In Search of the Castaways; or Captain Grant's Children. Jules Verne
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state!"
"It's to be feared they will," said the Major.
"But it is a lucky thing the shark swallowed them, I must say," added Glenarvan, "for the bottle would have sunk to the bottom before long with such a cork as this."
"That's true enough," replied John Mangles, "and yet it would have been better to have fished them up in the open sea. Then we might have found out the road they had come by taking the exact latitude and longitude, and studying the atmospheric and submarine currents; but with such a postman as a shark, that goes against wind and tide, there's no clew whatever to the starting-point."
"We shall see," said Glenarvan, gently taking out the cork. A strong odor of salt water pervaded the whole saloon, and Lady Helena asked impatiently: "Well, what is there?"
"I was right!" exclaimed Glenarvan. "I see papers inside. But I fear it will be impossible to remove them," he added, "for they appear to have rotted with the damp, and are sticking to the sides of the bottle."
"Break it," said the Major.
"I would rather preserve the whole if I could."
"No doubt you would," said Lady Helena; "but the contents are more valuable than the bottle, and we had better sacrifice the one than the other."
"If your Lordship would simply break off the neck, I think we might easily withdraw the papers," suggested John Mangles.
"Try it, Edward, try it," said Lady Helena.
Lord Glenarvan was very unwilling, but he found there was no alternative; the precious bottle must be broken. They had to get a hammer before this could be done, though, for the stony material had acquired the hardness of granite. A few sharp strokes, however, soon shivered it to fragments, many of which had pieces of paper sticking to them. These were carefully removed by Lord Glenarvan, and separated and spread out on the table before the eager gaze of his wife and friends.
Chapter II.
The Three Documents
ALL that could be discovered, however, on these pieces of paper was a few words here and there, the remainder of the lines being almost completely obliterated by the action of the water. Lord Glenarvan examined them attentively for a few minutes, turning them over on all sides, holding them up to the light, and trying to decipher the least scrap of writing, while the others looked on with anxious eyes. At last he said: "There are three distinct documents here, apparently copies of the same document in three different languages. Here is one in English, one in French, and one in German."
"But can you make any sense out of them?" asked Lady Helena.
"That's hard to say, my dear Helena, the words are quite incomplete."
"Perhaps the one may supplement the other," suggested Major McNabbs.
"Very likely they will," said the captain. "It is impossible that the very same words should have been effaced in each document, and by putting the scraps together we might gather some intelligible meaning out of them."
"That's what we will do," rejoined Lord Glenarvan; "but let us proceed methodically. Here is the English document first."
All that remained of it was the following:
62 Bri gow
sink stra
aland
skipp Gr
that monit of long
and ssistance
lost
"There's not much to be made out of that," said the Major, looking disappointed.
"No, but it is good English anyhow," returned the captain.
"There's no doubt of it," said Glenarvan. "The words SINK, ALAND, LOST are entire; SKIPP is evidently part of the word SKIPPER, and that's what they call ship captains often in England. There seems a Mr. Gr. mentioned, and that most likely is the captain of the shipwrecked vessel."
"Well, come, we have made out a good deal already," said Lady Helena.
"Yes, but unfortunately there are whole lines wanting," said the Major, "and we have neither the name of the ship nor the place where she was shipwrecked."
"We'll get that by and by," said Edward.
"Oh, yes; there is no doubt of it," replied the Major, who always echoed his neighbor's opinion. "But how?"
"By comparing one document with the other."
"Let us try them," said his wife.
The second piece of paper was even more destroyed than the first; only a few scattered words remained here and there.
It ran as follows:
7 Juni Glas
zwei atrosen
graus
bringt ihnen
"This is written in German," said John Mangles the moment he looked at it.
"And you understand that language, don't you?" asked Lord Glenarvan.
"Perfectly."
"Come, then, tell us the meaning of these words."
The captain examined the document carefully, and said:
"Well, here's the date of the occurrence first: 7 Juni means June 7; and if we put that before the figures 62 we have in the other document, it gives us the exact date, 7th of June, 1862."
"Capital!" exclaimed Lady Helena. "Go on, John!"
"On the same line," resumed the young captain, "there is the syllable GLAS and if we add that to the GOW we found in the English paper, we get the whole word GLASGOW at once. The documents evidently refer to some ship that sailed out of the port of Glasgow."
"That is my opinion, too," said the Major.
"The second line is completely effaced," continued the Captain; "but here are two important words on the third. There is ZWEI, which means TWO, and ATROSEN or MATROSEN, the German for SAILORS."
"Then I suppose it is about a captain and two sailors," said Lady Helena.
"It seems so," replied Lord Glenarvan.
"I must confess, your Lordship, that the next word puzzles me. I can make nothing of it. Perhaps the third document may throw some light on it. The last two words are plain enough. BRINGT IHNEN means BRING THEM; and, if you recollect, in the English paper we had SSISTANCE, so by putting the parts together, it reads thus, I think: 'BRING THEM ASSISTANCE.'"
"Yes, that must be it," replied Lord Glenarvan. "But where are the poor fellows? We have not the slightest indication of the place, meantime, nor of where the catastrophe happened."
"Perhaps the French copy will be more explicit," suggested Lady Helena.
"Here it is, then," said Lord Glenarvan, "and that is in a language we all know."
The words it contained were these:
troi ats tannia
gonie austral
abor
contin pr cruel indi
jete ongit
et 37 degrees 11" LAT
"There are figures!" exclaimed Lady Helena. "Look!"
"Let us go steadily to work," said Lord Glenarvan, "and begin at the beginning. I think we can make out from the incomplete words in the first line that a three-mast vessel is in question, and there is little doubt about the name; we get that from the fragments of the other papers; it is the BRITANNIA. As to the next two words, GONIE and AUSTRAL, it is only AUSTRAL that has any meaning to us."
"But that is a valuable scrap of information," said John Mangles. "The shipwreck occurred in the southern hemisphere."
"That's a wide world," said the Major.
"Well,