The Mysterious Island (10 page)

"Indeed," said the engineer, who was recovering gradually, and who took
great interest in these details, "indeed it is very singular!"

"But," resumed the sailor, "can you tell us what happened after you were
carried off by the sea?"

Cyrus Harding considered. He knew very little. The wave had torn him
from the balloon net. He sank at first several fathoms. On returning
to the surface, in the half light, he felt a living creature struggling
near him. It was Top, who had sprung to his help. He saw nothing of the
balloon, which, lightened both of his weight and that of the dog, had
darted away like an arrow.

There he was, in the midst of the angry sea, at a distance which could
not be less than half a mile from the shore. He attempted to struggle
against the billows by swimming vigorously. Top held him up by his
clothes; but a strong current seized him and drove him towards the
north, and after half an hour of exertion, he sank, dragging Top
with him into the depths. From that moment to the moment in which he
recovered to find himself in the arms of his friends he remembered
nothing.

"However," remarked Pencroft, "you must have been thrown on to the
beach, and you must have had strength to walk here, since Neb found your
footmarks!"

"Yes... of course," replied the engineer, thoughtfully; "and you found
no traces of human beings on this coast?"

"Not a trace," replied the reporter; "besides, if by chance you had met
with some deliverer there, just in the nick of time, why should he have
abandoned you after having saved you from the waves?"

"You are right, my dear Spilett. Tell me, Neb," added the engineer,
turning to his servant, "it was not you who... you can't have had a
moment of unconsciousness... during which no, that's absurd.... Do any
of the footsteps still remain?" asked Harding.

"Yes, master," replied Neb; "here, at the entrance, at the back of
the mound, in a place sheltered from the rain and wind. The storm has
destroyed the others."

"Pencroft," said Cyrus Harding, "will you take my shoe and see if it
fits exactly to the footprints?"

The sailor did as the engineer requested. While he and Herbert, guided
by Neb, went to the place where the footprints were to be found, Cyrus
remarked to the reporter,—

"It is a most extraordinary thing!"

"Perfectly inexplicable!" replied Gideon Spilett.

"But do not dwell upon it just now, my dear Spilett, we will talk about
it by-and-by."

A moment after the others entered.

There was no doubt about it. The engineer's shoe fitted exactly to the
footmarks. It was therefore Cyrus Harding who had left them on the sand.

"Come," said he, "I must have experienced this unconsciousness which I
attributed to Neb. I must have walked like a somnambulist, without any
knowledge of my steps, and Top must have guided me here, after having
dragged me from the waves... Come, Top! Come, old dog!"

The magnificent animal bounded barking to his master, and caresses were
lavished on him. It was agreed that there was no other way of accounting
for the rescue of Cyrus Harding, and that Top deserved all the honor of
the affair.

Towards twelve o'clock, Pencroft having asked the engineer if they could
now remove him, Harding, instead of replying, and by an effort which
exhibited the most energetic will, got up. But he was obliged to lean on
the sailor, or he would have fallen.

"Well done!" cried Pencroft; "bring the captain's litter."

The litter was brought; the transverse branches had been covered with
leaves and long grass. Harding was laid on it, and Pencroft, having
taken his place at one end and Neb at the other, they started towards
the coast. There was a distance of eight miles to be accomplished; but,
as they could not go fast, and it would perhaps be necessary to stop
frequently, they reckoned that it would take at least six hours to reach
the Chimneys. The wind was still strong, but fortunately it did not
rain. Although lying down, the engineer, leaning on his elbow, observed
the coast, particularly inland. He did not speak, but he gazed; and, no
doubt, the appearance of the country, with its inequalities of ground,
its forests, its various productions, were impressed on his mind.
However, after traveling for two hours, fatigue overcame him, and he
slept.

At half-past five the little band arrived at the precipice, and a short
time after at the Chimneys.

They stopped, and the litter was placed on the sand; Cyrus Harding was
sleeping profoundly, and did not awake.

Pencroft, to his extreme surprise, found that the terrible storm had
quite altered the aspect of the place. Important changes had occurred;
great blocks of stone lay on the beach, which was also covered with a
thick carpet of sea-weed, algae, and wrack. Evidently the sea, passing
over the islet, had been carried right up to the foot of the enormous
curtain of granite. The soil in front of the cave had been torn away
by the violence of the waves. A horrid presentiment flashed across
Pencroft's mind. He rushed into the passage, but returned almost
immediately, and stood motionless, staring at his companions.... The
fire was out; the drowned cinders were nothing but mud; the burnt
linen, which was to have served as tinder, had disappeared! The sea had
penetrated to the end of the passages, and everything was overthrown and
destroyed in the interior of the Chimneys!

In a few words, Gideon Spilett, Herbert, and Neb were made acquainted
with what had happened. This accident, which appeared so very serious
to Pencroft, produced different effects on the companions of the honest
sailor.

Neb, in his delight at having found his master, did not listen, or
rather, did not care to trouble himself with what Pencroft was saying.

Herbert shared in some degree the sailor's feelings.

As to the reporter, he simply replied,—

"Upon my word, Pencroft, it's perfectly indifferent to me!"

"But, I repeat, that we haven't any fire!"

"Pooh!"

"Nor any means of relighting it!"

"Nonsense!"

"But I say, Mr. Spilett—"

"Isn't Cyrus here?" replied the reporter.

"Is not our engineer alive? He will soon find some way of making fire
for us!"

"With what?"

"With nothing."

What had Pencroft to say? He could say nothing, for, in the bottom of
his heart he shared the confidence which his companions had in Cyrus
Harding. The engineer was to them a microcosm, a compound of every
science, a possessor of all human knowledge. It was better to be with
Cyrus in a desert island, than without him in the most flourishing town
in the United States. With him they could want nothing; with him they
would never despair. If these brave men had been told that a volcanic
eruption would destroy the land, that this land would be engulfed in the
depths of the Pacific, they would have imperturbably replied,—

"Cyrus is here!"

While in the palanquin, however, the engineer had again relapsed into
unconsciousness, which the jolting to which he had been subjected during
his journey had brought on, so that they could not now appeal to his
ingenuity. The supper must necessarily be very meager. In fact, all the
grouse flesh had been consumed, and there no longer existed any means of
cooking more game. Besides, the couroucous which had been reserved had
disappeared. They must consider what was to be done.

First of all, Cyrus Harding was carried into the central passage. There
they managed to arrange for him a couch of sea-weed which still remained
almost dry. The deep sleep which had overpowered him would no doubt be
more beneficial to him than any nourishment.

Night had closed in, and the temperature, which had modified when the
wind shifted to the northwest, again became extremely cold. Also, the
sea having destroyed the partitions which Pencroft had put up in certain
places in the passages, the Chimneys, on account of the draughts, had
become scarcely habitable. The engineer's condition would, therefore,
have been bad enough, if his companions had not carefully covered him
with their coats and waistcoats.

Supper, this evening, was of course composed of the inevitable
lithodomes, of which Herbert and Neb picked up a plentiful supply on the
beach. However, to these molluscs, the lad added some edible sea-weed,
which he gathered on high rocks, whose sides were only washed by the sea
at the time of high tides. This sea-weed, which belongs to the order
of Fucacae, of the genus Sargassum, produces, when dry, a gelatinous
matter, rich and nutritious. The reporter and his companions, after
having eaten a quantity of lithodomes, sucked the sargassum, of which
the taste was very tolerable. It is used in parts of the East very
considerably by the natives. "Never mind!" said the sailor, "the captain
will help us soon." Meanwhile the cold became very severe, and unhappily
they had no means of defending themselves from it.

The sailor, extremely vexed, tried in all sorts of ways to procure fire.
Neb helped him in this work. He found some dry moss, and by striking
together two pebbles he obtained some sparks, but the moss, not being
inflammable enough, did not take fire, for the sparks were really only
incandescent, and not at all of the same consistency as those which
are emitted from flint when struck in the same manner. The experiment,
therefore, did not succeed.

Pencroft, although he had no confidence in the proceeding, then tried
rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, as savages do. Certainly, the
movement which he and Neb exhibited, if it had been transformed into
heat, according to the new theory, would have been enough to heat the
boiler of a steamer! It came to nothing. The bits of wood became hot, to
be sure, but much less so than the operators themselves.

After working an hour, Pencroft, who was in a complete state of
perspiration, threw down the pieces of wood in disgust.

"I can never be made to believe that savages light their fires in this
way, let them say what they will," he exclaimed. "I could sooner light
my arms by rubbing them against each other!"

The sailor was wrong to despise the proceeding. Savages often kindle
wood by means of rapid rubbing. But every sort of wood does not answer
for the purpose, and besides, there is "the knack," following the usual
expression, and it is probable that Pencroft had not "the knack."

Pencroft's ill humor did not last long. Herbert had taken the bits of
wood which he had turned down, and was exerting himself to rub them.
The hardy sailor could not restrain a burst of laughter on seeing the
efforts of the lad to succeed where he had failed.

"Rub, my boy, rub!" said he.

"I am rubbing," replied Herbert, laughing, "but I don't pretend to do
anything else but warm myself instead of shivering, and soon I shall be
as hot as you are, my good Pencroft!"

This soon happened. However, they were obliged to give up, for this
night at least, the attempt to procure fire. Gideon Spilett repeated,
for the twentieth time, that Cyrus Harding would not have been troubled
for so small a difficulty. And, in the meantime, he stretched himself in
one of the passages on his bed of sand. Herbert, Neb, and Pencroft did
the same, while Top slept at his master's feet.

Next day, the 28th of March, when the engineer awoke, about eight in the
morning, he saw his companions around him watching his sleep, and, as on
the day before, his first words were:—

"Island or continent?" This was his uppermost thought.

"Well!" replied Pencroft, "we don't know anything about it, captain!"

"You don't know yet?"

"But we shall know," rejoined Pencroft, "when you have guided us into
the country."

"I think I am able to try it," replied the engineer, who, without much
effort, rose and stood upright.

"That's capital!" cried the sailor.

"I feel dreadfully weak," replied Harding. "Give me something to eat, my
friends, and it will soon go off. You have fire, haven't you?"

This question was not immediately replied to. But, in a few seconds—

"Alas! we have no fire," said Pencroft, "or rather, captain, we have it
no longer!"

And the sailor recounted all that had passed the day before. He amused
the engineer by the history of the single match, then his abortive
attempt to procure fire in the savages' way.

"We shall consider," replied the engineer, "and if we do not find some
substance similar to tinder—"

"Well?" asked the sailor.

"Well, we will make matches.

"Chemicals?"

"Chemicals!"

"It is not more difficult than that," cried the reporter, striking the
sailor on the shoulder.

The latter did not think it so simple, but he did not protest. All went
out. The weather had become very fine. The sun was rising from the sea's
horizon, and touched with golden spangles the prismatic rugosities of
the huge precipice.

Having thrown a rapid glance around him, the engineer seated himself on
a block of stone. Herbert offered him a few handfuls of shell-fish and
sargassum, saying,—

"It is all that we have, Captain Harding."

"Thanks, my boy," replied Harding; "it will do—for this morning at
least."

He ate the wretched food with appetite, and washed it down with a little
fresh water, drawn from the river in an immense shell.

His companions looked at him without speaking. Then, feeling somewhat
refreshed, Cyrus Harding crossed his arms, and said,—

"So, my friends, you do not know yet whether fate has thrown us on an
island, or on a continent?"

"No, captain," replied the boy.

"We shall know to-morrow," said the engineer; "till then, there is
nothing to be done."

"Yes," replied Pencroft.

"What?"

"Fire," said the sailor, who, also, had a fixed idea.