Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 6

The in­ven­to­ry of the ar­ti­cles pos­sessed by these cast­aways from the clouds, thrown up­on a coast which ap­peared to be un­in­hab­it­ed, was soon made out. They had noth­ing, save the clothes which they were wear­ing at the time of the catas­tro­phe. We must men­tion, how­ev­er, a note-​book and a watch which Gideon Spilett had kept, doubt­less by in­ad­ver­tence, not a weapon, not a tool, not even a pock­et-​knife; for while in the car they had thrown out ev­ery­thing to light­en the bal­loon. The imag­inary heroes of Daniel De­foe or of Wyss, as well as Selkirk and Ray­nal ship­wrecked on Juan Fer­nan­dez and on the archipela­go of the Auck­lands, were nev­er in such ab­so­lute des­ti­tu­tion. Ei­ther they had abun­dant re­sources from their strand­ed ves­sels, in grain, cat­tle, tools, am­mu­ni­tion, or else some things were thrown up on the coast which sup­plied them with all the first ne­ces­si­ties of life. But here, not any in­stru­ment what­ev­er, not a uten­sil. From noth­ing they must sup­ply them­selves with ev­ery­thing.

And yet, if Cyrus Hard­ing had been with them, if the en­gi­neer could have brought his prac­ti­cal sci­ence, his in­ven­tive mind to bear on their sit­ua­tion, per­haps all hope would not have been lost. Alas! they must hope no longer again to see Cyrus Hard­ing. The cast­aways could ex­pect noth­ing but from them­selves and from that Prov­idence which nev­er aban­dons those whose faith is sin­cere.

But ought they to es­tab­lish them­selves on this part of the coast, with­out try­ing to know to what con­ti­nent it be­longed, if it was in­hab­it­ed, or if they were on the shore of a desert is­land?

It was an im­por­tant ques­tion, and should be solved with the short­est pos­si­ble de­lay. From its an­swer they would know what mea­sures to take. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Pen­croft’s ad­vice, it ap­peared best to wait a few days be­fore com­menc­ing an ex­plo­ration. They must, in fact, pre­pare some pro­vi­sions and pro­cure more strength­en­ing food than eggs and mol­luscs. The ex­plor­ers, be­fore un­der­tak­ing new fa­tigues, must first of all re­cruit their strength.

The Chim­neys of­fered a re­treat suf­fi­cient for the present. The fire was light­ed, and it was easy to pre­serve some em­bers. There were plen­ty of shell-​fish and eggs among the rocks and on the beach. It would be easy to kill a few of the pi­geons which were fly­ing by hun­dreds about the sum­mit of the plateau, ei­ther with sticks or stones. Per­haps the trees of the neigh­bor­ing for­est would sup­ply them with eat­able fruit. Last­ly, the sweet wa­ter was there.

It was ac­cord­ing­ly set­tled that for a few days they would re­main at the Chim­neys so as to pre­pare them­selves for an ex­pe­di­tion, ei­ther along the shore or in­to the in­te­ri­or of the coun­try. This plan suit­ed Neb par­tic­ular­ly. As ob­sti­nate in his ideas as in his pre­sen­ti­ments, he was in no haste to aban­don this part of the coast, the scene of the catas­tro­phe. He did not, he would not be­lieve in the loss of Cyrus Hard­ing. No, it did not seem to him pos­si­ble that such a man had end­ed in this vul­gar fash­ion, car­ried away by a wave, drowned in the floods, a few hun­dred feet from a shore. As long as the waves had not cast up the body of the en­gi­neer, as long as he, Neb, had not seen with his eyes, touched with his hands the corpse of his mas­ter, he would not be­lieve in his death! And this idea root­ed it­self deep­er than ev­er in his de­ter­mined heart. An il­lu­sion per­haps, but still an il­lu­sion to be re­spect­ed, and one which the sailor did not wish to de­stroy. As for him, he hoped no longer, but there was no use in ar­gu­ing with Neb. He was like the dog who will not leave the place where his mas­ter is buried, and his grief was such that most prob­ably he would not sur­vive him.

This same morn­ing, the 26th of March, at day­break, Neb had set out on the shore in a norther­ly di­rec­tion, and he had re­turned to the spot where the sea, no doubt, had closed over the un­for­tu­nate Hard­ing.

That day’s break­fast was com­posed sole­ly of pi­geon’s eggs and lithodomes. Her­bert had found some salt de­posit­ed by evap­ora­tion in the hol­lows of the rocks, and this min­er­al was very wel­come.

The repast end­ed, Pen­croft asked the re­porter if he wished to ac­com­pa­ny Her­bert and him­self to the for­est, where they were go­ing to try to hunt. But on con­sid­er­ation, it was thought nec­es­sary that some­one should re­main to keep in the fire, and to be at hand in the high­ly im­prob­able event of Neb re­quir­ing aid. The re­porter ac­cord­ing­ly re­mained be­hind.

“To the chase, Her­bert,” said the sailor. “We shall find am­mu­ni­tion on our way, and cut our weapons in the for­est.” But at the mo­ment of start­ing, Her­bert ob­served, that since they had no tin­der, it would per­haps be pru­dent to re­place it by an­oth­er sub­stance.

“What?” asked Pen­croft.

“Burnt linen,” replied the boy. “That could in case of need serve for tin­der.”

The sailor thought it very sen­si­ble ad­vice. On­ly it had the in­con­ve­nience of ne­ces­si­tat­ing the sac­ri­fice of a piece of hand­ker­chief. Notwith­stand­ing, the thing was well worth while try­ing, and a part of Pen­croft’s large checked hand­ker­chief was soon re­duced to the state of a half-​burnt rag. This in­flammable ma­te­ri­al was placed in the cen­tral cham­ber at the bot­tom of a lit­tle cav­ity in the rock, shel­tered from all wind and damp.

It was nine o’clock in the morn­ing. The weath­er was threat­en­ing and the breeze blew from the south­east. Her­bert and Pen­croft turned the an­gle of the Chim­neys, not with­out hav­ing cast a look at the smoke which, just at that place, curled round a point of rock: they as­cend­ed the left bank of the riv­er.

Ar­rived at the for­est, Pen­croft broke from the first tree two stout branch­es which he trans­formed in­to clubs, the ends of which Her­bert rubbed smooth on a rock. Oh! what would they not have giv­en for a knife!

The two hunters now ad­vanced among the long grass, fol­low­ing the bank. From the turn­ing which di­rect­ed its course to the south­west, the riv­er nar­rowed grad­ual­ly and the chan­nel lay be­tween high banks, over which the trees formed a dou­ble arch. Pen­croft, lest they should lose them­selves, re­solved to fol­low the course of the stream, which would al­ways lead them back to the point from which they start­ed. But the bank was not with­out some ob­sta­cles: here, the flex­ible branch­es of the trees bent lev­el with the cur­rent; there, creep­ers and thorns which they had to break down with their sticks. Her­bert of­ten glid­ed among the bro­ken stumps with the agili­ty of a young cat, and dis­ap­peared in the un­der­wood. But Pen­croft called him back di­rect­ly, beg­ging him not to wan­der away. Mean­while, the sailor at­ten­tive­ly ob­served the dis­po­si­tion and na­ture of the sur­round­ing coun­try. On the left bank, the ground, which was flat and marshy, rose im­per­cep­ti­bly to­wards the in­te­ri­or. It looked there like a net­work of liq­uid threads which doubt­less reached the riv­er by some un­der­ground drain. Some­times a stream ran through the un­der­wood, which they crossed with­out dif­fi­cul­ty. The op­po­site shore ap­peared to be more un­even, and the val­ley of which the riv­er oc­cu­pied the bot­tom was more clear­ly vis­ible. The hill, cov­ered with trees dis­posed in ter­races, in­ter­cept­ed the view. On the right bank walk­ing would have been dif­fi­cult, for the de­cliv­ities fell sud­den­ly, and the trees bend­ing over the wa­ter were on­ly sus­tained by the strength of their roots.

It is need­less to add that this for­est, as well as the coast al­ready sur­veyed, was des­ti­tute of any sign of hu­man life. Pen­croft on­ly saw traces of quadrupeds, fresh foot­prints of an­imals, of which he could not rec­og­nize the species. In all prob­abil­ity, and such was al­so Her­bert’s opin­ion, some had been left by formidable wild beasts which doubt­less would give them some trou­ble; but nowhere did they ob­serve the mark of an axe on the trees, nor the ash­es of a fire, nor the im­pres­sion of a hu­man foot. On this they might prob­ably con­grat­ulate them­selves, for on any land in the mid­dle of the Pa­cif­ic the pres­ence of man was per­haps more to be feared than de­sired. Her­bert and Pen­croft speak­ing lit­tle, for the dif­fi­cul­ties of the way were great, ad­vanced very slow­ly, and af­ter walk­ing for an hour they had scarce­ly gone more than a mile. As yet the hunt had not been suc­cess­ful. How­ev­er, some birds sang and flut­tered in the fo­liage, and ap­peared very timid, as if man had in­spired them with an in­stinc­tive fear. Among oth­ers, Her­bert de­scribed, in a marshy part of the for­est, a bird with a long point­ed beak, close­ly re­sem­bling the king-​fish­er, but its plumage was not fine, though of a metal­lic bril­lian­cy.

“That must be a ja­ca­mar,” said Her­bert, try­ing to get near­er.

“This will be a good op­por­tu­ni­ty to taste ja­ca­mar,” replied the sailor, “if that fel­low is in a hu­mor to be roast­ed!”

Just then, a stone clev­er­ly thrown by the boy, struck the crea­ture on the wing, but the blow did not dis­able it, and the ja­ca­mar ran off and dis­ap­peared in an in­stant.

“How clum­sy I am!” cried Her­bert.

“No, no, my boy!” replied the sailor. “The blow was well aimed; many a one would have missed it al­to­geth­er! Come, don’t be vexed with your­self. We shall catch it an­oth­er day!”

As the hunters ad­vanced, the trees were found to be more scat­tered, many be­ing mag­nif­icent, but none bore eat­able fruit. Pen­croft searched in vain for some of those pre­cious palm-​trees which are em­ployed in so many ways in do­mes­tic life, and which have been found as far as the for­ti­eth par­al­lel in the North­ern Hemi­sphere, and to the thir­ty-​fifth on­ly in the South­ern Hemi­sphere. But this for­est was on­ly com­posed of conifer­ae, such as de­odaras, al­ready rec­og­nized by Her­bert, and Dou­glas pine, sim­ilar to those which grow on the north­west coast of Amer­ica, and splen­did firs, mea­sur­ing a hun­dred and fifty feet in height.

At this mo­ment a flock of birds, of a small size and pret­ty plumage, with long glanc­ing tails, dis­persed them­selves among the branch­es strew­ing their feath­ers, which cov­ered the ground as with fine down. Her­bert picked up a few of these feath­ers, and af­ter hav­ing ex­am­ined them,–

“These are couroucous,” said he.

“I should pre­fer a moor-​cock or guinea-​fowl,” replied Pen­croft, “still, if they are good to eat–“

“They are good to eat, and al­so their flesh is very del­icate,” replied Her­bert. “Be­sides, if I don’t mis­take, it is easy to ap­proach and kill them with a stick.”

The sailor and the lad, creep­ing among the grass, ar­rived at the foot of a tree, whose low­er branch­es were cov­ered with lit­tle birds. The couroucous were wait­ing the pas­sage of in­sects which served for their nour­ish­ment. Their feath­ery feet could be seen clasp­ing the slen­der twigs which sup­port­ed them.

The hunters then rose, and us­ing their sticks like scythes, they mowed down whole rows of these couroucous, who nev­er thought of fly­ing away, and stupid­ly al­lowed them­selves to be knocked off. A hun­dred were al­ready heaped on the ground, be­fore the oth­ers made up their minds to fly.

“Well,” said Pen­croft, “here is game, which is quite with­in the reach of hunters like us. We have on­ly to put out our hands and take it!”

The sailor hav­ing strung the couroucous like larks on flex­ible twigs, they then con­tin­ued their ex­plo­ration. The stream here made a bend to­wards the south, but this de­tour was prob­ably not pro­longed for the riv­er must have its source in the moun­tain, and be sup­plied by the melt­ing of the snow which cov­ered the sides of the cen­tral cone.

The par­tic­ular ob­ject of their ex­pe­di­tion was, as has been said, to pro­cure the great­est pos­si­ble quan­ti­ty of game for the in­hab­itants of the Chim­neys. It must be ac­knowl­edged that as yet this ob­ject had not been at­tained. So the sailor ac­tive­ly pur­sued his re­search­es, though he ex­claimed, when some an­imal which he had not even time to rec­og­nize fled in­to the long grass, “If on­ly we had had the dog Top!” But Top had dis­ap­peared at the same time as his mas­ter, and had prob­ably per­ished with him.

To­wards three o’clock new flocks of birds were seen through cer­tain trees, at whose aro­mat­ic berries they were peck­ing, those of the ju­niper- tree among oth­ers. Sud­den­ly a loud trum­pet call re­sound­ed through the for­est. This strange and sonorous cry was pro­duced by a game bird called grouse in the Unit­ed States. They soon saw sev­er­al cou­ples, whose plumage was rich chest­nut-​brown mot­tled with dark brown, and tail of the same col­or. Her­bert rec­og­nized the males by the two wing-​like ap­pendages raised on the neck. Pen­croft de­ter­mined to get hold of at least one of these gal­li­naceae, which were as large as a fowl, and whose flesh is bet­ter than that of a pul­let. But it was dif­fi­cult, for they would not al­low them­selves to be ap­proached. Af­ter sev­er­al fruit­less at­tempts, which re­sult­ed in noth­ing but scar­ing the grouse, the sailor said to the lad,–

“De­cid­ed­ly, since we can’t kill them on the wing, we must try to take them with a line.”

“Like a fish?” cried Her­bert, much sur­prised at the pro­pos­al.

“Like a fish,” replied the sailor quite se­ri­ous­ly. Pen­croft had found among the grass half a dozen grouse nests, each hav­ing three or four eggs. He took great care not to touch these nests, to which their pro­pri­etors would not fail to re­turn. It was around these that he meant to stretch his lines, not snares, but re­al fish­ing-​lines. He took Her­bert to some dis­tance from the nests, and there pre­pared his sin­gu­lar ap­pa­ra­tus with all the care which a dis­ci­ple of Iza­ak Wal­ton would have used. Her­bert watched the work with great in­ter­est, though rather doubt­ing its suc­cess. The lines were made of fine creep­ers, fas­tened one to the oth­er, of the length of fif­teen or twen­ty feet. Thick, strong thorns, the points bent back (which were sup­plied from a dwarf aca­cia bush) were fas­tened to the ends of the creep­ers, by way of hooks. Large red worms, which were crawl­ing on the ground, fur­nished bait.

This done, Pen­croft, pass­ing among the grass and con­ceal­ing him­self skill­ful­ly, placed the end of his lines armed with hooks near the grouse nests; then he re­turned, took the oth­er ends and hid with Her­bert be­hind a large tree. There they both wait­ed pa­tient­ly; though, it must be said, that Her­bert did not reck­on much on the suc­cess of the in­ven­tive Pen­croft.

A whole half-​hour passed, but then, as the sailor had sur­mised, sev­er­al cou­ple of grouse re­turned to their nests. They walked along, peck­ing the ground, and not sus­pect­ing in any way the pres­ence of the hunters, who, be­sides, had tak­en care to place them­selves to lee­ward of the gal­li­naceae.

The lad felt at this mo­ment high­ly in­ter­est­ed. He held his breath, and Pen­croft, his eyes star­ing, his mouth open, his lips ad­vanced, as if about to taste a piece of grouse, scarce­ly breathed.

Mean­while, the birds walked about the hooks, with­out tak­ing any no­tice of them. Pen­croft then gave lit­tle tugs which moved the bait as if the worms had been still alive.

The sailor un­doubt­ed­ly felt much greater anx­iety than does the fish­er­man, for he does not see his prey com­ing through the wa­ter. The jerks at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of the gal­li­naceae, and they at­tacked the hooks with their beaks. Three vo­ra­cious grouse swal­lowed at the same mo­ment bait and hook. Sud­den­ly with a smart jerk, Pen­croft “struck” his line, and a flap­ping of wings showed that the birds were tak­en.

“Hur­rah!” he cried, rush­ing to­wards the game, of which he made him­self mas­ter in an in­stant.

Her­bert clapped his hands. It was the first time that he had ev­er seen birds tak­en with a line, but the sailor mod­est­ly con­fessed that it was not his first at­tempt, and that be­sides he could not claim the mer­it of in­ven­tion.

“And at any rate,” added he, “sit­uat­ed as we are, we must hope to hit up­on many oth­er con­trivances.”

The grouse were fas­tened by their claws, and Pen­croft, de­light­ed at not hav­ing to ap­pear be­fore their com­pan­ions with emp­ty hands, and ob­serv­ing that the day had be­gun to de­cline, judged it best to re­turn to their dwelling.

The di­rec­tion was in­di­cat­ed by the riv­er, whose course they had on­ly to fol­low, and, to­wards six o’clock, tired enough with their ex­cur­sion, Her­bert and Pen­croft ar­rived at the Chim­neys.