The Mysterious Island, Jules Verne [most popular ebook readers txt] 📗

Granite House with glass thick and solid enough to resist the wind and rain and hail.

The colonists, having no immediate out-of-doors work, profited by the bad weather to complete and perfect the interior arrangements of Granite House. The engineer built a lathe with which they were able to turn some toilette articles and cooking utensils, and also some buttons, the need of which had been pressing. They also made a rack for the arms, which were kept with the utmost care. Nor was Jup forgotten; he occupied a chamber apart, a sort of cabin with a frame always full of good bedding, which suited him exactly.

“There’s no such thing as fault-finding with Jup,” said Pencroff. “What a servant he is, Neb!”

“He is my pupil and almost my equal!”

“He’s your superior,” laughed the sailor, “as you can talk, Neb, and he cannot!”

Jup had by this time become perfectly familiar with all the details of his work. He brushed the clothes, turned the spit, swept the rooms, waited at table, and—what delighted Pencroff—never laid down at night before he had tucked the worthy sailor in his bed.

As to the health of the colony, bipeds and bimana, quadrupeds and quadrumana, it left nothing to be desired. With the out-of-doors work, on this salubrious soil, under this temperate zone, laboring with head and hand, they could not believe that they could ever be sick, and all were in splendid health. Herbert had grown a couple of inches during the year; his figure had developed and knitted together, and he promised to become a fine man physically and morally. He profited by the lessons which he learned practically and from the books in the chest, and he found in the engineer and the reporter masters pleased to teach him. It was the engineer’s desire to teach the lad all he himself knew.

“If I die,” thought Smith, “he will take my place.”

The storm ended on the 9th of March, but the sky remained clouded during the remainder of the month, and, with the exception of two or three fine days, rainy or foggy.

About this time a little onager was born, and a number of moufflons, to the great joy of Neb and Herbert, who had each their favorites among these new comers.

The domestication of piccaries was also attempted—a pen being built near the poultry-yard, and a number of the young animals placed therein under Neb’s care. Jup was charged with taking them their daily nourishment, the kitchen refuse, and he acquitted himself conscientiously of the task. He did, indeed, cut off their tails, but this was a prank and not naughtiness, because those little twisted appendages amused him like a toy, and his instinct was that of a child.

One day in March, Pencroff, talking with the engineer, recalled to his mind a promise made some time before.

“You have spoken of something to take the place of our long ladder, Mr. Smith. Will you make it some day?”

“You mean a kind of elevator?” answered Smith.

“Call it an elevator if you wish,” responded the sailor. “The name does not matter, provided we can get to our house easily.”

“Nothing is easier, Pencroff; but is it worth while?”

“Certainly, sir, it is. After we have the necessaries, let us think of the conveniences. For people this will be a luxury, if you choose; but for things, it is indispensable. It is not so easy to climb a long ladder when one is heavily loaded.”

“Well, Pencroff, we will try to satisfy you,” answered Smith.

“But you haven’t the machine.”

“We will make one.”

“To go by steam?”

“No, to go by water.”

Indeed, a natural force was at hand. All that was necessary was to enlarge the passage which furnished Granite House with water, and make a fall at the end of the corridor. Above this fall the engineer placed a paddle-wheel, and wrapped around its axle a strong rope attached to a basket. In this manner, by means of a long cord which reached to the ground, they could raise or lower the basket by means of the hydraulic motor.

On the 17th of March the elevator was used for the first time, and after that everything was hoisted into Granite House by its means. Top was particularly pleased by this improvement, as he could not climb like Jup, and he had often made the ascent on the back of Neb or of the orang.

Smith also attempted to make glass, which was difficult enough, but after numerous attempts he succeeded in establishing a glass-works at the old pottery, where Herbert and Spilett spent several days. The substances entering into the composition of glass—sand, chalk, and soda—the engineer had at hand; but the “cane” of the glassmaker, an iron tube five or six feet long, was wanting. This Pencroff, however, succeeded in making, and on the 28th of March the furnace was heated.

One hundred parts of sand, thirty-five of chalk, forty of sulphate of soda, mixed with two of three parts of powdered charcoal, composed the substance which was placed in earthen vessels and melted to a liquid, or rather to the consistency of paste. Smith “culled” a certain quantity of this paste with his cane, and turned it back and forth on a metal plate so placed that it could be blown on; then he passed the cane to Herbert, telling him to blow in it.

“As you do to make soap bubbles?”

“Exactly.”

So Herbert, puffing out his cheeks, blew through the cane, which he kept constantly turning about, in such a manner as to inflate the vitreous mass. Other quantities of the substance in fusion were added to the first, and the result was a bubble, measuring a foot in diameter. Then Smith took the cane again, and swinging it like a pendulum, he made this bubble lengthen into the shape of cylinder.

This cylinder was terminated at either end by two hemispherical caps, which were easily cut off by means of a sharp iron dipped in cold water; in the same way the cylinder was cut lengthwise, and after having been heated a second time it was spread on the plate and smoothed with a wooden roller.

Thus the first glass was made, and by repeating the operation fifty times they had as many glasses, and the windows of Granite House were soon garnished with transparent panes, not very clear, perhaps, but clear enough.

As to the glassware, that was mere amusement. They took whatever shape happened to come at the end of the cane. Pencroff had asked to be allowed to blow in his turn and he enjoyed it, but he blew so hard that his products took the most diverting forms, which pleased him amazingly.

During one of the excursions undertaken about this time a new tree was discovered, whose products added much to the resources of the colony.

Smith and Herbert, being out hunting one day, went into the forests of the Far West, and as usual the lad asked the engineer a thousand questions, and as Smith was no sportsman, and Herbert was deep in physics and chemistry, the game did not suffer; and so it fell out that the day was nearly ended, and the two hunters were likely to have made a useless excursion, when Herbert, stopping suddenly, exclaimed joyfully:—

“Oh, Mr. Smith, do you see that tree?”

And he pointed out a shrub rather than a tree, as it was composed of a single stem with a scaly bark, and leaves striped with small parallel veins.

“It looks like a small palm. What is it?” asked Smith.

“It is a “cycas revoluta,” about which I have read in our Dictionary of Natural History.”

“But I see no fruit on this shrub?”

“No, sir, but its trunk contains a flour which Nature furnishes all ground.”

“Is it a bread-tree?”

“That’s it, exactly.”

“Then, my boy, since we are waiting for our wheat crop, this is a valuable discovery. Examine it, and pray heaven you are not mistaken.”

Herbert was not mistaken. He broke the stem of the cycas, which was composed of a glandular tissue containing a certain quantity of farinaceous flour, traversed by ligneous fibres and separated by concentric rings of the same substance. From the fecula oozed a sticky liquid of a disagreeable taste, but this could readily be removed by pressure. The substance itself formed a real flour of superior quality, extremely nourishing, and which used to be forbidden exportation by the laws of Japan.

Smith and Herbert, after baring carefully noted the location of the cycas, returned to Granite House and made known their discovery, and the next day all the colonists went to the place, and, Pencroff, jubilant, asked the engineer:—

“Mr Smith, do you believe there are such things as castaways’ islands?”

“What do you mean, Pencroff?.”

“Well, I mean islands made especially for people to be shipwrecked upon, where the poor devils could always get along!”

“Perhaps,” said the engineer, smiling.

“Certainly!” answered the sailor, “and just as certainly Lincoln Island is one of them!”

They returned to Granite House with an ample supply of cycas stems, and the engineer made a press by which the liquid was expelled, and they obtained a goodly quantity of flour which Neb transformed into cakes and puddings. They had not yet real wheaten bread, but it was the next thing to do.

The onager, the goats, and the sheep in the corral furnished a daily supply of milk to the colony, and the cart, or rather a light wagon, which had taken its place, made frequent trips to the corral. And when Pencroff’s turn came, he took Jup along, and made him drive, and Jup, cracking his whip, acquitted himself with his usual intelligence. Thus everything prospered, and the colonists, if they had not been so far from their country, would have had nothing to complain of. They liked the life and they were so accustomed to the island that they would have left it with regret. Nevertheless, such is man’s love of country, that had a ship hove in sight the colonists would have signalled it, have gone aboard and departed. Meantime, they lived this happy life and they had rather to fear than to wish for any interruption of its course.

But who is able to flatter himself that he has attained his fortune and reached the summit of his desires?

The colonists often discussed the nature of their Island, which they had inhabited for more than a year, and one day a remark was made which, was destined, later, to bring about the most serious result.

It was the 1st of April, a Sunday, and the Pascal feast, which Smith and his companions had sanctified by rest and prayer. The day had been lovely, like a day in October in the Northern Hemisphere. Towards evening all were seated in the arbor on the edge of the plateau, watching the gradual approach of night, and drinking some of Neb’s elderberry coffee. They had been talking of the island and its isolated position in the Pacific, when something made Spilett say:—

“By the way, Cyrus, have you ever taken the position of the island again since you have had the sextant?”

“No,” answered the engineer.

“Well, wouldn’t it be well enough to do so?”.

“What would be the use?” asked Pencroff. “The island is well enough where it is.”

“Doubtless,” answered Spilett, “but it is possible that the imperfections of the other instruments may have caused an error in that observation, and since, it is easy to verify it exactly—”

“You are right, Spilett,” responded the engineer, “and I would have made this verification before, only that if I have made an error it cannot exceed five degrees in latitude or longitude.”

“Who knows,” replied the reporter, “who knows but that we are much nearer an inhabited land than we believe?”

“We will know to-morrow,” responded the engineer,” and had it not been for the other work, which has left us no leisure, we would have known already.”

“Well,” said Pencroff, “Mr. Smith is too good an observer to have been mistaken, and if the island has not moved, it is just where he put it!”

So the next day the engineer