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

His speech was answered by a brilliant flash from the offing, and the sound of a gun. The ship was there, and she had artillery. Six seconds had elapsed between the flash and the report; the brig, therefore, was about a mile and a-quarter from the shore. Just then, they heard the noise of chain-cables grinding across the hawse-holes. The vessel was coming to anchor in sight of Granite House!

DISCUSSIONS—PRESENTIMENTS—AYRTON’S PROPOSAL—IT IS ACCEPTED—AYRTON AND PENCROFF ON SAFETY ISLET—NORFOLK CONVICTS—THEIR PROJECTS—HEROIC ATTEMPT OF AYRTON—HIS RETURN—SIX AGAINST FIFTY.

There was no longer room for doubt as to the pirate’s intentions. They had cast anchor at a short distance from the island, and evidently intended to land on the morrow.

Brave as they were, the colonists felt the necessity of prudence. Perhaps their presence could yet be concealed in case the pirates were contented with landing on the coast without going up into the interior. The latter, in fact, might have nothing else in view than a supply of fresh water, and the bridge, a mile and a half up stream, might well escape their eye.

The colonists knew now that the pirate ship carried heavy artillery, against which they had nothing but a few shot-guns.

“Still,” said Smith, “our situation is impregnable. The enemy cannot discover the opening in the weir, so thickly is it covered with reeds and grass, and consequently cannot penetrate into Granite House.”

“But our plantations, our poultry-yard, our corral,—in short everything,” cried Pencroff, stamping his foot. “They can destroy everything in a few hours.”

“Everything, Pencroff!” answered Smith, “and we have no means of preventing them?”

“Are there many of them?” said the reporter. “That’s the question. If there are only a dozen, we can stop them, but forty, or fifty, or more—”

“Mr. Smith,” said Ayrton, coming up to the engineer, “will you grant me one request!”

“What, my friend?”

“To go to the ship, and ascertain how strongly she is manned.”

“But, Ayrton,” said the engineer, hesitating, “your life will be in danger.”

“And why not, sir?”

“That is more than your duty.”

“I must do more than my duty,” replied Ayrton.

“You mean to go to the ship in the canoe?” asked Spilett.

“No, sir. I will swim to her. A man can slip in where a boat could not pass.”

“Do you know that the brig is a mile and a half from the coast?” said Herbert.”

“I am a good swimmer, sir.”

“I repeat to you that you are risking your life,” resumed the engineer.

“No matter,” answered Ayrton—”Mr. Smith, I ask it as a favor. It may raise me in my own estimation.”

“Go, Ayrton,” said the engineer, who knew how deeply a refusal would affect the ex-convict, now become an honest man.

“I will go with you,” said Pencroff.

“You distrust me!” said Ayrton, quickly. Then, he added, more humbly, “and it is just.”

“No, no!” cried Smith, eagerly, “Pencroff has no such feeling. You have misunderstood him.”

“Just so,” answered the sailor; “I am proposing to Ayrton to accompany him only as far as the islet. One of these rascals may possibly have gone on shore there, and if so, it will take two men to prevent him from giving the alarm. I will wait for Ayrton on the islet.”

Everything thus arranged, Ayrton got ready for departure. His project was bold but not impracticable, thanks to the dark night. Once having reached the ship, Ayrton, by clinging to the chains of the shrouds, might ascertain the number and perhaps the designs of the convicts. They walked down upon the beach. Ayrton stripped himself and rubbed himself with grease, the better to endure the chill of the water; for he might have to be in it several hours. Meanwhile Pencroff and Neb had gone after the canoe, fastened on the bank of the Mercy some hundreds of paces further up. When they came back, Ayrton was ready to start.

They threw a wrap over his shoulders, and shook hands with him all round. Then he got into the boat with Pencroff, and pushed off into the darkness. It was now half-past 10, and their companions went back to wait for them at the Chimneys.

The channel was crossed without difficulty, and the canoe reached the opposite bank of the islet. They moved cautiously, lest pirates should have landed there. But the island was deserted. The two walked rapidly over it, frightening the birds from their nests in the rocks. Having reached the further side, Ayrton cast himself unhesitatingly into the sea, and swam noiselessly towards the ship’s lights, which now were streaming across the water. Pencroff hid himself among the rocks, to await his companion’s return.

Meanwhile, Ayrton swam strongly towards the ship, slipping through the water. His head only appeared above the surface; his eyes were fixed on the dark hull of the brig, whose lights were reflected in the water. He thought only of his errand, and nothing of the danger he encountered, not only from the pirates but from the sharks which infested these waters. The current was in his favor, and the shore was soon far behind.

Half an hour afterwards, Ayrton, without having been perceived by any one, dived under the ship, and clung with one hand to the bowsprit. Then he drew breath, and, raising himself by the chains, climbed to the end of the cut-water. There some sailors’ clothes hung drying. He found an easy position, and listened.

They were not asleep on board of the brig. They were talking, singing, and laughing. These words, intermingled with oaths, came to Ayrton’s ears;—

“What a famous find our brig was!”

“The Speedy is a fast sailor. She deserves her name.”

“All the Norfolk shipping may do their best to take her.”

“Hurrah for her commander. Hurrah for Bob Harvey!”

Our readers will understand what emotion was excited in Ayrton by this name, when they learn that Bob Harvey was one of his old companions in Australia, who had followed out his criminal projects by getting possession, off Norfolk Island, of this brig, charged with arms, ammunition, utensils, and tools of all kinds, destined for one of the Sandwich Islands. All his band had gotten on board, and, adding piracy to their other crimes, the wretches scoured the Pacific, destroying ships and massacring their crews. They were drinking deep and talking loudly over their exploits, and Ayrton gathered the following facts:—

The crew were composed entirely of English convicts, escaped from Norfolk Island. In 29° 2’ south latitude, and 165° 42’ east longitude, to the east of Australia, is a little island about six leagues in circumference, with Mount Pitt rising in the midst, 1,100 feet above the level of the sea. It is Norfolk Island, the seat of an establishment where are crowded together the most dangerous of the transported English convicts. There are 500 of them; they undergo a rigid discipline, with severe punishment for disobedience, and are guarded by 150 soldiers and 150 civil servants, under the authority of a Governor. A worse set of villains cannot be imagined. Sometimes, though rarely, in spite of the extreme precautions of their jailors, some of them contrive to escape by seizing a ship, and become the pest of the Polynesian archipelagos. Thus had done Harvey and his companions. Thus had Ayrton formerly wished to do. Harvey had seized the Speedy, which was anchored within sight of Norfolk Island, had massacred the crew, and for a year had made the brig the terror of the Pacific.

The convicts were most of them gathered on the poop, in the after part of the ship; but a few were lying on deck, talking in loud voices. The conversation went on amid noise and drunkenness. Ayrton gathered that chance only had brought them within sight of Lincoln Island. Harvey had never set foot there; but, as Smith had foreseen, coming upon an island not in the maps, he had determined to go on shore, and, if the land suited him, to make it the Speedy’s headquarters. The black flag and the cannon-shot were a mere freak of the pirates, to imitate a ship-of-war running up her colors.

The colonists were in very serious danger. The island, with its easy water supply, its little harbor, its varied resources so well turned to account by the colonists, its secret recesses of Granite House—all these would be just what the convicts wanted. In their hands the island would become an excellent place of refuge, and the fact of its being unknown would add to their security. Of course the colonists would instantly be put to death. They could not even escape to the interior, for the convicts would make the island their headquarters, and if they went on an expedition would leave some of the crew behind. It would be a struggle for life and death with these wretches, every one of whom must be destroyed before the colonists would be safe. Those were Ayrton’s thoughts, and he knew that Smith would agree with him. But was a successful resistance possible? Everything depended on the calibre of the brig’s guns and the number of her men. These were facts which Ayrton must know at any cost.

An hour after he had reached the brig the noise began to subside, and most of the convicts lay plunged in a drunken sleep. Ayrton determined to risk himself on the ship’s deck, which the extinguished lanterns left in profound darkness. He got in the chains by the cut-water, and by means of the bowsprit climbed to the brig’s forecastle. Creeping quietly through the sleeping crew, who lay stretched here and there on the deck, he walked completely around the vessel and ascertained that the Speedy carried four guns, from eight to ten-pounders. He discovered also that the guns were breech-loading, of modern make, easily worked, and capable of doing great damage.

There were about ten men lying on deck, but it might be that others were asleep in the hold. Moreover, Ayrton had gathered from the conversation that there were some fifty on board; rather an overmatch for the six colonists. But, at least, the latter would not be surprised; thanks to Ayrton’s devotion, they would know their adversaries force, and would make their dispositions accordingly. Nothing remained for Ayrton but to go back to his comrades with the information he had gathered, and he began walking towards the forecastle to let himself down into the sea.

And now to this man, who wished to do more than his duty, there came a heroic thought, the thought of sacrificing his life for the safety of his comrades. Smith could not of course resist fifty well-armed marauders, who would either overcome him or starve him out. Ayrton pictured to himself his preservers who had made a man of him, and an honest man, to whom he owed everything, pitilessly murdered, their labors brought to nothing, their island changed to a den of pirates. He said to himself that he, Ayrton, was the first cause of these disasters, since his old companion, Harvey, had only carried out Ayrton’s projects; and a feeling of horror came over him. Then came the irresistible desire to blow up the brig, with all on board. He would perish in the explosion, but he would have done his duty.

He did not hesitate! It was easy to reach the powder magazine, which is always in the after part of the ship. Powder must be plenty on board such a vessel, and a spark would bring destruction.

Ayrton lowered himself carefully between-decks, where he found many of the pirates lying about, overcome rather by drunkenness than sleep. A ship’s lantern, was lighted at the foot of the mainmast, from which hung a rack full of all sorts of firearms. Ayrton took from the rack a revolver, and made sure that it was loaded and capped. It was all that he needed to accomplish the work of destruction. Then he glided back to the poop, where the powder magazine would be.

Between decks it was dark, and he could hardly step without knocking against some half-asleep convict, and meeting with an oath or a blow.