The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne (best ebook reader for laptop TXT) 📖

the snow. Supposing a hungry animal swallows one of these baits? The warmth will thaw the ice, and the whalebone, springing back, will pierce the stomach.”

“That is ingenious!” said Pencroff.

“And it will save powder and ball,” said Smith.

“It will be better than the traps.”

“Just wait till winter comes.”

The ship-building continued, and towards the end of the month the little vessel was half-finished. Pencroff worked almost too hard, but his companions were secretly preparing a recompense for all his toil, and the 31st of May was destined to be one of the happiest times in his life.

After dinner on that day, just as he was leaving table, Pencroff felt a hand on his shoulder and heard Spilett saying to him:—

“Don’t go yet awhile, Pencroff. You forget the dessert.”

“Thank you, Spilett, but I must get back to work.”

“Oh, well, have a cup of coffee.”

“Not any.”

“Well, then, a pipe?”

Pencroff started up quickly, and when he saw the reporter holding him a pipe full of tobacco, and Herbert with a light, his honest, homely face grew pale, and he could not say a word; but taking the pipe, he placed it to his lips, lit it, and drew five or six long puffs, one after the other.

A fragrant, blueish-colored smoke filled the air, and from the depths of this cloud came a voice, delirious with joy, repeating,

“Tobacco! real tobacco!”

“Yes, Pencroff,” answered Smith, “and good tobacco at that.”

“Heaven be praised!” ejaculated the sailor. “Nothing now is wanting in our island. And he puffed and puffed and puffed.

“Who found it?” he asked, at length. “It was you, Herbert, I suppose?”

“No, Pencroff, it was Mr. Spilett.”

“Mr. Spilett!” cried the sailor, hugging the reporter, who had never been treated that way before.

“Yes, Pencroff,”—taking advantage of a cessation in the embrace to get his breath—“But include in your thanksgiving Herbert, who recognized the plant, Mr. Smith, who prepared it, and Neb, who has found it hard to keep the secret.”

“Well, my friends, I will repay you for this some day! Meanwhile I am eternally grateful!.”

 

CHAPTER XXXIII

 

WINTER—FULLING CLOTH—THE MILL —PENCROFF’S FIXED PURPOSE—THE WHALEBONES—THE USE OF AN ALBATROSS —TOP AND JUP—STORMS—DAMAGE TO THE POULTRY-YARD—AN EXCURSION TO THE MARSH—SMITH ALONE—EXPLORATION OF THE PITS.

Winter came with June, and the principal work was the making of strong warm clothing. The moufflons had been clipped, and the question was how to transform the wool into cloth.

Smith, not having any mill machinery, was obliged to proceed in the simplest manner, in order to economize the spinning and weaving. Therefore he proposed to make use of the property possessed by the filaments of wool of binding themselves together under pressure, and making by their mere entanglement the substance known as felt. This felt can be obtained by a simple fulling, an operation which, while it diminishes the suppleness of the stuff, greatly augments its heat-preserving qualities; and as the moufflons’ wool was very short it was in good condition for felting.

The engineer, assisted by his companions, including Pencroff—who had to leave his ship again—cleansed the wool of the grease and oil by soaking it in warm water and washing it with soda, and, when it was partially dried by pressure it was in a condition to be milled, that is, to produce a solid stuff, too coarse to be of any value in the industrial centres of Europe, but valuable enough in the Lincoln Island market.

The engineer’s professional knowledge was of great service in constructing the machine destined to mill the wool, as he knew how to make ready use of the power, unemployed up to this time, in the water-fall at the cliff, to move a fulling mill.

Its construction was most simple. A tree furnished with cams, which raised and dropped the vertical millers, troughs for the wool, into which the millers fell, a strong wooden building containing and sustaining the contrivance, such was the machine in question.

The work, superintended by Smith, resulted admirably. The wool, previously impregnated with a soapy solution, came from the mill in the shape of a thick felt cloth. The striæ and roughnesses of the material had caught and blended together so thoroughly that they formed a stuff equally suitable for cloths or coverings. It was not, indeed, one of the stuffs of commerce, but it was “Lincoln felt,” and the island had one more industry.

The colonists, being thus provided with good clothes and warm bed-clothing, saw the winter of 1866-67 approach without any dread. The cold really began to be felt on the 20th of June, and, to his great regret, Pencroff was obliged to suspend work on his vessel, although it would certainly be finished by the next spring.

The fixed purpose of the sailor was to make a voyage of discovery to Tabor Island, although Smith did not approve of this voyage of simple curiosity, as there was evidently no succor to be obtained from that desert and half arid rock. A voyage of 150 miles in a boat, comparatively small, in the midst of unknown seas, was cause for considerable anxiety. If the frail craft, once at sea, should be unable to reach Tabor Island, or to return to Lincoln Island, what would become of her in the midst of this ocean so fertile in disasters?

Smith often talked of this project with Pencroff, and he found in the sailor a strange obstinacy to make the voyage, an obstinacy for which Pencroff himself could not account.

“Well,” said the engineer one day, “you must see, Pencroff, after having said every good of Lincoln Island, and expressing the regret you would feel should you have to leave it, that you are the first to want to get away.”

“Only for a day or two,” answered Pencroff, “for a few days, Mr. Smith; just long enough to go and return, and see what this island is.”

“But it cannot compare with ours.”

“I know that.””

“Then why go?”

“To find out what’s going on there!”

“But there is nothing; there can be nothing there.”

“Who knows?”

“And supposing you are caught in a storm?”

“That is not likely in that season,” replied Pencroff. “But, sir, as it is necessary to foresee everything, I want your permission to take Herbert with me.”

“Pencroff,” said the engineer, laying his hand on the shoulder of the sailor, “If anything should happen to you and this child, whom chance has made our son, do you think that we would ever forgive ourselves?”

“Mr. Smith,” responded Pencroff with unshaken confidence, “we won’t discuss such mishaps. But we will talk again of this voyage when the time comes. Then, I think, when you have seen our boat well rigged, when you have seen how well she behaves at sea, when you have made the tour of the island—as we will, together—I think, I say, that you will not hesitate to let me go. I do not conceal from you that this will be a fine work, your ship.”

“Say rather, our ship, Pencroff,” replied the engineer, momentarily disarmed. And the conversation, to be renewed later, ended without convincing either of the speakers.

The first snow fell towards the end of the month. The corral had been well provisioned, and there was no further necessity for daily visits, but it was decided to go there at least once a week. The traps were set again, and the contrivances of Smith were tried, and worked perfectly. The bent whalebones, frozen, and covered with fat, were placed near the edge of the forest, at a place frequented by animals, and some dozen foxes, some wild boars, and a jaguar were found killed by this means, their stomachs perforated by the straightened whalebones.

At this time, an experiment, thought of by the reporter, was made. It was the first attempt of the colonists to communicate with their kindred.

Spilett had already often thought of throwing a bottle containing a writing into the sea, to be carried by the currents, perhaps, to some inhabited coast, or to make use of the pigeons. But it was pure folly to seriously believe that pigeons or bottles could cross the 1,200 miles separating the island from all lands.—

But on the 30th of June they captured, not without difficulty, an albatross, which Herbert had slightly wounded in the foot. It was a splendid specimen of its kind, its wings measuring ten feet from tip to tip, and it could cross seas as vast as the Pacific.

Herbert would have liked to have kept the bird and tamed it, but Spilett made him understand that they could not afford to neglect this chance of corresponding by means of this courier with the Pacific coasts. So Herbert gave up the bird, as, if it had come from some inhabited region, it was likely to return there if at liberty.

Perhaps, in his heart, Spilett, to whom the journalistic spirit returned sometimes, did not regret giving to the winds an interesting article relating the adventures of the colonists of Lincoln Island. What a triumph for the reporters of the New York Herald, and for the issue containing the chronicle, if ever the latter should reach his director, the honorable John Bennett!

Spilett, therefore, wrote out a succinct article, which was enclosed in a waterproof-cloth bag, with the request to whoever found it to send it to one of the offices of the Herald. This little bag was fastened around the neck of the albatross and the bird given its freedom, and it was not without emotion that the colonists saw this rapid courier of the air disappear in the western clouds.

“Where does he go that way?” asked Pencroff.

“Towards New Zealand,” answered Herbert.

“May he have a good voyage,” said the sailor, who did not expect much from this method of communication.

With the winter, in-door work was resumed; old clothes were repaired, new garments made, and the sails of the sloop made from the inexhaustible envelope of the balloon. During July the cold was intense, but coal and wood were abundant, and Smith had built another chimney in the great hall, where they passed the long evenings. It was a great comfort to the colonists, when, seated in this well-lighted and warm hall, a good dinner finished, coffee steaming in the cups, the pipes emitting a fragrant smoke, they listened to the roar of the tempest without. They were perfectly comfortable, if that is possible where one is far from his kindred and without possible means of communicating with them. They talked about their country, of their friends at home, of the grandeur of the republic, whose influence must increase; and Smith, who had had much to do with the affairs of the Union, entertained his hearers with his stories, his perceptions and his prophecies.

One evening as they had been sitting talking in this way for some time, they were interrupted by Top, who began barking in that peculiar way which had previously attracted the attention of the engineer, and running around the mouth of the well which opened at the end of the inner corridor.

“Why is Top barking that way again?” asked Pencroff.

“And Jup growling so?” added Herbert.

Indeed, both the dog and the orang gave unequivocal signs of agitation, and curiously enough these two animals seemed to be more alarmed than irritated.

It is evident,” said Spilett, “that this well communicates directly with the sea, and that some animal comes to breathe in its depths.”

“It must be so, since there is no other explanation to give. Be quiet, Top! and you, Jup! go to your room.”

The animals turned away, Jup went to his bed, but Top remained in the hall, and continued whining the remainder of the evening. It was not, however, the question of this incident that darkened the countenance of the engineer.

During the remainder of the month, rain and snow alternated, and though the temperature was not as low as during the preceding winter, there were more storms and gales. On more than one occasion the Chimneys had been threatened by the waves, and it seemed as if an upraising of the sea, caused by some submarine convulsion, raised the monstrous billows and hurled them against Granite