Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 9

The con­va­les­cence of the young in­valid was reg­ular­ly pro­gress­ing. One thing on­ly was now to be de­sired, that his state would al­low him to be brought to Gran­ite House. How­ev­er well built and sup­plied the cor­ral house was, it could not be so com­fort­able as the healthy gran­ite dwelling. Be­sides, it did not of­fer the same se­cu­ri­ty, and its ten­ants, notwith­stand­ing their watch­ful­ness, were here al­ways in fear of some shot from the con­victs. There, on the con­trary, in the mid­dle of that im­preg­nable and in­ac­ces­si­ble cliff, they would have noth­ing to fear, and any at­tack on their per­sons would cer­tain­ly fail. They there­fore wait­ed im­pa­tient­ly for the mo­ment when Her­bert might be moved with­out dan­ger from his wound, and they were de­ter­mined to make this move, al­though the com­mu­ni­ca­tion through Ja­ca­mar Wood was very dif­fi­cult.

They had no news from Neb, but were not un­easy on that ac­count. The coura­geous Ne­gro, well en­trenched in the depths of Gran­ite House, would not al­low him­self to be sur­prised. Top had not been sent again to him, as it ap­peared use­less to ex­pose the faith­ful dog to some shot which might de­prive the set­tlers of their most use­ful aux­il­iary.

They wait­ed, there­fore, al­though they were anx­ious to be re­unit­ed at Gran­ite House. It pained the en­gi­neer to see his forces di­vid­ed, for it gave great ad­van­tage to the pi­rates. Since Ayr­ton’s dis­ap­pear­ance they were on­ly four against five, for Her­bert could not yet be count­ed, and this was not the least care of the brave boy, who well un­der­stood the trou­ble of which he was the cause.

The ques­tion of know­ing how, in their con­di­tion, they were to act against the pi­rates, was thor­ough­ly dis­cussed on the 29th of Novem­ber by Cyrus Hard­ing, Gideon Spilett, and Pen­croft, at a mo­ment when Her­bert was asleep and could not hear them.

“My friends,” said the re­porter, af­ter they had talked of Neb and of the im­pos­si­bil­ity of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with him, “I think,–like you, that to ven­ture on the road to the cor­ral would be to risk re­ceiv­ing a gun­shot with­out be­ing able to re­turn it. But do you not think that the best thing to be done now is to open­ly give chase to these wretch­es?”

“That is just what I was think­ing,” an­swered Pen­croft. “I be­lieve we’re not fel­lows to be afraid of a bul­let, and as for me, if Cap­tain Hard­ing ap­proves, I’m ready to dash in­to the for­est! Why, hang it, one man is equal to an­oth­er!”

“But is he equal to five?” asked the en­gi­neer.

“I will join Pen­croft,” said the re­porter, “and both of us, well-​armed and ac­com­pa­nied by Top–“

“My dear Spilett, and you, Pen­croft,” an­swered Hard­ing, “let us rea­son cool­ly. If the con­victs were hid in one spot of the is­land, if we knew that spot, and had on­ly to dis­lodge them, I would un­der­take a di­rect at­tack; but is there not oc­ca­sion to fear, on the con­trary, that they are sure to fire the first shot?”

“Well, cap­tain,” cried Pen­croft, “a bul­let does not al­ways reach its mark.”

“That which struck Her­bert did not miss, Pen­croft,” replied the en­gi­neer. “Be­sides, ob­serve that if both of you left the cor­ral I should re­main here alone to de­fend it. Do you imag­ine that the con­victs will not see you leave it, that they will not al­low you to en­ter the for­est, and that they will not at­tack it dur­ing your ab­sence, know­ing that there is no one here but a wound­ed boy and a man?”

“You are right, cap­tain,” replied Pen­croft, his chest swelling with sullen anger. “You are right; they will do all they can to re­take the cor­ral, which they know to be well stored; and alone you could not hold it against them.”

“Oh, if we were on­ly at Gran­ite House!”

“If we were at Gran­ite House,” an­swered the en­gi­neer, “the case would be very dif­fer­ent. There I should not be afraid to leave Her­bert with one, while the oth­er three went to search the forests of the is­land. But we are at the cor­ral, and it is best to stay here un­til we can leave it to­geth­er.”

Cyrus Hard­ing’s rea­son­ing was unan­swer­able, and his com­pan­ions un­der­stood it well.

“If on­ly Ayr­ton was still one of us!” said Gideon Spilett. “Poor fel­low! his re­turn to so­cial life will have been but of short du­ra­tion.”

“If he is dead,” added Pen­croft, in a pe­cu­liar tone.

“Do you hope, then, Pen­croft, that the vil­lains have spared him?” asked Gideon Spilett.

“Yes, if they had any in­ter­est in do­ing so.”

“What! you sup­pose that Ayr­ton find­ing his old com­pan­ions, for­get­ting all that he owes us–“

“Who knows?” an­swered the sailor, who did not haz­ard this shame­ful sup­po­si­tion with­out hes­itat­ing.

“Pen­croft,” said Hard­ing, tak­ing the sailor’s arm, “that is a wicked idea of yours, and you will dis­tress me much if you per­sist in speak­ing thus. I will an­swer for Ayr­ton’s fi­deli­ty.”

“And I al­so,” added the re­porter quick­ly.

“Yes, yes, cap­tain, I was wrong,” replied Pen­croft; “it was a wicked idea in­deed that I had, and noth­ing jus­ti­fies it. But what can I do? I’m not in my sens­es. This im­pris­on­ment in the cor­ral wea­ries me hor­ri­bly, and I have nev­er felt so ex­cit­ed as I do now.

“Be pa­tient, Pen­croft,” replied the en­gi­neer. “How long will it be, my dear Spilett, be­fore you think Her­bert may be car­ried to Gran­ite House?”

“That is dif­fi­cult to say, Cyrus,” an­swered the re­porter, “for any im­pru­dence might in­volve ter­ri­ble con­se­quences. But his con­va­les­cence is pro­gress­ing, and if he con­tin­ues to gain strength, in eight days from now– well, we shall see.”

Eight days! That would put off the re­turn to Gran­ite House un­til the first days of De­cem­ber. At this time two months of spring had al­ready passed. The weath­er was fine, and the heat be­gan to be great. The forests of the is­land were in full leaf, and the time was ap­proach­ing when the usu­al crops ought to be gath­ered. The re­turn to the plateau of Prospect Heights would, there­fore, be fol­lowed by ex­ten­sive agri­cul­tur­al labors, in­ter­rupt­ed on­ly by the pro­ject­ed ex­pe­di­tion through the is­land.

It can, there­fore, be well un­der­stood how in­ju­ri­ous this seclu­sion in the cor­ral must have been to the colonists.

But if they were com­pelled to bow be­fore ne­ces­si­ty, they did not do so with­out im­pa­tience.

Once or twice the re­porter ven­tured out in­to the road and made the tour of the pal­isade. Top ac­com­pa­nied him, and Gideon Spilett, his gun cocked, was ready for any emer­gen­cy.

He met with no mis­ad­ven­ture and found no sus­pi­cious traces. His dog would have warned him of any dan­ger, and, as Top did not bark, it might be con­clud­ed that there was noth­ing to fear at the mo­ment at least, and that the con­victs were oc­cu­pied in an­oth­er part of the is­land.

How­ev­er, on his sec­ond sor­tie, on the 27th of Novem­ber, Gideon Spilett, who had ven­tured a quar­ter of a mile in­to the woods, to­wards the south of the moun­tain, re­marked that Top scent­ed some­thing. The dog had no longer his un­con­cerned man­ner; he went back­wards and for­wards, fer­ret­ing among the grass and bush­es as if his smell had re­vealed some sus­pi­cious ob­ject to him.

Gideon Spilett fol­lowed Top, en­cour­aged him, ex­cit­ed him by his voice, while keep­ing a sharp look-​out, his gun ready to fire, and shel­ter­ing him­self be­hind the trees. It was not prob­able that Top scent­ed the pres­ence of man, for in that case, he would have an­nounced it by half-​ut­tered, sullen, an­gry barks. Now, as he did not growl, it was be­cause dan­ger was nei­ther near nor ap­proach­ing.

Near­ly five min­utes passed thus, Top rum­mag­ing, the re­porter fol­low­ing him pru­dent­ly when, all at once, the dog rushed to­wards a thick bush, and drew out a rag.

It was a piece of cloth, stained and torn, which Spilett im­me­di­ate­ly brought back to the cor­ral. There it was ex­am­ined by the colonists, who found that it was a frag­ment of Ayr­ton’s waist­coat, a piece of that felt, man­ufac­tured sole­ly by the Gran­ite House fac­to­ry.

“You see, Pen­croft,” ob­served Hard­ing, “there has been re­sis­tance on the part of the un­for­tu­nate Ayr­ton. The con­victs have dragged him away in spite of him­self! Do you still doubt his hon­esty?”

“No, cap­tain,” an­swered the sailor, “and I re­pent­ed of my sus­pi­cion a long time ago! But it seems to me that some­thing may be learned from the in­ci­dent.”

“What is that?” asked the re­porter.

“It is that Ayr­ton was not killed at the cor­ral! That they dragged him away liv­ing, since he has re­sist­ed. There­fore, per­haps, he is still liv­ing!”

“Per­haps, in­deed,” replied the en­gi­neer, who re­mained thought­ful.

This was a hope, to which Ayr­ton’s com­pan­ions could still hold. In­deed, they had be­fore be­lieved that, sur­prised in the cor­ral, Ayr­ton had fall­en by a bul­let, as Her­bert had fall­en. But if the con­victs had not killed him at first, if they had brought him liv­ing to an­oth­er part of the is­land, might it not be ad­mit­ted that he was still their pris­on­er? Per­haps, even, one of them had found in Ayr­ton his old Aus­tralian com­pan­ion Ben Joyce, the chief of the es­caped con­victs. And who knows but that they had con­ceived the im­pos­si­ble hope of bring­ing back Ayr­ton to them­selves? He would have been very use­ful to them, if they had been able to make him turn traitor!

This in­ci­dent was, there­fore, fa­vor­ably in­ter­pret­ed at the cor­ral, and it no longer ap­peared im­pos­si­ble that they should find Ayr­ton again. On his side, if he was on­ly a pris­on­er, Ayr­ton would no doubt do all he could to es­cape from the hands of the vil­lains, and this would be a pow­er­ful aid to the set­tlers!

“At any rate,” ob­served Gideon Spilett, “if hap­pi­ly Ayr­ton did man­age to es­cape, he would go di­rect­ly to Gran­ite House, for he could not know of the at­tempt­ed as­sas­si­na­tion of which Her­bert has been a vic­tim, and con­se­quent­ly would nev­er think of our be­ing im­pris­oned in the cor­ral.”

“Oh! I wish that he was there, at Gran­ite House!” cried Pen­croft, “and that we were there, too! For, al­though the ras­cals can do noth­ing to our house, they may plun­der the plateau, our plan­ta­tions, our poul­try-​yard!”

Pen­croft had be­come a thor­ough farmer, hearti­ly at­tached to his crops. But it must be said that Her­bert was more anx­ious than any to re­turn to Gran­ite House, for he knew how much the pres­ence of the set­tlers was need­ed there. And it was he who was keep­ing them at the cor­ral! There­fore, one idea oc­cu­pied his mind–to leave the cor­ral, and when! He be­lieved he could bear re­moval to Gran­ite House. He was sure his strength would re­turn more quick­ly in his room, with the air and sight of the sea!

Sev­er­al times he pressed Gideon Spilett, but the lat­ter, fear­ing, with good rea­son, that Her­bert’s wounds, half healed, might re­open on the way, did not give the or­der to start.

How­ev­er, some­thing oc­curred which com­pelled Cyrus Hard­ing and his two friends to yield to the lad’s wish, and God alone knew that this de­ter­mi­na­tion might cause them grief and re­morse.

It was the 29th of Novem­ber, sev­en o’clock in the evening. The three set­tlers were talk­ing in Her­bert’s room, when they heard Top ut­ter quick barks.

Hard­ing, Pen­croft, and Spilett seized their guns and ran out of the house. Top, at the foot of the pal­isade, was jump­ing, bark­ing, but it was with plea­sure, not anger.

“Some one is com­ing.”

“Yes.”

“It is not an en­emy!”

“Neb, per­haps?”

“Or Ayr­ton?”

These words had hard­ly been ex­changed be­tween the en­gi­neer and his two com­pan­ions when a body leaped over the pal­isade and fell on the ground in­side the cor­ral.

It was Jup, Mas­ter Jup in per­son, to whom Top im­me­di­ate­ly gave a most cor­dial re­cep­tion.

“Jup!” ex­claimed Pen­croft.

“Neb has sent him to us,” said the re­porter.

“Then,” replied the en­gi­neer, “he must have some note on him.”

Pen­croft rushed up to the orang. Cer­tain­ly if Neb had any im­por­tant mat­ter to com­mu­ni­cate to his mas­ter he could not em­ploy a more sure or more rapid mes­sen­ger, who could pass where nei­ther the colonists could, nor even Top him­self.

Cyrus Hard­ing was not mis­tak­en. At Jup’s neck hung a small bag, and in this bag was found a lit­tle note traced by Neb’s hand.

The de­spair of Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions may be imag­ined when they read these words:–

“Fri­day, six o’clock in the morn­ing.

“Plateau in­vad­ed by con­victs.

“Neb.”

They gazed at each oth­er with­out ut­ter­ing a word, then they re-​en­tered the house. what were they to do? The con­victs on Prospect Heights! that was dis­as­ter, dev­as­ta­tion, ru­in.

Her­bert, on see­ing the en­gi­neer, the re­porter, and Pen­croft re-​en­ter, guessed that their sit­ua­tion was ag­gra­vat­ed, and when he saw Jup, he no longer doubt­ed that some mis­for­tune men­aced Gran­ite House.

“Cap­tain Hard­ing,” said he, “I must go; I can bear the jour­ney. I must go.”

Gideon Spilett ap­proached Her­bert; then, hav­ing looked at him,–

“Let us go, then!” said he.

The ques­tion was quick­ly de­cid­ed whether Her­bert should be car­ried on a lit­ter or in the cart which had brought Ayr­ton to the cor­ral. The mo­tion of the lit­ter would have been more easy for the wound­ed lad, but it would have ne­ces­si­tat­ed two bear­ers, that is to say, there would have been two guns less for de­fense if an at­tack was made on the road. Would they not, on the con­trary, by em­ploy­ing the cart leave ev­ery arm free? Was it im­pos­si­ble to place the mat­tress on which Her­bert was ly­ing in it, and to ad­vance with so much care that any jolt should be avoid­ed? It could be done.

The cart was brought. Pen­croft har­nessed the on­ag­er. Cyrus Hard­ing and the re­porter raised Her­bert’s mat­tress and placed it on the bot­tom of the cart. The weath­er was fine. The sun’s bright rays glanced through the trees.

“Are the guns ready?” asked Cyrus Hard­ing.

They were. The en­gi­neer and Pen­croft, each armed with a dou­ble-​bar­reled gun, and Gideon Spilett car­ry­ing his ri­fle, had noth­ing to do but start.

“Are you com­fort­able, Her­bert?” asked the en­gi­neer.

“Ah, cap­tain,” replied the lad, “don’t be un­easy, I shall not die on the road!”

While speak­ing thus, it could be seen that the poor boy had called up all his en­er­gy, and by the en­er­gy of a pow­er­ful will had col­lect­ed his fail­ing strength.

The en­gi­neer felt his heart sink painful­ly. He still hes­itat­ed to give the sig­nal for de­par­ture; but that would have driv­en Her­bert to de­spair–killed him per­haps.

“For­ward!” said Hard­ing.

The gate of the cor­ral was opened. Jup and Top, who knew when to be silent, ran in ad­vance. The cart came out, the gate was re­closed, and the on­ag­er, led by Pen­croft, ad­vanced at a slow pace.

Cer­tain­ly, it would have been safer to have tak­en a dif­fer­ent road than that which led straight from the cor­ral to Gran­ite House, but the cart would have met with great dif­fi­cul­ties in mov­ing un­der the trees. It was nec­es­sary, there­fore, to fol­low this way, al­though it was well known to the con­victs.

Cyrus Hard­ing and Gideon Spilett walked one on each side of the cart, ready to an­swer to any at­tack. How­ev­er, it was not prob­able that the con­victs would have yet left the plateau of Prospect Heights.

Neb’s note had ev­ident­ly been writ­ten and sent as soon as the con­victs had shown them­selves there. Now, this note was dat­ed six o’clock in the morn­ing, and the ac­tive orang, ac­cus­tomed to come fre­quent­ly to the cor­ral, had tak­en scarce­ly three quar­ters of an hour to cross the five miles which sep­arat­ed it from Gran­ite House. They would, there­fore, be safe at that time, and if there was any oc­ca­sion for fir­ing, it would prob­ably not be un­til they were in the neigh­bor­hood of Gran­ite House. How­ev­er, the colonists kept a strict watch. Top and Jup, the lat­ter armed with his club, some­times in front, some­times beat­ing the wood at the sides of the road, sig­nal­ized no dan­ger.

The cart ad­vanced slow­ly un­der Pen­croft’s guid­ance. It had left the cor­ral at half-​past sev­en. An hour af­ter, four out of the five miles had been cleared, with­out any in­ci­dent hav­ing oc­curred. The road was as de­sert­ed as all that part of the Ja­ca­mar Wood which lay be­tween the Mer­cy and the lake. There was no oc­ca­sion for any warn­ing. The wood ap­peared as de­sert­ed as on the day when the colonists first land­ed on the is­land.

They ap­proached the plateau. An­oth­er mile and they would see the bridge over Creek Glyc­er­ine. Cyrus Hard­ing ex­pect­ed to find it in its place; sup­pos­ing that the con­victs would have crossed it, and that, af­ter hav­ing passed one of the streams which en­closed the plateau, they would have tak­en the pre­cau­tion to low­er it again, so as to keep open a re­treat.

At length an open­ing in the trees al­lowed the sea-​hori­zon to be seen. But the cart con­tin­ued its progress, for not one of its de­fend­ers thought of aban­don­ing it.

At that mo­ment Pen­croft stopped the on­ag­er, and in a hoarse voice,–

“Oh! the vil­lains!” he ex­claimed.

And he point­ed to a thick smoke ris­ing from the mill, the sheds, and the build­ings at the poul­try-​yard.

A man was mov­ing about in the midst of the smoke. It was Neb.

His com­pan­ions ut­tered a shout. He heard, and ran to meet them.

The con­victs had left the plateau near­ly half-​an-​hour be­fore, hav­ing dev­as­tat­ed it!

“And Mr. Her­bert?” asked Neb.

Gideon Spilett re­turned to the cart.

Her­bert had lost con­scious­ness!