Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 1

It was now two years and a half since the cast­aways from the bal­loon had been thrown on Lin­coln Is­land, and dur­ing that pe­ri­od there had been no com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween them and their fel­low-​crea­tures. Once the re­porter had at­tempt­ed to com­mu­ni­cate with the in­hab­it­ed world by con­fid­ing to a bird a let­ter which con­tained the se­cret of their sit­ua­tion, but that was a chance on which it was im­pos­si­ble to reck­on se­ri­ous­ly. Ayr­ton, alone, un­der the cir­cum­stances which have been re­lat­ed, had come to join the lit­tle colony. Now, sud­den­ly, on this day, the 17th of Oc­to­ber, oth­er men had un­ex­pect­ed­ly ap­peared in sight of the is­land, on that de­sert­ed sea!

There could be no doubt about it! A ves­sel was there! But would she pass on, or would she put in­to port? In a few hours the colonists would def­inite­ly know what to ex­pect.

Cyrus Hard­ing and Her­bert hav­ing im­me­di­ate­ly called Gideon Spilett, Pen­croft, and Neb in­to the din­ing-​room of Gran­ite House, told them what had hap­pened. Pen­croft, seiz­ing the tele­scope, rapid­ly swept the hori­zon, and stop­ping on the in­di­cat­ed point, that is to say, on that which had made the al­most im­per­cep­ti­ble spot on the pho­to­graph­ic neg­ative,–

“I’m blessed but it is re­al­ly a ves­sel!” he ex­claimed, in a voice which did not ex­press any great amount of sat­is­fac­tion.

“Is she com­ing here?” asked Gideon Spilett.

“Im­pos­si­ble to say any­thing yet,” an­swered Pen­croft, “for her rig­ging alone is above the hori­zon, and not a bit of her hull can be seen.”

“What is to be done?” asked the lad.

“Wait,” replied Hard­ing.

And for a con­sid­er­able time the set­tlers re­mained silent, giv­en up to all the thoughts, and the emo­tions, all the fears, all the hopes, which were aroused by this in­ci­dent–the most im­por­tant which had oc­curred since their ar­rival in Lin­coln Is­land. Cer­tain­ly, the colonists were not in the sit­ua­tion of cast­aways aban­doned on a ster­ile islet, con­stant­ly con­tend­ing against a cru­el na­ture for their mis­er­able ex­is­tence, and in­ces­sant­ly tor­ment­ed by the long­ing to re­turn to in­hab­it­ed coun­tries. Pen­croft and Neb, es­pe­cial­ly, who felt them­selves at once so hap­py and so rich, would not have left their is­land with­out re­gret. They were ac­cus­tomed, be­sides, to this new life in the midst of the do­main which their in­tel­li­gence had as it were civ­ilized. But at any rate this ship brought news from the world, per­haps even from their na­tive land. It was bring­ing fel­low-​crea­tures to them, and it may be con­ceived how deeply their hearts were moved at the sight!

From time to time Pen­croft took the glass and rest­ed him­self at the win­dow. From thence he very at­ten­tive­ly ex­am­ined the ves­sel, which was at a dis­tance of twen­ty miles to the east. The colonists had as yet, there­fore, no means of sig­nal­iz­ing their pres­ence. A flag would not have been per­ceived; a gun would not have been heard; a fire would not have been vis­ible. How­ev­er, it was cer­tain that the is­land, over­topped by Mount Franklin, could not es­cape the no­tice of the ves­sel’s look­out. But why was the ship com­ing there? Was it sim­ple chance which brought it to that part of the Pa­cif­ic, where the maps men­tioned no land ex­cept Ta­bor Is­land, which it­self was out of the route usu­al­ly fol­lowed by ves­sels from the Poly­ne­sian Archipela­goes, from New Zealand, and from the Amer­ican coast? To this ques­tion, which each one asked him­self, a re­ply was sud­den­ly made by Her­bert.

“Can it be the ‘Dun­can’?” he cried.

The “Dun­can,” as has been said, was Lord Gle­nar­van’s yacht, which had left Ayr­ton on the islet, and which was to re­turn there some­day to fetch him. Now, the islet was not so far dis­tant from Lin­coln Is­land, but that a ves­sel, stand­ing for the one, could pass in sight of the oth­er. A hun­dred and fifty miles on­ly sep­arat­ed them in lon­gi­tude, and sev­en­ty in lat­itude.

“We must tell Ayr­ton,” said Gideon Spilett, “and send for him im­me­di­ate­ly. He alone can say if it is the ‘Dun­can.’”

This was the opin­ion of all, and the re­porter, go­ing to the tele­graph­ic ap­pa­ra­tus which placed the cor­ral in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Gran­ite House, sent this tele­gram:–“Come with all pos­si­ble speed.”

In a few min­utes the bell sound­ed.

“I am com­ing,” replied Ayr­ton.

Then the set­tlers con­tin­ued to watch the ves­sel.

“If it is the ‘Dun­can,’” said Her­bert, “Ayr­ton will rec­og­nize her with­out dif­fi­cul­ty, since he sailed on board her for some time.”

“And if he rec­og­nizes her,” added Pen­croft, “it will ag­itate him ex­ceed­ing­ly!”

“Yes,” an­swered Cyrus Hard­ing; “but now Ayr­ton is wor­thy to re­turn on board the ‘Dun­can,’ and pray Heav­en that it is in­deed Lord Gle­nar­van’s yacht, for I should be sus­pi­cious of any oth­er ves­sel. These are ill-​famed seas, and I have al­ways feared a vis­it from Malay pi­rates to our is­land.”

“We could de­fend it,’, cried Her­bert.

“No doubt, my boy,” an­swered the en­gi­neer smil­ing, “but it would be bet­ter not to have to de­fend it.”

“A use­less ob­ser­va­tion,” said Spilett. “Lin­coln Is­land is un­known to nav­iga­tors, since it is not marked even on the most re­cent maps. Do you think, Cyrus, that that is a suf­fi­cient mo­tive for a ship, find­ing her­self un­ex­pect­ed­ly in sight of new land, to try and vis­it rather than avoid it?”

“Cer­tain­ly,” replied Pen­croft.

“I think so too,” added the en­gi­neer. “It may even be said that it is the du­ty of a cap­tain to come and sur­vey any land or is­land not yet known, and Lin­coln Is­land is in this po­si­tion.”

“Well,” said Pen­croft, “sup­pose this ves­sel comes and an­chors there a few ca­bles-​lengths from our is­land, what shall we do?”

This sud­den ques­tion re­mained at first with­out any re­ply. But Cyrus Hard­ing, af­ter some mo­ments’ thought, replied in the calm tone which was usu­al to him,–

“What we shall do, my friends? What we ought to do is this:–we will com­mu­ni­cate with the ship, we will take our pas­sage on board her, and we will leave our is­land, af­ter hav­ing tak­en pos­ses­sion of it in the name of the Unit­ed States. Then we will re­turn with any who may wish to fol­low us to col­onize it def­inite­ly, and en­dow the Amer­ican Re­pub­lic with a use­ful sta­tion in this part of the Pa­cif­ic Ocean!”

“Hur­rah!” ex­claimed Pen­croft, “and that will be no small present which we shall make to our coun­try! The col­oniza­tion is al­ready al­most fin­ished; names are giv­en to ev­ery part of the is­land; there is a nat­ural port, fresh wa­ter, roads, a tele­graph, a dock­yard, and man­ufac­to­ries; and there will be noth­ing to be done but to in­scribe Lin­coln Is­land on the maps!”

“But if any­one seizes it in our ab­sence?” ob­served Gideon Spilett.

“Hang it!” cried the sailor. “I would rather re­main all alone to guard it: and trust to Pen­croft, they shouldn’t steal it from him, like a watch from the pock­et of a swell!”

For an hour it was im­pos­si­ble to say with any cer­tain­ty whether the ves­sel was or was not stand­ing to­wards Lin­coln Is­land. She was near­er, but in what di­rec­tion was she sail­ing? This Pen­croft could not de­ter­mine. How­ev­er, as the wind was blow­ing from the north­east, in all prob­abil­ity the ves­sel was sail­ing on the star­board tack. Be­sides, the wind was fa­vor­able for bring­ing her to­wards the is­land, and, the sea be­ing calm, she would not be afraid to ap­proach al­though the shal­lows were not marked on the chart.

To­wards four o’clock–an hour af­ter he had been sent for–Ayr­ton ar­rived at Gran­ite House. He en­tered the din­ing-​room say­ing,–

“At your ser­vice, gen­tle­men.”

Cyrus Hard­ing gave him his hand, as was his cus­tom to do, and, lead­ing him to the win­dow,–

“Ayr­ton,” said he, “we have begged you to come here for an im­por­tant rea­son. A ship is in sight of the is­land.”

Ayr­ton at first paled slight­ly, and for a mo­ment his eyes be­came dim; then, lean­ing out the win­dow, he sur­veyed the hori­zon, but could see noth­ing.

“Take this tele­scope,” said Spilett, “and look care­ful­ly, Ayr­ton, for it is pos­si­ble that this ship may be the ‘Dun­can’ come to these seas for the pur­pose of tak­ing you home again.”

“The ‘Dun­can!’” mur­mured Ayr­ton. “Al­ready?” This last word es­caped Ayr­ton’s lips as if in­vol­un­tar­ily, and his head drooped up­on his hands.

Did not twelve years’ soli­tude on a desert is­land ap­pear to him a suf­fi­cient ex­pi­ation? Did not the pen­itent yet feel him­self par­doned, ei­ther in his own eyes or in the eyes of oth­ers?

“No,” said he, “no! it can­not be the ‘Dun­can’!”

“Look, Ayr­ton,” then said the en­gi­neer, “for it is nec­es­sary that we should know be­fore­hand what to ex­pect.”

Ayr­ton took the glass and point­ed it in the di­rec­tion in­di­cat­ed. Dur­ing some min­utes he ex­am­ined the hori­zon with­out mov­ing, with­out ut­ter­ing a word. Then,–

“It is in­deed a ves­sel,” said he, “but I do not think she is the ‘Dun­can.’”

“Why do you not think so?” asked Gideon Spilett.

“Be­cause the ‘Dun­can’ is a steam-​yacht, and I can­not per­ceive any trace of smoke ei­ther above or near that ves­sel.”

“Per­haps she is sim­ply sail­ing,” ob­served Pen­croft. “The wind is fa­vor­able for the di­rec­tion which she ap­pears to be tak­ing, and she may be anx­ious to econ­omize her coal, be­ing so far from land.”

“It is pos­si­ble that you may be right, Mr. Pen­croft,” an­swered Ayr­ton, “and that the ves­sel has ex­tin­guished her fires. We must wait un­til she is near­er, and then we shall soon know what to ex­pect.”

So say­ing, Ayr­ton sat down in a cor­ner of the room and re­mained silent. The colonists again dis­cussed the strange ship, but Ayr­ton took no part in the con­ver­sa­tion. All were in such a mood that they found it im­pos­si­ble to con­tin­ue their work. Gideon Spilett and Pen­croft were par­tic­ular­ly ner­vous, go­ing, com­ing, not able to re­main still in one place. Her­bert felt more cu­rios­ity. Neb alone main­tained his usu­al calm man­ner. Was not his coun­try that where his mas­ter was? As to the en­gi­neer, he re­mained plunged in deep thought, and in his heart feared rather than de­sired the ar­rival of the ship. In the mean­while, the ves­sel was a lit­tle near­er the is­land. With the aid of the glass, it was as­cer­tained that she was a brig, and not one of those Malay proas, which are gen­er­al­ly used by the pi­rates of the Pa­cif­ic. It was, there­fore, rea­son­able to be­lieve that the en­gi­neer’s ap­pre­hen­sions would not be jus­ti­fied, and that the pres­ence of this ves­sel in the vicin­ity of the is­land was fraught with no dan­ger.

Pen­croft, af­ter a minute ex­am­ina­tion, was able pos­itive­ly to af­firm that the ves­sel was rigged as a brig, and that she was stand­ing oblique­ly to­wards the coast, on the star­board tack, un­der her top­sails and top- gal­lant-​sails. This was con­firmed by Ayr­ton. But by con­tin­uing in this di­rec­tion she must soon dis­ap­pear be­hind Claw Cape, as the wind was from the south­west, and to watch her it would be then nec­es­sary to as­cend the height of Wash­ing­ton Bay, near Port Bal­loon–a pro­vok­ing cir­cum­stance, for it was al­ready five o’clock in the evening, and the twi­light would soon make any ob­ser­va­tion ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult.

“What shall we do when night comes on?” asked Gideon Spilett. “Shall we light a fire, so as to sig­nal our pres­ence on the coast?”

This was a se­ri­ous ques­tion, and yet, al­though the en­gi­neer still re­tained some of his pre­sen­ti­ments, it was an­swered in the af­fir­ma­tive. Dur­ing the night the ship might dis­ap­pear and leave for ev­er, and, this ship gone, would an­oth­er ev­er re­turn to the wa­ters of Lin­coln Is­land? Who could fore­see what the fu­ture would then have in store for the colonists?

“Yes,” said the re­porter, “we ought to make known to that ves­sel, who­ev­er she may be, that the is­land is in­hab­it­ed. To ne­glect the op­por­tu­ni­ty which is of­fered to us might be to cre­ate ev­er­last­ing re­grets.”

It was there­fore de­cid­ed that Neb and Pen­croft should go to Port Bal­loon, and that there, at night­fall, they should light an im­mense fire, the blaze of which would nec­es­sar­ily at­tract the at­ten­tion of the brig.

But at the mo­ment when Neb and the sailor were prepar­ing to leave Gran­ite House, the ves­sel sud­den­ly al­tered her course, and stood di­rect­ly for Union Bay. The brig was a good sail­er, for she ap­proached rapid­ly. Neb and Pen­croft put off their de­par­ture, there­fore, and the glass was put in­to Ayr­ton’s hands, that he might as­cer­tain for cer­tain whether the ship was or was not the “Dun­can.” The Scotch yacht was al­so rigged as a brig. The ques­tion was, whether a chim­ney could be dis­cerned be­tween the two masts of the ves­sel, which was now at a dis­tance of on­ly five miles.

The hori­zon was still very clear. The ex­am­ina­tion was easy, and Ayr­ton soon let the glass fall again, say­ing–

“It is not the ‘Dun­can’! It could not be!”

Pen­croft again brought the brig with­in the range of the tele­scope, and could see that she was of be­tween three and four hun­dred tons bur­den, won­der­ful­ly nar­row, well-​mast­ed, ad­mirably built, and must be a very rapid sail­er. But to what na­tion did she be­long? That was dif­fi­cult to say.

“And yet,” added the sailor, “a flag is float­ing from her peak, but I can­not dis­tin­guish the col­ors of it.”

“In half an hour we shall be cer­tain about that,” an­swered the re­porter. “Be­sides, it is very ev­ident that the in­ten­tion of the cap­tain of this ship is to land, and, con­se­quent­ly, if not to­day, to-​mor­row at the lat­est, we shall make his ac­quain­tance.”

“Nev­er mind!” said Pen­croft. “It is best to know whom we have to deal with, and I shall not be sor­ry to rec­og­nize that fel­low’s col­ors!”

And, while thus speak­ing, the sailor nev­er left the glass. The day be­gan to fade, and with the day the breeze fell al­so. The brig’s en­sign hung in folds, and it be­came more and more dif­fi­cult to ob­serve it.

“It is not the Amer­ican flag,” said Pen­croft from time to time, “nor the En­glish, the red of which could be eas­ily seen, nor the French or Ger­man col­ors, nor the white flag of Rus­sia, nor the yel­low of Spain. One would say it was all one col­or. Let’s see: in these seas, what do we gen­er­al­ly meet with? The Chilean flag?–but that is tri-​col­or. Brazil­ian?–it is green. Japanese?–it is yel­low and black, while this–“

At that mo­ment the breeze blew out the un­known flag. Ayr­ton seiz­ing the tele­scope which the sailor had put down, put it to his eye, and in a hoarse voice,–

“The black flag!” he ex­claimed.

And in­deed the somber bunting was float­ing from the mast of the brig, and they had now good rea­son for con­sid­er­ing her to be a sus­pi­cious ves­sel!

Had the en­gi­neer, then, been right in his pre­sen­ti­ments? Was this a pi­rate ves­sel? Did she scour the Pa­cif­ic, com­pet­ing with the Malay proas which still in­fest it? For what had she come to look at the shores of Lin­coln Is­land? Was it to them an un­known is­land, ready to be­come a mag­azine for stolen car­goes? Had she come to find on the coast a shel­tered port for the win­ter months? Was the set­tlers’ hon­est do­main des­tined to be trans­formed in­to an in­fa­mous refuge–the head­quar­ters of the pira­cy of the Pa­cif­ic?

All these ideas in­stinc­tive­ly pre­sent­ed them­selves to the colonists’ imag­ina­tions. There was no doubt, be­sides, of the sig­ni­fi­ca­tion which must be at­tached to the col­or of the hoist­ed flag. It was that of pi­rates! It was that which the “Dun­can” would have car­ried, had the con­victs suc­ceed­ed in their crim­inal de­sign! No time was lost be­fore dis­cussing it.

“My friends,” said Cyrus Hard­ing, “per­haps this ves­sel on­ly wish­es to sur­vey the coast of the is­land. Per­haps her crew will not land. There is a chance of it. How­ev­er that may be, we ought to do ev­ery­thing we can to hide our pres­ence here. The wind­mill on Prospect Heights is too eas­ily seen. Let Ayr­ton and Neb go and take down the sails. We must al­so con­ceal the win­dows of Gran­ite House with thick branch­es. All the fires must be ex­tin­guished, so that noth­ing may be­tray the pres­ence of men on the is­land.”

“And our ves­sel?” said Her­bert.

“Oh,” an­swered Pen­croft, “she is shel­tered in Port Bal­loon, and I de­fy any of those ras­cals there to find her!”

The en­gi­neer’s or­ders were im­me­di­ate­ly ex­ecut­ed. Neb and Ayr­ton as­cend­ed the plateau, and took the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions to con­ceal any in­di­ca­tion of a set­tle­ment. While they were thus oc­cu­pied, their com­pan­ions went to the bor­der of Ja­ca­mar Wood, and brought back a large quan­ti­ty of branch­es and creep­ers, which would at some dis­tance ap­pear as nat­ural fo­liage, and thus dis­guise the win­dows in the gran­ite cliff. At the same time, the am­mu­ni­tion and guns were placed ready so as to be at hand in case of an un­ex­pect­ed at­tack.

When all these pre­cau­tions had been tak­en,–

“My friends,” said Hard­ing, and his voice be­trayed some emo­tion, “if the wretch­es en­deav­or to seize Lin­coln Is­land, we shall de­fend it–shall we not?”

“Yes, Cyrus,” replied the re­porter, “and if nec­es­sary we will die to de­fend it!”

The en­gi­neer ex­tend­ed his hand to his com­pan­ions, who pressed it warm­ly. Ayr­ton re­mained in his cor­ner, not join­ing the colonists. Per­haps he, the for­mer con­vict, still felt him­self un­wor­thy to do so!

Cyrus Hard­ing un­der­stood what was pass­ing in Ayr­ton’s mind, and go­ing to him–

“And you, Ayr­ton,” he asked, “what will you do?”

“My du­ty,” an­swered Ayr­ton.

He then took up his sta­tion near the win­dow and gazed through the fo­liage.

It was now half-​past sev­en. The sun had dis­ap­peared twen­ty min­utes ago be­hind Gran­ite House. Con­se­quent­ly the East­ern hori­zon was be­com­ing ob­scured. In the mean­while the brig con­tin­ued to ad­vance to­wards Union Bay. She was now not more than two miles off, and ex­act­ly op­po­site the plateau of Prospect Heights, for af­ter hav­ing tacked off Claw Cape, she had drift­ed to­wards the north in the cur­rent of the ris­ing tide. One might have said that at this dis­tance she had al­ready en­tered the vast bay, for a straight line drawn from Claw Cape to Cape Mandible would have rest­ed on her star­board quar­ter.

Was the brig about to pen­etrate far in­to the bay? That was the first ques­tion. When once in the bay, would she an­chor there? That was the sec­ond. Would she not con­tent her­self with on­ly sur­vey­ing the coast, and stand out to sea again with­out land­ing her crew? They would know this in an hour. The colonists could do noth­ing but wait.

Cyrus Hard­ing had not seen the sus­pect­ed ves­sel hoist the black flag with­out deep anx­iety. Was it not a di­rect men­ace against the work which he and his com­pan­ions had till now con­duct­ed so suc­cess­ful­ly? Had these pi­rates–for the sailors of the brig could be noth­ing else–al­ready vis­it­ed the is­land, since on ap­proach­ing it they had hoist­ed their col­ors. Had they for­mer­ly in­vad­ed it, so that cer­tain un­ac­count­able pe­cu­liar­ities might be ex­plained in this way? Did there ex­ist in the as yet un­ex­plored parts some ac­com­plice ready to en­ter in­to com­mu­ni­ca­tion with them?

To all these ques­tions which he men­tal­ly asked him­self, Hard­ing knew not what to re­ply; but he felt that the safe­ty of the colony could not but be se­ri­ous­ly threat­ened by the ar­rival of the brig.

How­ev­er, he and his com­pan­ions were de­ter­mined to fight to the last gasp. It would have been very im­por­tant to know if the pi­rates were nu­mer­ous and bet­ter armed than the colonists. But how was this in­for­ma­tion to he ob­tained?

Night fell. The new moon had dis­ap­peared. Pro­found dark­ness en­veloped the is­land and the sea. No light could pierce through the heavy piles of clouds on the hori­zon. The wind had died away com­plete­ly with the twi­light. Not a leaf rus­tled on the trees, not a rip­ple mur­mured on the shore. Noth­ing could be seen of the ship, all her lights be­ing ex­tin­guished, and if she was still in sight of the is­land, her where­abouts could not be dis­cov­ered.

“Well! who knows?” said Pen­croft. “Per­haps that cursed craft will stand off dur­ing the night, and we shall see noth­ing of her at day­break.”

As if in re­ply to the sailor’s ob­ser­va­tion, a bright light flashed in the dark­ness, and a can­non-​shot was heard.

The ves­sel was still there and had guns on board.

Six sec­onds elapsed be­tween the flash and the re­port.

There­fore the brig was about a mile and a quar­ter from the coast.

At the same time, the chains were heard rat­tling through the hawse-​holes.

The ves­sel had just an­chored in sight of Gran­ite House!