Part 27

During the rest of the month of July, there were alternations of rain and cold. The temperature did not fall as low as during the previous winter, and its maximum did not exceed eight degrees Fahrenheit (13.33 degrees centigrade below zero). But if this winter was less cold, at least it was more troubled by storms and gusts of wind. There were again violent assaults of the sea that more than once endangered the Chimneys. It was enough to believe that a tidal wave, provoked by some submarine convulsion, lifted those monstrous billows and hurled them against the wall of Granite House.

When the colonists, leaning from their windows, observed those enormous masses of water breaking before their eyes, they could but admire the magnificent spectacle of that impotent fury of the ocean. The waves rebounded in dazzling foam, the whole shore disappeared beneath that raging inundation, and the mass seemed to emerge from the sea itself, whose spray rose to a height of more than a hundred feet.

During these storms, it was difficult to venture upon the island roads, even dangerous, for falls of trees there were frequent.

However, the colonists never let a week pass without going to visit the corral. Happily, this enclosure, sheltered by the southeast buttress of Mount Franklin, did not suffer too much from the violence of the hurricane, which spared its trees, its sheds, its palisade. But the poultry yard, established on the plateau of Prospect Heights, and consequently directly exposed to the blows of the east wind, had to sustain fairly considerable damage. The pigeon-house was unroofed twice, and the fence likewise fell. All this needed to be rebuilt in a more solid manner, for, as was clearly seen, Lincoln Island was situated in the worst parts of the Pacific. It truly seemed that it formed the central point of vast cyclones, which whipped it as the whip does the top.

Only, here, it was the top that was motionless, and the whip that turned.

During the first week of the month of August, the gusts gradually subsided, and the atmosphere recovered a calm it seemed to have lost forever. With the calm, the temperature fell, the cold became very keen again, and the thermometer column dropped to eight degrees Fahrenheit below zero (22 degrees centigrade below freezing).

On the 3rd of August, an excursion, projected for some days, was made into the southeast of the island, toward the tadornes' marsh. The hunters were tempted by all the water game, which established its winter quarters there. Wild ducks, snipes, pintails, teals, grebes, abounded there, and it was decided that a day should be devoted to an expedition against these birds.

Not only Gideon Spilett and Harbert, but also Pencroff and Nab took part in the expedition. Only, Cyrus Smith, pretexting some work, did not join them and remained at Granite House.

The hunters therefore took the road to Balloon Harbor to go to the marsh, after promising to be back in the evening. Top and Jup accompanied them. As soon as they had passed the bridge of the Mercy, the engineer raised it and returned, with the thought of putting into execution a project for which he wished to be alone.

Now, this project was to explore minutely that interior well whose orifice opened at the level of the corridor of Granite House, and which communicated with the sea, since formerly it served as a passage for the waters of the lake.

Why did Top turn so often around that orifice? Why did he let escape such strange barkings, when a sort of uneasiness brought him back to that well? Why did Jup join Top in a sort of common anxiety? Did this well have other branches than the vertical communication with the sea? Did it ramify toward other portions of the island? That is what Cyrus Smith wished to know, and, first, to know alone. He had therefore resolved to attempt the exploration of the well during an absence of his companions, and the occasion presented itself to do so.

It was easy to descend to the bottom of the well, by employing the rope ladder which had no longer been used since the installation of the elevator, and whose length was sufficient. This is what the engineer did. He dragged the ladder to that hole, whose diameter measured about six feet, and he let it unroll, after having solidly attached its upper end. Then, having lit a lantern, taken a revolver and passed a cutlass into his belt, he began to descend the first rungs.

Everywhere, the wall was solid; but some projections of the rock rose at intervals, and, by means of these projections, it would have been really possible for an agile being to raise himself to the orifice of the well.

This is a remark that the engineer made; but, in carefully passing his lantern over these projections, he found no imprint, no fracture, that could give reason to think they had served for an ancient or recent scaling.

Cyrus Smith descended more deeply, lighting all points of the wall. He saw nothing suspicious there.

When the engineer had reached the last rungs, he felt the surface of the water, which was then perfectly calm. Neither at its level, nor in any other part of the well, did there open any lateral passage that could ramify inside the mass. The wall, which Cyrus Smith struck with the handle of his cutlass, rang solid. It was a compact granite, through which no living being could make its way. To arrive at the bottom of the well and then rise to its orifice, it was necessary to pass by that canal, always submerged, which put it in communication with the sea across the rocky subsoil of the shore, and this was possible only to marine animals. As to the question of knowing where this canal ended, at what point of the coast and at what depth beneath the waves, it could not be resolved.

Therefore, Cyrus Smith, having terminated his exploration, remounted, withdrew the ladder, covered the orifice of the well and returned, thoughtful, to the great hall of Granite House, saying to himself: "I have seen nothing, and yet there is something!"

CHAPTER XII

That very evening, the hunters returned, having made good sport, and, literally loaded with game, they carried all that four men could carry.

Top had a chaplet of pintails around his neck, and Jup, belts of snipes around his body.

"See here, master," cried Nab, "see here what will employ our time! Preserves, pies, we shall have there an agreeable reserve! But someone must help me. I count on you, Pencroff."

"No, Nab," answered the sailor, "the rigging of the boat claims me, and you will kindly do without me."

"And you, Mr. Harbert?"

"I, Nab, must go to the corral tomorrow," answered the young boy.

"It will therefore be you, Mr. Spilett, who will help me?"

"To oblige you, Nab," answered the reporter, "but I warn you that if you unveil your recipes to me, I will publish them."

"As you please, Mr. Spilett," answered Nab, "as you please!"

And that is how, the next day, Gideon Spilett, become Nab's assistant, was installed in his culinary laboratory. But beforehand, the engineer had made known to him the result of the exploration he had made the day before, and, in this regard, the reporter shared the opinion of Cyrus Smith, that, although he had found nothing, there remained always a secret to discover!

The colds persisted for a week still, and the colonists did not leave Granite House, save for the care to be given to the poultry yard. The dwelling was perfumed with the good odors emitted by the learned manipulations of Nab and the reporter; but all the produce of the marsh hunt was not transformed into preserves, and as the game, by this intense cold, kept perfectly, wild ducks and others were eaten fresh and declared superior to all other aquatic beasts of the known world.

During this week, Pencroff, aided by Harbert, who handled the sailmaker's needle skillfully, worked with such ardor, that the sails of the boat were finished. The hemp cordage was not lacking, thanks to the rigging that had been recovered with the envelope of the balloon. The cables, the net ropes, all that was made of an excellent line, of which the sailor made good use. The sails were bordered with strong boltropes, and there remained yet enough to make the halyards, the shrouds, the sheets, etc. As to the pulley blocks, on the advice of Pencroff and by means of the lathe he had installed, Cyrus Smith manufactured the necessary blocks. It came about therefore that the rigging was entirely equipped well before the boat was finished. Pencroff even made a blue, red and white flag, whose colors had been furnished by certain dye plants, very abundant in the island. Only, to the thirty-seven stars representing the thirty-seven states of the union that shine on the yacht of the American flags, the sailor had added a thirty-eighth, the star of the "state of Lincoln," for he considered his island as already attached to the great republic.

"And," said he, "it is so in heart, if it is not yet so in fact!" meanwhile, this flag was hoisted at the central window of Granite House, and the colonists saluted it with three hurrahs.

However, one was touching the end of the cold season, and it seemed that this second winter was going to pass without grave incident, when, in the night of the 11th of August, the plateau of Prospect Heights was threatened with complete devastation.

After a full day, the colonists slept profoundly, when, toward four o'clock in the morning, they were suddenly awakened by the barkings of Top.

The dog was not barking, this time, near the orifice of the well, but at the threshold of the door, and he threw himself against it as if he would break it in. Jup, on his side, uttered shrill cries.

"Well, Top!" cried Nab, who was the first awakened.

But the dog continued to bark with more fury.

"What is it?" asked Cyrus Smith.

And all, hastily clothed, rushed toward the windows of the chamber, which they opened.

Before their eyes developed a layer of snow that appeared scarcely white in that very dark night. The colonists saw nothing, but they heard singular barkings that burst in the shadow. It was evident that the shore had been invaded by a certain number of animals that could not be distinguished.

"What is it?" cried Pencroff.

"Wolves, jaguars or monkeys!" answered Nab.

"The devil! But they may gain the top of the plateau!" said the reporter.

"And our poultry yard," cried Harbert, "and our plantations?..."

"By where did they pass?" asked Pencroff.

"They will have crossed the footbridge of the shore," answered the engineer, "that one of us will have forgotten to close."

"Indeed," said Spilett, "I remember leaving it open..."

"A fine trick you have played there, Mr. Spilett!" cried the sailor.

"What is done is done," answered Cyrus Smith. "Let us advise as to what must be done!"

Such were the questions and answers that were rapidly exchanged between Cyrus Smith and his companions. It was certain that the footbridge had been crossed, that the shore was invaded by animals, and that these, whatever they were, could, in ascending the left bank of the Mercy, arrive at the plateau of Prospect Heights. It was necessary therefore to outrun them and combat them, if need be.

"But what beasts are those?" was it asked a second time, at the moment when the barkings resounded with more force.

These barkings made Harbert start, and he remembered having already heard them during his first visit to the sources of the Red Creek.

"They are culpeos, they are foxes!" said he.

"Forward!" cried the sailor.

And all, arming themselves with axes, rifles and revolvers, rushed into the car of the elevator and set foot on the shore.

These are dangerous animals, these culpeos, when they are in great number and hunger irritates them.

Nevertheless, the colonists did not hesitate to throw themselves into the midst of the band, and their first revolver shots, launching rapid flashes in the darkness, made the first assailants recoil.

What mattered above all, was to prevent these pillagers from rising to the plateau of Prospect Heights, for the plantations, the poultry yard, would have been at their mercy, and immense damage, perhaps irreparable, especially as concerned the wheat field, would inevitably have been produced.

But as the invasion of the plateau could only be made by the left bank of the Mercy, it sufficed to oppose the culpeos an insurmountable barrier on that narrow portion of the bank comprised between the river and the granite wall.

This was understood by all, and, at an order from Cyrus Smith, they gained the designated place, while the troop of culpeos bounded in the shadow.

Cyrus Smith, Gideon Spilett, Harbert, Pencroff and Nab therefore disposed themselves so as to form an impassable line. Top, his formidable jaws open, preceded the colonists, and he was followed by Jup, armed with a knotty cudgel that he brandished like a mace.

The night was extremely dark. It was only by the gleam of the discharges, each of which must tell, that one perceived the assailants, who must have been at least a hundred, and whose eyes shone like embers.

"They must not pass!" cried Pencroff.

"They shall not pass!" answered the engineer.

But if they did not pass, it was not for lack of having attempted it. The last ranks pushed the first, and it was an incessant struggle with revolver shots and ax blows. Many corpses of culpeos must already have strewn the ground, but the band did not seem to diminish, and one would have said it renewed itself ceaselessly by the footbridge of the shore.

Soon, the colonists had to struggle hand to hand, and they were not without having received some wounds, slight fortunately. Harbert had, with a revolver shot, freed Nab, on whose back a culpeo had just fallen like a cat-tiger. Top fought with a true fury, leaping at the throats of the foxes and strangling them outright. Jup, armed with his stick, struck like a deaf man, and it was in vain that one wished to keep him in the rear. Endowed, no doubt, with a sight that permitted him to pierce that obscurity, he was always at the thick of the combat and pushed from time to time a shrill whistle, which was with him the mark of an extreme jubilation. At a certain moment, he even advanced so far, that by the gleam of a revolver shot, one could see him surrounded by five or six great culpeos, to whom he held his own with a rare coolness.

However the struggle must end to the advantage of the colonists, but after they had resisted two great hours! The first gleams of dawn, no doubt, determined the retreat of the assailants, who scampered toward the north, so as to repass the footbridge, which Nab ran to raise immediately.

When day had sufficiently lighted the field of battle, the colonists could count some fifty corpses scattered on the shore.

"And Jup!" cried Pencroff. "Where is Jup then?"

Jup had disappeared. His friend Nab called him, and, for the first time, Jup did not answer his friend's call.

Each set about seeking Jup, trembling to count him among the dead. They cleared the place of the corpses, which stained the snow with their blood, and Jup was found in the midst of a veritable heap of culpeos whose shattered jaws, broken loins, testified that they had had to do with the terrible cudgel of the intrepid animal. Poor Jup still held in his hand the broken end of his stick; but deprived of his weapon, he had been overwhelmed by numbers, and deep wounds plowed his chest.

"He is alive!" cried Nab, who bent over him.

"And we will save him," answered the sailor, "we will care for him like one of us!"

It seemed that Jup understood, for he inclined his head on Pencroff's shoulder, as to thank him.

The sailor was wounded himself, but his wounds, as well as those of his companions, were insignificant, for, thanks to their firearms, almost always they had been able to keep the assailants at a distance. There was therefore only the orang whose state was grave.

Jup, carried by Nab and Pencroff, was brought to the elevator, and scarcely a faint moan escaped his lips. He was gently remounted to Granite House. There, he was installed on one of the mattresses borrowed from one of the berths, and his wounds were washed with the greatest care.

It did not appear that they had reached some essential organ, but Jup had been very weakened by the loss of his blood, and the fever declared itself to a fairly high degree.

He was therefore put to bed, after his dressing, they imposed on him a severe diet, "just like a natural person," said Nab, and they made him drink some cups of refreshing tisane, whose ingredients the vegetable pharmacy of Granite House furnished.

Jup fell asleep with a sleep agitated at first; but little by little his respiration became more regular, and they left him to rest in the greatest calm. From time to time, Top, walking, one may say "on tiptoe," came to visit his friend and seemed to approve all the care that was taken of him. One of Jup's hands hung outside the bed, and Top licked it with a contrite air.

That very morning, they proceeded to the burial of the dead, who were dragged to the forest of the Far-West and buried deeply.

This attack, which could have had such grave consequences, was a lesson for the colonists, and henceforth they did not go to bed without one of them having assured himself that all the bridges were raised and that no invasion was possible.

However Jup, after having given serious fears for some days, reacted vigorously against the evil. His constitution prevailed, the fever diminished little by little, and Gideon Spilett, who was a bit of a doctor, soon considered him as out of danger. On the 16th of August, Jup began to eat. Nab made him good little sweet dishes that the patient savored with sensuality, for, if he had a darling fault, it was to be a trifle greedy, and Nab had never done anything to correct him of that fault.

"What would you have?" said he to Gideon Spilett, who sometimes reproached him for spoiling him, "he has no other pleasure than that of the mouth, poor Jup, and I am too happy to be able thus to recognize his services!"

Ten days after having taken to bed, the 21st of August, master Jup arose. His wounds were cicatrized, and one saw well that he would not delay to recover his suppleness and habitual vigor. Like all convalescents, he was then seized with a devouring hunger, and the reporter let him eat at his fancy, for he trusted that instinct which too often fails reasonable beings and which must preserve the orang from all excess. Nab was delighted to see return the appetite of his pupil.

"Eat," said he to him, "my Jup, and do not stint yourself of anything! You have shed your blood for us, and it is at least the least that I help you to make it again!"

Finally, on the 25th of August, one heard the voice of Nab calling his companions.

"Mr. Cyrus, Mr. Gideon, Mr. Harbert, Pencroff, come! Come!"

The colonists, gathered in the great hall, rose at Nab's call, who was then in the chamber reserved for Jup.

"What is there?" asked the reporter.

"See!" answered Nab, pushing a vast burst of laughter.

And what did one see? Master Jup, who smoked, tranquilly and seriously, squatting like a Turk on the door of Granite House!

"My pipe!" cried Pencroff. "He has taken my pipe! Ah! My brave Jup, I make you a gift of it! Smoke, my friend, smoke!"

And Jup gravely launched thick puffs of tobacco, which seemed to procure him unparalleled enjoyments.

Cyrus Smith did not show himself otherwise astonished at the incident, and he cited several examples of tamed monkeys, to whom the use of tobacco had become familiar.

But, from that day, master Jup had his own pipe, the ex-pipe of the sailor, which was suspended in his chamber, near his provision of tobacco. He filled it himself, he lit it at a burning coal and appeared to be the happiest of quadrumanes. It is well thought that this community of taste only tightened between Jup and Pencroff those close bonds of friendship that already united the worthy monkey and the honest sailor.

"He is perhaps a man," sometimes said Pencroff to Nab. "Would it astonish you if one day he began to speak to us?"

"Faith no," answered Nab. "What astonishes me, is rather that he does not speak, for, after all, only speech is lacking to him!"

"That would amuse me all the same," resumed the sailor, "if one fine day he said to me: 'if we changed pipes, Pencroff!'"

"Yes," answered Nab. "What a misfortune that he is mute from birth!"

With the month of September, the winter was entirely terminated, and the works resumed with ardor.

The construction of the boat advanced rapidly. It was already entirely planked, and they framed it internally, so as to link all parts of the hull, with timbers softened by steam, which lent themselves to all the exigencies of the shape.

As wood was not lacking, Pencroff proposed to the engineer to double internally the hull with a watertight ceiling, which would completely assure the solidity of the boat.

Cyrus Smith, not knowing what the future reserved, approved the sailor's idea of rendering his boat as solid as possible.

The ceiling and the deck of the boat were entirely finished toward the 15th of September. To caulk the seams, they made oakum with dry zostera, which was introduced with mallet blows between the planks of the hull, the ceiling and the deck; then, these seams were covered with boiling tar, which the pines of the forest furnished abundantly.

The fitting of the boat was of the simplest.

It had first been ballasted with heavy pieces of granite, masonryed in a bed of lime, and of which they stowed about twelve thousand pounds. A deck was placed over this ballast, and the interior was divided into two cabins, along which extended two benches, that served as chests. The foot of the mast was to strut the partition that separated the two cabins, into which one entered by two hatchways, opened on the deck and furnished with hoods.

Pencroff had no trouble finding a suitable tree for the mast. He chose a young fir, very straight, without knots, that he had only to square at its heel and round at its head. The ironwork of the mast, that of the rudder and that of the hull had been grossly, but solidly fabricated at the forge of the Chimneys. Finally, yards, topmast, bowsprit, spars, oars, etc., all was terminated in the first week of October, and it was agreed that they would make the trial of the boat in the surroundings of the island, in order to recognize how it behaved at sea and to what extent one could trust it.

During all this time, the necessary works had not been neglected. The corral was rearranged, for the flock of moufflons and goats counted a certain number of little ones that must be lodged and fed. The visits of the colonists had not failed either to the oyster park, nor to the warren, nor to the coal and iron deposits, nor to some parts hitherto unexplored of the forests of the Far-West, which were very gamey.

Certain indigenous plants were still discovered, and, if they had not an immediate utility, they contributed to vary the vegetable reserves of Granite House. They were species of ficoids, some similar to those of the cape, with fleshy edible leaves, the others producing seeds that contained a sort of flour.

On the 10th of October, the boat was launched to the sea. Pencroff was radiant. The operation succeeded perfectly.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”