Jules Verne (15 page)

"I say," replied the head cook, "that there is no rule which forbids
walking aft."

"Well, I make that the rule," replied Dick Sand, "and I forbid you,
remember, to come aft."

"Indeed!" replied Negoro.

That man, so entirely under self-control, then made a menacing gesture.

The novice drew a revolver from his pocket, and pointed it at the head
cook.

"Negoro," said he, "recollect that I am never without this revolver,
and that on the first act of insubordination I shall blow out your
brains!"

At that moment Negoro felt himself irresistibly bent to the deck.

It was Hercules, who had just simply laid his heavy hand on Negoro's
shoulder.

"Captain Sand," said the giant, "do you want me to throw this rascal
overboard? He will regale the fishes, who are not hard to please!"

"Not yet," replied Dick Sand.

Negoro rose as soon as the black's hand no longer weighed upon him.
But, in passing Hercules:

"Accursed negro," murmured he, "I'll pay you back!"

Meanwhile, the wind had just changed; at least, it seemed to have
veered round forty-five degrees. And, notwithstanding, a singular
thing, which struck the novice, nothing in the condition of the sea
indicated that change. The ship headed the same way all the time, but
the wind and the waves, instead of taking her directly aft, now struck
her by the larboard quarter—a very dangerous situation, which exposes
a ship to receive bad surges. So Dick Sand was obliged to veer round
four points to continue to scud before the tempest.

But, on the other hand, his attention was awakened more than ever. He
asked himself if there was not some connection between Negoro's fall
and the breaking of the first compass. What did the head cook intend to
do there? Had he some interest in putting the second compass out of
service also? What could that interest be? There was no explanation of
that. Must not Negoro desire, as they all desired, to land on the
American coast as soon as possible?

When Dick Sand spoke of this incident to Mrs. Weldon, the latter,
though she shared his distrust in a certain measure, could find no
plausible motive for what would be criminal premeditation on the part
of the head cook.

However, as a matter of prudence, Negoro was well watched. Thereafter
he attended to the novice's orders and he did not risk coming aft in
the ship, where his duties never called him. Besides, Dingo having been
installed there permanently, the cook took earn to keep away.

During all that week the tempest did not abate. The barometer fell
again. From the 14th to the 26th of March it was impossible to profit
by a single calm to set a few sails. The "Pilgrim" scudded to the
northeast with a speed which could not be less than two hundred miles
in twenty-four hours, and still the land did not appear!—that land,
America, which is thrown like an immense barrier between the Atlantic
and the Pacific, over an extent of more than a hundred and twenty
degrees!

Dick Sand asked himself if he was not a fool, if he was still in his
right mind, if, for so many days, unknown to him, he was not sailing in
a false direction. No, he could not find fault with himself on that
point. The sun, even though he could not perceive it in the fogs,
always rose before him to set behind him. But, then, that land, had it
disappeared? That America, on which his vessel would go to pieces,
perhaps, where was it, if it was not there? Be it the Southern
Continent or the Northern Continent—for anything way possible in that
chaos—the "Pilgrim" could not miss either one or the other. What had
happened since the beginning of this frightful tempest? What was still
going on, as that coast, whether it should prove salvation or
destruction, did not appear? Must Dick Sand suppose, then, that he was
deceived by his compass, whose indications he could no longer control,
because the second compass was lacking to make that control? Truly, he
had that fear which the absence of all land might justify.

So, when he was at the helm, Dick Sand did not cease to devour the
chart with his eyes. But he interrogated it in vain; it could not give
him the solution of an enigma which, in the situation in which Negoro
had placed him, was incomprehensible for him, as it would have been for
any one else.

On this day, however, the 26th of March, towards eight o'clock in the
morning, an incident of the greatest importance took place.

Hercules, on watch forward, gave this cry:

"Land! land!"

Dick Sand sprang to the forecastle. Hercules could not have eyes like a
seaman. Was he not mistaken?

"Land?" cried Dick Sand.

"There," replied Hercules, showing an almost imperceptible point on the
horizon in the northeast.

They hardly heard each other speak in the midst of the roaring of the
sea and the sky.

"You have seen the land?" said the novice.

"Yes," replied Hercules.

And his hand was still stretched out to larboard forward.

The novice looked. He saw nothing.

At that moment, Mrs. Weldon, who had heard the cry given by Hercules,
came up on deck, notwithstanding her promise not to come there.

"Madam!" cried Dick Sand.

Mrs. Weldon, unable to make herself heard, tried, for herself, to
perceive that land signaled by the black, and she seemed to have
concentrated all her life in her eyes.

It must be believed that Hercules's hand indicated badly the point of
the horizon which he wished to show: neither Mrs. Weldon nor the novice
could see anything.

But, suddenly, Dick Sand in turn stretched out his hand.

"Yes! yes! land!" said he.

A kind of summit had just appeared in an opening in the fog. His
sailor's eyes could not deceive him.

"At last!" cried he; "at last!"

He clang feverishly to the netting. Mrs. Weldon, sustained by Hercules,
continued to watch that land almost despaired of.

The coast, formed by that high summit, rose at a distance of ten miles
to leeward.

The opening being completely made in a breaking of the clouds, they saw
it again more distinctly. Doubtless it was some promontory of the
American continent. The "Pilgrim," without sails, was not in a
condition to head toward it, but it could not fail to make the land
there.

That could be only a question of a few hours. Now, it was eight o'clock
in the morning. Then, very certainly, before noon the "Pilgrim" would
be near the land.

At a sign from Dick Sand, Hercules led Mrs. Weldon aft again, for she
could not bear up against the violence of the pitching.

The novice remained forward for another instant, then he returned to
the helm, near old Tom.

At last, then, he saw that coast, so slowly made, so ardently desired!
but it was now with a feeling of terror.

In fact, in the "Pilgrim's" present condition, that is to say, scudding
before the tempest, land to leeward, was shipwreck with all its
terrible contingencies.

Two hours passed away. The promontory was then seen off from the ship.

At that moment they saw Negoro come on deck. This time he regarded the
coast with extreme attention, shook his head like a man who would know
what to believe, and went down again, after pronouncing a name that
nobody could hear.

Dick Sand himself sought to perceive the coast, which ought to round
off behind the promontory.

Two hours rolled by. The promontory was standing on the larboard stern,
but the coast was not yet to be traced.

Meanwhile the sky cleared at the horizon, and a high coast, like the
American land, bordered by the immense chain of the Andes, should be
visible for more than twenty miles.

Dick Sand took his telescope and moved it slowly over the whole eastern
horizon.

Nothing! He could see nothing!

At two o'clock in the afternoon every trace of land had disappeared
behind the "Pilgrim." Forward, the telescope could not seize any
outline whatsoever of a coast, high or low.

Then a cry escaped Dick Sand. Immediately leaving the deck, he rushed
into the cabin, where Mrs. Weldon was with little Jack, Nan, and Cousin
Benedict.

"An island! That was only an island!" said he.

"An island, Dick! but what?" asked Mrs. Weldon.

"The chart will tell us," replied the novice.

And running to his berth, he brought the ship's chart.

"There, Mrs. Weldon, there!" said he. "That land which we have seen, it
can only be this point, lost in the middle of the Pacific! It can only
be the Isle of Paques; there is no other in these parts."

"And we have already left it behind?" asked Mrs. Weldon.

"Yes, well to the windward of us."

Mrs. Weldon looked attentively at the Isle of Paques, which only formed
an imperceptible point on the chart.

"And at what distance is it from the American coast?"

"Thirty-five degrees."

"Which makes—"

"About two thousand miles."

"But then the 'Pilgrim' has not sailed, if we are still so far from the
continent?"

"Mrs. Weldon," replied Dick Sand, who passed his hand over his forehead
for a moment, as if to concentrate his ideas, "I do not know—I cannot
explain this incredible delay! No! I cannot—unless the indications of
the compass have been false? But that island can only be the Isle of
Paques, because we have been obliged to scud before the wind to the
northeast, and we must thank Heaven, which has permitted me to mark our
position! Yes, it is still two thousand miles from the coast! I know,
at last, where the tempest has blown us, and, if it abates, we shall be
able to land on the American continent with some chance of safety. Now,
at least, our ship is no longer lost on the immensity of the Pacific!"

This confidence, shown by the young novice, was shared by all those who
heard him speak. Mrs. Weldon, herself, gave way to it. It seemed,
indeed, that these poor people were at the end of their troubles, and
that the "Pilgrim," being to the windward of her port, had only to wait
for the open sea to enter it! The Isle of Paques—by its true name
Vai-Hon—discovered by David in 1686, visited by Cook and Laperouse, is
situated 27° south latitude and 112° east longitude. If the schooner
had been thus led more than fifteen degrees to the north, that was
evidently due to that tempest from the southwest, before which it had
been obliged to scud.

Then the "Pilgrim" was still two thousand miles from the coast.
However, under the impetus of that wind which blew like thunder, it
must, in less than ten days, reach some point of the coast of South
America.

But could they not hope, as the novice had said, that the weather would
become more manageable, and that it would be possible to set some sail,
when they should make the land?

It was still Dick Sand's hope. He said to himself that this hurricane,
which had lasted so many days, would end perhaps by "killing itself."
And now that, thanks to the appearance of the Isle of Paques, he knew
exactly his position, he had reason to believe that, once master of his
vessel again, he would know how to lead her to a safe place.

Yes! to have had knowledge of that isolated point in the middle of the
sea, as by a providential favor, that had restored confidence to Dick
Sand; if he was going all the time at the caprice of a hurricane, which
he could not subdue, at least, he was no longer going quite blindfold.

Besides, the "Pilgrim," well-built and rigged, had suffered little
during those rude attacks of the tempest. Her damages reduced
themselves to the loss of the top-sail and the foretop-mast
stay-sail—a loss which it would be easy to repair. Not a drop of water
had penetrated through the well-stanched seams of the hull and the
deck. The pumps were perfectly free. In this respect there was nothing
to fear.

There was, then, this interminable hurricane, whose fury nothing seemed
able to moderate. If, in a certain measure, Dick Sand could put his
ship in a condition to struggle against the violent storm, he could not
order that wind to moderate, those waves to be still, that sky to
become serene again. On board, if he was "master after God," outside
the ship, God alone commanded the winds and the waves.

Meanwhile, that confidence with which Dick Sand's heart filled
instinctively, was going to be partly justified.

The next day, March 27th, the column of mercury rose in the
barometrical tube. The oscillation was neither sudden nor
considerable—a few lines only—but the progression seemed likely to
continue. The tempest was evidently going to enter its decreasing
period, and, if the sea did remain excessively rough, they could tell
that the wind was going down, veering slightly to the west.

Dick Sand could not yet think of using any sail. The smallest sail
would be carried away. However, he hoped that twenty-four hours would
not elapse before it would be possible for him to rig a storm-jib.

During the night, in fact, the wind went down quite noticeably, if they
compared it to what it had been till then, and the ship was less tossed
by those violent rollings which had threatened to break her in pieces.

The passengers began to appear on deck again. They no longer ran the
risk of being carried away by some surge from the sea.

Mrs. Weldon was the first to leave the hatchway where Dick Sand, from
prudent motives, had obliged them to shut themselves up during the
whole duration of that long tempest. She came to talk with the novice,
whom a truly superhuman will had rendered capable of resisting so much
fatigue. Thin, pale under his sunburnt complexion, he might well be
weakened by the loss of that sleep so necessary at his age. No, his
valiant nature resisted everything. Perhaps he would pay dearly some
day for that period of trial. But that was not the moment to allow
himself to be cast down. Dick Sand had said all that to himself. Mrs.
Weldon found him as energetic as he had ever been.