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.