The Mysterious Island Trilogy: Shipwrecked in the Air, The Abandoned & The Secret of the Island (Complete Edition). Жюль Верн
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they could succeed without doubt in utilizing its lower portion.
“This is just what we want,” said Pencroff, and if we ever see Mr. Smith again, he will know how to take advantage of this labyrinth.”
“We shall see him again, Pencroff,” said Herbert, “and when he comes back he must find here a home that is tolerably comfortable. We can make this so if we can build a fireplace in the left corridor with an opening for the smoke.”
“That we can do, my boy,” answered the sailor, “and these Chimneys will just serve our purpose. But first we must get together some firing. Wood will be useful, too, in blocking up these great holes through which the wind whistles so shrilly.”
Herbert and Pencroff left the Chimneys, and turning the angle, walked up the left bank of the river, whose current was strong enough to bring down a quantity of dead wood. The return tide, which had already begun, would certainly carry it in the ebb to a great distance. “Why not utilize this flux and reflux,” thought the sailor, “in the carriage of heavy timber?”
After a quarter of an hour’s walk, the two reached the elbow which the river made in turning to the left. From this point onward it flowed through a forest of magnificent trees, which had preserved their verdure in spite of the season; for they belonged to that great cone-bearing family indigenous everywhere, from the poles to the tropics. Especially conspicuous were the “deodara,” so numerous in the Himalayas, with their pungent perfume. Among them were clusters of pines, with tall trunks and spreading parasols of green. The ground was strewn with fallen branches, so dry as to crackle under their feet.
“Good,” said the sailor, “I may not know the name of these trees, but I know they belong to the genus firewood, and that’s the main thing for us.”
It was an easy matter to gather the firewood. They did not need even to strip the trees; plenty of dead branches lay at their feet. This dry wood would burn rapidly, and they would need a large supply. How could two men carry such a load to the Chimneys? Herbert asked the question.
“My boy,” said the sailor, “there’s a way to do everything. If we had a car or a boat it would be too easy.”
“We have the river,” suggested Herbert.
“Exactly,” said Pencroff. “The river shall be our road and our carrier, too. Timber-floats were not invented for nothing.”
“But our carrier is going in the wrong direction,” said Herbert, “since the tide is coming up from the sea.”
“We have only to wait for the turn of tide,” answered the sailor. “Let us get our float ready.”
They walked towards the river, each carrying a heavy load of wood tied up in fagots. On the bank, too, lay quantities of dead boughs, among grass which the foot of man had probably never pressed before. Pencroff began to get ready his float.
In an eddy caused by an angle of the shore, which broke the flow of the current, they set afloat the larger pieces of wood, bound together by liana stems so as to form a sort of raft. On this raft they piled the rest of the wood, which would have been a load for twenty men. In an hour their work was finished, and the float was moored to the bank to wait for the turn of the tide. Pencroff and Herbert resolved to spend the mean time in gaining a more extended view of the country from the higher plateau. Two hundred feet behind the angle of the river, the wall terminating in irregular masses of rocks, sloped away gently to the edge of the forest. The two easily climbed this natural staircase, soon attained the summit, and posted themselves at the angle overlooking the mouth of the river.
Their first look was at that ocean over which they had been so frightfully swept. They beheld with emotion the northern part of the coast, the scene of the catastrophe, and of Smith’s disappearance. They hoped to see on the surface some wreck of the balloon to which a man might cling. But the sea was a watery desert. The coast, too, was desolate. Neither Neb nor the reporter could be seen.
“Something tells me,” said Herbert, “that a person so energetic as Mr. Smith would not let himself be drowned like an ordinary man. He must have got to shore; don’t you think so, Pencroff?”
The sailor shook his head sadly. He never thought to see Smith again; but he left Herbert a hope.
“No doubt,” said he, “our engineer could save himself where any one else would perish.”
Meanwhile he took a careful observation of the coast. Beneath his eyes stretched out the sandy beach, bounded, upon the right of the river-mouth, by lines of breakers. The rocks which still were visible above the water were like groups of amphibious monsters lying in the surf. Beyond them the sea sparkled in the rays of the sun. A narrow point terminated the southern horizon, and it was impossible to tell whether the land stretched further in that direction, or whether it trended southeast and southwest, so as to make an elongated peninsula. At the northern end of the bay, the outline of the coast was continued to a great distance. There the shore was low and flat, without rocks, but covered by great sandbanks, left by the receding tide.
When Pencroff and Herbert walked back towards the west, their looks fell on the snowcapped mountain, which rose six or seven miles away. Masses of tree-trunks, with patches of evergreens, extended from its first declivities to within two miles of the coast. Then from the edge of this forest to the coast stretched a plateau strewn at random with clumps of trees. On the left shore through the glades the waters of the little river, which seemed to have returned in its sinuous course to the mountains which gave it birth.
“Are we upon an island?” muttered the sailor.
“It is big enough, at all events,” said the boy.
“An island’s an island, no matter how big,” said Pencroff.
But this important question could not yet be decided. The country itself, isle or continent, seemed fertile, picturesque, and diversified in its products. For that they must be grateful. They returned along the southern ridge of the granite plateau, outlined by a fringe of fantastic rocks, in whose cavities lived hundreds of birds. A whole flock of them soared aloft as Herbert jumped over the rocks.
“Ah!” cried he, “these are neither gulls nor sea-mews.”
“What are they?” said Pencroff. “They look for all the world like pigeons.”
“So they are,” said Herbert, “but they are wild pigeons, or rock pigeons.” I know them by the two black bands on the wing, the white rump, and the ash-blue feathers. The rock pigeon is good to eat, and its eggs ought to be delicious; and if they have left a few in their nests—”
“We will let them hatch in an omelet,” said Pencroff, gaily.
“But what will you make your omelet in?” asked Herbert; “in your hat?”
“I am not quite conjurer enough for that,” said the sailor. “We must fall back on eggs in the shell, and I will undertake to despatch the hardest.”
Pencroff and the boy examined carefully the cavities of the granite, and succeeded in discovering eggs in some of them. Some dozens were collected in the sailor’s handkerchief, and, high tide approaching, the two went down again to the watercourse.
It was 1 o’clock when they arrived at the elbow of the river, and the tide was already on the turn. Pencroff had no intention of letting his timber float at random, nor did he wish to get on and steer it. But a sailor is never troubled in a matter of ropes or cordage, and Pencroff quickly twisted from the dry lianas a rope several fathoms long. This was fastened behind the raft, and the sailor held it in his hand, while Herbert kept the float in the current by pushing it off from the shore with a long pole.
This expedient proved an entire success. The enormous load of wood kept well in the current. The banks were sheer, and there was no fear lest the float should ground; before 2 o’clock they reached the mouth of the stream, a few feet from the Chimneys.
CHAPTER V.