The Mysterious Island, Jules Verne [classic novels .txt] 📗

thinking of the danger, the colonists felt themselves drawn on by an irresistible curiosity, and slipped rather than ran down the passage. Sixteen feet lower they came up with the dog.

There, the corridor opened out into a vast and magnificent cavern. Top, rushing about, was barking furiously. Pencroff and Neb, shaking their torches, lit up all the inequalities of the granite, and the others, with their spears ready, held themselves prepared for any emergency.

But the enormous cavern was empty. The colonists searched everywhere; they could find no living thing. Nevertheless, Top continued barking, and neither threats nor caresses could stop him.

“There must be some place where the water escaped to the sea,” said the engineer.

“Yes, and look out for a hole,” answered Pencroff.

“On, Top, on,” cried Smith, and the dog, encouraged by his master, ran towards the end of the cavern, and redoubled his barking.

Following him, they saw by the light of the torches the opening of what looked like a well in the granite. Here, undoubtedly, was the place where the water had found its way out of the cavern, but this time, instead of being a corridor sloping and accessible, it was a perpendicular well, impossible to descend.

The torches were waved above the opening. They saw nothing. Smith broke off a burning branch and dropped it into the abyss. The resin, fanned by the wind of its fall, burned brightly and illuminated the interior of the pit, but showed nothing else. Then the flame was extinguished with a slight hiss, which indicated that it had reached the water, which must be the sea level.

The engineer calculated, from the time taken in the fall, that the depth was about ninety feet. The floor of the cavern was therefore that distance above the sea.

“Here is our house,” said Smith.

“But it was preoccupied,” said Spilett, whose curiosity was unsatisfied.

“Well, the thing that had it, whether amphibious or not, has fled by this outlet and vacated in our favor,” replied the engineer.

“Any how, I should like to have been Top a quarter of an hour ago,” said the sailor, “for he does not bark at nothing.”

Smith looked at his dog, and those who were near him heard him murmur:—

“Yes, I am convinced that Top knows more than we do about many things!”

However, the wishes of the colonists had been in a great measure realized. Chance, aided by the marvelous acuteness of their chief, had done them good service. Here they had at their disposal a vast cavern, whose extent could not be estimated In the insufficient light of the torches, but which could certainly be easily partitioned off with bricks into chambers, and arranged, if not as a house, at least as a spacious suite of rooms. The water having left it, could not return. The place was free.

But two difficulties remained, the possibility of lighting the cavern and the necessity of rendering it easier of access. The first could not be done from above as the enormous mass of granite was over them; but, perhaps, they would be able to pierce the outer wall which faced the sea. Smith, who during the descent had kept account of the slope, and therefore of the length of the passage, believed that this part of the wall could not be very thick. If light could be thus obtained, so could entrance, as it was as easy to pierce a door as windows, and to fix a ladder on the outside.

Smith communicated his ideas to his companions.

“Then let us set to work!” answered Pencroff; “I have my pick and will I soon make daylight in the granite! Where shall I begin?”

“Here,” answered the engineer, showing the strong sailor a considerable hollow in the wall, which greatly diminished its thickness.

Pencroff attacked the granite, and for half an hour, by the light of the torches, made the splinters fly about him. Then Neb took his place, and Spilett after Neb. The work continued, two hours longer, and, when it seemed as if the wall could not be thicker than the length of the pick, at the last stroke of Spilett the implement, passing through, fell on the outside.

“Hurrah forever!” cried Pencroff.

The wall was but three feet thick.

Smith looked through the opening, which was eighty feet above the ground. Before him extended the coast, the islet, and, beyond, the boundless sea.

Through the hole the light entered in floods, inundating the splendid cavern and producing a magical effect. While on the left hand it measured only thirty feet in height and one hundred in length, to the right it was enormous, and its vault rose to a height of more than eighty feet. In some places, granite pillars, irregularly disposed, supported the arches as in the nave of a cathedral. Resting upon a sort of lateral piers, here, sinking into elliptic arches, there, rising in ogive mouldings, losing itself in the dark bays, half seen in the shadow through the fantastic arches, ornamented by a profusion of projections which seemed like pendants, this vaulted roof afforded a picturesque blending of all the architectures—Byzantine, Roman, Gothic—that the hand of man has produced. And this was the work of nature! She alone had constructed this magic Alhambra in a granite rock!

The colonists were overcome with admiration. Expecting to find but a narrow cavern, they found themselves in a sort of marvellous palace, and Neb had taken off his hat as if he had been transported into a temple!

Exclamations of pleasure escaped from their lips, and the hurrahs echoed and reechoed from the depths of the dark nave.

“My friends,” cried Smith, “when we shall have lighted the interior of this place, when we shall have arranged our chambers, our store-rooms, our offices in the left-hand portion, we will still have this splendid cavern, which shall be our study and our museum!

“And we will call it—” asked Herbert.

“Granite House,” answered Smith; and his companions saluted the name with their cheers.

By this time the torches were nearly consumed, and as, in order to return, it was necessary to regain the summit of the plateau and to remount the corridor, it was decided to postpone until the morrow the work of arranging their new home.

Before leaving, Smith leaned over the dark pit once more and listened attentively. But there was no sound from these depths save that of the water agitated by the undulations of the surge. A resinous torch was again thrown in, lighting up anew for an instant the walls of the well, but nothing suspicions was revealed. If any marine monster had been inopportunely surprised by the retreat of the waters, he had already regained the open sea by the subterranean passage which extended under the shore.

Nevertheless the engineer stood motionless, listening attentively, his gaze plunged in the abyss, without speaking.

Then the sailor approached him, and, touching his arm:—

“Mr. Smith,” he said.

“What is it, my friend,” responded the engineer, like one returning from the land of dreams.

“The torches are nearly out.”

“Forward!” said Smith; and the little troop left the cavern and began the ascent through the dark weir. Top walked behind, still growling in an odd way. The ascension was sufficiently laborious, and the colonists stopped for a few minutes at the upper grotto, which formed a sort of landing half way up the long granite stairway. Then they began again to mount, and pretty soon they felt the fresh air. The drops, already evaporated, no longer shone on the walls. The light of the torches diminished; Neb’s went out, and they had to hasten in order to avoid having to grope their way through, the profound darkness. A little before 4 o’clock, just as the torch of the sailor was burnt out, Smith and his companions emerged from the mouth of the passage.

CHAPTER XIX.

SMITH’S PLAN—THE FRONT OF GRANITE HOUSE—THE ROPE LADDER—PENCROFF’S IDEAS—THE AROMATIC HERBS—A NATURAL WARREN—GETTING WATER—THE VIEW FROM THE WINDOWS OF GRANITE HOUSE.

On the next day, May 22, the colonists proceeded to take possession of their new abode. They longed to exchange their insufficient shelter for the vast retreat in the rock, impenetrable to wind and wave. Still they did not intend altogether to abandon the Chimneys, but to make a workshop of it.

Smith’s first care was to ascertain exactly over what point rose the face of Granite House. He went down on the shore to the foot of the immense wall, and, as the pickaxe, which slipped from the reporter’s hands, must have fallen perpendicularly, he could ascertain, by finding this pickaxe, the place where the granite had been pierced. And, in fact, when the implement was found, half buried in the sand, the hole in the rock could be seen eighty feet above it, in a straight line. Rock pigeons were already fluttering in and out by this narrow opening. They evidently thought Granite House had been discovered for their benefit.

The engineer intended to divide the right portion of the cavern into several chambers opening upon an entrance-corridor, and lighted by five windows and a door cut in the face of the rock. Pencroff agreed with him as to the window, but could not understand the use of the door, since the old weir furnished a natural staircase to Granite House.

“My friend,” said Smith, “if we could get to our abode by the weir, so can others. I want to block up this passage at its month, to seal it hermetically, and even, if necessary, to conceal the entrance by damming up the lake.”

“And how shall we get in?” said the sailor.

“By a rope ladder from the outside,” answered Smith, “which we can pull up after us.”

“But why take so many precautions?” said Pencroff. “So far, the animals we have found here have not been formidable; and there are certainly no natives.”

“Are you so sure, Pencroff?” said the engineer, looking steadily at the sailor.

“Of course we shall not be perfectly sure till we have explored every part.”

“Yes,” said Smith, “for we know as yet only a small portion. But even if there are no enemies upon the island, they may come from the outside, for this part of the Pacific is a dangerous region. We must take every precaution.”

So the facade of Granite House was lighted with five windows, and with a door opening upon the “apartments,” and admitting plenty of light into that wonderful nave which was to serve as their principal hallroom. This facade, eighty feet above the ground, was turned to the east, and caught the first rays of the morning sun. It was protected by the slope of the rock from the piercing northeast wind. In the meantime, while the sashes of the windows were being made, the engineer meant to close the openings with thick shutters, which would keep out wind and rain, and which could be readily concealed. The first work was to hollow out these windows. But the pickaxe was at a disadvantage among these hard rocks, and Smith again had recourse to the nitro-glycerine, which, used in small quantities, had the desired effect. Then the work was finished by the pick and mattock—the five ogive windows, the bay, the bull’s-eyes, and the door—and, some days after the work was begun, the sun shone in upon the innermost recesses of Granite House.

According to Smith’s plan, the space had been divided into five compartments looking out upon the sea; upon the right was the hall, opposite to the door from which the ladder was to hang, then a kitchen thirty feet long, a dining-room forty feet long, a sleeping-room of the same size, and last a “guest chamber,” claimed by Pencroff; and bordering on the great hall.

These rooms, or rather this suite of rooms, in which they were to live, did not occupy the full depth of the cave. They opened upon a corridor which ran between them and a long storehouse, where were kept their utensils and provisions. All the products of the island, animal and vegetable, could be kept there in good condition and free from damp. They had room enough, and there was a place for everything. Moreover, the colonists still had at their disposal the little grotto above the large cavern, which would serve them as a sort of attic. This plan agreed upon, they became brickmakers again, and brought their bricks to the foot of Granite House.

Until that time the colonists had had access to the cavern only by the old weir. This mode of communication compelled them first to climb up Prospect Plateau, going round by the river, to descend 200 feet through the passage, and then to ascend the same distance when they wanted to regain the plateau. This involved fatigue and loss of time. Smith resolved to begin at once the construction of a strong rope ladder, which, once drawn up after them, would render the entrance to