Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 6

How­ev­er, the chief busi­ness of the colonists was to make that com­plete ex­plo­ration of the is­land which had been de­cid­ed up­on, and which would have two ob­jects: to dis­cov­er the mys­te­ri­ous be­ing whose ex­is­tence was now in­dis­putable, and at the same time to find out what had be­come of the pi­rates, what re­treat they had cho­sen, what sort of life they were lead­ing, and what was to be feared from them. Cyrus Hard­ing wished to set out with­out de­lay; but as the ex­pe­di­tion would be of some days du­ra­tion, it ap­peared best to load the cart with dif­fer­ent ma­te­ri­als and tools in or­der to fa­cil­itate the or­ga­ni­za­tion of the en­camp­ments. One of the on­agers, how­ev­er, hav­ing hurt its leg, could not be har­nessed at present, and a few days’ rest was nec­es­sary. The de­par­ture was, there­fore, put off for a week, un­til the 20th of Novem­ber. The month of Novem­ber in this lat­itude cor­re­sponds to the month of May in the north­ern zones. It was, there­fore, the fine sea­son. The sun was en­ter­ing the trop­ic of Capri­corn, and gave the longest days in the year. The time was, there­fore, very fa­vor­able for the pro­ject­ed ex­pe­di­tion, which, if it did not ac­com­plish its prin­ci­pal ob­ject, would at any rate be fruit­ful in dis­cov­er­ies, es­pe­cial­ly of nat­ural pro­duc­tions, since Hard­ing pro­posed to ex­plore those dense forests of the Far West, which stretched to the ex­trem­ity of the Ser­pen­tine Penin­su­la.

Dur­ing the nine days which pre­ced­ed their de­par­ture, it was agreed that the work on Prospect Heights should be fin­ished off.

More­over, it was nec­es­sary for Ayr­ton to re­turn to the cor­ral, where the do­mes­ti­cat­ed an­imals re­quired his care. It was de­cid­ed that he should spend two days there, and re­turn to Gran­ite House af­ter hav­ing lib­er­al­ly sup­plied the sta­bles.

As he was about to start, Hard­ing asked him if he would not like one of them to ac­com­pa­ny him, ob­serv­ing that the is­land was less safe than for­mer­ly. Ayr­ton replied that this was un­nec­es­sary, as he was enough for the work, and that be­sides he ap­pre­hend­ed no dan­ger. If any­thing oc­curred at the cor­ral, or in the neigh­bor­hood, he could in­stant­ly warn the colonists by send­ing a tele­gram to Gran­ite House.

Ayr­ton de­part­ed at dawn on the 9th, tak­ing the cart drawn by one on­ag­er, and two hours af­ter, the elec­tric wire an­nounced that he had found all in or­der at the cor­ral.

Dur­ing these two days Hard­ing bus­ied him­self in ex­ecut­ing a project which would com­plete­ly guard Gran­ite House against any sur­prise. It was nec­es­sary to com­plete­ly con­ceal the open­ing of the old out­let, which was al­ready walled up and part­ly hid­den un­der grass and plants, at the south­ern an­gle of Lake Grant. Noth­ing was eas­ier, since if the lev­el of the lake was raised two or three feet, the open­ing would be quite be­neath it. Now, to raise this lev­el they had on­ly to es­tab­lish a dam at the two open­ings made by the lake, and by which were fed Creek Glyc­er­ine and Falls Riv­er.

The colonists worked with a will, and the two dams which be­sides did not ex­ceed eight feet in width by three in height, were rapid­ly erect­ed by means of well-​ce­ment­ed blocks of stone.

This work fin­ished, it would have been im­pos­si­ble to guess that at that part of the lake, there ex­ist­ed a sub­ter­ranean pas­sage through which the over­flow of the lake for­mer­ly es­caped.

Of course the lit­tle stream which fed the reser­voir of Gran­ite House and worked the lift, had been care­ful­ly pre­served, and the wa­ter could not fail. The lift once raised, this sure and com­fort­able re­treat would be safe from any sur­prise.

This work had been so quick­ly done, that Pen­croft, Gideon Spilett, and Her­bert found time to make an ex­pe­di­tion to Port Bal­loon, The sailor was very anx­ious to know if the lit­tle creek in which the “Bonad­ven­ture” was moored, had been vis­it­ed by the con­victs.

“These gen­tle­men,” he ob­served, “land­ed on the south coast, and if they fol­lowed the shore, it is to be feared that they may have dis­cov­ered the lit­tle har­bor, and in that case, I wouldn’t give half-​a-​dol­lar for our ‘Bonad­ven­ture.’”

Pen­croft’s ap­pre­hen­sions were not with­out foun­da­tion, and a vis­it to Port Bal­loon ap­peared to be very de­sir­able. The sailor and his com­pan­ions set off on the 10th of Novem­ber, af­ter din­ner, well armed. Pen­croft, os­ten­ta­tious­ly slip­ping two bul­lets in­to each bar­rel of his ri­fle, shook his head in a way which be­to­kened noth­ing good to any one who ap­proached too near him, whether “man or beast,” as he said. Gideon Spilett and Her­bert al­so took their guns, and about three o’clock all three left Gran­ite House.

Neb ac­com­pa­nied them to the turn of the Mer­cy, and af­ter they had crossed, he raised the bridge. It was agreed that a gun­shot should an­nounce the colonists’ re­turn, and that at the sig­nal Neb should re­turn and reestab­lish the com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the two banks of the riv­er.

The lit­tle band ad­vanced di­rect­ly along the road which led to the south­ern coast of the is­land. This was on­ly a dis­tance of three miles and a half, but Gideon Spilett and his com­pan­ions took two hours to tra­verse it. They ex­am­ined all the bor­der of the road, the thick for­est, as well as Ta­bor Marsh. They found no trace of the fugi­tives who, no doubt, not hav­ing yet dis­cov­ered the num­ber of the colonists, or the means of de­fense which they had at their dis­pos­al, had gained the less ac­ces­si­ble parts of the is­land.

Ar­rived at Port Bal­loon, Pen­croft saw with ex­treme sat­is­fac­tion that the “Bonad­ven­ture” was tran­quil­ly float­ing in the nar­row creek. How­ev­er, Port Bal­loon was so well hid­den among high rocks, that it could scarce­ly be dis­cov­ered ei­ther from the land or the sea.

“Come,” said Pen­croft, “the black­guards have not been there yet. Long grass suits rep­tiles best, and ev­ident­ly we shall find them in the Far West.”

“And it’s very lucky, for if they had found the ‘Bonad­ven­ture’,” added Her­bert, “they would have gone off in her, and we should have been pre­vent­ed from re­turn­ing to Ta­bor Is­land.”

“In­deed,” re­marked the re­porter, “it will be im­por­tant to take a doc­ument there which will make known the sit­ua­tion of Lin­coln Is­land, and Ayr­ton’s new res­idence, in case the Scotch yacht re­turns to fetch him.”

“Well, the ‘Bonad­ven­ture’ is al­ways there, Mr. Spilett,” an­swered the sailor. “She and her crew are ready to start at a mo­ment’s no­tice!”

“I think, Pen­croft, that that is a thing to be done af­ter our ex­plo­ration of the is­land is fin­ished. It is pos­si­ble af­ter all that the stranger, if we man­age to find him, may know as much about Ta­bor Is­land as about Lin­coln Is­land. Do not for­get that he is cer­tain­ly the au­thor of the doc­ument, and he may, per­haps, know how far we may count on the re­turn of the yacht!”

“But!” ex­claimed Pen­croft, “who in the world can he be? The fel­low knows us and we know noth­ing about him! If he is a sim­ple cast­away, why should he con­ceal him­self! We are hon­est men, I sup­pose, and the so­ci­ety of hon­est men isn’t un­pleas­ant to any one. Did he come here vol­un­tar­ily? Can he leave the is­land if he likes? Is he here still? Will he re­main any longer?”

Chat­ting thus, Pen­croft, Gideon Spilett, and Her­bert got on board and looked about the deck of the “Bonad­ven­ture.” All at once, the sailor hav­ing ex­am­ined the bitts to which the ca­ble of the an­chor was se­cured,–

“Hal­lo,” he cried, “this is queer!”

“What is the mat­ter, Pen­croft?” asked the re­porter.

“The mat­ter is, that it was not I who made this knot!”

And Pen­croft showed a rope which fas­tened the ca­ble to the bitt it­self.

“What, it was not you?” asked Gideon Spilett.

“No! I can swear to it. This is a reef knot, and I al­ways make a run­ning bow­line.”

“You must be mis­tak­en, Pen­croft.”

“I am not mis­tak­en!” de­clared the sailor. “My hand does it so nat­ural­ly, and one’s hand is nev­er mis­tak­en!”

“Then can the con­victs have been on board?” asked Her­bert.

“I know noth­ing about that,” an­swered Pen­croft, “but what is cer­tain, is that some one has weighed the ‘Bonad­ven­ture’s’ an­chor and dropped it again! And look here, here is an­oth­er proof! The ca­ble of the an­chor has been run out, and its ser­vice is no longer at the hawse-​hole. I re­peat that some one has been us­ing our ves­sel!”

“But if the con­victs had used her, they would have pil­laged her, or rather gone off with her.”

“Gone off! where to–to Ta­bor Is­land?” replied Pen­croft. “Do you think, they would risk them­selves in a boat of such small ton­nage?”

“We must, be­sides, be sure that they know of the islet,” re­joined the re­porter.

“How­ev­er that may be,” said the sailor, “as sure as my name is Bonad­ven­ture Pen­croft, of the Vine­yard, our ‘Bonad­ven­ture’ has sailed with­out us!”

The sailor was pos­itive that nei­ther Gideon Spilett nor Her­bert could dis­pute his state­ment. It was ev­ident that the ves­sel had been moved, more or less, since Pen­croft had brought her to Port Bal­loon. As to the sailor, he had not the slight­est doubt that the an­chor had been raised and then dropped again. Now, what was the use of these two ma­neu­vers, un­less the ves­sel had been em­ployed in some ex­pe­di­tion?

“But how was it we did not see the ‘Bonad­ven­ture’ pass in the sight of the is­land?” ob­served the re­porter, who was anx­ious to bring for­ward ev­ery pos­si­ble ob­jec­tion.

“Why, Mr. Spilett,” replied the sailor, “they would on­ly have to start in the night with a good breeze, and they would be out of sight of the is­land in two hours.”

“Well,” re­sumed Gideon Spilett, “I ask again, what ob­ject could the con­victs have had in us­ing the ‘Bonad­ven­ture,’ and why, af­ter they had made use of her, should they have brought her back to port?”

“Why, Mr. Spilett,” replied the sailor, “we must put that among the un­ac­count­able things, and not think any­thing more about it. The chief thing is that the ‘Bonad­ven­ture’ was there, and she is there now. On­ly, un­for­tu­nate­ly, if the con­victs take her a sec­ond time, we shall very like­ly not find her again in her place!”

“Then, Pen­croft,” said Her­bert, “would it not be wis­est to bring the ‘Bonad­ven­ture’ off to Gran­ite House?”

“Yes and no,” an­swered Pen­croft, “or rather no. The mouth of the Mer­cy is a bad place for a ves­sel, and the sea is heavy there.”

“But by haul­ing her up on the sand, to the foot of the Chim­neys?”

“Per­haps yes,” replied Pen­croft. “At any rate, since we must leave Gran­ite House for a long ex­pe­di­tion, I think the ‘Bonad­ven­ture’ will be safer here dur­ing our ab­sence, and we shall do best to leave her here un­til the is­land is rid of these black­guards.”

“That is ex­act­ly my opin­ion,” said the re­porter. “At any rate in the event of bad weath­er, she will not be ex­posed here as she would be at the mouth of the Mer­cy.”

“But sup­pose the con­victs pay her an­oth­er vis­it,” said Her­bert.

“Well, my boy,” replied Pen­croft, “not find­ing her here, they would not be long in find­ing her on the sands of Gran­ite House, and, dur­ing our ab­sence, noth­ing could hin­der them from seiz­ing her! I agree, there­fore, with Mr. Spilett, that she must be left in Port Bal­loon. But, if on our re­turn we have not rid the is­land of those ras­cals, it will be pru­dent to bring our boat to Gran­ite House, un­til the time when we need not fear any un­pleas­ant vis­its.”

“That’s set­tled. Let us be off,” said the re­porter.

Pen­croft, Her­bert, and Gideon Spilett, on their re­turn to Gran­ite House, told the en­gi­neer all that had passed, and the lat­ter ap­proved of their ar­range­ments both for the present and the fu­ture. He al­so promised the sailor that he would study that part of the chan­nel sit­uat­ed be­tween the islet and the coast, so as to as­cer­tain if it would not be pos­si­ble to make an ar­ti­fi­cial har­bor there by means of dams. In this way, the “Bonad­ven­ture” would be al­ways with­in reach, un­der the eyes of the colonists, and if nec­es­sary, un­der lock and key.

That evening a tele­gram was sent to Ayr­ton, re­quest­ing him to bring from the cor­ral a cou­ple of goats, which Neb wished to ac­cli­ma­tize to the plateau. Sin­gu­lar­ly enough, Ayr­ton did not ac­knowl­edge the re­ceipt of the despatch, as he was ac­cus­tomed to do. This could not but as­ton­ish the en­gi­neer. But it might be that Ayr­ton was not at that mo­ment in the cor­ral, or even that he was on his way back to Gran­ite House. In fact, two days had al­ready passed since his de­par­ture, and it had been de­cid­ed that on the evening of the 10th or at the lat­est the morn­ing of the 11th, he should re­turn. The colonists wait­ed, there­fore, for Ayr­ton to ap­pear on Prospect Heights. Neb and Her­bert even watched at the bridge so as to be ready to low­er it the mo­ment their com­pan­ion pre­sent­ed him­self.

But up to ten in the evening, there were no signs of Ayr­ton. It was, there­fore, judged best to send a fresh despatch, re­quir­ing an im­me­di­ate re­ply.

The bell of the tele­graph at Gran­ite House re­mained mute.

The colonists’ un­easi­ness was great. What had hap­pened? Was Ayr­ton no longer at the cor­ral, or if he was still there, had he no longer con­trol over his move­ments? Could they go to the cor­ral in this dark night?

They con­sult­ed. Some wished to go, the oth­ers to re­main.

“But,” said Her­bert, “per­haps some ac­ci­dent has hap­pened to the tele­graph­ic ap­pa­ra­tus, so that it works no longer?”

“That may be,” said the re­porter.

“Wait till to-​mor­row,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing. “It is pos­si­ble, in­deed, that Ayr­ton has not re­ceived our despatch, or even that we have not re­ceived his.”

They wait­ed, of course not with­out some anx­iety.

At dawn of day, the 11th of Novem­ber, Hard­ing again sent the elec­tric cur­rent along the wire and re­ceived no re­ply.

He tried again: the same re­sult.

“Off to the cor­ral,” said he.

“And well armed!” added Pen­croft.

It was im­me­di­ate­ly de­cid­ed that Gran­ite House should not be left alone and that Neb should re­main there. Af­ter hav­ing ac­com­pa­nied his friends to Creek Glyc­er­ine, he raised the bridge; and wait­ing be­hind a tree he watched for the re­turn of ei­ther his com­pan­ions or Ayr­ton.

In the event of the pi­rates pre­sent­ing them­selves and at­tempt­ing to force the pas­sage, he was to en­deav­or to stop them by fir­ing on them, and as a last re­source he was to take refuge in Gran­ite House, where, the lift once raised, he would be in safe­ty.

Cyrus Hard­ing, Gideon Spilett, Her­bert, and Pen­croft were to re­pair to the cor­ral, and if they did not find Ayr­ton, search the neigh­bor­ing woods.

At six o’clock in the morn­ing, the en­gi­neer and his three com­pan­ions had passed Creek Glyc­er­ine, and Neb post­ed him­self be­hind a small mound crowned by sev­er­al drag­on trees, on the left bank of the stream.

The colonists, af­ter leav­ing the plateau of Prospect Heights, im­me­di­ate­ly took the road to the cor­ral. They shoul­dered their guns, ready to fire on the slight­est hos­tile demon­stra­tion. The two ri­fles and the two guns had been load­ed with ball.

The wood was thick on each side of the road and might eas­ily have con­cealed the con­victs, who ow­ing to their weapons would have been re­al­ly formidable.

The colonists walked rapid­ly and in si­lence. Top pre­ced­ed them, some­times run­ning on the road, some­times tak­ing a ram­ble in­to the wood, but al­ways qui­et and not ap­pear­ing to fear any­thing un­usu­al. And they could be sure that the faith­ful dog would not al­low them to be sur­prised, but would bark at the least ap­pear­ance of dan­ger.

Cyrus Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions fol­lowed be­side the road the wire which con­nect­ed the cor­ral with Gran­ite House. Af­ter walk­ing for near­ly two miles, they had not as yet dis­cov­ered any ex­pla­na­tion of the dif­fi­cul­ty. The posts were in good or­der, the wire reg­ular­ly ex­tend­ed. How­ev­er, at that mo­ment the en­gi­neer ob­served that the wire ap­peared to be slack, and on ar­riv­ing at post No. 74, Her­bert, who was in ad­vance stopped, ex­claim­ing,–

“The wire is bro­ken!”

His com­pan­ions hur­ried for­ward and ar­rived at the spot where the lad was stand­ing. The post was root­ed up and ly­ing across the path. The un­ex­pect­ed ex­pla­na­tion of the dif­fi­cul­ty was here, and it was ev­ident that the despatch­es from Gran­ite House had not been re­ceived at the cor­ral, nor those from the cor­ral at Gran­ite House.

“It wasn’t the wind that blew down this post,” ob­served Pen­croft.

“No,” replied Gideon Spilett. “The earth has been dug up round its foot, and it has been torn up by the hand of man.”

“Be­sides, the wire is bro­ken,” added Her­bert, show­ing that the wire had been snapped.

“Is the frac­ture re­cent?” asked Hard­ing.

“Yes,” an­swered Her­bert, “it has cer­tain­ly been done quite late­ly.”

“To the cor­ral! to the cor­ral!” ex­claimed the sailor.

The colonists were now half way be­tween Gran­ite House and the cor­ral, hav­ing still two miles and a half to go. They pressed for­ward with re­dou­bled speed.

In­deed, it was to be feared that some se­ri­ous ac­ci­dent had oc­curred in the cor­ral. No doubt, Ayr­ton might have sent a tele­gram which had not ar­rived, but this was not the rea­son why his com­pan­ions were so un­easy, for, a more un­ac­count­able cir­cum­stance, Ayr­ton, who had promised to re­turn the evening be­fore, had not reap­peared. In short, it was not with­out a mo­tive that all com­mu­ni­ca­tion had been stopped be­tween the cor­ral and Gran­ite House, and who but the con­victs could have any in­ter­est in in­ter­rupt­ing this com­mu­ni­ca­tion?

The set­tlers has­tened on, their hearts op­pressed with anx­iety. They were sin­cere­ly at­tached to their new com­pan­ion. Were they to find him struck down by the hands of those of whom he was for­mer­ly the lead­er?

Soon they ar­rived at the place where the road led along the side of the lit­tle stream which flowed from the Red Creek and wa­tered the mead­ows of the cor­ral. They then mod­er­at­ed their pace so that they should not be out of breath at the mo­ment when a strug­gle might be nec­es­sary. Their guns were in their hands ready cocked. The for­est was watched on ev­ery side. Top ut­tered sullen groans which were rather omi­nous.

At last the pal­isade ap­peared through the trees. No trace of any dam­age could be seen. The gate was shut as usu­al. Deep si­lence reigned in the cor­ral. Nei­ther the ac­cus­tomed bleat­ing of the sheep nor Ayr­ton’s voice could be heard.

“Let us en­ter,” said Cyrus Hard­ing.

And the en­gi­neer ad­vanced, while his com­pan­ions, keep­ing watch about twen­ty paces be­hind him, were ready to fire at a mo­ment’s no­tice.

Hard­ing raised the in­ner latch of the gate and was about to push it back, when Top barked loud­ly. A re­port sound­ed and was re­spond­ed to by a cry of pain.

Her­bert, struck by a bul­let, lay stretched on the ground.