Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 15

The colonists, warned by the en­gi­neer, left their work and gazed in si­lence at the sum­mit of Mount Franklin.

The vol­cano had awoke, and the va­por had pen­etrat­ed the min­er­al lay­er heaped at the bot­tom of the crater. But would the sub­ter­ranean fires pro­voke any vi­olent erup­tion? This was an event which could not be fore­seen. How­ev­er, even while ad­mit­ting the pos­si­bil­ity of an erup­tion, it was not prob­able that the whole of Lin­coln Is­land would suf­fer from it. The flow of vol­canic mat­ter is not al­ways dis­as­trous, and the is­land had al­ready un­der­gone this tri­al, as was shown by the streams of la­va hard­ened on the north­ern slopes of the moun­tain. Be­sides, from the shape of the crater–the open­ing bro­ken in the up­per edge–the mat­ter would be thrown to the side op­po­site the fer­tile re­gions of the is­land.

How­ev­er, the past did not nec­es­sar­ily an­swer for the fu­ture. Of­ten, at the sum­mit of vol­ca­noes, the old craters close and new ones open. This had oc­curred in the two hemi­spheres–at Et­na, Popocate­petl, at Oriz­abaand on the eve of an erup­tion there is ev­ery­thing to be feared. In fact, an earth­quake–a phe­nomenon which of­ten ac­com­pa­nies vol­canic erup­tion–is enough to change the in­te­ri­or ar­range­ment of a moun­tain, and to open new out­lets for the burn­ing la­va.

Cyrus Hard­ing ex­plained these things to his com­pan­ions, and, with­out ex­ag­ger­at­ing the state of things, he told them all the pros and cons. Af­ter all, they could not pre­vent it. It did not ap­pear like­ly that Gran­ite House would be threat­ened un­less the ground was shak­en by an earth­quake. But the cor­ral would be in great dan­ger should a new crater open in the south­ern side of Mount Franklin.

From that day the smoke nev­er dis­ap­peared from the top of the moun­tain, and it could even be per­ceived that it in­creased in height and thick­ness, with­out any flame min­gling in its heavy vol­umes. The phe­nomenon was still con­cen­trat­ed in the low­er part of the cen­tral crater.

How­ev­er, with the fine days work had been con­tin­ued. The build­ing of the ves­sel was has­tened as much as pos­si­ble, and, by means of the wa­ter­fall on the shore, Cyrus Hard­ing man­aged to es­tab­lish an hy­draulic sawmill, which rapid­ly cut up the trunks of trees in­to planks and joists. The mech­anism of this ap­pa­ra­tus was as sim­ple as those used in the rus­tic sawmills of Nor­way. A first hor­izon­tal move­ment to move the piece of wood, a sec­ond ver­ti­cal move­ment to move the saw–this was all that was want­ed; and the en­gi­neer suc­ceed­ed by means of a wheel, two cylin­ders, and pul­leys prop­er­ly ar­ranged. To­wards the end of the month of Septem­ber the skele­ton of the ves­sel, which was to be rigged as a schooner, lay in the dock­yard. The ribs were al­most en­tire­ly com­plet­ed, and, all the tim­bers hav­ing been sus­tained by a pro­vi­sion­al band, the shape of the ves­sel could al­ready be seen. The schooner, sharp in the bows, very slen­der in the af­ter-​part, would ev­ident­ly be suit­able for a long voy­age, if want­ed; but lay­ing the plank­ing would still take a con­sid­er­able time. Very for­tu­nate­ly, the iron work of the pi­rate brig had been saved af­ter the ex­plo­sion. From the planks and in­jured ribs Pen­croft and Ayr­ton had ex­tract­ed the bolts and a large quan­ti­ty of cop­per nails. It was so much work saved for the smiths, but the car­pen­ters had much to do.

Ship­build­ing was in­ter­rupt­ed for a week for the har­vest, the hay­mak­ing, and the gath­er­ing in of the dif­fer­ent crops on the plateau. This work fin­ished, ev­ery mo­ment was de­vot­ed to fin­ish­ing the schooner. When night came the work­men were re­al­ly quite ex­haust­ed. So as not to lose any time they had changed the hours for their meals; they dined at twelve o’clock, and on­ly had their sup­per when day­light failed them. They then as­cend­ed to Gran­ite House, when they were al­ways ready to go to bed.

Some­times, how­ev­er, when the con­ver­sa­tion bore on some in­ter­est­ing sub­ject the hour for sleep was de­layed for a time. The colonists then spoke of the fu­ture, and talked will­ing­ly of the changes which a voy­age in the schooner to in­hab­it­ed lands would make in their sit­ua­tion. But al­ways, in the midst of these plans, pre­vailed the thought of a sub­se­quent re­turn to Lin­coln Is­land. Nev­er would they aban­don this colony, found­ed with so much la­bor and with such suc­cess, and to which a com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Amer­ica would af­ford a fresh im­pe­tus. Pen­croft and Neb es­pe­cial­ly hoped to end their days there.

“Her­bert,” said the sailor, “you will nev­er aban­don Lin­coln Is­land?”

“Nev­er, Pen­croft, and es­pe­cial­ly if you make up your mind to stay there.”

“That was made up long ago, my boy,” an­swered Pen­croft. “I shall ex­pect you. You will bring me your wife and chil­dren, and I shall make jol­ly chaps of your young­sters!”

“That’s agreed,” replied Her­bert, laugh­ing and blush­ing at the same time.

“And you, Cap­tain Hard­ing,” re­sumed Pen­croft en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly, “you will be still the gov­er­nor of the is­land! Ah, how many in­hab­itants could it sup­port? Ten thou­sand at least!”

They talked in this way, al­low­ing Pen­croft to run on, and at last the re­porter ac­tu­al­ly start­ed a news­pa­per–the New Lin­coln Her­ald!

So is man’s heart. The de­sire to per­form a work which will en­dure, which will sur­vive him, is the ori­gin of his su­pe­ri­or­ity over all oth­er liv­ing crea­tures here be­low. It is this which has es­tab­lished his do­min­ion, and this it is which jus­ti­fies it, over all the world.

Af­ter that, who knows if Jup and Top had not them­selves their lit­tle dream of the fu­ture.

Ayr­ton silent­ly said to him­self that he would like to see Lord Gle­nar­van again and show him­self to all re­stored.

One evening, on the 15th of Oc­to­ber, the con­ver­sa­tion was pro­longed lat­er than usu­al. It was nine o’clock. Al­ready, long bad­ly con­cealed yawns gave warn­ing of the hour of rest, and Pen­croft was pro­ceed­ing to­wards his bed, when the elec­tric bell, placed in the din­ing-​room, sud­den­ly rang.

All were there, Cyrus Hard­ing, Gideon Spilett, Her­bert, Ayr­ton, Pen­croft, Neb. There­fore none of the colonists were at the cor­ral.

Cyrus Hard­ing rose. His com­pan­ions stared at each oth­er, scarce­ly be­liev­ing their ears.

“What does that mean?” cried Neb. “Was it the dev­il who rang it?”

No one an­swered.

“The weath­er is stormy,” ob­served Her­bert. “Might not its in­flu­ence of elec­tric­ity–“

Her­bert did not fin­ish his phrase. The en­gi­neer, to­wards whom all eyes were turned, shook his head neg­ative­ly.

“We must wait,” said Gideon Spilett. “If it is a sig­nal, who­ev­er it may be who has made it, he will re­new it.”

“But who do you think it is?” cried Neb.

“Who?” an­swered Pen­croft, “but he–“

The sailor’s sen­tence was cut short by a new tin­kle of the bell.

Hard­ing went to the ap­pa­ra­tus, and sent this ques­tion to the cor­ral:–

“What do you want?”

A few mo­ments lat­er the nee­dle, mov­ing on the al­pha­bet­ic di­al, gave this re­ply to the ten­ants of Gran­ite House:–

“Come to the cor­ral im­me­di­ate­ly.”

“At last!” ex­claimed Hard­ing.

Yes! At last! The mys­tery was about to be un­veiled. The colonists’ fa­tigue had dis­ap­peared be­fore the tremen­dous in­ter­est which was about to urge them to the cor­ral, and all wish for rest had ceased. With­out hav­ing ut­tered a word, in a few mo­ments they had left Gran­ite House, and were stand­ing on the beach. Jup and Top alone were left be­hind. They could do with­out them.

The night was black. The new moon had dis­ap­peared at the same time as the sun. As Her­bert had ob­served, great stormy clouds formed a low­er­ing and heavy vault, pre­vent­ing any star rays. A few light­ning flash­es, re­flec­tions from a dis­tant storm, il­lu­mi­nat­ed the hori­zon.

It was pos­si­ble that a few hours lat­er the thun­der would roll over the is­land it­self. The night was very threat­en­ing.

But how­ev­er deep the dark­ness was, it would not pre­vent them from find­ing the fa­mil­iar road to the cor­ral.

They as­cend­ed the left bank of the Mer­cy, reached the plateau, passed the bridge over Creek Glyc­er­ine, and ad­vanced through the for­est.

They walked at a good pace, a prey to the liveli­est emo­tions. There was no doubt but that they were now go­ing to learn the long-​searched-​for an­swer to the enig­ma, the name of that mys­te­ri­ous be­ing, so deeply con­cerned in their life, so gen­er­ous in his in­flu­ence, so pow­er­ful in his ac­tion! Must not this stranger have in­deed min­gled with their ex­is­tence, have known the small­est de­tails, have heard all that was said in Gran­ite House, to have been able al­ways to act in the very nick of time?

Ev­ery one, wrapped up in his own re­flec­tions, pressed for­ward. Un­der the arch of trees the dark­ness was such that even the edge of the road could not be seen. Not a sound in the for­est. Both an­imals and birds, in­flu­enced by the heav­iness of the at­mo­sphere, re­mained mo­tion­less and silent. Not a breath dis­turbed the leaves. The foot­steps of the colonists alone re­sound­ed on the hard­ened ground.

Dur­ing the first quar­ter of an hour the si­lence was on­ly in­ter­rupt­ed by this re­mark from Pen­croft:–

“We ought to have brought a torch.”

And by this re­ply from the en­gi­neer:–

“We shall find one at the cor­ral.”

Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions had left Gran­ite House at twelve min­utes past nine. At forty-​sev­en min­utes past nine they had tra­versed three out of the five miles which sep­arat­ed the mouth of the Mer­cy from the cor­ral.

At that mo­ment sheets of light­ning spread over the is­land and il­lu­mined the dark trees. The flash­es daz­zled and al­most blind­ed them. Ev­ident­ly the storm would not be long in burst­ing forth.

The flash­es grad­ual­ly be­came brighter and more rapid. Dis­tant thun­der growled in the sky. The at­mo­sphere was sti­fling.

The colonists pro­ceed­ed as if they were urged on­wards by some ir­re­sistible force.

At ten o’clock a vivid flash showed them the pal­isade, and as they reached the gate the storm burst forth with tremen­dous fury.

In a minute the cor­ral was crossed, and Hard­ing stood be­fore the hut.

Prob­ably the house was oc­cu­pied by the stranger, since it was from thence that the tele­gram had been sent. How­ev­er, no light shone through the win­dow.

The en­gi­neer knocked at the door.

No an­swer.

Cyrus Hard­ing opened the door, and the set­tlers en­tered the room, which was per­fect­ly dark. A light was struck by Neb, and in a few mo­ments the lantern was light­ed and the light thrown in­to ev­ery cor­ner of the room.

There was no one there. Ev­ery­thing was in the state in which it had been left.

“Have we been de­ceived by an il­lu­sion?” mur­mured Cyrus Hard­ing.

No! that was not pos­si­ble! The tele­gram had clear­ly said,–

“Come to the cor­ral im­me­di­ate­ly.”

They ap­proached the ta­ble spe­cial­ly de­vot­ed to the use of the wire. Ev­ery­thing was in or­der–the pile on the box con­tain­ing it, as well as all the ap­pa­ra­tus.

“Who came here the last time?” asked the en­gi­neer.

“I did, cap­tain,” an­swered Ayr­ton.

“And that was–“

“Four days ago.”

“Ah! a note!” cried Her­bert, point­ing to a pa­per ly­ing on the ta­ble.

On this pa­per were writ­ten these words in En­glish:–

“Fol­low the new wire.”

“For­ward!” cried Hard­ing, who un­der­stood that the despatch had not been sent from the cor­ral, but from the mys­te­ri­ous re­treat, com­mu­ni­cat­ing di­rect­ly with Gran­ite House by means of a sup­ple­men­tary wire joined to the old one.

Neb took the light­ed lantern, and all left the cor­ral. The storm then burst forth with tremen­dous vi­olence. The in­ter­val be­tween each light­ning- flash and each thun­der-​clap di­min­ished rapid­ly. The sum­mit of the vol­cano, with its plume of va­por, could be seen by oc­ca­sion­al flash­es.

There was no tele­graph­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion in any part of the cor­ral be­tween the house and the pal­isade; but the en­gi­neer, run­ning straight to the first post, saw by the light of a flash a new wire hang­ing from the iso­la­tor to the ground.

“There it is!” said he.

This wire lay along the ground, and was sur­round­ed with an iso­lat­ing sub­stance like a sub­ma­rine ca­ble, so as to as­sure the free trans­mis­sion of the cur­rent. It ap­peared to pass through the wood and the south­ern spurs of the moun­tain, and con­se­quent­ly it ran to­wards the west.

“Fol­low it!” said Cyrus Hard­ing.

And the set­tlers im­me­di­ate­ly pressed for­ward, guid­ed by the wire.

The thun­der con­tin­ued to roar with such vi­olence that not a word could be heard. How­ev­er, there was no oc­ca­sion for speak­ing, but to get for­ward as fast as pos­si­ble.

Cyrus Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions then climbed the spur ris­ing be­tween the cor­ral val­ley and that of Falls Riv­er, which they crossed at its nar­row­est part. The wire, some­times stretched over the low­er branch­es of the trees, some­times ly­ing on the ground, guid­ed them sure­ly. The en­gi­neer had sup­posed that the wire would per­haps stop at the bot­tom of the val­ley, and that the stranger’s re­treat would be there.

Noth­ing of the sort. They were obliged to as­cend the south-​west­ern spur, and re-​de­scend on that arid plateau ter­mi­nat­ed by the strange­ly-​wild basalt cliff. From time to time one of the colonists stooped down and felt for the wire with his hands; but there was now no doubt that the wire was run­ning di­rect­ly to­wards the sea. There, to a cer­tain­ty, in the depths of those rocks, was the dwelling so long sought for in vain.

The sky was lit­er­al­ly on fire. Flash suc­ceed­ed flash. Sev­er­al struck the sum­mit of the vol­cano in the midst of the thick smoke. It ap­peared there as if the moun­tain was vom­it­ing flame. At a few min­utes to eleven the colonists ar­rived on the high cliff over­look­ing the ocean to the west. The wind had risen. The surf roared 500 feet be­low.

Hard­ing cal­cu­lat­ed that they had gone a mile and a half from the cor­ral.

At this point the wire en­tered among the rocks, fol­low­ing the steep side of a nar­row ravine. The set­tlers fol­lowed it at the risk of oc­ca­sion­ing a fall of the slight­ly-​bal­anced rocks, and be­ing dashed in­to the sea. The de­scent was ex­treme­ly per­ilous, but they did not think of the dan­ger; they were no longer mas­ters of them­selves, and an ir­re­sistible at­trac­tion drew them to­wards this mys­te­ri­ous place as the mag­net draws iron.

Thus they al­most un­con­scious­ly de­scend­ed this ravine, which even in broad day­light would have been con­sid­ered im­prac­ti­ca­ble.

The stones rolled and sparkled like fiery balls when they crossed through the gleams of light. Hard­ing was first–Ayr­ton last. On they went, step by step. Now they slid over the slip­pery rock; then they strug­gled to their feet and scram­bled on.

At last the wire touched the rocks on the beach. The colonists had reached the bot­tom of the basalt cliff.

There ap­peared a nar­row ridge, run­ning hor­izon­tal­ly and par­al­lel with the sea. The set­tlers fol­lowed the wire along it. They had not gone a hun­dred paces when the ridge by a mod­er­ate in­cline sloped down to the lev­el of the sea.

The en­gi­neer seized the wire and found that it dis­ap­peared be­neath the waves.

His com­pan­ions were stu­pe­fied.

A cry of dis­ap­point­ment, al­most a cry of de­spair, es­caped them! Must they then plunge be­neath the wa­ter and seek there for some sub­ma­rine cav­ern? In their ex­cit­ed state they would not have hes­itat­ed to do it.

The en­gi­neer stopped them.

He led his com­pan­ions to a hol­low in the rocks, and there–

“We must wait,” said he. “The tide is high. At low wa­ter the way will be open.”

“But what can make you think-” asked Pen­croft.

“He would not have called us if the means had been want­ing to en­able us to reach him!”

Cyrus Hard­ing spoke in a tone of such thor­ough con­vic­tion that no ob­jec­tion was raised. His re­mark, be­sides, was log­ical. It was quite pos­si­ble that an open­ing, prac­ti­ca­ble at low wa­ter, though hid­den now by the high tide, opened at the foot of the cliff.

There was some time to wait. The colonists re­mained silent­ly crouch­ing in a deep hol­low. Rain now be­gan to fall in tor­rents. The thun­der was re- echoed among the rocks with a grand sonorous­ness.

The colonists’ emo­tion was great. A thou­sand strange and ex­traor­di­nary ideas crossed their brains, and they ex­pect­ed some grand and su­per­hu­man ap­pari­tion, which alone could come up to the no­tion they had formed of the mys­te­ri­ous ge­nius of the is­land.

At mid­night, Hard­ing car­ry­ing the lantern, de­scend­ed to the beach to re­con­noi­ter.

The en­gi­neer was not mis­tak­en. The be­gin­ning of an im­mense ex­ca­va­tion could be seen un­der the wa­ter. There the wire, bend­ing at a right an­gle, en­tered the yawn­ing gulf.

Cyrus Hard­ing re­turned to his com­pan­ions, and said sim­ply,–

“In an hour the open­ing will be prac­ti­ca­ble.”

“It is there, then?” said Pen­croft.

“Did you doubt it?” re­turned Hard­ing.

“But this cav­ern must be filled with wa­ter to a cer­tain height,” ob­served Her­bert.

“Ei­ther the cav­ern will be com­plete­ly dry,” replied Hard­ing, “and in that case we can tra­verse it on foot, or it will not be dry, and some means of trans­port will be put at our dis­pos­al.”

An hour passed. All climbed down through the rain to the lev­el of the sea. There was now eight feet of the open­ing above the wa­ter. It was like the arch of a bridge, un­der which rushed the foam­ing wa­ter.

Lean­ing for­ward, the en­gi­neer saw a black ob­ject float­ing on the wa­ter. He drew it to­wards him. It was a boat, moored to some in­te­ri­or pro­jec­tion of the cave. This boat was iron-​plat­ed. Two oars lay at the bot­tom.

“Jump in!” said Hard­ing.

In a mo­ment the set­tlers were in the boat. Neb and Ayr­ton took the oars, Pen­croft the rud­der. Cyrus Hard­ing in the bows, with the lantern, light­ed the way.

The el­lip­ti­cal roof, un­der which the boat at first passed, sud­den­ly rose; but the dark­ness was too deep, and the light of the lantern too slight, for ei­ther the ex­tent, length, height, or depth of the cave to be as­cer­tained. Solemn si­lence reigned in this basaltic cav­ern. Not a sound could pen­etrate in­to it, even the thun­der peals could not pierce its thick sides.

Such im­mense caves ex­ist in var­ious parts of the world, nat­ural crypts dat­ing from the ge­olog­ical epoch of the globe. Some are filled by the sea; oth­ers con­tain en­tire lakes in their sides. Such is Fin­gal’s Cave, in the is­land of Staffa, one of the He­brides; such are the caves of Mor­gat, in the bay of Douarnenez, in Brit­tany, the caves of Boni­fa­cio, in Cor­si­ca, those of Lyse-​Fjord, in Nor­way; such are the im­mense Mam­moth cav­erns in Ken­tucky, 500 feet in height, and more than twen­ty miles in length! In many parts of the globe, na­ture has ex­ca­vat­ed these cav­erns, and pre­served them for the ad­mi­ra­tion of man.

Did the cav­ern which the set­tlers were now ex­plor­ing ex­tend to the cen­ter of the is­land? For a quar­ter of an hour the boat had been ad­vanc­ing, mak­ing de­tours, in­di­cat­ed to Pen­croft by the en­gi­neer in short sen­tences, when all at once,–

“More to the right!” he com­mand­ed.

The boat, al­ter­ing its course, came up along­side the right wall. The en­gi­neer wished to see if the wire still ran along the side.

The wire was there fas­tened to the rock.

“For­ward!” said Hard­ing.

And the two oars, plung­ing in­to the dark wa­ters, urged the boat on­wards.

On they went for an­oth­er quar­ter of an hour, and a dis­tance of half-​a- mile must have been cleared from the mouth of the cave, when Hard­ing’s voice was again heard.

“Stop!” said he.

The boat stopped, and the colonists per­ceived a bright light il­lu­mi­nat­ing the vast cav­ern, so deeply ex­ca­vat­ed in the bow­els of the is­land, of which noth­ing had ev­er led them to sus­pect the ex­is­tence.

At a height of a hun­dred feet rose the vault­ed roof, sup­port­ed on basalt shafts. Ir­reg­ular arch­es, strange mold­ings, ap­peared on the columns erect­ed by na­ture in thou­sands from the first epochs of the for­ma­tion of the globe. The basalt pil­lars, fit­ted one in­to the oth­er, mea­sured from forty to fifty feet in height, and the wa­ter, calm in spite of the tu­mult out­side, washed their base. The bril­liant fo­cus of light, point­ed out by the en­gi­neer, touched ev­ery point of rocks, and flood­ed the walls with light.

By re­flec­tion the wa­ter re­pro­duced the bril­liant sparkles, so that the boat ap­peared to be float­ing be­tween two glit­ter­ing zones. They could not be mis­tak­en in the na­ture of the ir­ra­di­ation thrown from the glow­ing nu­cle­us, whose clear rays were shat­tered by all the an­gles, all the pro­jec­tions of the cav­ern. This light pro­ceed­ed from an elec­tric source, and its white col­or be­trayed its ori­gin. It was the sun of this cave, and it filled it en­tire­ly.

At a sign from Cyrus Hard­ing the oars again plunged in­to the wa­ter, caus­ing a reg­ular show­er of gems, and the boat was urged for­ward to­wards the light, which was now not more than half a ca­ble’s length dis­tant.

At this place the breadth of the sheet of wa­ter mea­sured near­ly 350 feet, and be­yond the daz­zling cen­ter could be seen an enor­mous basaltic wall, block­ing up any is­sue on that side. The cav­ern widened here con­sid­er­ably, the sea form­ing a lit­tle lake. But the roof, the side walls, the end cliff, all the prisms, all the peaks, were flood­ed with the elec­tric flu­id, so that the bril­lian­cy be­longed to them, and as if the light is­sued from them.

In the cen­ter of the lake a long cigar-​shaped ob­ject float­ed on the sur­face of the wa­ter, silent, mo­tion­less. The bril­lian­cy which is­sued from it es­caped from its sides as from two kilns heat­ed to a white heat. This ap­pa­ra­tus, sim­ilar in shape to an enor­mous whale, was about 250 feet long, and rose about ten or twelve above the wa­ter.

The boat slow­ly ap­proached it, Cyrus Hard­ing stood up in the bows. He gazed, a prey to vi­olent ex­cite­ment. Then, all at once, seiz­ing the re­porter’s arm,–

“It is he! It can on­ly be he!” he cried, “he!–“

Then, falling back on the seat, he mur­mured a name which Gideon Spilett alone could hear.

The re­porter ev­ident­ly knew this name, for it had a won­der­ful ef­fect up­on him, and he an­swered in a hoarse voice,–

“He! an out­lawed man!”

“He!” said Hard­ing.

At the en­gi­neer’s com­mand the boat ap­proached this sin­gu­lar float­ing ap­pa­ra­tus. The boat touched the left side, from which es­caped a ray of light through a thick glass.

Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions mount­ed on the plat­form. An open hatch­way was there. All dart­ed down the open­ing.

At the bot­tom of the lad­der was a deck, light­ed by elec­tric­ity. At the end of this deck was a door, which Hard­ing opened.

A rich­ly-​or­na­ment­ed room, quick­ly tra­versed by the colonists, was joined to a li­brary, over which a lu­mi­nous ceil­ing shed a flood of light.

At the end of the li­brary a large door, al­so shut, was opened by the en­gi­neer.

An im­mense sa­loon–a sort of mu­se­um, in which were heaped up, with all the trea­sures of the min­er­al world, works of art, mar­vels of in­dus­try– ap­peared be­fore the eyes of the colonists, who al­most thought them­selves sud­den­ly trans­port­ed in­to a land of en­chant­ment.

Stretched on a rich so­fa they saw a man, who did not ap­pear to no­tice their pres­ence.

Then Hard­ing raised his voice, and to the ex­treme sur­prise of his com­pan­ions, he ut­tered these words,–

“Cap­tain Nemo, you asked for us! We are here.–“