Part 26

This stranding had occurred on the beach at the wreck point, three miles from Granite House and at high tide. It was therefore probable that the cetacean would not be able to free itself easily. In any case, they must hurry, so as to cut off its retreat if need be. They ran with picks and iron-tipped spears, crossed the Mercy Bridge, went down the right bank of the river, took to the beach, and, in less than twenty minutes, the colonists were beside the enormous animal, above which already swarmed a host of birds.

"What a monster!" cried Nab.

And the expression was just, for it was a southern whale, eighty feet long, a giant of its species, which must have weighed no less than a hundred and fifty thousand pounds!

However, the monster, thus stranded, did not move and did not struggle to put itself afloat again while the sea was still high.

The colonists soon had the explanation of its immobility, when, at low tide, they had made the round of the animal.

It was dead, and a harpoon stuck out from its left flank.

"Then there are whalers in our waters?" said Gideon Spilett at once.

"Why so?" asked the sailor.

"Since this harpoon is still there..."

"Ah! Mr. Spilett, that proves nothing," answered Pencroff. "Whales have been seen to travel thousands of miles with a harpoon in their flank, and if this one had been struck north of the Atlantic and had come to die south of the Pacific, there would be no cause for wonder!"

"And yet..." said Gideon Spilett, whom Pencroff's assertion did not satisfy.

"That is perfectly possible," replied Cyrus Smith; "but let us examine this harpoon. Perhaps, according to a rather widespread custom, the whalers have engraved the name of their ship upon it?"

Indeed, Pencroff, having wrenched the harpoon from the animal's flank, read upon it this inscription: Maria-Stella Vineyard.

"A Vineyard ship! A ship from my own country!" he cried. "The Maria-Stella! a fine whaler, upon my word! And one I know well! Ah! My friends, a vessel from the Vineyard, a whaler from the Vineyard!"

And the sailor, brandishing the harpoon, repeated not without emotion that name which lay close to his heart, that name of his native land!

But, as they could not wait for the Maria-Stella to come and claim the animal it had harpooned, they resolved to proceed with the cutting-up before decomposition set in. The birds of prey, who for some days had been eyeing this rich prey, wished to take possession without further delay, and they had to be driven off with gunshots.

This whale was a female whose teats furnished a large quantity of a milk which, according to the opinion of the naturalist Dieffenbach, might pass for cow's milk, and, indeed, it differs neither in taste, nor in color, nor in density.

Pencroff had formerly served on a whaling ship, and he was able to direct methodically the operation of cutting-up, — an rather unpleasant operation, which lasted three days, but before which none of the colonists recoiled, not even Gideon Spilett, who, in the sailor's words, would end by making "a very good castaway."

The blubber, cut into parallel slices two feet and a half thick, then divided into pieces that might weigh a thousand pounds each, was melted in large earthen vessels, brought to the very place of the cutting-up, — for they did not wish to foul the approaches of the Grand-View Plateau, — and in this melting it lost about a third of its weight. But there was an abundance of it: the tongue alone yielded six thousand pounds of oil, and the lower lip four thousand. Then, with this fat, which was to secure for a long time the supply of stearine and glycerine, there were still the whalebones, which would no doubt find their use, although no umbrellas or corsets were worn at Granite House. The upper part of the cetacean's mouth was, in fact, furnished, on both sides, with eight hundred horny plates, very elastic, of fibrous texture, and tapering at their edges like two great combs, whose teeth, six feet long, serve to retain the thousands of animalcules, small fish, and mollusks on which the whale feeds.

The operation finished, to the great satisfaction of the operators, the remains of the animal were abandoned to the birds, who were to make even the last vestiges disappear, and the daily labors were resumed at Granite House.

However, before returning to the construction yard, Cyrus Smith had the idea of making certain devices which keenly excited the curiosity of his companions. He took a dozen whalebones which he cut into six equal parts and sharpened at their ends.

"And this, Mr. Cyrus," asked Harbert, when the operation was finished, "this will serve?..."

"To kill wolves, foxes, and even jaguars," replied the engineer.

"Now?"

"No, this winter, when we have ice at our disposal."

"I do not understand..." answered Harbert.

"You will understand, my child," replied the engineer. "This device is not of my invention, and it is frequently employed by the Aleutian hunters in Russian America. These whalebones that you see, my friends, well! When it freezes, I shall bend them, I shall sprinkle them with water until they are entirely coated with a layer of ice that will maintain their curvature, and I shall scatter them on the snow, after having previously concealed them under a layer of fat. Now, what will happen if a hungry animal swallows one of these baits? It is that the heat of its stomach will melt the ice, and that the whalebone, unbending, will pierce it with its sharp ends."

"That is ingenious!" said Pencroff.

"And it will save powder and ball," answered Cyrus Smith.

"That is better than traps!" added Nab.

"Let us then wait for winter!"

"Let us wait for winter."

Meanwhile the construction of the boat advanced, and, toward the end of the month, it was half-planked. One could already recognize that its lines would be excellent for holding the sea well.

Pencroff worked with unmatched ardor, and it would have taken his robust nature to resist such fatigues; but his companions were secretly preparing a reward for so much toil, and, on May 31, he was to experience one of the greatest joys of his life.

That day, at the end of dinner, at the moment when he was about to leave the table, Pencroff felt a hand rest upon his shoulder.

It was the hand of Gideon Spilett, who said to him:

"One moment, master Pencroff, one does not leave thus! And the dessert you are forgetting?"

"Thank you, Mr. Spilett," answered the sailor, "I am returning to work."

"Well, a cup of coffee, my friend?"

"Not even that."

"A pipe, then?"

Pencroff had risen suddenly, and his good, round face grew pale, when he saw the reporter presenting him a pipe stuffed full, and Harbert, a glowing ember.

The sailor tried to utter a word without being able to manage it; but, seizing the pipe, he raised it to his lips; then, applying the ember, he inhaled five or six puffs in succession. A bluish and fragrant cloud spread forth, and, from the depths of this cloud, one heard a delirious voice repeating:

"Tobacco! Real tobacco!"

"Yes, Pencroff," answered Cyrus Smith, "and even excellent tobacco!"

"Oh! Divine providence! Sacred author of all things!" cried the sailor. "Then nothing is lacking to our island!"

And Pencroff smoked, smoked, smoked!

"And who made this discovery?" he asked at last. "You, no doubt, Harbert?"

"No, Pencroff, it is Mr. Spilett."

"Mr. Spilett!" cried the sailor, clasping the reporter to his breast, who had never undergone such an embrace.

"Oof! Pencroff," answered Gideon Spilett, recovering his breath, for a moment compromised. "Make a share in your gratitude to Harbert who recognized this plant, to Cyrus who prepared it, and to Nab who had much trouble keeping the secret from us!"

"Well, my friends, I will repay you for this some day!" answered the sailor. "Now, it is for life and death!"

CHAPTER XI

However, winter was arriving with this month of June, which is the December of the boreal zones, and the great occupation was the making of warm and sturdy clothing.

The sheep of the corral had been stripped of their wool, and this precious textile matter being thus obtained, it was only a question of transforming it into cloth.

It goes without saying that Cyrus Smith, having at his disposal neither carding machines, nor combing machines, nor scutching machines, nor drawing machines, nor twisting machines, nor "mule-jenny," nor "self-acting" to spin the wool, nor loom to weave it, had to proceed in a simpler fashion, so as to economize the spinning and weaving. And, indeed, he proposed quite simply to utilize the property that wool filaments have, when pressed in all directions, of becoming entangled and constituting, by their mere interweaving, that cloth which is called felt. This felt could then be obtained by simple fulling, an operation which, if it diminishes the suppleness of the cloth, notably increases its heat-conserving properties. Now, precisely, the wool furnished by the sheep was made of very short fibers, and that is a good condition for felting.

The engineer, aided by his companions, including Pencroff, — he had once more to abandon his boat! — began the preliminary operations, which had for their object to rid the wool of that oily and greasy substance with which it is impregnated and which is named the suint. This degreasing was done in vats filled with water, which were brought to a temperature of seventy degrees, and in which the wool lay for twenty-four hours; they then gave it a thorough washing by means of soda baths; then this wool, when it had been sufficiently dried by pressure, was in a state to be fulled, that is to say, to produce a solid cloth, coarse no doubt and which would have had no value in an industrial center of Europe or America, but of which an extreme account would be made in the "markets of Lincoln Island."

One understands that this kind of cloth must have been known from the most remote epochs, and, indeed, the first woolen cloths were fabricated by this process that Cyrus Smith was about to employ.

Where his quality as engineer served him well was in the construction of the machine destined to full the wool, for he knew how to skillfully profit from the mechanical force, until then unused, possessed by the waterfalls of the beach, to move a fulling mill.

Nothing was more rudimentary. A shaft, fitted with cams that raised and let fall in turn vertical pestles, troughs destined to receive the wool, inside of which these pestles fell back, a strong timber frame containing and connecting the whole system: such was the machine in question, and such it had been for centuries, until the moment when it was thought to replace the pestles with compressing cylinders and to submit the matter, no longer to a beating, but to a true rolling.

The operation, well directed by Cyrus Smith, succeeded to a wish. The wool, previously impregnated with a soapy solution, destined, on the one hand, to facilitate its sliding, approach, compression and softening, on the other, to prevent its alteration by the beating, came out of the mill in the form of a thick sheet of felt. The streaks and asperities with which the wool fiber is naturally provided had so well caught and entangled themselves one with another, that they formed a cloth equally fit for making garments or blankets. It was evidently neither merino, nor muslin, nor Scotch cashmere, nor stoff, nor reps, nor China satin, nor Orleans, nor alpaca, nor broadcloth, nor flannel! It was "Lincoln felt," and Lincoln Island counted one industry more.

The colonists then had, with good garments, thick blankets, and they could see the winter of 1866-67 come without fear.

The great colds truly began to be felt toward June 20, and, to his great regret, Pencroff had to suspend the construction of the boat, which, moreover, could not fail to be finished by next spring.

The fixed idea of the sailor was to make a reconnaissance voyage to Tabor Island, although Cyrus Smith did not approve of this voyage, all of curiosity, for there was evidently no help to be found on that desert and half-arid rock. A voyage of a hundred and fifty miles, on a relatively small boat, amid unknown seas, that did not fail to cause him some apprehension. That the craft, once offshore, be put in the impossibility of reaching Tabor and could not return to Lincoln Island, what would become of it in the midst of this Pacific, so fertile in disasters?

Cyrus Smith often spoke of this project with Pencroff, and he found in the sailor a rather bizarre obstinacy to accomplish this voyage, an obstinacy of which perhaps he himself was not well aware.

"For, after all," the engineer said to him one day, "I will point out to you, my friend, that after having spoken so well of Lincoln Island, after having so often manifested the regret you would feel if you had to abandon it, you are the first to wish to leave it."

"Leave it for a few days only," answered Pencroff, "for a few days only, Mr. Cyrus! The time to go and come back, to see what this islet is!"

"But it cannot be worth Lincoln Island!"

"I am sure of it in advance!"

"Then why risk yourself?"

"To know what is happening at Tabor Island!"

"But nothing is happening there! Nothing can happen there!"

"Who knows?"

"And if you are caught by some tempest?"

"That is not to be feared in the fine season," answered Pencroff. "But, Mr. Cyrus, as one must foresee all, I will ask your permission to take only Harbert with me in this voyage."

"Pencroff," answered the engineer, placing his hand on the sailor's shoulder, "if misfortune befell you and this child, whom chance has made our son, do you believe we should ever console ourselves?"

"Mr. Cyrus," answered Pencroff with unshakable confidence, "we will not cause you that grief. Besides, we will speak of this voyage again, when the time has come to make it. Then, I imagine that, when you have seen our boat well rigged, well fitted out, when you have observed how it behaves at sea, when we have made the tour of our island, — for we shall do it together, — I imagine, I say, that you will no longer hesitate to let me depart! I do not hide from you that it will be a masterpiece, your boat!"

"Say at least: our boat, Pencroff!" answered the engineer, momentarily disarmed.

The conversation thus ended to begin again later, without convincing either the sailor or the engineer.

The first snows fell toward the end of June. Previously, the corral had been amply provisioned and no longer required daily visits, but it was decided that they would never let a week pass without going there.

The traps were set anew, and they made trial of the devices fabricated by Cyrus Smith. The bent whalebones, imprisoned in a sheath of ice and covered with a thick layer of fat, were placed on the edge of the forest, at the spot where animals commonly passed to go to the lake.

To the great satisfaction of the engineer, this invention, renewed from the Aleutian fishers, succeeded perfectly. A dozen foxes, some wild boars and even a jaguar were taken therein, and these animals were found dead, the stomach pierced by the unbent whalebones.

Here is placed an attempt which it is fitting to report, for it was the first trial made by the colonists to communicate with their fellow men.

Gideon Spilett had already thought several times, either of throwing into the sea a notice enclosed in a bottle that the currents would perhaps carry to an inhabited coast, or of entrusting it to pigeons. But how seriously hope that pigeons or bottles could cross the distance that separated the island from any land and which was twelve hundred miles?

It would have been pure folly.

But, on June 30, capture was made, not without difficulty, of an albatross that a gunshot from Harbert had slightly wounded in the foot. It was a magnificent bird of the family of those great sailors, whose outstretched wings measure ten feet across, and which can cross seas as wide as the Pacific.

Harbert would have liked well to keep this superb bird, whose wound promptly healed and whom he claimed to tame, but Gideon Spilett made him understand that one could not neglect this occasion to attempt to correspond by this courier with the lands of the Pacific, and Harbert had to yield, for if the albatross had come from some inhabited region, it would not fail to return there as soon as it was free.

Perhaps, at bottom, Gideon Spilett, in whom the chronicler sometimes reappeared, was not displeased to launch at all hazards an engaging article relating the adventures of the colonists of Lincoln Island! What a success for the staff reporter of the New-York Herald, and for the number that would contain the chronicle, if ever it arrived at the address of his director, the honorable John Benett!

Gideon Spilett then drew up a succinct notice which was put into a bag of strong gummed canvas, with urgent prayer to whoever should find it, to forward it to the offices of the New-York Herald.

This little bag was attached to the neck of the albatross, and not to its foot, for these birds have the habit of resting on the surface of the sea; then, liberty was given to this swift courier of the air, and it was not without some emotion that the colonists saw it disappear afar in the mists of the west.

"Where is it going thus?" asked Pencroff.

"Toward New Zealand," answered Harbert.

"Good voyage!" cried the sailor, who, himself, expected little result from this mode of correspondence.

With winter, the labors had been resumed inside Granite House, repair of clothing, divers makings, and among others the sails of the boat, which were cut from the inexhaustible envelope of the balloon...

During the month of July, the colds were intense, but they spared neither wood nor coal.

Cyrus Smith had installed a second chimney in the great hall, and it was there that the long evenings were passed. Talk while working, reading when the hands remained idle, and time flowed with profit for all.

It was a true enjoyment for the colonists, when, from this hall well lit with candles, well heated with coal, after a comforting dinner, the elderberry coffee smoking in the cup, the pipes pluming with an odorous smoke, they heard the tempest roar without! They would have felt a complete well-being, if well-being could ever exist for those far from their kind and without possible communication with them! They always spoke of their country, of the friends they had left, of that greatness of the American republic, whose influence could only increase, and Cyrus Smith, who had been much mixed up in the affairs of the Union, keenly interested his auditors by his tales, his insights and his prognostics.

It happened, one day, that Gideon Spilett was led to say to him:

"But, after all, my dear Cyrus, all this industrial and commercial movement to which you predict a constant progression, is it not running the danger of being absolutely stopped sooner or later?"

"Stopped! And by what?"

"But by the lack of this coal, which one may justly call the most precious of minerals!"

"Yes, the most precious, indeed," answered the engineer, "and it seems that nature wished to attest that it was so, in making the diamond, which is solely pure crystallized carbon."

"You do not mean, Mr. Cyrus," rejoined Pencroff, "that one will burn diamond instead of coal in the furnaces of the boilers?"

"No, my friend," answered Cyrus Smith.

"However I insist," resumed Gideon Spilett. "You do not deny that one day coal will be entirely consumed?"

"Oh! The coal beds are still considerable, and the hundred thousand workers who yearly tear from them a hundred million metric hundredweights are not near to having exhausted them!"

"With the growing proportion of the consumption of coal," answered Gideon Spilett, "one may foresee that these hundred thousand workers will soon be two hundred thousand and that the extraction will be doubled?"

"No doubt; but, after the coal fields of Europe, which new machines will soon permit to exploit more thoroughly, the coal mines of America and Australia will long still supply the consumption of industry."

"How long a time?" asked the reporter.

"At least two hundred fifty or three hundred years."

"That is reassuring for us," answered Pencroff, "but troubling for our great-great-cousins!"

"Something else will be found," said Harbert.

"It must be hoped," answered Gideon Spilett, "for, after all, without coal, no more machines, and without machines, no more railways, no more steamboats, no more factories, nothing of all that the progress of modern life requires!"

"But what will be found?" asked Pencroff. "Do you imagine it, Mr. Cyrus?"

"Nearly, my friend."

"And what will one burn in place of coal?"

"Water," answered Cyrus Smith.

"Water," cried Pencroff, "water to heat the steamboats and the locomotives, water to heat water!"

"Yes, but water decomposed into its constituent elements," answered Cyrus Smith, "and decomposed, no doubt, by electricity, which will then have become a powerful and manageable force, for all the great discoveries, by an inexplicable law, seem to coincide and complete themselves at the same moment. Yes, my friends, I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen, which constitute it, used separately or simultaneously, will furnish a source of heat and light inexhaustible and of an intensity that coal could not have. One day, the bunkers of the steamers and the tenders of the locomotives, instead of coal, will be charged with these two compressed gases, which will burn in the furnaces with an enormous calorific power. Thus, then, nothing to fear. As long as this earth is inhabited, it will furnish to the needs of its inhabitants, and they will never lack either light or heat, any more than they will lack the productions of the vegetable, mineral or animal kingdoms. I believe then that when the coal beds are exhausted, one will heat and be heated with water. Water is the coal of the future."

"I should like to see that," said the sailor.

"You got up too early, Pencroff," answered Nab, who intervened only with these words in the discussion.

However, it was not the words of Nab that ended the conversation, but the barkings of Top, which burst forth anew with that strange intonation that had already preoccupied the engineer. At the same time, Top began again to turn around the mouth of the well, which opened at the end of the inner corridor.

"What has Top to bark thus again?" asked Pencroff.

"And Jup to grunt in this fashion?" added Harbert.

Indeed, the orang, joining the dog, gave unequivocal signs of agitation, and, singular detail, these two animals appeared rather uneasy than irritated.

"It is evident," said Gideon Spilett, "that this well is in direct communication with the sea, and that some marine animal comes from time to time to breathe at the bottom."

"It is evident," answered the sailor, "and there is no other explanation to give... come, silence, Top," added Pencroff, turning toward the dog, "and you, Jup, to your room!"

The monkey and the dog were silent. Jup went back to bed, but Top remained in the parlor, and he continued to make himself heard with dull growlings during the whole evening.

No more was said of the incident, which, however, darkened the brow of the engineer.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”