Part 3

It was a flat-topped table mountain, like that which dominates Cape Town at the Cape of Good Hope, but on a smaller scale. At least, it appeared so, viewed from the islet. However, greenery was not lacking to the right, behind the truncated face. One could easily make out the confused mass of great trees, whose clustering extended beyond the limits of sight. This verdure rejoiced the eye, sorely saddened by the harsh lines of the granite facing. Finally, in the far background and above the plateau, in a north-westerly direction and at a distance of at least seven miles, shone a white summit struck by the solar rays. It was a cap of snow, crowning some distant mountain.

It could not yet be determined whether this land formed an island or belonged to a continent. But, at the sight of those convulsed rocks piled up on the left, a geologist would not have hesitated to assign them a volcanic origin, for they were unquestionably the product of plutonic action.

Gédéon Spilett, Pencroff, and Harbert observed this land attentively, upon which they might perhaps live for long years, upon which they might even die, if it lay not on the route of ships!

“Well!” said Harbert. “What do you say, Pencroff?”

“Well,” replied the sailor, “there is good and bad, as in everything. We shall see. But here is the ebb making itself felt. In three hours we shall attempt the passage, and, once there, we shall try to get out of our fix and find M. Smith!”

Pencroff had not been mistaken in his forecast.

Three hours later, at low tide, the greater part of the sands forming the channel bed lay exposed. Between the islet and the coast there remained only a narrow creek which would doubtless be easy to cross. Indeed, toward ten o’clock, Gédéon Spilett and his two companions stripped off their clothes, tied them in a bundle on their heads, and ventured into the creek, whose depth did not exceed five feet. Harbert, for whom the water would have been too high, swam like a fish, and got through marvelously. All three arrived without difficulty on the opposite shore. There, the sun having quickly dried them, they put on their garments, which they had kept from contact with the water, and held council.

CHAPTER IV

First of all, the reporter told the sailor to wait for him at that very spot, where he would rejoin him, and, without losing an instant, he went up the coast in the direction taken a few hours earlier by the negro Nab. Then he disappeared rapidly behind an angle of the shore, so eager was he to have news of the engineer.

Harbert had wished to accompany him.

“Stay, my boy,” the sailor had said to him. “We have to prepare a camp and see if it is possible to find something more substantial than shellfish to put under our teeth. Our friends will need to recover on their return. To each his task.”

“I am ready, Pencroff,” replied Harbert.

“Good!” returned the sailor. “That will do. Let us proceed methodically. We are tired, we are cold, we are hungry. It is therefore a question of finding shelter, fire, and food. The forest has wood, the nests have eggs: it remains to find the house.”

“Well,” replied Harbert, “I will search for a cave among these rocks, and I shall end by discovering some hole in which we can stow ourselves!”

“That’s it,” answered Pencroff. “Forward, my boy.”

And off they went, both walking at the foot of the enormous wall, along that beach which the falling tide had widely uncovered. But, instead of going north, they went down south. Pencroff had noticed, a few hundred paces below the spot where they had landed, that the coast offered a narrow cut which, in his opinion, must serve as the outlet of a river or stream.

Now, on the one hand, it was important to settle in the neighborhood of a course of potable water, and, on the other, it was not impossible that the current had driven Cyrus Smith to this side.

The high wall, it has been said, rose to a height of three hundred feet, but the mass was solid everywhere, and, even at its base, barely licked by the sea, it presented not the slightest fissure that might serve as a temporary dwelling. It was a sheer wall of very hard granite, which the waves had never gnawed. Toward the summit fluttered a whole world of aquatic birds, and particularly various species of the order of palmipeds, with elongated, compressed, and pointed beaks — very noisy fowl, little frightened by the presence of man, who, for the first time no doubt, thus disturbed their solitude. Among these palmipeds, Pencroff recognized several skuas, sorts of gulls to which one sometimes gives the name of jaegers, and also small voracious terns that nested in the crevices of the granite. A gunshot, fired amid this swarming of birds, would have brought down a great number; but, to fire a gun, one needs a gun, and neither Pencroff nor Harbert had one.

Besides, these terns and skuas are scarcely eatable, and their eggs even have a detestable taste.

However, Harbert, who had moved a little to the left, soon pointed out some rocks covered with algae, which the high sea must cover again a few hours later. On these rocks, amid the slippery wracks, swarmed bivalve shellfish, which starving men could not disdain. Harbert therefore called Pencroff, who hastened to come.

“Why! These are mussels!” cried the sailor. “Here is something to replace the eggs we lack!”

“They are not mussels,” answered young Harbert, who was examining with attention the mollusks attached to the rocks; “they are lithodomes.”

“And are they eaten?” asked Pencroff.

“Perfectly.”

“Then let us eat lithodomes.”

The sailor could trust Harbert. The young lad was very strong in natural history and had always had a true passion for that science. His father had pushed him in this path, by having him follow the courses of the best professors of Boston, who were fond of this intelligent and industrious child. Thus his instincts as a naturalist were to be made use of more than once later on, and, for his debut, he was not mistaken.

These lithodomes were oblong shellfish, attached in clusters and very adherent to the rocks.

They belonged to that species of boring mollusks which hollow out holes in the hardest stones, and their shell rounded at both ends, a disposition not remarked in the common mussel.

Pencroff and Harbert made a good consumption of these lithodomes, which were then gaping in the sun. They ate them like oysters, and found them of a strongly peppery flavor, which saved them all regret at having neither pepper nor condiments of any sort.

Their hunger was therefore momentarily appeased, but not their thirst, which increased after the absorption of these naturally spiced mollusks. It was therefore a question of finding fresh water, and it was not likely to be wanting in a region so capriciously broken. Pencroff and Harbert, after taking the precaution of making a plentiful provision of lithodomes, with which they filled their pockets and handkerchiefs, regained the foot of the high land. Two hundred paces farther, they arrived at this cut through which, according to Pencroff’s presentiment, a little river must flow bank-full. At this place, the wall seemed to have been separated by some violent plutonic effort. At its base opened a small cove, the bottom of which formed a rather acute angle. The watercourse measured there a hundred feet in width, and its two banks, on either side, counted scarcely twenty feet.

The river sank almost directly between the two walls of granite which tended to lower upstream from the mouth; then it turned abruptly and disappeared under a thicket at half a mile.

“Here, the water! Yonder, the wood!” said Pencroff. “Well, Harbert, nothing is lacking now but the house!”

The river water was limpid. The sailor recognized that at this moment of the tide, that is to say at low water, when the rising flood did not reach it, it was fresh. This important point established, Harbert sought some cavity that might serve as a retreat, but in vain. Everywhere the wall was smooth, flat, and sheer.

However, at the very mouth of the watercourse, and above the reaches of the high sea, the fallen rocks had formed, not a cave, but a heaping up of enormous boulders, such as are often met with in granite countries, and which bear the name of “Chimneys.”

Pencroff and Harbert went rather deeply in among the rocks, into these sandy corridors, to which light was not wanting, for it penetrated through the gaps left between these granites, some of which were maintained only by a miracle of equilibrium. But with the light also entered the wind — a true corridor draught — and, with the wind, the keen cold of the outside. However, the sailor thought that by obstructing certain portions of these corridors, by stopping up some openings with a mixture of stones and sand, one might render the “Chimneys” habitable. Their geometrical plan represented that typographical sign (...), which means et cetera in abbreviation. Now, by isolating the upper loop of the sign, through which rushed the wind from the south and west, one would doubtless succeed in utilizing its lower disposition.

“There is our affair,” said Pencroff, “and, if ever we see M. Smith again, he would know how to make use of this labyrinth.”

“We shall see him again, Pencroff,” cried Harbert, “and when he returns, he must find here a dwelling more or less supportable. It will be so if we can establish a hearth in the left corridor and keep an opening for the smoke.”

“We shall be able to, my boy,” replied the sailor, “and these Chimneys — it was the name Pencroff kept for this provisional dwelling — will do our business. But first, let us go make a provision of fuel. I imagine wood will not be useless to us for stopping up these openings through which the devil plays his trumpet!”

Harbert and Pencroff left the Chimneys, and, doubling the point, they began to go up the left bank of the river. Its current was rather rapid and carried some dead wood. The rising flood — and it was already making itself felt at this moment — must drive it back with force to a considerable distance. The sailor therefore thought that one might utilize this ebb and flow for the transport of heavy objects.

After walking for a quarter of an hour, the sailor and the young lad arrived at the abrupt bend which the river made in sinking toward the left. From this point, its course pursued through a forest of magnificent trees. These trees had kept their verdure, despite the advanced season, for they belonged to that family of conifers which propagates over all regions of the globe, from the northern climates to the tropical lands.

The young naturalist recognized more particularly the “deodars,” essences very numerous in the Himalayan zone, and which spread an agreeable aroma. Among these beautiful trees grew clumps of pines, whose opaque parasol opened widely. Amid the high grasses, Pencroff felt his foot crush dry branches, which crackled like fireworks.

“Good, my boy,” said he to Harbert, “if I ignore the name of these trees, I at least know how to rank them in the category of ‘firewood,’ and, for the moment, that is the only one that suits us!”

“Let us make our provision!” replied Harbert, who at once set to work.

The harvest was easy. It was not even necessary to lop the trees, for enormous quantities of dead wood lay at their feet. But if fuel was not lacking, the means of transport left something to be desired. This wood being very dry, must burn rapidly. Hence the necessity of carrying to the Chimneys a considerable quantity, and the load of two men would not have sufficed. This Harbert pointed out.

“Eh! my boy,” replied the sailor, “there must be a means of transporting this wood. There is always a means of doing everything! If we had a cart or a boat, it would be too easy.”

“But we have the river!” said Harbert.

“Just so,” replied Pencroff. “The river will be for us a road that walks of itself, and timber rafts were not invented for nothing.”

“Only,” observed Harbert, “our road walks at this moment in a direction contrary to ours, since the sea is rising!”

“We shall be quit for waiting until it falls,” replied the sailor, “and it is she that will charge herself with transporting our fuel to the Chimneys. Let us prepare our raft all the same.”

The sailor, followed by Harbert, directed himself toward the angle which the edge of the forest made with the river.

Both carried, each in proportion to his strength, a load of wood, tied in fagots. On the bank was also a great quantity of dead branches, amid those grasses into which the foot of man had probably never ventured. Pencroff at once began to make his raft.

In a sort of eddy produced by a point of the bank and which broke the current, the sailor and the young lad placed pieces of rather large wood which they had attached together with dry vines. There was thus formed a sort of raft on which was successively piled all the harvest, being the load of at least twenty men. In an hour the work was finished, and the raft, moored to the bank, must await the turning of the tide.

There were then some hours to occupy, and, by common accord, Pencroff and Harbert resolved to gain the upper plateau, in order to examine the country over a wider radius.

Precisely, two hundred paces behind the angle formed by the river, the wall, terminated by a fall of rocks, came to die in a gentle slope on the edge of the forest. It was like a natural staircase. Harbert and the sailor therefore began their ascent. Thanks to the vigor of their shanks, they reached the crest in a few moments, and came to post themselves at the angle it made above the mouth of the river. On arriving, their first glance was for that Ocean which they had just crossed in such terrible conditions! They observed with emotion all that part of the north of the coast on which the catastrophe had occurred. It was there that Cyrus Smith had disappeared. They searched with their eyes if some wreck of their balloon, to which a man might have clung, were not still afloat. Nothing! The sea was but a vast desert of water. As for the coast, deserted also. Neither the reporter nor Nab showed themselves there. But it was possible that at this moment both were at such a distance that one could not perceive them.

“Something tells me,” cried Harbert, “that a man as energetic as M. Cyrus could not have let himself be drowned like the first comer. He must have reached some point of the shore. Is it not so, Pencroff?”

The sailor shook his head sadly. He himself hardly hoped to see Cyrus Smith again; but, wishing to leave some hope to Harbert:

“No doubt, no doubt,” said he, “our engineer is a man to get out of a fix where any other would succumb!...”

However, he observed the coast with extreme attention. Before his eyes developed the sandy beach, bounded, on the right of the mouth, by lines of breakers. These rocks, still emergent, resembled groups of amphibians lying in the surf. Beyond the band of reefs, the sea sparkled under the rays of the sun. In the south, a sharp point closed the horizon, and one could not recognize whether the land extended in that direction, or whether it oriented itself south-east and south-west, which would have made of this coast a sort of very elongated peninsula. At the northern extremity of the bay, the outline of the littoral pursued to a great distance, following a more rounded line. There, the shore was low, flat, without cliff, with wide banks of sand, which the ebb left exposed.

Pencroff and Harbert then turned toward the west. Their gaze was first arrested by the snow-capped mountain, which rose at a distance of six or seven miles. From its first slopes to two miles from the coast, extended vast wooded masses, relieved by great green patches due to the presence of evergreen trees. Then, from the edge of this forest to the coast itself, verdured a wide plateau sown with clumps of trees capriciously distributed. On the left, one saw at intervals sparkle the waters of the little river, through some clearings, and it seemed that its rather sinuous course brought it back toward the foothills of the mountain, between which it must take its source. At the point where the sailor had left his timber raft, it began to flow between the two high walls of granite; but if, on its left bank, the walls remained clean and abrupt, on the right bank, on the contrary, they lowered little by little, the masses changing into isolated rocks, the rocks into pebbles, the pebbles into shingle to the extremity of the point.

“Are we on an island?” murmured the sailor.

“At all events, it would seem to be rather vast!” replied the young lad.

“An island, however vast it might be, would still be but an island!” said Pencroff.

But this important question could not yet be resolved. Its solution must be put off to another time. As to the land itself, island or continent, it appeared fertile, agreeable in its aspects, varied in its productions.

“That is fortunate,” observed Pencroff, “and, in our misfortune, we must thank Providence for it.”

“God be praised then!” replied Harbert, whose pious heart was full of gratitude toward the Author of all things.

For a long time, Pencroff and Harbert examined this country upon which their destiny had cast them, but it was difficult to imagine, after so summary an inspection, what the future reserved for them.

Then they returned, following the meridional crest of the granite plateau, traced by a long festoon of capricious rocks, which affected the most bizarre forms. There lived some hundreds of birds nested in the holes of the stone. Harbert, leaping among the rocks, started a whole troop of these fowl.

“Ah!” he cried, “those are neither gulls nor terns!”

“What birds are they then?” asked Pencroff.

“Faith, they look like pigeons!”

“Indeed, but they are wild pigeons, or rock pigeons,” replied Harbert. “I recognize them by the double black band of their wing, by their white rump, by their bluish-grey plumage. Now, if the rock pigeon is good to eat, its eggs must be excellent, and, if only they have left some in their nests!...”

“We shall not give them time to hatch, unless as an omelet!” gayly answered Pencroff.

“But in what will you make your omelet?” asked Harbert. “In your hat?”

“Bah!” replied the sailor, “I am not sorcerer enough for that. We shall fall back then on boiled eggs, my boy, and I charge myself with dispatching the hardest!”

Pencroff and the young lad examined with attention the crevices of the granite, and they found, indeed, eggs in certain cavities! Some dozens were gathered, then placed in the sailor’s handkerchief, and, the moment approaching when the sea must be full, Harbert and Pencroff began to descend toward the watercourse.

When they arrived at the bend of the river, it was an hour after noon.

The current was already turning. It was necessary therefore to profit by the ebb to bring the timber raft to the mouth. Pencroff had no intention of letting this raft go, with the current, without direction, and he did not mean either to embark on it to steer it. But a sailor is never at a loss, when it is a question of cables or cords, and Pencroff rapidly twisted a rope several fathoms long by means of dry vines. This vegetable cable was attached to the rear of the raft, and the sailor held it in his hand, while Harbert, pushing the raft with a long pole, kept it in the current.

The process succeeded to a wish. The enormous load of wood, which the sailor retained by walking on the bank, followed the line of the water. The bank was very steep, there was no fear that the raft would run aground, and, before two hours, it arrived at the mouth, a few paces from the Chimneys.

CHAPTER V

The first care of Pencroff, as soon as the timber raft had been unloaded, was to render the Chimneys habitable, by stopping up those of the corridors through which the draught of air was established. Sand, stones, interlaced branches, wet earth hermetically stopped the galleries of the (...), open to the south winds, and isolated its upper loop. A single passage, narrow and sinuous, which opened on the lateral part, was contrived, in order to conduct the smoke outside and provoke the draft of the hearth. The Chimneys thus found themselves divided into three or four chambers, if one may give that name to as many dark dens of which a wild beast would scarce have been content. But one was dry there, and one could stand there, at least in the principal of these chambers, which occupied the center. A fine sand covered its floor, and, all told, one could make shift with it, pending better.

While working, Harbert and Pencroff talked.

“Perhaps,” said Harbert, “our companions will have found a better installation than ours.”

“That is possible,” replied the sailor, “but, in doubt, do not abstain! Better one cord too many to one’s bow than no cord at all!”

“Ah!” repeated Harbert, “if only they bring back M. Smith, if only they find him, we shall have nothing left but to thank heaven!”

“Yes!” murmured Pencroff. “That was a man, that one, and a true one!”

“Was...” said Harbert. “Do you despair of ever seeing him again?”

“God forbid!” replied the sailor.

The work of fitting-up was rapidly executed, and Pencroff declared himself very satisfied with it.

“Now,” said he, “our friends may return. They will find sufficient shelter.”

It remained to establish the hearth and prepare the meal.

Simple and easy work, in truth. Broad flat stones were disposed at the bottom of the first left corridor, at the orifice of the narrow passage that had been reserved. What the smoke would not carry of heat outside would evidently suffice to maintain a convenient temperature within. The provision of wood was stored in one of the chambers, and the sailor placed on the hearth stones some logs, intermingled with small wood.

The sailor was occupied with this work, when Harbert asked him if he had matches.

“Certainly,” replied Pencroff, “and I shall add: Fortunately, for, without matches or tinder, we should be much embarrassed!”

“We could always make fire like the savages,” answered Harbert, “by rubbing two pieces of dry wood one against the other?”

“Well! try it, my boy, and we shall see if you arrive at anything but breaking your arms!”

“However, it is a very simple process and much used in the islands of the Pacific.”

“I do not say no,” replied Pencroff, “but one must believe that the savages know the way to set about it, or that they employ a particular wood, for, more than once already, I have wished to procure fire in this fashion, and I have never been able to succeed! I confess therefore that I prefer matches! Where are my matches?”

“Stories of the world, in your language.”