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

the light of the flames from the volcano permitted them to work by night as well as by day. The eruption continued without cessation, but, perhaps, less abundantly. A fortunate circumstance, since Lake Grant was nearly full; and if fresh lavas had slid over the surface of the former layers, they would inevitably have spread over Prospect Plateau and from there to the shore.

But while this part of the island was partially protected it was otherwise with the west coast.

The second current of lava, following the valley of Fall River, met with no obstacle. The ground on either side of the bank was low, and the incandescent liquid was spread through the forest of the Far West. At this season of the year the trees were dried by the warmth of the summer and took fire instantly, and the high interlacing branches hastened the progress of the conflagration. It seemed as if the current of flame traversed the surface of the forest more swiftly than the current of lavas its depths.

The beasts and birds of the woods sought refuge on the shore of the Mercy and in the marshes of Tadorn’s Fens. But the colonists were too busy to pay any attention to these animals. They had, moreover, abandoned Granite House; they had not even sought refuge in the Chimneys, but they camped in a tent near the mouth of the Mercy.

Every day Smith and Spilett climbed up to Prospect Plateau. Sometimes Herbert went with them, but Pencroff never. The sailor did not wish to look upon the island in its present condition of devastation.

It was, indeed, a desolate spectacle. All its wooded part was now denuded. One single group of green trees remained on the extremity of Serpentine Peninsula. Here and there appeared some blackened stumps. The site of the forests was more desolate than Tadorn’s Fens. The invasion of the lavas had been complete. Where formerly had been a pleasant verdure, was now nothing but a waste covered with volcanic tufa. The valleys of Fall River and Red Creek contained no water, and if Lake Grant had been completely filled up, the colonists would have had no means to slack their thirst. But fortunately its southern extremity had been spared, and formed a sort of pool, which held all the fresh water remaining on the island. To the northwest the spurs of the mountain, in jagged outline, looked like a gigantic claw grasping the ground. What a doleful spectacle! What a frightful aspect! How grevious for the colonists, who, from a domain, fertile, wooded,

traversed by water-courses, enriched by harvests, found themselves, in an instant, reduced to a devastated rock, upon which, without their stores, they would not have had the means of living.

“It is heart-breaking!” said the reporter.

“Yes, Spilett,” answered the engineer. And pray heaven that we are given time to finish the ship, which is now our sole refuge!”

“Does it not seem to you, Cyrus, that the volcano is subsiding? It still vomits lava, but, I think, less freely!”

“It matters little,” answered Smith. “The fire is still fierce in the bowels of the mountain, and the sea may rush in there at any moment. We are like persons on a ship devoured by a fire which they cannot control, who know that sooner or later the flames will reach the powder magazine. Come, Spilett, come, we have not an hour to lose!”

For eight days longer, that is to say until the 8th of February, the lavas continued to flow, but the eruption confined itself to the limits described. Smith feared more than anything else an overflow of the lavas on to the beach, in which case the ship-yard would be destroyed. But about this time the colonists felt vibrations in the ground which gave them the greatest uneasiness.

The 20th of February arrived. A month longer was necessary to fit the ship for sea. Would the island last that long? It was Smith’s intention to launch her as soon as her hull should be sufficiently caulked. The deck, lining, arranging the interior, and the rigging could be done afterwards, but the important thing was to secure a refuge off the island. Perhaps it would be better to take the vessel round to Balloon Harbor, the point farthest from the eruptive centre, as, at the mouth of the Mercy, between the islet and the granite wall, she ran the risk of being crushed, in case of a breaking up of the island. Therefore, all the efforts of the workmen were directed to completing the hull.

On the 3d of March they were able to calculate that the ship could be launched in twelve days.

Hope returned to the hearts of these colonists, who had been so sorely tried during this fourth year of their sojourn on Lincoln Island! Even Pencroff was roused from the taciturnity into which he had been plunged by the ruin and devastation of his domain. He thought of nothing else but the ship, on which he concentrated all his hopes.

“We will finish her!” he said to the engineer, “we will finish her, Mr. Smith, and it is high time, for you see how far advanced the season is, and it will soon be the equinox. Well, if it is necessary, we will winter at Tabor Island! But Tabor Island after Lincoln Island! Alas! how unlucky I am! To think that I should live to see such a thing as this!”

“Let us make haste!” was the invariable answer of the engineer.

And every one worked unceasingly.

“Master,” asked Neb, some days later, “if Captain Nemo had been alive, do you think this would have happened?”

“Yes, Neb,” answered the engineer.

“I don’t think so!” whispered Pencroff to the negro.

“Nor I!” replied Neb.

During the first week in March Mount Franklin became again threatening. Thousands of threads of glass, made by the fluid lavas, fell like rain to the ground. The crater gave forth fresh torrents of lava that flowed down every side of the volcano. These torrents flowed over the surface of hardened lava, and destroyed the last vestiges of the trees which had survived the first eruption. The current, this time following the southwest shore of Lake Grant, flowed along Glycerine Creek and invaded Prospect Plateau. This last calamity was a terrible blow to the colonists; of the mill, the poultry-yard, the stables, nothing remained. The frightened inhabitants of these places fled in every direction. Top and Jup gave signs of the utmost terror, and their instinct warned them of an impending disaster. A large number of animals had perished in the first eruption, and those which survived had found their only refuge in Tadorn’s Fens, and on Prospect Plateau. But this last retreat was now closed from them, and the torrent of lava having reached the edge of the granite wall, began to fall over on to the shore in cataracts of fire. The sublime horror of this spectacle passes all description. At night it looked like a Niagara of molten matter, with its incandescent spray rising on high and its boiling masses below!

The colonists were driven to their last refuge, and, although the upper seams were uncaulked, they resolved to launch their ship into the sea!

Pencroff and Ayrton made the preparations for this event, which was to take place on the morning of the next day, the 9th of March.

But, during that night, an enormous column of steam escaped from the crater, rising in the midst of terrific detonations to a height of more than 3,000 feet. The wall of Crypt Dakkar had given way under the pressure of the gas, and the sea, pouring

through the central chimney into the burning gulf, was turned into steam!

The crater was not a sufficient vent for this vapor!

An explosion, which could have been heard a hundred miles away, shook the very heavens! Fragments of the mountain fell into the Pacific, and, in a few minutes, the ocean covered the place where Lincoln Island had been!

 

CHAPTER LXII.

 

AN ISOLATED ROCK IN THE PACIFIC—THE LAST REFUGE OF THE COLONISTS—THE PROSPECT OF DEATH—UNEXPECTED SUCCOR—HOW AND WHY IT CAME—THE LAST GOOD ACTION—AN ISLAND ON TERRA FIRMA-THE TOMB OF CAPTAIN NEMO.

An isolated rock, thirty feet long, fifteen feet wide, rising ten feet above the surface of the water, this was the sole solid point which had not vanished beneath the waves of the Pacific.

It was all that remained of Granite House! The wall had been thrown over, then broken to pieces, and some of the rocks of the great hall had been so heaped together as to form this culminating point. All else had disappeared in the surrounding abyss: the lower cone of Mount Franklin, torn to pieces by the explosion; the lava jaws of Shark Gulf; Prospect Plateau, Safety Islet, the granite of Balloon Harbor; the basalt of Crypt Dakkar; Serpentine Peninsula—had been precipitated into the eruptive centre! All that remained of Lincoln Island was this rock, the refuge of the six colonists and their dog Top.

All the animals had perished in the catastrophe. The birds as well as the beasts, all were crashed or drowned, and poor Jup, alas! had been swallowed up in some crevasse in the ground!

Smith, Spilett, Herbert, Pencroff, Neb, and Ayrton had survived, because, being gathered together in their tent, they had been thrown into the sea, at the moment when the debris of the island rained down upon the water.

When they came again to the surface they saw nothing but this rock, half a cable length away, to which they swam.

They had been here nine days! Some provisions, brought from the magazine of Granite House before the catastrophe, a little soft water left by the rain in the crevice of the rock—this was all that the unfortunates possessed. Their last hope, their ship, had been broken to pieces. They had no means of leaving this reef. No fire, nor anything with which to make it. They were doomed to perish!

This day, the 18th of March, there remained a supply of food, which, with the strictest care, could last but forty-eight hours longer. All their knowledge, all their skill, could avail them nothing now. They were entirely at God’s mercy.

Smith was calm, Spilett somewhat nervous, and Pencroff, ready to throw himself into the sea. Herbert never left the engineer; and gazed upon him, as if demanding the succor which he could not give. Neb and Ayrton were resigned after their manner.

“Oh, misery! misery!” repeated Pencroff. “If we had but a walnut-shell to take us to Tabor Island! But nothing; not a thing!”

“And Captain Nemo is dead!” said Neb.

During the five days which followed, Smith and his companions ate just enough of the supply of food to keep them from famishing. Their feebleness was extreme. Herbert and Neb began to show signs of delirium.

In this situation had they a shadow of hope? No! What was their sole chance? That a ship would pass in sight of the rock? They knew, by experience, that ships never visited this part of the Pacific. Could they count, then, by a coincidence which would be truly providential, upon the Scotch yacht coming just at this time to search for Ayrton at Tabor Island? It was not probable. And, moreover, supposing that it came, since the colonists had placed no notice there indicating the place where Ayrton was to be found, the captain of the yacht, after a fruitless search of the island, would proceed at once to regain the lower latitudes.

No! they could entertain no hope of being saved, and a horrible death, a death by hunger and thirst, awaited them upon this rock!

Already they lay stretched out, inanimate, unconscious of what was going on around them. Only, Ayrton, by a supreme effort, raised his head, and cast a despairing look over this desert sea!

But, behold! on this morning of the 24th of March, Ayrton extended his arms towards some point in space; he rose up, first to his knees, then stood upright; he waved his hand—

A ship was in sight of the island! This ship did