The Mysterious Island, Jules Verne [freenovel24 txt] 📗

place, and before the week was out the house was ready for its guest. It was built twenty feet from the sheds, at a place where the herd of moufflons, now numbering twenty-four animals, could be easily overlooked. Some furniture, including a bed, table, bench, clothespress, and chest was made, and some arms, ammunition, and tools, were carried there.

The Unknown, meanwhile, had not seen his new home, letting the colonists work without him, while he remained at the plateau, wishing, doubtless, to finish up his work there. And, indeed, by his exertion the ground was completely tilled, and ready for the sowing when the time should arrive.

On the 20th everything was prepared at the corral, and the engineer told the Unknown that his house was ready for him, to which the other replied that he would sleep there that night.

The same evening, the colonists were all together in the great hall of Granite House. It was eight o’clock, the time of their companion’s departure; and not wishing by their presence to impose on him the leave-taking, which would, perhaps, have cost him an effort, they had left him alone and gone up into Granite House.

They had been conversing together in the hall for some minutes, when there was a light knock on the door, the Unknown entered, and without further introduction:⁠—

“Before I leave you, sirs,” said he, “it is well that you should know my history. This is it.”

These simple words greatly affected Smith and companions. The engineer started up.

“We ask to hear nothing, my friend,” he said. “It is your right to be silent⁠—”

“It is my duty to speak.”

“Then sit down.”

“I will stand where I am.”

“We are ready to hear what you have to say,” said Smith.

The Unknown stood in a shadowed corner of the hall, bareheaded, his arms crossed on his breast. In this position, in a hoarse voice, speaking as one who forces himself to speak, he made the following recital, uninterrupted by any word from his auditors:⁠—

“On the 20th of December, 1854, a steam pleasure-yacht, the Duncan, belonging to a Scotch nobleman, Lord Glenarvan, cast anchor at Cape Bernoulli, on the western coast of Australia, near the thirty-seventh parallel. On board the yacht were Lord Glenarvan, his wife, a major in the English army, a French geographer, a little boy, and a little girl. These two last were the children of Captain Grant, of the ship Britannia, which, with its cargo, had been lost the year before. The Duncan was commanded by Captain John Mangles, and was manned by a crew of fifteen men.

“This is the reason why the yacht was on the Australian coast at that season:⁠—

“Six months before, a bottle containing a paper written in English, German, and French, had been picked up by the Duncan in the Irish Sea. This paper said, in substance, that three persons still survived from the wreck of the Britannia; that they were the captain and two of the men; that they had found refuge on a land of which the latitude and longitude was given, but the longitude, blotted by the sea water, was no longer legible.

“The latitude was 37° 11′ south. Now, as the longitude was unknown, if they followed the latitude across continents and seas, they were certain to arrive at the land inhabited by Captain Grant and his companions.

“The English Admiralty, having hesitated to undertake the search, Lord Glenarvan had resolved to do everything in his power to recover the captain. Mary and Robert Grant had been in correspondence with him, and the yacht Duncan was made ready for a long voyage, in which the family of Lord Glenarvan and the children of the captain intended to participate. The Duncan, leaving Glasgow, crossed the Atlantic, passed the Straits of Magellan, and proceeded up the Pacific to Patagonia, where, according to the first theory suggested by the paper, they might believe that Captain Grant was a prisoner to the natives.

“The Duncan left its passengers on the western coast of Patagonia, and sailed for Cape Corrientes on the eastern coast, there to wait for them.

“Lord Glenarvan crossed Patagonia, following the 37th parallel, and, not having found any trace of the captain, he reembarked on the 13th of November, in order to continue his search across the ocean.

“After having visited without success the islands of Tristan d’Acunha and of Amsterdam, lying in the course, the Duncan, as I have stated, arrived at Cape Bernouilli on the 20th of December, 1854.

“It was Lord Glenarvan’s intention to cross Australia, as he had crossed Patagonia, and he disembarked. Some miles from the coast was a farm belonging to an Irishman, who offered hospitality to the travellers. Lord Glenarvan told the Irishman the object which had brought him to that region, and asked if he had heard of an English three-master, the Britannia, having been lost, within two years, on the west coast of Australia.

“The Irishman had never heard of this disaster, but, to the great surprise of everybody, one of his servants, intervening, said:⁠—

“ ‘Heaven be praised, my lord. If Captain Grant is still alive he is in Australia.’

“ ‘Who are you?’ demanded Lord Glenarvan.

“ ‘A Scotchman, like yourself, my lord,’ answered this man, ‘and one of the companions of Captain Grant, one of the survivors of the Britannia.’

“This man called himself Ayrton. He had been, in short, boatswain’s mate of the Britannia, as his papers proved. But, separated from Captain Grant at the moment when the ship went to pieces on the rocks, he had believed until this moment that everyone had perished but himself.

“ ‘Only,’ he added, ‘it was not on the western but on the eastern coast of Australia that the Britannia was lost; and if the Captain is still living he is a prisoner to the natives, and he must be searched for there.’

“This man said these things frankly and with a confident expression. No one would have doubted what he said. The Irishman, in whose service