Part 8

However, they were gradually gaining height. The road, lengthened by detours and obstacles that could not be crossed directly, was long. Sometimes, too, the ground suddenly gave way, and they found themselves on the edge of deep crevasses that had to be circumvented. To retrace their steps thus, in order to follow some practicable path, was time spent and hardships endured. At noon, when the little troop halted to breakfast at the foot of a wide clump of firs, near a small stream that fell away in a cascade, they were still halfway to the first plateau, which, from that point, would probably not be reached until nightfall. From this spot, the sea horizon opened out more widely; but, on the right, the view, stopped by the sharp promontory of the southeast, could not determine whether the coast turned back abruptly to some inland shore. On the left, the range of sight gained some miles to the north; nevertheless, from the northwest, at the point occupied by the explorers, it was cut off sharply by the ridge of a strangely shaped spur, which formed like the massive abutment of the central cone. Nothing could yet be foreseen, therefore, of the question Cyrus Smith wished to resolve.

At one o'clock, the ascent was resumed. It was necessary to veer toward the southwest and enter again into fairly thick underbrush. There, beneath the cover of the trees, fluttered several pairs of gallinaceous birds of the pheasant family. These were "tragopans," adorned with a fleshy wattle hanging from their throats, and two slender cylindrical horns, set behind their eyes. Among these pairs, of the size of a rooster, the female was uniformly brown, while the male shone resplendent in his red plumage, sprinkled with small white teardrops.

Gédéon Spilett, with a stone adroitly and vigorously flung, killed one of these tragopans, which Pencroff, made hungry by the open air, regarded not without some covetousness.

After leaving this thicket, the climbers, making a human ladder for one another, scaled a very steep slope of a hundred feet, and reached an upper level, sparsely furnished with trees, whose ground took on a volcanic appearance. It then became necessary to return toward the east, describing zigzags that made the slopes more passable, for they were then very steep, and each must choose with care where he set his foot. Nab and Harbert led the way, Pencroff brought up the rear; between them, Cyrus and the reporter. The animals that frequented these heights — and traces were not lacking — must necessarily belong to those sure-footed and supple-spined races, the chamois or the ibex. They saw some, but it was not the name Pencroff gave them, for, at a certain moment:

"Sheep!" he cried.

All had stopped fifty paces from half a dozen large animals, with strong horns curved backward and flattened toward the tip, with woolly fleece hidden beneath long silky hairs of a fawn color.

These were not ordinary sheep, but a species commonly found in the mountainous regions of the temperate zones, which Harbert named the mouflon.

"Have they legs and chops?" asked the sailor.

"Yes," replied Harbert.

"Well, then, they're sheep!" said Pencroff.

These animals, motionless among the basaltic debris, gazed with astonished eye, as if they were seeing human bipeds for the first time. Then, their fear suddenly aroused, they disappeared, bounding over the rocks.

"Goodbye!" Pencroff cried after them in so comical a tone that Cyrus Smith, Gédéon Spilett, Harbert, and Nab could not refrain from laughing.

The ascent continued. One could frequently observe, on certain declivities, traces of lava, very capriciously streaked. Small solfataras sometimes cut across the route followed by the climbers, and it was necessary to go around their edges. In some places, sulfur had deposited in the form of crystalline concretions, amid those materials which generally precede lava outflows — pozzolanas with irregular grains and strongly torrefied, whitish ashes made of an infinity of small feldspathic crystals. Near the approaches of the first plateau, formed by the truncation of the lower cone, the difficulties of the ascent became very pronounced. Toward four o'clock, the extreme zone of trees had been passed. There remained here and there only a few gnarled and bare pines, which must have been tough indeed to resist, at that height, the great winds from the open sea.

Happily for the engineer and his companions, the weather was fine, the atmosphere calm, for a violent breeze, at an altitude of three thousand feet, would have hindered their movements. The purity of the sky at the zenith was felt through the transparency of the air. A perfect calm reigned around them. They no longer saw the sun, then hidden by the vast screen of the upper cone, which masked the half-horizon of the west, and whose enormous shadow, lengthening to the shoreline, grew as the radiant orb declined in its diurnal course. A few vapors, rather mists than clouds, began to show in the east, and colored themselves with all spectral hues under the action of the solar rays.

Only five hundred feet then separated the explorers from the plateau they wished to reach, in order to establish a camp there for the night, but these five hundred feet were increased by more than two miles by the zigzags that had to be described. The ground, so to speak, failed beneath the foot. The slopes often presented so open an angle that one slipped on the lava flows, when the striations, worn by the air, offered no sufficient foothold. At last, evening came on by degrees, and it was nearly night when Cyrus Smith and his companions, very weary from a seven-hour ascent, arrived at the plateau of the first cone.

It was then a question of organizing the camp, and repairing their strength, by supping first, then sleeping. This second story of the mountain rose upon a base of rocks, amid which one easily found a retreat. Fuel was not abundant. However, fire could be obtained by means of the mosses and dry brushwood that bristled over certain portions of the plateau. While the sailor prepared his hearth upon stones he arranged for that purpose, Nab and Harbert occupied themselves with supplying it with fuel.

They soon returned with their load of brushwood.

The tinder was struck, the burnt linen caught the sparks of the flint, and, beneath Nab's breath, a crackling fire sprang up in a few instants, sheltered by the rocks.

This fire was intended only to combat the rather cold temperature of the night, and was not used to cook the pheasant, which Nab reserved for the morrow. The remains of the capybara and some dozens of pinion pine nuts formed the elements of the supper. It was not yet half past six when all was finished.

Cyrus Smith then had the thought of exploring, in the half-darkness, this wide circular ledge that supported the upper cone of the mountain. Before taking some rest, he wished to know if this cone could be circumvented at its base, in case its sides, too sloping, should render it inaccessible to the summit. This question did not fail to preoccupy him, for it was possible that, on the side where the cap inclined, that is to say toward the north, the plateau might not be practicable. Now, if the top of the mountain could not be reached, on the one hand, and if, on the other, one could not go around the base of the cone, it would be impossible to examine the western portion of the country, and the aim of the ascent would be partly missed.

Therefore, the engineer, without regard to his fatigue, leaving Pencroff and Nab to organize the sleeping place, and Gédéon Spilett to note the incidents of the day, began to follow the circular edge of the plateau, directing himself toward the north. Harbert accompanied him.

The night was fine and tranquil, the darkness still not deep. Cyrus Smith and the young boy walked near one another, without speaking. In certain places, the plateau opened widely before them, and they passed without hindrance. In others, obstructed by the scree, it offered only a narrow path, upon which two persons could not walk abreast. It even happened that, after a twenty-minute walk, Cyrus Smith and Harbert had to stop. From this point, the slopes of the two cones were flush. No shoulder separated the two parts of the mountain. To go around them on slopes inclined at nearly seventy degrees became impracticable.

But, if the engineer and the young boy had to renounce following a circular direction, on the other hand, the possibility was then given them of directly resuming the ascent of the cone. Indeed, before them opened a deep rupture of the massif. It was the throat of the upper crater, the neck, if one will, by which the liquid eruptive matters escaped, at the epoch when the volcano was still active. The hardened lavas, the incrusted scoriae formed a sort of natural staircase, with broadly drawn steps, which must facilitate access to the summit of the mountain. A single glance sufficed for Cyrus Smith to recognize this disposition, and, without hesitation, followed by the young boy, he entered the enormous crevasse, amid a growing obscurity.

It was still a height of a thousand feet to surmount.

Would the inner declivities of the crater be practicable? That would be seen. The engineer would continue his ascending march, so long as he was not stopped. Happily, these declivities, very elongated and very sinuous, described a wide spiral staircase within the volcano, and favored the upward march.

As for the volcano itself, one could not doubt that it was completely extinguished. Not a smoke escaped its flanks. Not a flame revealed itself in the deep cavities. Not a rumbling, not a murmur, not a tremor issued from this dark well, which perhaps hollowed itself to the entrails of the globe. The atmosphere itself, within this crater, was saturated with no sulfurous vapor. It was more than the sleep of a volcano, it was its complete extinction.

Cyrus Smith's attempt must succeed. Little by little, Harbert and he, remounting the inner walls, saw the crater widen above their heads. The radius of this circular portion of sky, framed by the rim of the cone, increased sensibly. At each step, so to speak, that Cyrus Smith and Harbert took, new stars entered the field of their vision. The magnificent constellations of this southern sky resplended. At the zenith, shone with pure brilliance the splendid Antares of the Scorpion, and, not far, that B of the Centaur which is believed to be the star nearest the terrestrial globe. Then, as the crater flared open, appeared Fomalhaut of the Fish, the Southern Triangle, and at last, almost at the antarctic pole of the world, that sparkling Southern Cross, which replaces the Polar Star of the northern hemisphere.

It was near eight o'clock when Cyrus Smith and Harbert set foot on the upper crest of the mount, at the summit of the cone.

The darkness was then complete, and did not permit the eye to extend over a radius of two miles. Did the sea surround this unknown land, or did this land attach itself, in the west, to some continent of the Pacific? One could not yet recognize it. Toward the west, a cloudy band, sharply drawn at the horizon, increased the shadows, and the eye could not discover whether sky and water there confounded themselves upon a same circular line.

But, at one point of this horizon, a vague gleam appeared suddenly, which descended slowly, as the cloud rose toward the zenith.

It was the slender crescent of the moon, already near to disappearing. But its light sufficed to trace sharply the horizontal line, then detached from the cloud, and the engineer could see its trembling image reflected for an instant upon a liquid surface.

Cyrus Smith seized the hand of the young boy, and, in a grave voice:

"An island!" said he, at the moment when the lunar crescent was extinguished in the waves.

CHAPTER XI

Half an hour later, Cyrus Smith and Harbert were back at the camp. The engineer confined himself to telling his companions that the land upon which chance had cast them was an island, and that, on the morrow, they would decide. Then, each arranged himself as best he could to sleep, and, in this basaltic hole, at a height of two thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea, during a peaceful night, "the islanders" tasted a profound repose.

The next day, March 30, after a summary breakfast, of which the roasted tragopan bore all the cost, the engineer wished to remount to the summit of the volcano, in order to observe with attention the island in which he and his own were imprisoned for life, perhaps, if this island was situated at a great distance from any land, or if it was not found upon the route of the ships that visit the archipelagos of the Pacific Ocean. This time, his companions followed him in this new exploration. They also wished to see this island to which they were going to ask to provide for all their needs.

It must have been about seven o'clock in the morning, when Cyrus Smith, Harbert, Pencroff, Gédéon Spilett, and Nab left the camp. None appeared anxious about the situation in which he was placed. They had faith in themselves, no doubt, but it must be observed that the point of support of this faith was not the same in Cyrus Smith as in his companions.

The engineer had confidence, because he felt himself capable of wresting from this savage nature all that would be necessary to the life of his companions and his own, and these feared nothing, precisely because Cyrus Smith was with them. This nuance will be understood. Pencroff especially, since the incident of the rekindled fire, would not have despaired for an instant, even if he had found himself upon a bare rock, if the engineer had been with him upon that rock.

"Bah!" said he, "we got out of Richmond, without the permission of the authorities! The devil would have to be in it if we did not manage one day or another to leave a place where certainly no one will detain us!"

Cyrus Smith followed the same path as the day before. They went around the cone by the plateau that formed the shoulder, up to the mouth of the enormous crevasse.

The weather was magnificent. The sun rose upon a pure sky and covered with its rays all the eastern flank of the mountain.

The crater was approached. It was indeed such as the engineer had recognized it in the shadow, that is to say a vast funnel which flared open up to a height of a thousand feet above the plateau. At the bottom of the crevasse, broad and thick lava flows serpentined down the flanks of the mount and thus marked the route of the eruptive matters to the lower valleys that furrowed the northern portion of the island.

The interior of the crater, whose inclination did not exceed thirty-five to forty degrees, presented neither difficulties nor obstacles to the ascent.

There were remarked the traces of very ancient lavas, which probably poured out by the summit of the cone, before this lateral crevasse had opened them a new way.

As for the volcanic chimney which established communication between the subterranean layers and the crater, one could not estimate its depth by the eye, for it was lost in obscurity. But, as for the complete extinction of the volcano, it was not doubtful.

Before eight o'clock, Cyrus Smith and his companions were reunited at the summit of the crater, upon a conical intumescence that puffed out its northern rim.

"The sea! the sea everywhere!" they cried, as if their lips could not retain this word which made them islanders.

The sea, indeed, the immense circular sheet of water around them! Perhaps, in remounting to the summit of the cone, Cyrus Smith had had the hope of discovering some coast, some neighboring island, which he had not been able to perceive the night before during the darkness. But nothing appeared to the limits of the horizon, that is to say over a radius of more than fifty miles. No land in sight. Not a sail. All this immensity was deserted, and the island occupied the center of a circumference that seemed infinite.

The engineer and his companions, mute, immobile, swept with their gaze, for some minutes, all points of the Ocean. This Ocean, their eyes searched it to its extremest limits. But Pencroff, who possessed so marvelous a power of vision, saw nothing, and certainly, if a land had risen at the horizon, even if it had appeared only under the aspect of an elusive vapor, the sailor would have indubitably recognized it, for nature had fixed two veritable telescopes beneath his brow! From the Ocean, their looks returned to the island that they dominated entirely, and the first question that was posed was by Gédéon Spilett, in these terms: "What may be the size of this island?"

Truly, it did not appear considerable amid this immense Ocean.

Cyrus Smith reflected for some moments; he observed attentively the perimeter of the island, taking account of the height at which he was placed; then:

"My friends," said he, "I do not believe myself mistaken in giving to the coastline of the island a development of more than a hundred miles."

"And consequently, its area?..."

"It is difficult to appreciate," replied the engineer, "for it is too capriciously indented."

If Cyrus Smith was not mistaken in his evaluation, the island had, very nearly, the extent of Malta or Zante, in the Mediterranean; but it was, at once, much more irregular, and less rich in capes, promontories, points, bays, coves, or creeks. Its form, truly strange, surprised the eye, and when Gédéon Spilett, on the engineer's advice, had drawn its contours, it was found to resemble some fantastic animal, a sort of monstrous pteropod, that had been lulled to sleep upon the surface of the Pacific.

Here, indeed, is the exact configuration of this island, which it is important to make known, and of which the map was immediately drawn by the reporter with sufficient precision.

The eastern portion of the coastline, that is to say that upon which the shipwrecked men had landed, indented broadly and bordered a vast bay terminated at the southeast by a sharp cape, which a point had hidden from Pencroff, during his first exploration. At the northeast, two other capes closed the bay, and between them was hollowed a narrow gulf that resembled the half-opened jaw of some formidable shark.

From the northeast to the northwest, the coast rounded itself like the flattened skull of a wild beast, to rise again forming a sort of gibbosity that assigned no very determined outline to this part of the island, whose center was occupied by the volcanic mountain. From this point, the coastline ran fairly regularly north and south, hollowed, at two-thirds of its perimeter, by a narrow creek, from which it finished in a long tail, similar to the caudal appendage of a gigantic alligator.

This tail formed a veritable peninsula that lengthened more than thirty miles into the sea, counting from the southeast cape of the island, already mentioned, and it rounded itself describing a roadstead, widely open, drawn by the lower coastline of this so strangely indented land.

In its smallest width, that is to say between the Chimneys and the creek observed on the western coast which corresponded to it in latitude, the island measured only ten miles; but its greatest length, from the jaw of the northeast to the extremity of the tail of the southwest, counted no less than thirty miles.

As for the interior of the island, its general aspect was this: very wooded in all its southern portion from the mountain to the coastline, it was arid and sandy in its northern part. Between the volcano and the east coast, Cyrus Smith and his companions were rather surprised to see a lake, framed in its border of green trees, whose existence they did not suspect. Seen from this height, the lake seemed to be at the same level as the sea, but, upon reflection, the engineer explained to his companions that the altitude of this small sheet of water must be three hundred feet, for the plateau that served it as basin was only the prolongation of that of the coast.

"It is therefore a freshwater lake?" asked Pencroff.

"Necessarily," replied the engineer, "for it must be fed by the waters that flow from the mountain."

"I perceive a small river that empties into it," said Harbert, showing a narrow stream, whose source must pour out in the western spurs.

"Indeed," replied Cyrus Smith, "and since this stream feeds the lake it is probable that on the side of the sea there exists an outlet by which the overflow of the waters escapes. We shall see that on our return."

This small course of water, rather sinuous, and the river already recognized, such was the hydrographic system, at least such as it developed to the eyes of the explorers. However, it was possible that, beneath these masses of trees which made two-thirds of the island an immense forest, other rios flowed toward the sea. One must even suppose it, so fertile and rich in the most magnificent specimens of the flora of the temperate zones did this region show itself. As for the northern portion, no indication of running waters; perhaps stagnant waters in the marshy portion of the northeast, but that was all; in sum, dunes, sands, a very pronounced aridity that contrasted vividly with the opulence of the soil in its greatest extent.

The volcano did not occupy the central part of the island. It rose, on the contrary, in the region of the northwest, and seemed to mark the limit of the two zones. To the southwest, south, and southeast, the first stories of the spurs disappeared beneath masses of verdure. On the north, on the contrary, one could follow their ramifications, which went to die upon the sandy plains. It was also on this side that, at the time of eruptions, the outflows had opened a passage for themselves, and a broad causeway of lavas prolonged itself to this narrow jaw that formed a gulf at the northeast.

Cyrus Smith and his own remained an hour thus at the summit of the mountain. The island developed beneath their gazes like a relief plan with its diverse tints, green for the forests, yellow for the sands, blue for the waters. They seized it in all its ensemble, and this soil hidden beneath the immense verdure, the thalweg of the shadowy valleys, the interior of the narrow gorges, hollowed at the foot of the volcano, alone escaped their investigations.

There remained a grave question to resolve, and which must singularly influence the future of the shipwrecked men.

Was the island inhabited?

It was the reporter who posed this question, to which it seemed one might already respond negatively, after the minute examination that had just been made of the diverse regions of the island.

Nowhere did one perceive the work of the human hand. Not an agglomeration of huts, not an isolated cabin, not a fishery upon the coastline. No smoke rose in the air and betrayed the presence of man. It is true, a distance of some thirty miles separated the observers from the extreme points, that is to say from this tail that projected to the southwest, and it would have been difficult, even to the eyes of Pencroff, to discover there a dwelling. One could not, either, lift this curtain of verdure that covered three-quarters of the island, and see whether it sheltered or not some village.

But, generally, the islanders, in these narrow spaces emerged from the waves of the Pacific, inhabit rather the coastline, and the coastline appeared to be absolutely deserted.

Until a more complete exploration, one could therefore admit that the island was uninhabited.

But was it frequented, at least temporarily, by the natives of the neighboring islands? To this question, it was difficult to respond. No land appeared within a radius of about fifty miles. But fifty miles can be easily crossed, whether by Malay praos, or by great Polynesian pirogues. All depended therefore on the situation of the island, on its isolation in the Pacific, or its proximity to the archipelagos.

Would Cyrus Smith, without instruments, succeed later in determining his position in latitude and longitude? That would be difficult. In doubt, it was therefore fitting to take certain precautions against a possible descent of neighboring natives.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”