THE LITHODOMES—THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER—THE “CHIMNEYS”—CONTINUATION OF
THE SEARCH—THE FOREST OF EVERGREENS—GETTING FIREWOOD—WAITING FOR THE
TIDE—ON TOP OF THE CLIFF—THE TIMBER-FLOAT—THE RETURN TO THE COAST.
Presently the reporter told the sailor to wait just where he was until
he should come back, and without losing a moment, he walked back along
the coast in the direction which Neb had taken some hours before, and
disappeared quickly around a turn in the shore.
Herbert wished to go with him.
“Stay, my boy,” said the sailor. “We must pitch our camp for the night,
and try to find something to eat more satisfying than shellfish. Our
friends will need food when they come back.”
“I am ready, Pencroff,” said Herbert.
“Good,” said the sailor. “Let us set to work methodically. We are
tired, cold, and hungry: we need shelter, fire, and food. There is
plenty of wood in the forest, and we can get eggs from the nests; but
we must find a house.”
“Well,” said Herbert, “I will look for a cave in these rocks, and I
shall certainly find some hole in which we can stow ourselves.”
“Right,” said Pencroff; “let us start at once.”
They walked along the base of the rocky wall, on the strand left bare
by the receding waves. But instead of going northwards, they turned to
the south. Pencroff had noticed, some hundreds of feet below the place
where they had been thrown ashore, a narrow inlet in the coast, which
he thought might be the mouth of a river or of a brook. Now it was
important to pitch the camp in the neighborhood of fresh water; in that
part of the island, too, Smith might be found.
The rock rose 300 feet, smooth and massive. It was a sturdy wall of the
hardest granite, never corroded by the waves, and even at its base
there was no cleft which might serve as a temporary abode. About the
summit hovered a host of aquatic birds, mainly of the web-footed tribe,
with long, narrow, pointed beaks. Swift and noisy, they cared little
for the unaccustomed presence of man. A shot into the midst of the
flock would have brought down a dozen; but neither Pencroff nor Herbert
had a gun. Besides, gulls and sea-mews are barely eatable, and their
eggs have a very disagreeable flavor.
Meanwhile Herbert, who was now to the left, soon noticed some rocks
thickly strewn with sea weed, which would evidently be submerged again
in a few hours. On them lay hosts of bivalves, not to be disdained by
hungry men. Herbert called to Pencroff, who came running to him.
“Ah, they are mussels,” said the sailor. “Now we can spare the eggs.”
“They are not mussels,” said Herbert, examining the mollusks carefully,
“they are lithodomes.”
“Can we eat them?” said Pencroff.
“Certainly.”
“Then let us eat some lithodomes.”
The sailor could rely on Herbert, who was versed in Natural History and
very fond of it. He owed his acquaintance with this study in great part
to his father, who had entered him in the classes of the best
professors in Boston, where the child’s industry and intelligence had
endeared him to all.
These lithodomes were oblong shell-fish, adhering in clusters to the
rocks. They belonged to that species of boring mollusk which can
perforate a hole in the hardest stone, and whose shell has the
peculiarity of being rounded at both ends.
Pencroff and Herbert made a good meal of these lithodomes. which lay
gaping in the sun. They tasted like oysters, with a peppery flavor
which left no desire for condiments of any kind.
Their hunger was allayed for the moment, but their thirst was increased
by the spicy flavor of the mollusks. The thing now was to find fresh
water, which was not likely to fail them in a region so undulating.
Pencroff and Herbert, after having taken the precaution to fill their
pockets and handkerchiefs with lithodomes, regained the foot of the
hill.
Two hundred feet further on they reached the inlet, through which, as
Pencroff had surmised, a little river was flowing with full current
Here the rocky wall seemed to have been torn asunder by some volcanic
convulsion. At its base lay a little creek, running at an acute angle.
The water in this place was 100 feet across, while the banks on either
side were scarcely 20 feet broad. The river buried itself at once
between the two walls of granite, which began to decline as one went up
stream.
“Here is water,” said Pencroff, “and over there is wood. Well, Herbert,
now we only want the house.”
The river water was clear. The sailor knew that as the tide was now low
there would be no influx from the sea, and the water would be fresh.
When this important point had been settled, Herbert looked for some
cave which might give them shelter, but it was in vain. Everywhere the
wall was smooth, flat, and perpendicular.
However, over at the mouth of the watercourse, and above high-water
mark, the detritus had formed, not a grotto, but a pile of enormous
rocks, such as are often met with in granitic countries, and which are
called _Chimneys_.
Pencroff and Herbert went down between the rocks, into those sandy
corridors, lighted only by the huge cracks between the masses of
granite, some of which only kept their equilibrium by a miracle. But
with the light the wind came in, and with the wind the piercing cold of
the outer air. Still, the sailor thought that by stopping up some of
these openings with a mixture of stones and sand, the Chimneys might be
rendered habitable. Their plan resembled the typographical sign, &, and
by cutting off the upper curve of the sign, through which the south and
the west wind rushed in, they could succeed without doubt in utilizing
its lower portion.
“This is just what we want,” said Pencroff, and if we ever see Mr.
Smith again, he will know how to take advantage of this labyrinth.”
“We shall see him again, Pencroff,” said Herbert, “and when he comes
back he must find here a home that is tolerably comfortable. We can
make this so if we can build a fireplace in the left corridor with an
opening for the smoke.”
“That we can do, my boy,” answered the sailor, “and these Chimneys will
just serve our purpose. But first we must get together some firing.
Wood will be useful, too, in blocking up these great holes through
which the wind whistles so shrilly.”
Herbert and Pencroff left the Chimneys, and turning the angle, walked
up the left bank of the river, whose current was strong enough to bring
down a quantity of dead wood. The return tide, which had already begun,
would certainly carry it in the ebb to a great distance. “Why not
utilize this flux and reflux,” thought the sailor, “in the carriage of
heavy timber?”
After a quarter of an hour’s walk, the two reached the elbow which the
river made in turning to the left. From this point onward it flowed
through a forest of magnificent trees, which had preserved their
verdure in spite of the season; for they belonged to that great
cone-bearing family indigenous everywhere, from the poles to the
tropics. Especially conspicuous were the “deodara,” so numerous in the
Himalayas, with their pungent perfume. Among them were clusters of
pines, with tall trunks and spreading parasols of green. The ground was
strewn with fallen branches, so dry as to crackle under their feet.
“Good,” said the sailor, “I may not know the name of these trees, but I
know they belong to the genus firewood, and that’s the main thing for
us.”
It was an easy matter to gather the firewood. They did not need even to
strip the trees; plenty of dead branches lay at their feet. This dry
wood would burn rapidly, and they would need a large supply. How could
two men carry such a load to the Chimneys? Herbert asked the question.
“My boy,” said the sailor, “there’s a way to do everything. If we had a
car or a boat it would be too easy.”
“We have the river,” suggested Herbert.
“Exactly,” said Pencroff. “The river shall be our road and our carrier,
too. Timber-floats were not invented for nothing.”
“But our carrier is going in the wrong direction,” said Herbert, “since
the tide is coming up from the sea.”
“We have only to wait for the turn of tide,” answered the sailor. “Let
us get our float ready.”
They walked towards the river, each carrying a heavy load of wood tied
up in fagots. On the bank, too, lay quantities of dead boughs, among
grass which the foot of man had probably never pressed before. Pencroff
began to get ready his float.
In an eddy caused by an angle of the shore, which broke the flow of the
current, they set afloat the larger pieces of wood, bound together by
liana stems so as to form a sort of raft. On this raft they piled the
rest of the wood, which would have been a load for twenty men. In an
hour their work was finished, and the float was moored to the bank to
wait for the turn of the tide. Pencroff and Herbert resolved to spend
the mean time in gaining a more extended view of the country from the
higher plateau. Two hundred feet behind the angle of the river, the
wall terminating in irregular masses of rocks, sloped away gently to
the edge of the forest. The two easily climbed this natural staircase,
soon attained the summit, and posted themselves at the angle
overlooking the mouth of the river.
Their first look was at that ocean over which they had been so
frightfully swept. They beheld with emotion the northern part of the
coast, the scene of the catastrophe, and of Smith’s disappearance. They
hoped to see on the surface some wreck of the balloon to which a man
might cling. But the sea was a watery desert. The coast, too, was
desolate. Neither Neb nor the reporter could be seen.
“Something tells me,” said Herbert, “that a person so energetic as Mr.
Smith would not let himself be drowned like an ordinary man. He must
have got to shore; don’t you think so, Pencroff?”
The sailor shook his head sadly. He never thought to see Smith again;
but he left Herbert a hope.
“No doubt,” said he, “our engineer could save himself where any one
else would perish.”
Meanwhile he took a careful observation of the coast. Beneath his eyes
stretched out the sandy beach, bounded, upon the right of the
river-mouth, by lines of breakers. The rocks which still were visible
above the water were like groups of amphibious monsters lying in the
surf. Beyond them the sea sparkled in the rays of the sun. A narrow
point terminated the southern horizon, and it was impossible to tell
whether the land stretched further in that direction, or whether it
trended southeast and southwest, so as to make an elongated peninsula.
At the northern end of the bay, the outline of the coast was continued
to a great distance. There the shore was low and flat, without rocks,
but covered by great sandbanks, left by the receding tide.
When Pencroff and Herbert walked back towards the west, their looks
fell on the snowcapped mountain, which rose six or seven miles away.
Masses of tree-trunks, with patches of evergreens, extended from its
first declivities to within two miles of the coast. Then from the edge
of this forest to the coast stretched a plateau strewn at random with
clumps of trees. On the left shore through the glades the waters of the
little river, which seemed to have returned in its sinuous course to
the mountains which gave it birth.
“Are we upon an island?” muttered the sailor.
“It is big enough, at all events,” said the boy.
“An island’s an island, no matter how big,” said Pencroff.
But this important question could not yet be decided. The country
itself, isle or continent, seemed fertile, picturesque, and diversified
in its products. For that they must be grateful. They returned along
the southern ridge of the granite plateau, outlined by a fringe of
fantastic rocks, in whose cavities lived hundreds of birds. A whole
flock of them soared aloft as Herbert jumped over the rocks.
“Ah!” cried he, “these are neither gulls nor sea-mews.”
“What are they?” said Pencroff. “They look for all the world like
pigeons.”
“So they are,” said Herbert, “but they are wild pigeons, or rock
pigeons.” I know them by the two black bands on the wing, the white
rump, and the ash-blue feathers. The rock pigeon is good to eat, and
its eggs ought to be delicious; and if they have left a few in their
nests—”
“We will let them hatch in an omelet,” said Pencroff, gaily.
“But what will you make your omelet in?” asked Herbert; “in your hat?”
“I am not quite conjurer enough for that,” said the sailor. “We must
fall back on eggs in the shell, and I will undertake to despatch the
hardest.”
Pencroff and the boy examined carefully the cavities of the granite,
and succeeded in discovering eggs in some of them. Some dozens were
collected in the sailor’s handkerchief, and, high tide approaching, the
two went down again to the water-course.
It was 1 o’clock when they arrived at the elbow of the river, and the
tide was already on the turn. Pencroff had no intention of letting his
timber float at random, nor did he wish to get on and steer it. But a
sailor is never troubled in a matter of ropes or cordage, and Pencroff
quickly twisted from the dry lianas a rope several fathoms long. This
was fastened behind the raft, and the sailor held it in his hand, while
Herbert kept the float in the current by pushing it off from the shore
with a long pole.
This expedient proved an entire success. The enormous load of wood kept
well in the current. The banks were sheer, and there was no fear lest
the float should ground; before 2 o’clock they reached the mouth of the
stream, a few feet from the Chimneys.