock when the “Bonad­ven­ture” reached the gulf, and as at that mo­ment the tide turned, it was im­pos­si­ble to en­ter. They were there­fore com­pelled to stand off, for even if he had wished to do so, Pen­croft could not have gained the mouth of the Mer­cy. Hoist­ing the jib to the main­mast by way of a storm-​sail, he hove to, putting the head of the ves­sel to­wards the land.

For­tu­nate­ly, al­though the wind was strong the sea, be­ing shel­tered by the land, did not run very high. They had then lit­tle to fear from the waves, which al­ways en­dan­ger small craft. The “Bonad­ven­ture” would doubtless­ly not have cap­sized, for she was well bal­last­ed, but enor­mous mass­es of wa­ter falling on the deck might in­jure her if her tim­bers could not sus­tain them. Pen­croft, as a good sailor, was pre­pared for any­thing. Cer­tain­ly, he had great con­fi­dence in his ves­sel, but nev­er­the­less he await­ed the re­turn of day with some anx­iety.

Dur­ing the night, Cyrus Hard­ing and Gideon Spilett had no op­por­tu­ni­ty for talk­ing to­geth­er, and yet the words pro­nounced in the re­porter’s ear by the en­gi­neer were well worth be­ing dis­cussed, to­geth­er with the mys­te­ri­ous in­flu­ence which ap­peared to reign over Lin­coln Is­land. Gideon Spilett did not cease from pon­der­ing over this new and in­ex­pli­ca­ble in­ci­dent, the ap­pear­ance of a fire on the coast of the is­land. The fire had ac­tu­al­ly been seen! His com­pan­ions, Her­bert and Pen­croft, had seen it with him! The fire had served to sig­nal­ize the po­si­tion of the is­land dur­ing that dark night, and they had not doubt­ed that it was light­ed by the en­gi­neer’s hand; and here was Cyrus Hard­ing ex­press­ly declar­ing that he had nev­er done any­thing of the sort! Spilett re­solved to re­cur to this in­ci­dent as soon as the “Bonad­ven­ture” re­turned, and to urge Cyrus Hard­ing to ac­quaint their com­pan­ions with these strange facts. Per­haps it would be de­cid­ed to make in com­mon a com­plete in­ves­ti­ga­tion of ev­ery part of Lin­coln Is­land.

How­ev­er that might be, on this evening no fire was light­ed on these yet un­known shores, which formed the en­trance to the gulf, and the lit­tle ves­sel stood off dur­ing the night.

When the first streaks of dawn ap­peared in the west­ern hori­zon, the wind, which had slight­ly fall­en, shift­ed two points, and en­abled Pen­croft to en­ter the nar­row gulf with greater ease. To­wards sev­en o’clock in the morn­ing, the “Bonad­ven­ture,” weath­er­ing the North Mandible Cape, en­tered the strait and glid­ed on to the wa­ters, so strange­ly en­closed in the frame of la­va.

“Well,” said Pen­croft, “this bay would make ad­mirable roads, in which a whole fleet could lie at their ease!”

“What is es­pe­cial­ly cu­ri­ous,” ob­served Hard­ing, “is that the gulf has been formed by two rivers of la­va, thrown out by the vol­cano, and ac­cu­mu­lat­ed by suc­ces­sive erup­tions. The re­sult is that the gulf is com­plete­ly shel­tered on all sides, and I be­lieve that even in the stormi­est weath­er, the sea here must be as calm as a lake.”

“No doubt,” re­turned the sailor, “since the wind has on­ly that nar­row en­trance be­tween the two capes to get in by, and, be­sides, the north cape pro­tects that of the south in a way which would make the en­trance of gusts very dif­fi­cult. I de­clare our ‘Bonad­ven­ture’ could stay here from one end of the year to the oth­er, with­out even drag­ging at her an­chor!”

“It is rather large for her!” ob­served the re­porter.

“Well! Mr. Spilett,” replied the sailor, “I agree that it is too large for the ‘Bonad­ven­ture,’ but if the fleets of the Union were in want of a har­bor in the Pa­cif­ic, I don’t think they would ev­er find a bet­ter place than this!”

“We are in the shark’s mouth,” re­marked Nab, al­lud­ing to the form of the gulf.

“Right in­to its mouth, my hon­est Nab!” replied Her­bert, “but you are not afraid that it will shut up­on us, are you?”

“No, Mr. Her­bert,” an­swered Neb, “and yet this gulf here doesn’t please me much! It has a wicked look!”

“Hal­lo!” cried Pen­croft, “here is Neb turn­ing up his nose at my gulf, just as I was think­ing of pre­sent­ing it to Amer­ica!”

“But, at any rate, is the wa­ter deep enough?” asked the en­gi­neer, “for a depth suf­fi­cient for the keel of the ‘Bonad­ven­ture’ would not be enough for those of our iron-​clads.”

“That is eas­ily found out,” replied Pen­croft.

And the sailor sound­ed with a long cord, which served him as a lead-​line, and to which was fas­tened a lump of iron. This cord mea­sured near­ly fifty fath­oms, and its en­tire length was un­rolled with­out find­ing any bot­tom.

“There,” ex­claimed Pen­croft, “our iron-​clads can come here af­ter all! They would not run aground!”

“In­deed,” said Gideon Spilett, “this gulf is a reg­ular abyss, but, tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­ation the vol­canic ori­gin of the is­land, it is not as­ton­ish­ing that the sea should of­fer sim­ilar de­pres­sions.”

“One would say too,” ob­served Her­bert, “that these cliffs were per­fect­ly per­pen­dic­ular; and I be­lieve that at their foot, even with a line five or six times longer, Pen­croft would not find bot­tom.”

“That is all very well,” then said the re­porter, “but I must point out to Pen­croft that his har­bor is want­ing in one very im­por­tant re­spect!”

“And what is that, Mr. Spilett?”

“An open­ing, a cut­ting of some sort, to give ac­cess to the in­te­ri­or of the is­land. I do not see a spot on which we could land.” And, in fact, the steep la­va cliffs did not af­ford a sin­gle place suit­able for land­ing. They formed an in­su­per­able bar­ri­er, re­call­ing, but with more wild­ness, the fiords of Nor­way. The “Bonad­ven­ture,” coast­ing as close as pos­si­ble along the cliffs, did not dis­cov­er even a pro­jec­tion which would al­low the pas­sen­gers to leave the deck.

Pen­croft con­soled him­self by say­ing that with the help of a mine they could soon open out the cliff when that was nec­es­sary, and then, as there was ev­ident­ly noth­ing to be done in the gulf, he steered his ves­sel to­wards the strait and passed out at about two o’clock in the af­ter­noon.

“Ah!” said Nab, ut­ter­ing a sigh of sat­is­fac­tion.

One might re­al­ly say that the hon­est Ne­gro did not feel at his ease in those enor­mous jaws.

The dis­tance from Mandible Cape to the mouth of the Mer­cy was not more than eight miles. The head of the “Bonad­ven­ture” was put to­wards Gran­ite House, and a fair wind fill­ing her sails, she ran rapid­ly along the coast.

To the enor­mous la­va rocks suc­ceed­ed soon those capri­cious sand dunes, among which the en­gi­neer had been so sin­gu­lar­ly re­cov­ered, and which seabirds fre­quent­ed in thou­sands.

About four o’clock, Pen­croft leav­ing the point of the islet on his left, en­tered the chan­nel which sep­arat­ed it from the coast, and at five o’clock the an­chor of the “Bonad­ven­ture” was buried in the sand at the mouth of the Mer­cy.

The colonists had been ab­sent three days from their dwelling. Ayr­ton was wait­ing for them on the beach, and Jup came joy­ous­ly to meet them, giv­ing vent to deep grunts of sat­is­fac­tion.

A com­plete ex­plo­ration of the coast of the is­land had now been made, and no sus­pi­cious ap­pear­ances had been ob­served. If any mys­te­ri­ous be­ing resid­ed on it, it could on­ly be un­der cov­er of the im­pen­etra­ble for­est of the Ser­pen­tine Penin­su­la, to which the colonists had not yet di­rect­ed their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Gideon Spilett dis­cussed these things with the en­gi­neer, and it was agreed that they should di­rect the at­ten­tion of their com­pan­ions to the strange char­ac­ter of cer­tain in­ci­dents which had oc­curred on the is­land, and of which the last was the most un­ac­count­able.

How­ev­er, Hard­ing, re­turn­ing to the fact of a fire hav­ing been kin­dled on the shore by an un­known hand, could not re­frain from re­peat­ing for the twen­ti­eth time to the re­porter,–

“But are you quite sure of hav­ing seen it? Was it not a par­tial erup­tion of the vol­cano, or per­haps some me­te­or?”

“No, Cyrus,” an­swered the re­porter, “it was cer­tain­ly a fire light­ed by the hand of man. Be­sides; ques­tion Pen­croft and Her­bert. They saw it as I saw it my­self, and they will con­firm my words.”

In con­se­quence, there­fore, a few days af­ter, on the 25th of April, in the evening, when the set­tlers were all col­lect­ed on Prospect Heights, Cyrus Hard­ing be­gan by say­ing,–

“My friends, I think it my du­ty to call your at­ten­tion to cer­tain in­ci­dents which have oc­curred in the is­land, on the sub­ject of which I shall be hap­py to have your ad­vice. These in­ci­dents are, so to speak, su­per­nat­ural–“

“Su­per­nat­ural!” ex­claimed the sailor, emit­ting a vol­ume of smoke from his mouth. “Can it be pos­si­ble that our is­land is su­per­nat­ural?”

“No, Pen­croft, but mys­te­ri­ous, most cer­tain­ly,” replied the en­gi­neer; “un­less you can ex­plain that which Spilett and I have un­til now failed to un­der­stand.”

“Speak away, cap­tain,” an­swered the sailor.

“Well, have you un­der­stood,” then said the en­gi­neer, “how was it that af­ter falling in­to the sea, I was found a quar­ter of a mile in­to the in­te­ri­or of the is­land, and that, with­out my hav­ing any con­scious­ness of my re­moval there?”

“Un­less, be­ing un­con­scious–” said Pen­croft.

“That is not ad­mis­si­ble,” replied the en­gi­neer. “But to con­tin­ue. Have you un­der­stood how Top was able to dis­cov­er your re­treat five miles from the cave in which I was ly­ing?”

“The dog’s in­stinct–” ob­served Her­bert.

“Sin­gu­lar in­stinct!” re­turned the re­porter, “since notwith­stand­ing the storm of rain and wind which was rag­ing dur­ing that night, Top ar­rived at the Chim­neys, dry and with­out a speck of mud!”

“Let us con­tin­ue,” re­sumed the en­gi­neer. “Have you un­der­stood how our dog was so strange­ly thrown up out of the wa­ter of the lake, af­ter his strug­gle with the dugong?”

“No! I con­fess, not at all,” replied Pen­croft, “and the wound which the dugong had in its side, a wound which seemed to have been made with a sharp in­stru­ment; that can’t be un­der­stood, ei­ther.”

“Let us con­tin­ue again,” said Hard­ing. “Have you un­der­stood, my friends, how that bul­let got in­to the body of the young pec­ca­ry; how that case hap­pened to be so for­tu­nate­ly strand­ed, with­out there be­ing any trace of a wreck; how that bot­tle con­tain­ing the doc­ument pre­sent­ed it­self so op­por­tune­ly, dur­ing our first sea-​ex­cur­sion; how our ca­noe, hav­ing bro­ken its moor­ings, float­ed down the cur­rent of the Mer­cy and re­joined us at the very mo­ment we need­ed it; how af­ter the ape in­va­sion the lad­der was so oblig­ing­ly thrown down from Gran­ite House; and last­ly, how the doc­ument, which Ayr­ton as­serts was nev­er writ­ten by him, fell in­to our hands?”

As Cyrus Hard­ing thus enu­mer­at­ed, with­out for­get­ting one, the sin­gu­lar in­ci­dents which had oc­curred in the is­land, Her­bert, Neb, and Pen­croft stared at each oth­er, not know­ing what to re­ply, for this suc­ces­sion of in­ci­dents, grouped thus for the first time, could not but ex­cite their sur­prise to the high­est de­gree.

“‘Pon my word,” said Pen­croft at last, “you are right, cap­tain, and it is dif­fi­cult to ex­plain all these things!”

“Well, my friends,” re­sumed the en­gi­neer, “a last fact has just been added to these, and it is no less in­com­pre­hen­si­ble than the oth­ers!”

“What is it, cap­tain?” asked Her­bert quick­ly.

“When you were re­turn­ing from Ta­bor Is­land, Pen­croft,” con­tin­ued the en­gi­neer, “you said that a fire ap­peared on Lin­coln Is­land?”

“Cer­tain­ly,” an­swered the sailor.

“And you are quite cer­tain of hav­ing seen this fire?”

“As sure as I see you now.”

“You al­so, Her­bert?”

“Why, cap­tain,” cried Her­bert, “that fire was blaz­ing like a star of the first mag­ni­tude!”

“But was it not a star?” urged the en­gi­neer.

“No,” replied Pen­croft, “for the sky was cov­ered with thick clouds, and at any rate a star would not have been so low on the hori­zon. But Mr. Spilett saw it as well as we, and he will con­firm our words.”

“I will add,” said the re­porter, “that the fire was very bright, and that it shot up like a sheet of light­ning.”

“Yes, yes! ex­act­ly,” added Her­bert, “and it was cer­tain­ly placed on the heights of Gran­ite House.”

“Well, my friends,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing, “dur­ing the night of the 19th of Oc­to­ber, nei­ther Neb nor I light­ed any fire on the coast.”

“You did not!” ex­claimed Pen­croft, in the height of his as­ton­ish­ment, not be­ing able to fin­ish his sen­tence.

“We did not leave Gran­ite House,” an­swered Cyrus Hard­ing, “and if a fire ap­peared on the coast, it was light­ed by an­oth­er hand than ours!”

Pen­croft, Her­bert, and Neb were stu­pe­fied. No il­lu­sion could be pos­si­ble, and a fire had ac­tu­al­ly met their eyes dur­ing the night of the 19th of Oc­to­ber. Yes! they had to ac­knowl­edge it, a mys­tery ex­ist­ed! An in­ex­pli­ca­ble in­flu­ence, ev­ident­ly fa­vor­able to the colonists, but very ir­ri­tat­ing to their cu­rios­ity, was ex­ecut­ed al­ways in the nick of time on Lin­coln Is­land. Could there be some be­ing hid­den in its pro­found­est re­cess­es? It was nec­es­sary at any cost to as­cer­tain this.

Hard­ing al­so re­mind­ed his com­pan­ions of the sin­gu­lar be­hav­ior of Top and Jup when they prowled round the mouth of the well, which placed Gran­ite House in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the sea, and he told them that he had ex­plored the well, with­out dis­cov­er­ing any­thing sus­pi­cious. The fi­nal re­solve tak­en, in con­se­quence of this con­ver­sa­tion, by all the mem­bers of the colony, was that as soon as the fine sea­son re­turned they would thor­ough­ly search the whole of the is­land.

But from that day Pen­croft ap­peared to be anx­ious. He felt as if the is­land which he had made his own per­son­al prop­er­ty be­longed to him en­tire­ly no longer, and that he shared it with an­oth­er mas­ter, to whom, will­ing or not, he felt sub­ject. Neb and he of­ten talked of those un­ac­count­able things, and both, their na­tures in­clin­ing them to the mar­velous, were not far from be­liev­ing that Lin­coln Is­land was un­der the do­min­ion of some su­per­nat­ural pow­er.

In the mean­while, the bad weath­er came with the month of May, the Novem­ber of the north­ern zones. It ap­peared that the win­ter would be se­vere and for­ward. The prepa­ra­tions for the win­ter sea­son were there­fore com­menced with­out de­lay.

Nev­er­the­less, the colonists were well pre­pared to meet the win­ter, how­ev­er hard it might be. They had plen­ty of felt cloth­ing, and the mus­mons, very nu­mer­ous by this time, had fur­nished an abun­dance of wool nec­es­sary for the man­ufac­ture of this warm ma­te­ri­al.

It is un­nec­es­sary to say that Ayr­ton had been pro­vid­ed with this com­fort­able cloth­ing. Cyrus Hard­ing pro­posed that he should come to spend the bad sea­son with them in Gran­ite House, where he would be bet­ter lodged than at the cor­ral, and Ayr­ton promised to do so, as soon as the last work at the cor­ral was fin­ished. He did this to­wards the mid­dle of April. From that time Ayr­ton shared the com­mon life, and made him­self use­ful on all oc­ca­sions; but still hum­ble and sad, he nev­er took part in the plea­sures of his com­pan­ions.

For the greater part of this, the third win­ter which the set­tlers passed in Lin­coln Is­land, they were con­fined to Gran­ite House. There were many vi­olent storms and fright­ful tem­pests, which ap­peared to shake the rocks to their very foun­da­tions. Im­mense waves threat­ened to over­whelm the is­land, and cer­tain­ly any ves­sel an­chored near the shore would have been dashed to pieces. Twice, dur­ing one of these hur­ri­canes, the Mer­cy swelled to such a de­gree as to give rea­son to fear that the bridges would be swept away, and it was nec­es­sary to strength­en those on the shore, which dis­ap­peared un­der the foam­ing wa­ters, when the sea beat against the beach.

It may well be sup­posed that such storms, com­pa­ra­ble to wa­ter-​spouts in which were min­gled rain and snow, would cause great hav­oc on the plateau of Prospect Heights. The mill and the poul­try-​yard par­tic­ular­ly suf­fered. The colonists were of­ten obliged to make im­me­di­ate re­pairs, with­out which the safe­ty of the birds would have been se­ri­ous­ly threat­ened.

Dur­ing the worst weath­er, sev­er­al jaguars and troops of quadru­mana ven­tured to the edge of the plateau, and it was al­ways to be feared that the most ac­tive and au­da­cious would, urged by hunger, man­age to cross the stream, which be­sides, when frozen, of­fered them an easy pas­sage. Plan­ta­tions and do­mes­tic an­imals would then have been in­fal­li­bly de­stroyed, with­out a con­stant watch, and it was of­ten nec­es­sary to make use of the guns to keep those dan­ger­ous vis­itors at a re­spect­ful dis­tance. Oc­cu­pa­tion was not want­ing to the colonists, for with­out reck­on­ing their out-​door cares, they had al­ways a thou­sand plans for the fit­ting up of Gran­ite House.

They had al­so some fine sport­ing ex­cur­sions, which were made dur­ing the frost in the vast Ta­dorn Marsh. Gideon Spilett and Her­bert, aid­ed by Jup and Top, did not miss a shot in the midst of myr­iads of wild-​duck, snipe, teal, and oth­ers. The ac­cess to these hunt­ing-​grounds was easy; be­sides, whether they reached them by the road to Port Bal­loon, af­ter hav­ing passed the Mer­cy Bridge, or by turn­ing the rocks from Flot­sam Point, the hunters were nev­er dis­tant from Gran­ite House more than two or three miles.

Thus passed the four win­ter months, which were re­al­ly rig­or­ous, that is to say, June, Ju­ly, Au­gust, and Septem­ber. But, in short, Gran­ite House did not suf­fer much from the in­clemen­cy of the weath­er, and it was the same with the cor­ral, which, less ex­posed than the plateau, and shel­tered part­ly by Mount Franklin, on­ly re­ceived the re­mains of the hur­ri­canes, al­ready bro­ken by the forests and the high rocks of the shore. The dam­ages there were con­se­quent­ly of small im­por­tance, and the ac­tiv­ity and skill of Ayr­ton prompt­ly re­paired them, when some time in Oc­to­ber he re­turned to pass a few days in the cor­ral.

Dur­ing this win­ter, no fresh in­ex­pli­ca­ble in­ci­dent oc­curred. Noth­ing strange hap­pened, al­though Pen­croft and Neb were on the watch for the most in­signif­icant facts to which they at­tached any mys­te­ri­ous cause. Top and Jup them­selves no longer growled round the well or gave any signs of un­easi­ness. It ap­peared, there­fore, as if the se­ries of su­per­nat­ural in­ci­dents was in­ter­rupt­ed, al­though they of­ten talked of them dur­ing the evenings in Gran­ite House, and they re­mained thor­ough­ly re­solved that the is­land should be searched, even in those parts the most dif­fi­cult to ex­plore. But an event of the high­est im­por­tance, and of which the con­se­quences might be ter­ri­ble, mo­men­tar­ily di­vert­ed from their projects Cyrus Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions.

It was the month of Oc­to­ber. The fine sea­son was swift­ly re­turn­ing. Na­ture was re­viv­ing; and among the ev­er­green fo­liage of the conifer­ae which formed the bor­der of the wood, al­ready ap­peared the young leaves of the banksias, de­odars, and oth­er trees.

It may be re­mem­bered that Gideon Spilett and Her­bert had, at dif­fer­ent times, tak­en pho­to­graph­ic views of Lin­coln Is­land.

Now, on the 17th of this month of Oc­to­ber, to­wards three o’clock in the af­ter­noon, Her­bert, en­ticed by the charms of the sky, thought of re­pro­duc­ing Union Bay, which was op­po­site to Prospect Heights, from Cape Mandible to Claw Cape.

The hori­zon was beau­ti­ful­ly clear, and the sea, un­du­lat­ing un­der a soft breeze, was as calm as the wa­ters of a lake, sparkling here and there un­der the sun’s rays.

The ap­pa­ra­tus had been placed at one of the win­dows of the din­ing-​room at Gran­ite House, and con­se­quent­ly over­looked the shore and the bay. Her­bert pro­ceed­ed as he was ac­cus­tomed to do, and the neg­ative ob­tained, he went away to fix it by means of the chem­icals de­posit­ed in a dark nook of Gran­ite House.

Re­turn­ing to the bright light, and ex­am­in­ing it well, Her­bert per­ceived on his neg­ative an al­most im­per­cep­ti­ble lit­tle spot on the sea hori­zon. He en­deav­ored to make it dis­ap­pear by re­it­er­at­ed wash­ing, but could not ac­com­plish it.

“It is a flaw in the glass,” he thought.

And then he had the cu­rios­ity to ex­am­ine this flaw with a strong mag­ni­fi­er which he un­screwed from one of the tele­scopes.

But he had scarce­ly looked at it, when he ut­tered a cry, and the glass al­most fell from his hands.

Im­me­di­ate­ly run­ning to the room in which Cyrus Hard­ing then was, he ex­tend­ed the neg­ative and mag­ni­fi­er to­wards the en­gi­neer, point­ing out the lit­tle spot.

Hard­ing ex­am­ined it; then seiz­ing his tele­scope he rushed to the win­dow.

The tele­scope, af­ter hav­ing slow­ly swept the hori­zon, at last stopped on the looked-​for spot, and Cyrus Hard­ing, low­er­ing it, pro­nounced one word on­ly,–

“A ves­sel!”

And in fact a ves­sel was in sight, off Lin­coln Is­land!

PART 3

THE SE­CRET OF THE IS­LAND