Part 34

-- We mean, Mr. Cyrus, answered Pencroff, that we were in great difficulty on board the Bonadventure, during the last hours before our return, and that we should have passed to leeward of the island, if you had not taken the precaution of lighting a fire on the night of October 19 to 20, on the plateau of Granite House.

-- Yes, yes!... it was a happy idea of mine! replied the engineer.

-- And this time, added the sailor, unless the thought occurs to Ayrton, there will be no one to render us that small service!

-- No! No one! answered Cyrus Smith.

And a few moments later, finding himself alone at the bow of the boat with the reporter, the engineer leaned toward his ear and said to him:

"If there is one certain thing in this world, Spilett, it is that I never lit any fire on the night of October 19 to 20, neither on the plateau of Granite House, nor in any other part of the island!"

CHAPTER XX

Things happened as Pencroff had foreseen, for his presentiments could not deceive him. The wind began to freshen, and, from a good breeze, it passed to the state of a gale, that is to say, it acquired a speed of forty to forty-five miles per hour, and a vessel in open sea would have been under close-reefed topsails, with its studding sails furled. Now, as it was about six o'clock when the Bonadventure was abeam of the gulf, and at that moment the ebb tide was making itself felt, it was impossible to enter it. They were therefore forced to keep offshore, for, even if he had wished it, Pencroff could not even have reached the mouth of the Mercy. So, after having rigged his jib on the mainmast by way of a storm jib, he waited, heading toward the land.

Very happily, if the wind was very strong, the sea, sheltered by the coast, did not swell excessively. They had therefore not to fear the breaking of waves, which are a great danger for small boats.

The Bonadventure would not have capsized, doubtless, for it was well ballasted; but enormous sheets of water, falling on board, might have compromised it, if the hatches had not held. Pencroff, as a skilled sailor, provided for all events. Certainly! He had extreme confidence in his boat, but he nevertheless awaited the day with a certain anxiety.

During this night, Cyrus Smith and Gedeon Spilett had no occasion to talk together, and yet the phrase pronounced at the reporter's ear by the engineer was well worth discussing again this mysterious influence which seemed to reign over Lincoln Island. Gedeon Spilett never ceased thinking of this new and inexplicable incident, of this appearance of a fire on the coast of the island. This fire, he had indeed really seen it! His companions, Harbert and Pencroff, had seen it as he had! This fire had served them to recognize the situation of the island during that dark night, and they could not doubt that it was the hand of the engineer which had lit it, and behold Cyrus Smith formally declared that he had done nothing of the sort!

Gedeon Spilett promised himself to return to this incident, as soon as the Bonadventure was back, and to push Cyrus Smith to make his companions aware of these strange facts. Perhaps they would then decide to make, in common, a complete investigation of all parts of Lincoln Island.

However it may be, that evening no fire was lit on those shores, still unknown, which formed the entrance of the gulf, and the small boat continued to keep offshore during the whole night.

When the first gleams of dawn outlined themselves on the eastern horizon, the wind, which had slightly calmed, shifted two points and allowed Pencroff to enter more easily the narrow entrance of the gulf. Toward seven o'clock in the morning, the Bonadventure, after having fallen off before the north jaw cape, entered prudently into the passage and ventured upon these waters, enclosed in the strangest frame of lavas.

"There," said Pencroff, "is a stretch of sea that would make an admirable roadstead, where fleets could maneuver at their ease!"

"What is especially curious," observed Cyrus Smith, "is that this gulf was formed by two flows of lava, vomited by the volcano, which accumulated by successive eruptions. It results therefore that this gulf is completely sheltered on all sides, and it is to be believed that, even with the worst winds, the sea there is calm as a lake."

"No doubt," replied the sailor, "since the wind, to penetrate there, has only that narrow throat cut between the two capes, and moreover the north cape covers the south one, so as to render the entry of squalls very difficult. In truth, our Bonadventure could remain there from one end of the year to the other without even straining on its anchors!"

"It is a little large for him!" observed the reporter.

"Eh! Mr. Spilett," answered the sailor, "I grant that it is too large for the Bonadventure, but if the fleets of the Union need a safe shelter in the Pacific, I believe they will never find better than this roadstead!"

"We are in the shark's mouth," then observed Nab, alluding to the shape of the gulf.

"Right in the mouth, my good Nab!" answered Harbert, "but you are not afraid it will close on us, are you?"

"No, Mr. Harbert," answered Nab, "and yet that gulf there does not please me much! It has a wicked look!"

"Good!" cried Pencroff, "here is Nab depreciating my gulf, at the moment when I meditate offering it to America!"

"But, at least, are the waters deep?" asked the engineer, "for what suffices for the keel of the Bonadventure would not suffice for that of our ironclad ships."

"Easy to verify," answered Pencroff.

And the sailor sent to the bottom a long rope which served him as a sounding line, and to which was attached a block of iron. This line measured about fifty fathoms, and it unwound to the end without striking the bottom.

"Come," said Pencroff, "our ships can come here! They will not run aground!"

"Indeed," said Cyrus Smith, "it is a veritable abyss, that gulf; but, taking into account the plutonian origin of the island, it is not astonishing that the bottom of the sea offers such depressions."

"It would also seem," observed Harbert, "that these walls have been cut sheer, and I well believe that at their foot, even with a sounding line five or six times longer, Pencroff would find no bottom."

"All that is well," said then the reporter, "but I will remark to Pencroff that there lacks one important thing to his roadstead!"

"And which, Mr. Spilett?"

"A cutting, some trench, which gives access to the interior of the island. I do not see a point on which one could land!"

And, indeed, the high lavas, very steep, offered not on the whole perimeter of the gulf a single favorable spot for a landing. It was an impassable curtain, which recalled, but with even more aridity, the fiords of Norway. The Bonadventure, grazing these high walls so as to touch them, found not even a projection which could permit the passengers to leave the side.

Pencroff consoled himself by saying that, mining aided, they would know well how to rip open this wall, when it should be necessary, and then since, decidedly, there was nothing to do in this gulf, he directed his boat toward the throat and exited from it toward two o'clock in the afternoon.

"Ouf!" made Nab, pushing a sigh of satisfaction.

One would really have said that the brave negro did not feel at ease in that enormous jaw!

From the jaw cape to the mouth of the Mercy, there was scarcely eight miles to count. The cape was therefore set on Granite House, and the Bonadventure, with some slack in its sails, coasted at a distance of a mile. To the enormous lavic rocks soon succeeded those capricious dunes, among which the engineer had been so singularly found again, and which the sea birds frequented by hundreds.

Toward four o'clock, Pencroff, leaving on his left the point of the islet, entered the channel which separated it from the coast, and, at five o'clock, the anchor of the Bonadventure bit the sandy bottom at the mouth of the Mercy.

It had been three days since the colonists had left their dwelling. Ayrton was waiting for them on the beach, and master Jup came joyously toward them, making heard good gruntings of satisfaction.

The entire exploration of the coasts of the island was therefore done, and no suspicious trace had been observed.

If some mysterious being resided there, it could only be under cover of the impenetrable woods of the Serpentine Peninsula, there where the colonists had not yet carried their investigations.

Gedeon Spilett spoke of these things with the engineer, and it was agreed that they would draw their companions' attention to the strange character of certain incidents which had occurred in the island, and of which the last was one of the most inexplicable. Also Cyrus Smith, returning to this fact of a fire lit by an unknown hand on the shore, could not prevent himself from saying a twentieth time to the reporter:

"But are you sure of having well seen? Was it not a partial eruption of the volcano, some meteor?"

"No, Cyrus," answered the reporter, "it was certainly a fire lit by the hand of man. Besides, question Pencroff and Harbert. They saw as I myself saw, and they will confirm my words."

It followed therefore that, some days after, on April 25, during the evening, at the moment when all the colonists were reunited on the plateau of Grand View, Cyrus Smith took the word saying:

"My friends, I believe I should call your attention to certain facts which have taken place in the island, and regarding which I would be glad to have your advice. These facts are, so to speak, supernatural..."

"Supernatural!" cried the sailor, emitting a puff of tobacco. "Could our island be supernatural?"

"No, Pencroff, but mysterious, surely," answered the engineer, "unless you can explain to us that which Spilett and I have not been able to understand until now."

"Speak, Mr. Cyrus," answered the sailor.

"Well! Have you understood," said then the engineer, "how it could be that, after falling into the sea, I was found a quarter of a mile inside the island, and that without my having consciousness of this displacement?"

"Unless, being fainting..." said Pencroff.

"That is not admissible," answered the engineer. "But let us pass on. Have you understood how Top was able to discover your retreat, five miles from the cave where I lay?"

"The instinct of the dog..." answered Harbert.

"Singular instinct!" observed the reporter, "since, despite the rain and the wind which raged during that night, Top arrived at the chimneys dry and without a speck of mud!"

"Let us pass," resumed the engineer. "Have you understood how our dog was so strangely thrown out of the waters of the lake, after his struggle with the dugong?"

"No! Not too well, I confess," answered Pencroff, "and the wound that the dugong had on its flank, a wound which seemed to have been made by a cutting instrument, is not understood any better."

"Let us pass again," resumed Cyrus Smith. "Have you understood, my friends, how this grain of lead was found in the body of the young peccary, how this case so happily ran aground, without there being trace of shipwreck, how this bottle enclosing the document offered itself so apropos, during our first sea excursion, how our canoe, having broken its mooring, came by the current of the Mercy to rejoin us precisely at the moment when we needed it, how, after the invasion of the monkeys, the ladder was so opportunely sent back from the heights of Granite House, how, finally, the document which Ayrton pretends never to have written fell into our hands?"

Cyrus Smith had just enumerated, without forgetting a single one, the strange facts which had been accomplished in the island. Harbert, Pencroff and Nab looked at each other, not knowing what to answer, for the succession of these incidents, thus grouped for the first time, did not fail to surprise them to the highest point.

"On my faith," said finally Pencroff, "you are right, Mr. Cyrus, and it is difficult to explain those things!"

"Well, my friends," resumed the engineer, "a last fact has come to add itself to those, and it is no less incomprehensible than the others!"

"Which one, Mr. Cyrus?" asked quickly Harbert.

"When you returned from Tabor Island, Pencroff," resumed the engineer, "you say that a fire appeared to you on Lincoln Island?"

"Certainly," answered the sailor.

"And you are quite certain of having seen it, that fire?"

"As I see you."

"You also, Harbert?"

"Ah! Mr. Cyrus," cried Harbert, "that fire shone like a star of the first magnitude!"

"But was it not a star?" asked the engineer insistently.

"No," answered Pencroff, "for the sky was covered with thick clouds, and a star, in any case, would not have been so low on the horizon. But Mr. Spilett saw it as we did, and he can confirm our words!"

"I will add," said the reporter, "that this fire was very vivid and that it cast like an electric sheet."

"Yes! Yes! Perfectly..." answered Harbert, "and it was certainly placed on the heights of Granite House."

"Well, my friends," answered Cyrus Smith, "during that night of October 19 to 20, neither Nab nor I lit a fire on the coast."

"You did not?..." cried Pencroff, at the height of astonishment, and who could not even finish his phrase.

"We did not leave Granite House," answered Cyrus Smith, "and if a fire appeared on the coast, it is another hand than ours which lit it!"

Pencroff, Harbert and Nab were stupefied. There had been no possible illusion, and a fire had indeed struck their eyes during that night of October 19 to 20!

Yes! They had to acknowledge it, a mystery existed! An inexplicable influence, evidently favorable to the colonists, but very irritating for their curiosity, made itself felt and as if at the right moment on Lincoln Island. Was there then some being hidden in its deepest retreats? That is what must be known at any cost!

Cyrus Smith also recalled to his companions the singular attitude of Top and Jup, when they roamed at the orifice of the well which put Granite House in communication with the sea, and he told them that he had explored this well without discovering anything suspicious there. Finally, the conclusion of this conversation was a determination taken by all the members of the colony to dig entirely into the island, as soon as the fine season should return.

But since that day, Pencroff appeared preoccupied.

This island of which he made his personal property, it seemed to him that it no longer belonged to him entirely and that he shared it with another master, to whom, willingly or unwillingly, he felt subjected.

Nab and he often spoke of these inexplicable things, and both, very inclined to the marvelous by their very nature, were not far from believing that Lincoln Island was subordinated to some supernatural power.

However the bad days had come with the month of May, -- November of the boreal zones. The winter seemed destined to be harsh and early. Also the wintering works were undertaken without delay.

Besides, the colonists were well prepared to receive this winter, however hard it should be. The felt garments were not lacking, and the sheep, numerous then, had abundantly supplied the wool necessary to the manufacture of this warm fabric.

It goes without saying that Ayrton had been provided with these comfortable garments. Cyrus Smith offered him to come spend the bad season at Granite House, where he would be better lodged than at the corral, and Ayrton promised to do so, as soon as the last works of the corral should be terminated. Which he did toward the middle of April. Since that time, Ayrton shared the common life and made himself useful on every occasion; but, always humble and sad, he never took part in the pleasures of his companions!

During the greater part of this third winter that the colonists passed at Lincoln Island, they remained confined in Granite House. There were very great tempests and terrible gusts, which seemed to shake the rocks even on their base. Immense tidal waves threatened to cover the island wholesale, and, certainly, any vessel moored on the offings would have been lost there, hull and cargo. Twice, during one of these storms, the Mercy swelled to the point of giving cause to fear that the bridge and the culverts would be carried away, and it was even necessary to consolidate those of the beach, which disappeared under the layers of water, when the sea beat the shore.

It is well thought that such gusts of wind, comparable to waterspouts, where rain and snow mingled, caused damage on the plateau of Grand View. The mill and the poultry yard had particularly to suffer. The colonists had often to make urgent repairs there, otherwise the existence of the fowls would have been seriously threatened.

During these great bad times, some couples of jaguars and bands of quadrumana ventured to the edge of the plateau, and it was always to be feared that the most supple and the most audacious, pushed by hunger, might succeed in crossing the brook, which, besides, when it was frozen, offered them an easy passage. Plantations and domestic animals would have been infallibly destroyed then without a continual surveillance, and often it was necessary to fire shots to keep these dangerous visitors at a respectful distance. Also the work did not fail the wintering men, for, without counting the cares of the outside, there were always a thousand fitting works at Granite House.

There were also some fine hunts, which were made during the great colds in the vast marshes of the sheldrakes. Gedeon Spilett and Harbert, aided by Jup and Top, did not miss a shot in the middle of these myriads of ducks, snipes, teals, mallards and lapwings. The access of this gamey territory was easy, besides, whether one went there by the route of Ballon Port, after having passed the bridge of the Mercy, or by turning the rocks of the Wreck Point, and the hunters never strayed from Granite House beyond two or three miles.

Thus passed the four winter months, which were really rigorous, that is to say June, July, August and September. But, in sum, Granite House did not suffer too much from the inclemencies of the weather, and it was the same at the corral, which, less exposed than the plateau and covered in great part by Mount Franklin, received only the remains of the gusts already broken by the forests and the high rocks of the shore. The damage there was therefore of little importance, and the active and skillful hand of Ayrton sufficed to repair them promptly, when, in the second fortnight of October, he returned to spend some days at the corral.

During this winter, there occurred no new inexplicable incident. Nothing strange happened, although Pencroff and Nab were on the lookout for the most insignificant facts they could attach to a mysterious cause. Top and Jup themselves no longer roamed around the well and gave no sign of uneasiness. It seemed therefore that the series of supernatural incidents was interrupted, although they spoke of it often during the watches of Granite House, and it remained well agreed that the island would be dug into even its most difficult parts to explore. But an event of the highest gravity, and of which the consequences could be fatal, came momentarily to divert Cyrus Smith and his companions from their projects.

It was the month of October. The fine season returned at great strides. Nature renewed itself under the rays of the sun, and, in the middle of the persistent foliage of the conifers which formed the edge of the wood, appeared already the new foliage of the nettle trees, the banksias and the deodars.

It is remembered that Gedeon Spilett and Harbert had taken, several times, photographic views of Lincoln Island.

Now, on the 17th of this month of October, toward three o'clock in the afternoon, Harbert, seduced by the purity of the sky, had the thought to reproduce the whole of Union Bay which faced the plateau of Grand View, from the Jaw Cape to the Claw Cape.

The horizon was admirably drawn, and the sea, undulating under a soft breeze, presented at its background the immobility of the waters of a lake, speckled here and there with luminous straws.

The lens had been placed at one of the windows of the large room of Granite House, and consequently, it dominated the beach and the bay. Harbert proceeded as he was accustomed to do, and, the negative obtained, he went to fix it by means of the substances which were deposited in an obscure recess of Granite House.

Returned to full light, on examining it well, Harbert perceived on his negative a small almost imperceptible point which stained the sea horizon.

He tried to make it disappear by a reiterated washing, but he could not succeed.

"It is a defect which is in the glass," he thought.

And then he had the curiosity to examine this defect with a strong lens which he unscrewed from one of the spyglasses.

But, scarcely had he looked, than he uttered a cry and the negative nearly escaped from his hands.

Running immediately to the room where Cyrus Smith was, he held out the negative and the lens to the engineer, indicating to him the small spot.

Cyrus Smith examined this point; then, seizing his spyglass, he precipitated himself toward the window.

The spyglass, after having slowly traversed the horizon, finally stopped on the suspect point, and Cyrus Smith, lowering it, pronounced only this word: "ship!"

And, indeed, a ship was in sight of Lincoln Island!

PART 3 THE SECRET OF THE ISLAND CHAPTER I

For two years and a half, the castaways of the balloon had been thrown onto Lincoln Island, and until then no communication had been able to be established between them and their kind. Once, the reporter had attempted to put himself in relation with the inhabited world, by entrusting to a bird this notice which contained the secret of their situation, but that was a chance on which it was impossible to seriously count. Alone, Ayrton, and in the circumstances that are known, had come to adjoin himself to the members of the small colony. Now, behold that, this very day -- October 17 -- other men appeared inopportunely in sight of the island, on this always deserted sea!

One could no longer doubt it! A ship was there!

But would it pass at large, or would it put in? Before some hours, the colonists would evidently know where they stood.

Cyrus Smith and Harbert, having immediately called Gedeon Spilett, Pencroff and Nab into the large room of Granite House, had made them aware of what was passing. Pencroff, seizing the spyglass, rapidly traversed the horizon, and, stopping on the indicated point, that is to say on that which had made the imperceptible spot of the photographic negative:

"A thousand devils! It is indeed a ship!" said he in a voice which denoted no extraordinary satisfaction.

"Does it come to us?" asked Gedeon Spilett.

"Impossible to affirm anything yet," answered Pencroff, "for its masting alone appears above the horizon, and one does not see a piece of its hull!"

"What must be done?" said the young boy.

"Wait," answered Cyrus Smith.

And, during a rather long time, the colonists remained silent, given up to all the thoughts, to all the emotions, to all the fears, to all the hopes that this incident -- the most grave which had occurred since their arrival on Lincoln Island -- could make born in them.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”