captain. "But get off! get off!"
Godfrey still hesitated to cast himself into the waves, but the water
was already up to the level of the deck.
Captain Turcott knowing that Godfrey swam like a fish, seized him by the
shoulders, and did him the service of throwing him overboard.
It was time! Had it not been for the darkness, there would doubtless
have been seen a deep raging vortex in the place once occupied by the
-Dream-.
But Godfrey, in a few strokes in the calm water, was able to get swiftly
clear of the whirlpool, which would have dragged him down like the
maelstrom.
All this was the work of a minute.
A few minutes afterwards, amid shouts of despair, the lights on board
went out one after the other.
Doubt existed no more; the -Dream- had sunk head downwards!
As for Godfrey he had been able to reach a large lofty rock away from
the surf. There, shouting vainly in the darkness, hearing no voice in
reply to his own, not knowing if he should find himself on an isolated
rock or at the extremity of a line of reefs, and perhaps the sole
survivor of the catastrophe, he waited for the dawn.
CHAPTER VIII.
WHICH LEADS GODFREY TO BITTER REFLECTIONS ON THE MANIA FOR TRAVELLING.
Three long hours had still to pass before the sun reappeared above the
horizon. These were such hours that they might rather be called
centuries.
The trial was a rough one to begin with, but, we repeat, Godfrey had not
come out for a simple promenade. He himself put it very well when he
said he had left behind him quite a lifetime of happiness and repose,
which he would never find again in his search for adventures. He tried
his utmost therefore to rise to the situation.
He was, temporarily, under shelter. The sea after all could not drive
him off the rock which lay anchored alone amid the spray of the surf.
Was there any fear of the incoming tide soon reaching him? No, for on
reflection he concluded that the wreck had taken place at the highest
tide of the new moon.
But was the rock isolated? Did it command a line of breakers scattered
on this portion of the sea? What was this coast which Captain Turcott
had thought he saw in the darkness? To which continent did it belong? It
was only too certain that the -Dream- had been driven out of her route
during the storm of the preceding days. The position of the ship could
not have been exactly fixed. How could there be a doubt of this when the
captain had two hours before affirmed that his charts bore no indication
of breakers in these parts! He had even done better and had gone himself
to reconnoitre these imaginary reefs which his look-outs had reported
they had seen in the east.
It nevertheless had been only too true, and Captain Turcott's
reconnaissance would have certainly prevented the catastrophe if it had
only been pushed far enough. But what was the good of returning to the
past?
The important question in face of what had happened--a question of life
or death--was for Godfrey to know if he was near to some land. In what
part of the Pacific there would be time later on to determine. Before
everything he must think as soon as the day came of how to leave the
rock, which in its biggest part could not measure more that twenty yards
square. But people do not leave one place except to go to another. And
if this other did not exist, if the captain had been deceived in the
fog, if around the breakers there stretched a boundless sea, if at the
extreme point of view the sky and the water seemed to meet all round the
horizon?
The thoughts of the young man were thus concentrated on this point. All
his powers of vision did he employ to discover through the black night
if any confused mass, any heap of rocks or cliffs, would reveal the
neighbourhood of land to the eastward of the reef.
Godfrey saw nothing. Not a smell of earth reached his nose, not a
sensation of light reached his eyes, not a sound reached his ears. Not a
bird traversed the darkness. It seemed that around him there was nothing
but a vast desert of water.
Godfrey did not hide from himself that the chances were a thousand to
one that he was lost. He no longer thought of making the tour of the
world, but of facing death, and calmly and bravely his thoughts rose to
that Providence which can do all things for the feeblest of its
creatures, though the creatures can do nothing of themselves. And so
Godfrey had to wait for the day to resign himself to his fate, if safety
was impossible; and, on the contrary, to try everything, if there was
any chance of life.
Calmed by the very gravity of his reflections, Godfrey had seated
himself on the rock. He had stripped off some of his clothes which had
been saturated by the sea-water, his woollen waistcoat and his heavy
boots, so as to be ready to jump into the sea if necessary.
However, was it possible that no one had survived the wreck? What! not
one of the men of the -Dream- carried to shore? Had they all been sucked
in by the terrible whirlpool which the ship had drawn round herself as
she sank? The last to whom Godfrey had spoken was Captain Turcott,
resolved not to quit his ship while one of his sailors was still there!
It was the captain himself who had hurled him into the sea at the moment
the -Dream- was disappearing.
But the others, the unfortunate Tartlet, and the unhappy Chinese,
surprised without doubt, and swallowed up, the one in the poop, the
other in the depths of the hold, what had become of them? Of all those
on board the -Dream-, was he the only one saved? And had the steam
launch remained at the stern of the steamer? Could not a few passengers
or sailors have saved themselves therein, and found time to flee from
the wreck? But was it not rather to be feared that the launch had been
dragged down by the ship under several fathoms of water?
Godfrey then said to himself, that if in this dark night he could not
see, he could at least make himself heard. There was nothing to prevent
his shouting and hailing in the deep silence. Perhaps the voice of one
of his companions would respond to his.
Over and over again then did he call, giving forth a prolonged shout
which should have been heard for a considerable distance round. Not a
cry answered to his.
He began again, many times, turning successively to every point of the
horizon.
Absolute silence.
"Alone! alone!" he murmured.
Not only had no cry answered to his, but no echo had sent him back the
sound of his own voice. Had he been near a cliff, not far from a group
of rocks, such as generally border the shore, it was certain that his
shouts, repelled by the obstacles, would have returned to him. Either
eastwards of the reef, therefore, stretched a low-lying shore
ill-adapted for the production of an echo, or there was no land in his
vicinity, the bed of breakers on which he had found refuge was isolated.
Three hours were passed in these anxieties. Godfrey, quite chilled,
walked about the top of the rock, trying to battle with the cold. At
last a few pale beams of light tinged the clouds in the zenith. It was
the reflection of the first colouring of the horizon.
Godfrey turned to this side--the only one towards which there could be
land--to see if any cliff outlined itself in the shadow. With its early
rays the rising sun might disclose its features more distinctly.
But nothing appeared through the misty dawn. A light fog was rising
over the sea, which did not even admit of his discovering the extent of
the breakers.
[Illustration: Nothing appeared through the mist. -page 82-]
He had, therefore, to satisfy himself with illusions. If Godfrey were
really cast on an isolated rock in the Pacific, it was death to him
after a brief delay, death by hunger, by thirst, or if necessary, death
at the bottom of the sea as a last resource!
However, he kept constantly looking, and it seemed as though the
intensity of his gaze increased enormously, for all his will was
concentrated therein.
At length the morning mist began to fade away. Godfrey saw the rocks
which formed the reef successively defined in relief on the sea, like a
troop of marine monsters. It was a long and irregular assemblage of dark
boulders, strangely worn, of all sizes and forms, whose direction was
almost west and east. The enormous block on the top of which Godfrey
found himself emerged from the sea on the western edge of the bank
scarcely thirty fathoms from the spot where the -Dream- had gone down.
The sea hereabouts appeared to be very deep, for of the steamer nothing
was to be seen, not even the ends of her masts. Perhaps by some
under-current she had been drawn away from the reefs.
A glance was enough for Godfrey to take in this state of affairs.
There was no safety on that side. All his attention was directed towards
the other side of the breakers, which the lifting fog was gradually
disclosing. The sea, now that the tide had retired, allowed the rocks to
stand out very distinctly. They could be seen to lengthen as there humid
bases widened. Here were vast intervals of water, there a few shallow
pools. If they joined on to any coast, it would not be difficult to
reach it.
Up to the present, however, there was no sign of any shore. Nothing yet
indicated the proximity of dry land, even in this direction.
The fog continued to lift, and the field of view persistently watched by
Godfrey continued to grow. Its wreaths had now rolled off for about half
a mile or so. Already a few sandy flats appeared among the rocks,
carpeted with their slimy sea-weed.
Did not this sand indicate more or less the presence of a beach, and if
the beach existed, could there be a doubt but what it belonged to the
coast of a more important land? At length a long profile of low hills,
buttressed with huge granitic rocks, became clearly outlined and seemed
to shut in the horizon on the east. The sun had drunk up all the morning
vapours, and his disc broke forth in all its glory.
"Land! land!" exclaimed Godfrey.
And he stretched his hands towards the shore-line, as he knelt on the
reef and offered his thanks to Heaven.
It was really land. The breakers only formed a projecting ridge,
something like the southern cape of a bay, which curved round for about
two miles or more. The bottom of the curve seemed to be a level beach,
bordered by trifling hills, contoured here and there with lines of
vegetation, but of no great size.
From the place which Godfrey occupied, his view was able to grasp the
whole of this side.
Bordered north and south by two unequal promontories, it stretched away
for, at the most, five or six miles. It was possible, however, that it
formed part of a large district. Whatever it was, it offered at the
least temporary safety. Godfrey, at the sight, could not conceive a
doubt but that he had not been thrown on to a solitary reef, and that
this morsel of ground would satisfy his earliest wants.
"To land! to land!" he said to himself.
But before he left the reef, he gave a look round for the last time. His
eyes again interrogated the sea away up to the horizon. Would some raft
appear on the surface of the waves, some fragment of the -Dream-, some
survivor, perhaps?
Nothing. The launch even was not there, and had probably been dragged
into the common abyss.
Then the idea occurred to Godfrey that among the breakers some of his
companions might have found a refuge, and were, like him, waiting for
the day to try and reach the shore.
There was nobody, neither on the rocks, nor on the beach! The reef was
as deserted as the ocean!
But in default of survivors, had not the sea thrown up some of the
corpses? Could not Godfrey find among the rocks, along to the utmost
boundary of the surf, the inanimate bodies of some of his companions?
No! Nothing along the whole length of the breakers, which the last
ripples of the ebb had now left bare.
Godfrey was alone! He could only count on himself to battle with the
dangers of every sort which environed him!
Before this reality, however, Godfrey, let it be said to his credit, did
not quail. But as before everything it was best for him to ascertain the
nature of the ground from which he was separated by so short a distance,
he left the summit of the rock and began to approach the shore.
When the interval which separated the rocks was too great to be cleared
at a bound, he got down into the water, and sometimes walking and
sometimes swimming he easily gained the one next in order. When there
was but a yard or two between, he jumped from one rock to the other.
His progress over these slimy stones, carpeted with glistening
sea-weeds, was not easy, and it was long. Nearly a quarter of a mile had
thus to be traversed.
But Godfrey was active and handy, and at length he set foot on the land
where there probably awaited him, if not early death, at least a
miserable life worse than death. Hunger, thirst, cold, and nakedness,
and perils of all kinds; without a weapon of defence, without a gun to
shoot with, without a change of clothes--such the extremities to which
he was reduced.
How imprudent he had been! He had been desirous of knowing if he was
capable of making his way in the world under difficult circumstances! He
had put himself to the proof! He had envied the lot of a Crusoe! Well,
he would see if the lot were an enviable one!
And then there returned to his mind the thought of his happy existence,
that easy life in San Francisco, in the midst of a rich and loving
family, which he had abandoned to throw himself into adventures. He
thought of his Uncle Will, of his betrothed Phina, of his friends who
would doubtless never see him again.
As he called up these remembrances his heart swelled, and in spite of
his resolution a tear rose to his eyes.
And again, if he was not alone, if some other survivor of the shipwreck
had managed, like him, to reach the shore, and even in default of the
captain or the mate, this proved to be Professor Tartlet, how little he
could depend on that frivolous being, and how slightly improved the
chances of the future appeared! At this point, however, he still had
hope. If he had found no trace among the breakers, would he meet with
any on the beach?
Who else but he had already touched the shore, seeking a companion who
was seeking him?
Godfrey took another long look from north to south. He did not notice a
single human being. Evidently this portion of the earth was uninhabited.
In any case there was no sign, not a trace of smoke in the air, not a
vestige.
"Let us get on!" said Godfrey to himself.
And he walked along the beach towards the north, before venturing to
climb the sand dunes, which would allow him to reconnoitre the country
over a larger extent.
The silence was absolute. The sand had received no other footmark. A few
sea-birds, gulls or guillemots, were skimming along the edge of the
rocks, the only living things in the solitude.
Godfrey continued his walk for a quarter of an hour. At last he was
about to turn on to the talus of the most elevated of the dunes, dotted
with rushes and brushwood, when he suddenly stopped.
A shapeless object, extraordinarily distended, something like the
corpse of a sea monster, thrown there, doubtless, by the late storm, was
lying about thirty paces off on the edge of the reef.
Godfrey hastened to run towards it.
The nearer he approached the more rapidly did his heart beat. In truth,
in this stranded animal he seemed to recognize a human form.
Godfrey was not ten paces away from it, when he stopped as if rooted to
the soil, and exclaimed,--
"Tartlet!"
It was the professor of dancing and deportment.
Godfrey rushed towards his companion, who perhaps still breathed.
A moment afterwards he saw that it was the life-belt which produced this
extraordinary distension, and gave the aspect of a monster of the sea to
the unfortunate professor.
But although Tartlet was motionless, was he dead? Perhaps this natatory
clothing had kept him above water, while the surf had borne him to
shore?
Godfrey set to work. He knelt down by Tartlet; he unloosed the life-belt
and rubbed him vigorously. He noticed at last a light breath on the
half-opened lips! He put his hand on his heart! The heart still beat.
Godfrey spoke to him.
Tartlet shook his head, then he gave utterance to a hoarse exclamation,
followed by incoherent words.
Godfrey shook him violently.
Tartlet then opened his eyes, passed his left hand over his brow, lifted
his right hand and assured himself that his precious kit and bow, which
he tightly held, had not abandoned him.
"Tartlet! My dear Tartlet!" shouted Godfrey, lightly raising his head.
The head with his mass of tumbled hair gave an affirmative nod.
"It is I! I! Godfrey!"
"Godfrey?" asked the professor.
And then he turned over, and rose on to his knees, and looked about, and
smiled, and rose to his feet! He had discovered that at last he was on a
solid base! He had gathered that he was no longer on the ship's deck,
exposed to all the uncertainties of its pitches and its rolls! The sea
had ceased to carry him! He stood on firm ground!
And then Professor Tartlet recovered the aplomb which he had lost since
his departure; his feet placed themselves naturally, with their toes
turned out, in the regulation position; his left hand seized his kit,
his right hand grasped his bow.
Then, while the strings, vigorously attacked, gave forth a humid sound
of melancholy sonorousness, these words escaped his smiling lips,--
"In place, miss!"
The good man was thinking of Phina.
CHAPTER IX.
IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT CRUSOES DO NOT HAVE EVERYTHING AS THEY WISH.
That done, the professor and his pupil rushed into one another's arms.
"My dear Godfrey!" exclaimed Tartlet.
"My good Tartlet!" replied Godfrey.
"At last we are arrived in port!" observed the professor in the tone of
a man who had had enough of navigation and its accidents.
He called it arriving in port!
Godfrey had no desire to contradict him.
"Take off your life-belt," he said. "It suffocates you and hampers your
movements."
"Do you think I can do so without inconvenience?" asked Tartlet.
"Without any inconvenience," answered Godfrey. "Now put up your fiddle,
and let us take a look round."
"Come on," replied the professor; "but if you don't mind, Godfrey, let
us go to the first restaurant we see. I am dying of hunger, and a dozen
sandwiches washed down with a glass or two of wine will soon set me on
my legs again."
"Yes! to the first restaurant!" answered Godfrey, nodding his head; "and
even to the last, if the first does not suit us."
"And," continued Tartlet, "we can ask some fellow as we go along the
road to the telegraph office so as to send a message off to your Uncle
Kolderup. That excellent man will hardly refuse to send on some
necessary cash for us to get back to Montgomery Street, for I have not
got a cent with me!"
"Agreed, to the first telegraph office," answered Godfrey, "or if there
isn't one in this country, to the first post office. Come on, Tartlet."
The professor took off his swimming apparatus, and passed it over his
shoulder like a hunting-horn, and then both stepped out for the edge of
the dunes which bordered the shore.
What more particularly interested Godfrey, whom the encounter with
Tartlet had imbued with some hope, was to see if they too were the only
survivors of the -Dream-.
A quarter of an hour after the explorers had left the edge of the reef
they had climbed a dune about sixty or eighty feet high, and stood on
its crest. Thence they looked on a large extent of coast, and examined
the horizon in the east, which till then had been hidden by the hills on
the shore.
Two or three miles away in that direction a second line of hills formed
the background, and beyond them nothing was seen of the horizon.
Towards the north the coast trended off to a point, but it could not be
seen if there was a corresponding cape behind. On the south a creek ran
some distance into the shore, and on this side it looked as though the
ocean closed the view. Whence this land in the Pacific was probably a
peninsula, and the isthmus which joined it to the continent would have
to be sought for towards the north or north-east.
The country, however, far from being barren, was hidden beneath an
agreeable mantle of verdure; long prairies, amid which meandered many
limpid streams, and high and thick forests, whose trees rose above one
another to the very background of hills. It was a charming landscape.
But of houses forming town, village, or hamlet, not one was in sight! Of
buildings grouped and arranged as a farm of any sort, not a sign! Of
smoke in the sky, betraying some dwelling hidden among the trees, not a
trace. Not a steeple above the branches, not a windmill on an isolated
hill. Not even in default of houses a cabin, a hut, an ajoupa, or a
wigwam? No! nothing. If human beings inhabited this unknown land, they
must live like troglodytes, below, and not above the ground. Not a road
was visible, not a footpath, not even a track. It seemed that the foot
of man had never trod either a rock of the beach or a blade of the grass
on the prairies.
"I don't see the town," remarked Tartlet, who, however, remained on
tiptoe.
"That is perhaps because it is not in this part of the province!"
answered Godfrey.
"But a village?"
"There's nothing here."
"Where are we then?"
"I know nothing about it."
"What! You don't know! But Godfrey, we had better make haste and find
out."
"Who is to tell us?"
"What will become of us then?" exclaimed Tartlet, rounding his arms and
lifting them to the sky.
"Become a couple of Crusoes!"
At this answer the professor gave a bound such as no clown had ever
equalled.
Crusoes! They! A Crusoe! He! Descendants of that Selkirk who had lived
for long years on the island of Juan Fernandez! Imitators of the
imaginary heroes of Daniel Defoe and De Wyss whose adventures they had
so often read! Abandoned, far from their relatives, their friends;
separated from their fellow-men by thousands of miles, destined to
defend their lives perhaps against wild beasts, perhaps against savages
who would land there, wretches without resources, suffering from hunger,
suffering from thirst, without weapons, without tools, almost without
clothes, left to themselves. No, it was impossible!
"Don't say such things, Godfrey," exclaimed Tartlet. "No! Don't joke
about such things! The mere supposition will kill me! You are laughing
at me, are you not?"
"Yes, my gallant Tartlet," answered Godfrey. "Reassure yourself. But in
the first place, let us think about matters that are pressing."
In fact, they had to try and find some cavern, a grotto or hole, in
which to pass the night, and then to collect some edible mollusks so as
to satisfy the cravings of their stomachs.
Godfrey and Tartlet then commenced to descend the talus of the dunes in
the direction of the reef. Godfrey showed himself very ardent in his
researches, and Tartlet considerably stupefied by his shipwreck
experiences. The first looked before him, behind him, and all around
him; the second hardly saw ten paces in front of him.
"If there are no inhabitants on this land, are there any animals?"
asked Godfrey.
He meant to say domestic animals, such as furred and feathered game, not
wild animals which abound in tropical regions, and with which they were
not likely to have to do.
Several flocks of birds were visible on the shore, bitterns, curlews,
bernicle geese, and teal, which hovered and chirped and filled the air
with their flutterings and cries, doubtless protesting against the
invasion of their domain.
Godfrey was justified in concluding that where there were birds there
were nests, and where there were nests there were eggs. The birds
congregated here in such numbers, because rocks provided them with
thousands of cavities for their dwelling-places. In the distance a few
herons and some flocks of snipe indicated the neighbourhood of a marsh.
Birds then were not wanting, the only difficulty was to get at them
without fire-arms. The best thing to do now was to make use of them in
the egg state, and consume them under that elementary but nourishing
form.
But if the dinner was there, how were they to cook it? How were they to
set about lighting a fire? An important question, the solution of which
was postponed.
Godfrey and Tartlet returned straight towards the reef, over which some
sea-birds were circling. An agreeable surprise there awaited them.
Among the indigenous fowl which ran along the sand of the beach and
pecked about among the sea-weed and under the tufts of aquatic plants,
was it a dozen hens and two or three cocks of the American breed that
they beheld? No! There was no mistake, for at their approach did not a
resounding cock-a-doodle-do-oo-oo rend the air like the sound of a
trumpet?
And farther off, what were those quadrupeds which were gliding in and
out of the rocks, and making their way towards the first slopes of the
hills, or grubbing beneath some of the green shrubs? Godfrey could not
be mistaken. There were a dozen agouties, five or six sheep, and as many
goats, who were quietly browsing on the first vegetation on the very
edge of the prairie.
"Look there, Tartlet!" he exclaimed.
And the professor looked, but saw nothing, so much was he absorbed with
the thought of this unexpected situation.
A thought flashed across the mind of Godfrey, and it was correct: it was
that these hens, agouties, goats, and sheep had belonged to the -Dream-.
At the moment she went down, the fowls had easily been able to reach the
reef and then the beach. As for the quadrupeds, they could easily have
swum ashore.
"And so," remarked Godfrey, "what none of our unfortunate companions
have been able to do, these simple animals, guided by their instinct,
have done! And of all those on board the -Dream-, none have been saved
but a few beasts!"
"Including ourselves!" answered Tartlet naively.
As far as he was concerned, he had come ashore unconsciously, very much
like one of the animals. It mattered little. It was a very fortunate
thing for the two shipwrecked men that a certain number of these animals
had reached the shore. They would collect them, fold them, and with the
special fecundity of their species, if their stay on this land was a
lengthy one, it would be easy to have quite a flock of quadrupeds, and a
yard full of poultry.
But on this occasion, Godfrey wished to keep to such alimentary
resources as the coast could furnish, either in eggs or shell-fish.
Professor Tartlet and he set to work to forage among the interstices of
the stones, and beneath the carpet of sea-weeds, and not without
success. They soon collected quite a notable quantity of mussels and
periwinkles, which they could eat raw. A few dozen eggs of the bernicle
geese were also found among the higher rocks which shut in the bay on
the north. They had enough to satisfy a good many; and, hunger pressing,
Godfrey and Tartlet hardly thought of making difficulties about their
first repast.
"And the fire?" said the professor.
"Yes! The fire!" said Godfrey.
It was the most serious of questions, and it led to an inventory being
made of the contents of their pockets. Those of the professor were empty
or nearly so. They contained a few spare strings for his kit, and a
piece of rosin for his bow. How would you get a light from that, I
should like to know? Godfrey was hardly better provided. However, it was
with extreme satisfaction that he discovered in his pocket an excellent
knife, whose leather case had kept it from the sea-water. This knife,
with blade, gimlet, hook, and saw, was a valuable instrument under the
circumstances. But besides this tool, Godfrey and his companion had only
their two hands; and as the hands of the professor had never been used
except in playing his fiddle, and making his gestures, Godfrey concluded
that he would have to trust to his own.
He thought, however, of utilizing those of Tartlet for procuring a fire
by means of rubbing two sticks of wood rapidly together. A few eggs
cooked in the embers would be greatly appreciated at their second meal
at noon.
While Godfrey then was occupied in robbing the nests in spite of the
proprietors, who tried to defend their progeny in the shell, the
professor went off to collect some pieces of wood which had been dried
by the sun at the foot of the dunes. These were taken behind a rock
sheltered from the wind from the sea. Tartlet then chose two very dry
pieces, with the intention of gradually obtaining sufficient heat by
rubbing them vigorously and continuously together. What simple
Polynesian savages commonly did, why should not the professor, so much
their superior in his own opinion, be able to do?
Behold him then, rubbing and rubbing, in a way to dislocate the muscles
of his arm and shoulder. He worked himself into quite a rage, poor man!
But whether it was that the wood was not right, or its dryness was not
sufficient, or the professor held it wrongly, or had not got the
peculiar turn of hand necessary for operations of this kind, if he did
not get much heat out of the wood, he succeeded in getting a good deal
out of himself. In short, it was his own forehead alone which smoked
under the vapours of his own perspiration.
When Godfrey returned with his collection of eggs, he found Tartlet in a
rage, in a state to which his choregraphic exercises had never doubtless
provoked him.
"Doesn't it do?" he asked.
"No, Godfrey, it does not do," replied the professor. "And I begin to
think that these inventions of the savages are only imaginations to
deceive the world."
"No," answered Godfrey. "But in that, as in all things, you must know
how to do it."
"These eggs, then?"
"There is another way. If you attach one of these eggs to the end of a
string and whirl it round rapidly, and suddenly arrest the movement of
rotation, the movement may perhaps transform itself into heat, and
then--"
"And then the egg will be cooked?"
"Yes, if the rotation has been swift enough and the stoppage sudden
enough. But how do you produce the stoppage without breaking the egg?
Now, there is a simpler way, dear Tartlet. Behold!"
And carefully taking one of the eggs of the bernicle goose, he broke the
shell at its end, and adroitly swallowed the inside without any further
formalities.
Tartlet could not make up his mind to imitate him, and contented himself
with the shell-fish.
It now remained to look for a grotto or some shelter in which to pass
the night.
"It is an unheard-of thing," observed the professor, "that Crusoes
cannot at the least find a cavern, which, later on, they can make their
home!"
"Let us look," said Godfrey.
It was unheard of. We must avow, however, that on this occasion the
tradition was broken. In vain did they search along the rocky shore on
the southern part of the bay. Not a cavern, not a grotto, not a hole was
there that would serve as a shelter. They had to give up the idea.
Godfrey resolved to reconnoitre up to the first trees in the background
beyond the sandy coast.
Tartlet and he then remounted the first line of sandhills and crossed
the verdant prairies which they had seen a few hours before.
A very odd circumstance, and a very fortunate one at the time, that the
other survivors of the wreck voluntarily followed them. Evidently, cocks
and hens, and sheep, goats and agouties, driven by instinct, had
resolved to go with them. Doubtless they felt too lonely on the beach,
which did not yield sufficient food.
Three-quarters of an hour later Godfrey and Tartlet--they had scarcely
spoken during the exploration--arrived at the outskirt of the trees. Not
a trace was there of habitation or inhabitant. Complete solitude. It
might even be doubted if this part of the country had ever been trodden
by human feet.
In this place were a few handsome trees, in isolated groups, and others
more crowded about a quarter of a mile in the rear formed a veritable
forest of different species.
Godfrey looked out for some old trunk, hollowed by age, which could
offer a shelter among its branches, but his researches were in vain,
although he continued them till night was falling.
Hunger made itself sharply felt, and the two contented themselves with
mussels, of which they had thoughtfully brought an ample supply from the
beach. Then, quite tired out, they lay down at the foot of a tree, and
trusting to Providence, slept through the night.
CHAPTER X.
IN WHICH GODFREY DOES WHAT ANY OTHER SHIPWRECKED MAN WOULD HAVE DONE
UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES.
The night passed without incident. The two men, quite knocked up with
excitement and fatigue, had slept as peacefully as if they had been in
the most comfortable room in the mansion in Montgomery Street.
On the morrow, the 27th of June, at the first rays of the rising sun,
the crow of the cock awakened them.
Godfrey immediately recognized where he was, but Tartlet had to rub his
eyes and stretch his arms for some time before he did so.
"Is breakfast this morning to resemble dinner yesterday?" was his first
observation.
"I am afraid so," answered Godfrey. "But I hope we shall dine better
this evening."
The professor could not restrain a significant grimace. Where were the
tea and sandwiches which had hitherto been brought to him when he
awoke? How could he wait till breakfast-time, the bell for which would
perhaps never sound, without this preparatory repast?
But it was necessary to make a start. Godfrey felt the responsibility
which rested on him, on him alone, for he could in no way depend on his
companion. In that empty box which served the professor for a cranium
there could be born no practical idea; Godfrey would have to think,
contrive, and decide for both.
His first thought was for Phina, his betrothed, whom he had so stupidly
refused to make his wife; his second for his Uncle Will, whom he had so
imprudently left, and then turning to Tartlet,--
"To vary our ordinary," he said, "here are some shell-fish and half a
dozen eggs."
"And nothing to cook them with!"
"Nothing!" said Godfrey. "But if the food itself was missing, what would
you say then, Tartlet?"
"I should say that nothing was not enough," said Tartlet drily.
Nevertheless, they had to be content with this repast.
The very natural idea occurred to Godfrey to push forward the
reconnaissance commenced the previous evening. Above all it was
necessary to know as soon as possible in what part of the Pacific Ocean
the -Dream- had been lost, so as to discover some inhabited place on
the shore, where they could either arrange the way of returning home or
await the passing of some ship.
Godfrey observed that if he could cross the second line of hills, whose
picturesque outline was visible beyond the first, that he might perhaps
be able to do this. He reckoned that they could get there in an hour or
two, and it was to this urgent exploration that he resolved to devote
the first hours of the day. He looked round him. The cocks and hens were
beginning to peck about among the high vegetation. Agouties, goats,
sheep, went and came on the skirt of the forest.
Godfrey did not care to drag all this flock of poultry and quadrupeds
about with him. But to keep them more safely in this place, it would be
necessary to leave Tartlet in charge of them.
Tartlet agreed to remain alone, and for several hours to act as shepherd
of the flock.
He made but one observation,--
"If you lose yourself, Godfrey?"
"Have no fear of that," answered the young man, "I have only this forest
to cross, and as you will not leave its edge I am certain to find you
again."
"Don't forget the telegram to your Uncle Will, and ask him for a good
many hundred dollars."
"The telegram--or the letter! It is all one!" answered Godfrey, who so
long as he had not fixed on the position of this land was content to
leave Tartlet to his illusions.
Then having shaken hands with the professor, he plunged beneath the
trees, whose thick branches scarcely allowed the sun's rays to
penetrate. It was their direction, however, which was to guide our young
explorer towards the high hill whose curtain hid from his view the whole
of the eastern horizon.
Footpath there was none. The ground, however, was not free from all
imprint. Godfrey in certain places remarked the tracks of animals. On
two or three occasions he even believed he saw some rapid ruminants
moving off, either elans, deer, or wapiti, but he recognized no trace of
ferocious animals such as tigers or jaguars, whose absence, however, was
no cause for regret.
The first floor of the forest, that is to say all that portion of the
trees comprised between the first fork and the branches, afforded an
asylum to a great number of birds--wild pigeons by the hundred beneath
the trees, ospreys, grouse, aracaris with beaks like a lobster's claw,
and higher, hovering above the glades, two or three of those
lammergeiers whose eye resembles a cockade. But none of the birds were
of such special kinds that he could therefrom make out the latitude of
this continent.
So it was with the trees of this forest. Almost the same species as
those in that part of the United States which comprises Lower
California, the Bay of Monterey, and New Mexico.
Arbutus-trees, large-flowered cornels, maples, birches, oaks, four or
five varieties of magnolias and sea-pines, such as are met with in South
Carolina, then in the centre of vast clearances, olive-trees, chestnuts,
and small shrubs. Tufts of tamarinds, myrtles, and mastic-trees, such as
are produced in the temperate zone. Generally, there was enough space
between the trees to allow him to pass without being obliged to call on
fire or the axe. The sea breeze circulated freely amid the higher
branches, and here and there great patches of light shone on the ground.
And so Godfrey went along striking an oblique line beneath these large
trees. To take any precautions never occurred to him. The desire to
reach the heights which bordered the forest on the east entirely
absorbed him. He sought among the foliage for the direction of the solar
rays so as to march straight on his goal. He did not even see the
guide-birds, so named because they fly before the steps of the
traveller, stopping, returning, and darting on ahead as if they were
showing the way. Nothing could distract him.
His state of mind was intelligible. Before an hour had elapsed his fate
would be settled! Before an hour he would know if it were possible to
reach some inhabited portion of the continent.
Already Godfrey, reasoning on what had been the route followed and the
way made by the -Dream- during a navigation of seventeen days, had
concluded that it could only be on the Japanese or Chinese coast that
the ship had gone down.
Besides the position of the sun, always in the south, rendered it quite
certain that the -Dream- had not crossed the line.
Two hours after he had started Godfrey reckoned the distance he had
travelled at about five miles, considering several circuits which he had
had to make owing to the density of the forest. The second group of
hills could not be far away.
Already the trees were getting farther apart from each other, forming
isolated groups, and the rays of light penetrated more easily through
the lofty branches. The ground began slightly to slope, and then
abruptly to rise.
Although he was somewhat fatigued, Godfrey had enough will not to
slacken his pace. He would doubtless have run had it not been for the
steepness of the earlier ascents.
He had soon got high enough to overlook the general mass of the verdant
dome which stretched away behind him, and whence several heads of trees
here and there emerged.
But Godfrey did not dream of looking back. His eyes never quitted the
line of the denuded ridge, which showed itself about 400 or 500 feet
before and above him. That was the barrier which all the time hid him
from the eastern horizon.
A tiny cone, obliquely truncated, overlooked this rugged line and joined
on with its gentle slope to the sinuous crest of the hills.
"There! there!" said Godfrey, "that is the point I must reach! The top
of that cone! And from there what shall I see?--A town?--A village?--A
desert?"
Highly excited, Godfrey mounted the hill, keeping his elbows at his
chest to restrain the beating of his heart. His panting tired him, but
he had not the patience to stop so as to recover himself. Were he to
have fallen half fainting on the summit of the cone which shot up about
100 feet above his head, he would not have lost a minute in hastening
towards it.
A few minutes more and he would be there. The ascent seemed to him steep
enough on his side, an angle perhaps of thirty or thirty-five degrees.
He helped himself up with hands and feet; he seized on the tufts of
slender herbs on the hill-side, and on a few meagre shrubs, mastics
and myrtles, which stretched away up to the top.
A last effort was made! His head rose above the platform of the cone,
and then, lying on his stomach, his eyes gazed at the eastern horizon.
It was the sea which formed it. Twenty miles off it united with the line
of the sky!
He turned round.
Still sea--west of him, south of him, north of him! The immense ocean
surrounding him on all sides!
"An island!"
[Illustration: "An Island!" -page 111-]
As he uttered the word Godfrey felt his heart shrink. The thought had
not occurred to him that he was on an island. And yet such was the case!
The terrestrial chain which should have attached him to the continent
was abruptly broken. He felt as though he had been a sleeping man in a
drifted boat, who awoke with neither oar nor sail to help him back to
shore.
But Godfrey was soon himself again. His part was taken, to accept the
situation. If the chances of safety did not come from without, it was
for him to contrive them.
He set to work at first then as exactly as possible to ascertain the
disposition of this island which his view embraced over its whole
length. He estimated that it ought to measure about sixty miles round,
being, as far as he could see, about twenty miles long from south to
north, and twelve miles wide from east to west.
Its central part was screened by the green depths of forest which
extended up to the ridge dominated by the cone, whose slope died away on
the shore.
All the rest was prairie, with clumps of trees, or beach with rocks,
whose outer ring was capriciously tapered off in the form of capes and
promontories. A few creeks cut out the coast, but could only afford
refuge for two or three fishing-boats.
The bay at the bottom of which the -Dream- lay shipwrecked was the only
one of any size, and that extended over some seven or eight miles. An
open roadstead, no vessel would have found it a safe shelter, at least
unless the wind was blowing from the east.
But what was this island? To what geographical group did it belong? Did
it form part of an archipelago, or was it alone in this portion of the
Pacific?
In any case, no other island, large or small, high or low, appeared
within the range of vision.
Godfrey rose and gazed round the horizon. Nothing was to be seen along
the circular line where sea and sky ran into each other. If, then, there
existed to windward or to leeward any island or coast of a continent, it
could only be at a considerable distance.
Godfrey called up all his geographical reminiscences, in order to
discover what island of the Pacific this could be. In reasoning it out
he came to this conclusion.
The -Dream- for seventeen days had steered very nearly south-west. Now
with a speed of from 150 to 180 miles every four-and-twenty hours, she
ought to have covered nearly fifty degrees. Now it was obvious that she
had not crossed the equator.
The situation of the island, or of the group to which it belonged, would
therefore have to be looked for in that part of the ocean comprised
between the 160th and 170th degrees of west longitude.
In this portion of the Pacific it seemed to Godfrey that the map showed
no other archipelago than that of the Sandwich Islands, but outside this
archipelago were there not any isolated islands whose names escaped him
and which were dotted here and there over the sea up to the coast of the
Celestial Empire?
It was not of much consequence. There existed no means of his going in
search of another spot on the ocean which might prove more hospitable.
"Well," said Godfrey to himself, "if I don't know the name of this
island, I'll call it Phina Island, in memory of her I ought never to
have left to run about the world, and perhaps the name will bring us
some luck."
Godfrey then occupied himself in trying to ascertain if the island was
inhabited in the part which he had not yet been able to visit.
From the top of the cone he saw nothing which betrayed the presence of
aborigines, neither habitations on the prairie nor houses on the skirt
.
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618
,
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