The Mysterious Island

CHAPTER XII.

REGULATION OF WATCHES—PENCROFF IS SATISFIED—A SUSPICIOUS SMOKE—THE COURSE OF RED CREEK—THE FLORA OF THE ISLAND—ITS FAUNA—MOUNTAIN PHEASANTS—A KANGAROO CHASE—THE AGOUTI—LAKE GRANT—RETURN TO THE CHIMNEYS.

The colonists of Lincoln Island cast a last look about them and walked once around the verge of the crater. Half an hour afterwards they were again upon the lower plateau, at their encampment of the previous night. Pencroff thought it was breakfast time, and so came up the question of regulating the watches of Smith and Spilett. The reporter’s chronometer was uninjured by the sea water, as he had been cast high up on the sand beyond the reach of the waves. It was an admirable time-piece, a veritable pocket chronometer, and Spilett had wound it up regularly every day. The engineer’s watch, of course, had stopped while he lay upon the downs. He now wound it up, and set it at 9 o’clock, estimating the time approximately by the height of the sun. Spilett was about to do the same, when the engineer stopped him.

“Wait, my dear Spilett,” said he. “You have the Richmond time, have you not?”

“Yes.”

“Your watch, then, is regulated by the meridian of that city, which is very nearly that of Washington?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, keep it so. Wind it up carefully, but do not touch the hands. This may be of use to us.”

“What’s the use of that?” thought the sailor.

They made such a hearty meal, that little was left of the meat and pistachio-nuts; but Pencroff did not trouble himself about that. Top, who had not been forgotten in the feast, would certainly find some new game in the thicket. Besides, the sailor had made up his mind to ask Smith to make some powder and one or two shot-guns, which, he thought, would be an easy matter.

As they were leaving the plateau, Smith proposed to his companions to take a new road back to the Chimneys. He wished to explore Lake Grant, which lay surrounded so beautifully with trees. They followed the crest of one of the spurs in which the creek which fed the lake probably had its source. The colonists employed in conversation only the proper names which they had just devised, and found that they could express themselves much more easily. Herbert and Pencroff, one of whom was young and the other something of a child, were delighted, and the sailor said as they walked along:—

“Well, Herbert, this is jolly! We can’t lose ourselves now, my boy, since, whether we follow Lake Grant or get to the Mercy through the woods of the Far West, we must come to Prospect Plateau, and so to Union Bay.”

It had been agreed that, without marching in a squad, the colonists should not keep too far apart. Dangerous wild beasts surely inhabited the forest recesses, and they must be on their guard. Usually Pencroff, Herbert, and Neb walked in front, preceded by Top, who poked his nose into every corner. The reporter and engineer walked together, the former ready to note down every incident, the latter seldom speaking, and turning aside only to pick up sometimes one thing, sometimes another, vegetable or mineral, which he put in his pocket without saying a word.

“What, the mischief, is he picking up?” muttered Pencroff. “There’s no use in looking; I see nothing worth the trouble of stooping for.”

About 10 o’clock the little company descended the last declivities of Mount Franklin. A few bushes and trees were scattered over the ground. They were walking on a yellowish, calcined soil, forming a plain about a mile long, which extended to the border of the wood. Large fragments of that basalt which, according to Bischof’s theory, has taken 350,000,000 years to cool, strewed the uneven surface of the plain. Yet there was no trace of lava, which had especially found an exit down the northern declivities. Smith thought they should soon reach the creek, which he expected to find flowing under the trees by the plain, when he saw Herbert running back, and Neb and the sailor hiding themselves behind the rocks.

“What’s the matter, my boy?” said Spilett.

“Smoke,” answered Herbert. “We saw smoke ascending from among the rocks, a hundred steps in front.”

“Men in this region!” cried the reporter.

“We must not show ourselves till we know with whom we have to deal,” answered Smith. “I have more fear than hope of the natives, if there are any such on the island. Where is Top?”

“Top is on ahead.”

“And has not barked?”

“No.”

“That is strange. Still, let us try to call him back.”

In a few moments the three had rejoined their companions, and had hidden themselves, like Neb and Pencroff, behind the basalt rubbish. Thence they saw, very evidently, a yellowish smoke curling into the air. Top was recalled by a low whistle from his master, who motioned to his comrades to wait, and stole forward under cover of the rocks. In perfect stillness the party awaited the result, when a call from Smith summoned them forward. In a moment they were by his side, and were struck at once by the disagreeable smell which pervaded the atmosphere. This odor, unmistakable as it was, had been sufficient to reassure the engineer.

“Nature is responsible for that fire,” he said, “or rather for that smoke. It is nothing but a sulphur spring, which will be good for our sore throats.”

“Good!” said Pencroff; “what a pity I have not a cold!”

The colonists walked towards the smoke. There they beheld a spring of sulphate of soda, which flowed in currents among the rocks, and whose waters, absorbing the oxygen of the air, gave off a lively odor of sulpho-hydric acid. Smith dipped his hand into the spring and found it oily. He tasted it, and perceived a sweetish savor. Its temperature he estimated at 95° Fahrenheit; and when Herbert asked him on what he based his estimate:—

“Simply, my boy,” said he, “because when I put my hand into this water, I have no sensation either of heat or of cold. Therefore, it is at the same temperature as the human body, that is, about 95°.”

Then as the spring of sulphur could be put to no present use, the colonists walked towards the thick border of the forest, a few hundred paces distant. There, as they had thought, the brook rolled its bright limpid waters between high, reddish banks, whose color betrayed the presence of oxide of iron. On account of this color, they instantly named the water course Red Creek. It was nothing but a large mountain brook, deep and clear, here, flowing quietly over the lands, there, gurgling amid rocks, or falling in a cascade, but always flowing towards the lake. It was a mile and a half long; its breadth varied from thirty to forty feet. Its water was fresh, which argued that those of the lake would be found the same—a fortunate occurrence, in case they should find upon its banks a more comfortable dwelling than the Chimneys.

The trees which, a few hundred paces down stream overshadowed the banks of the creek, belonged principally to the species which abound in the temperate zone of Australia or of Tasmania, and belong to those conifers which clothed the portion of the island already explored, some miles around Prospect Plateau. It was now the beginning of April, a month which corresponds in that hemisphere to our October, yet their leaves had not begun to fall. They were, especially, casuarinæ and eucalypti, some of which, in the ensuing spring, would furnish a sweetish manna like that of the East. Clumps of Australian cedars rose in the glades, covered high with that sort of moss which the New-Hollanders call tussocks; but the cocoa-palm, so abundant in the archipelagoes of the Pacific, was conspicuous by its absence. Probably the latitude of the island was too low.

“What a pity!” said Herbert, “such a useful tree and such splendid nuts!”

There were flocks of birds on the thin boughs of the eucalypti and the casuarinæ, which gave fine play to their wings. Black, white, and grey cockatoos, parrots and parroquets of all colors, king-birds, birds of paradise, of brilliant green, with a crowd of red, and blue lories, glowing with every prismatic color, flew about with deafening clamors. All at once, a strange volley of discordant sounds seemed to come from the thicket. The colonists heard, one after another, the song of birds, the cries of four-footed beasts, and a sort of clucking sound strangely human. Neb and Herbert rushed towards the thicket, forgetting the most elementary rules of prudence. Happily, there was neither formidable wild beast nor savage native, but merely half-a-dozen of those mocking birds which they recognized as “mountain pheasants.” A few skillfully aimed blows with a stick brought this parody to an end, and gave them excellent game for dinner that evening. Herbert also pointed out superb pigeons with bronze-colored wings, some with a magnificent crest, others clad in green, like their congeners at Port-Macquarie; but like the troops of crows and magpies which flew about, they were beyond reach. A load of small-shot would have killed hosts of them; but the colonists had nothing but stones and sticks, very insufficient weapons. They proved even more inadequate when a troop of quadrupeds leaped away through the underbrush with tremendous bounds thirty feet long, so that they almost seemed to spring from tree to tree, like squirrels.

“Kangaroos!” cried Herbert.

“Can you eat them?” said Pencroff.

“They make a delicious stew,” said the reporter.

The words had hardly escaped his lips, when the sailor, with Neb and Herbert at his heels, rushed after the kangaroos. Smith tried in vain to recall them, but equally in vain did they pursue the game, whose elastic leaps left them far behind. After five minutes’ chase, they gave it up, out of breath.

“You see, Mr. Smith,” said Pencroff, “that guns are a necessity. Will it be possible to make them?”

“Perhaps,” replied the engineer; “but we will begin by making bows and arrows, and you will soon use them as skilfully as the Australian hunters.”

“Bows and arrows!” said Pencroff, with a contemptuous look. “They are for children!”

“Don’t be so proud, my friend,” said the reporter. “Bows and arrows were sufficient for many centuries for the warfare of mankind. Powder is an invention of yesterday, while war, unhappily, is as old as the race.”

“That’s true, Mr. Spilett,” said the sailor. “I always speak before I think. Forgive me.”

Meanwhile Herbert, with his Natural History always uppermost in his thoughts, returned to the subject of kangaroos.

“Those which escaped us,” he said, “belong to the species most difficult to capture—very large, with long grey hair, but I am sure there are black and red kangaroos, rock-kangaroos, kangaroo-rats—”

“Herbert,” said the sailor, “for me there is only one kind—the ‘kangaroo-on-the-spit’—and that is just what we haven’t got.”

They could not help laughing at Professor Pencroff’s new classification. He was much cast down at the prospect of dining on mountain-phesants; but chance was once more kind to him. Top, who felt his dinner at stake, rushed hither and thither, his instinct quickened by sharp appetite. In fact, he would have left very little of what he might catch or any one else, had not Neb watched him shrewdly. About 3 o’clock he disappeared into the rushes, from which came grunts and growls which indicated a deadly tustle. Neb rushed in, and found Top greedily devouring an animal, which in ten seconds more would have totally disappeared. But the dog had luckily fallen on a litter, and two more rodents—for to this species did the beasts belong—lay strangled on the ground. Neb reappeared in triumph with a rodent in each hand. They had yellow hair, with patches of green, and the rudiments of a tail. They were a sort of agouti, a little larger than their tropical congeners, true American hares, with long ears and five molar teeth on either side.

“Hurrah!” cried Pencroff, “the roast is here; now we can go back to the house.”

The journey was resumed. Red Creek still rolled its limped waters under the arching boughs of casuarence, bankseas and gigantic gum trees. Superb liliaceæ rose, to a height of twenty feet, and other arborescent trees of species unknown to the young naturalist, bent over the brook, which murmered gently beneath its leafy cradle. It widened sensibly, nevertheless, and the mouth was evidently near. As the party emerged from a massive thicket of fine trees, the lake suddenly appeared before them.

They were now on its left bank, and a picturesque region opened to their view. The smooth sheet of water, about seven miles in circumference and 250 acres in extent, lay sleeping among the trees. Towards the east, across the intermittent screen of verdure, appeared a shining horizon of sea. To the north the curve of the lake was concave, contrasting with the sharp outline of its lower extremity. Numerous aquatic birds frequented the banks of this little Ontario, in which the “Thousand Isles” of its American original were represented by a rock emerging from its surface some hundreds of feet from the southern bank. There lived in harmony several couples of kingfishers, perched upon rocks, grave and motionless, watching for fish; then they would plunge into the water and dive with a shrill cry, reappearing with the prey in their beaks. Upon the banks of the lake and the island were constantly strutting wild ducks, pelicans, water-hens and red-beaks. The waters of the lake were fresh and limpid, somewhat dark, and from the concentric circles on its surface, were evidently full of fish.

“How beautiful this lake is!” said Spilett. “We could live on its banks.”

“We will live there!” answered Smith.

The colonists, desiring to get back to the Chimneys by the shortest route, went down towards the angle formed at the south by the junction of the banks. They broke a path with much labor through the thickets and brush wood, hitherto untouched by the hand of man, and walked towards the seashore, so as to strike it to the north of Prospect Plateau. After a two miles’ walk they came upon the thick turf of the plateau, and saw before them the infinite ocean.

To get back to the Chimneys they had to walk across the plateau for a mile to the elbow formed by the first bend of the Mercy. But the engineer was anxious to know how and where the overflow of the lake escaped. It was probable that a river existed somewhere pouring through a gorge in the granite. In fine, the lake was an immense receptacle gradually filled at the expense of the creek, and its overflow must somehow find a way down to the sea. Why should they not utilize this wasted store of water-power? So they walked up the plateau, following the banks of Lake Grant, but after a tramp of a mile, they could find no outlet.

It was now half-past 4, and dinner had yet to be prepared. The party returned upon its track, and reached the Chimneys by the left bank of the Mercy. Then the fire was lighted, and Neb and Pencroff, on whom devolved the cooking, in their respective characters of negro and sailor, skilfully broiled the agouti, to which the hungry explorers did great honor. When the meal was over, and just as they were settling themselves to sleep, Smith drew from his pocket little specimens of various kinds of minerals, and said quietly,

“My friends, this is iron ore, this pyrites, this clay, this limestone, this charcoal. Nature gives us these as her part in the common task. To-morrow we must do our share!”