The Mysterious Island Jules Verne (red white royal blue txt) 📖

but it was the pride of Neb and Pencroff, who would not have exchanged it for the handsomest Buhl.

Then the carpenters turned basket-makers, and succeeded remarkably well at this new occupation.

They had discovered at the northern part of the lake a thick growth of purple osiers. Before the rainy season, Pencroff and Herbert had gathered a good many of these useful shrubs; and their branches, being now well seasoned, could be used to advantage. Their first specimens were rough; but, thanks to the skill and intelligence of the workmen consulting together, recalling the models they had seen, and rivalling each other in their efforts, hampers and baskets of different sizes here soon added to the stock of the colony. The storehouse was filled with them, and Neb set away in special baskets his stock of pistachio nuts and roots of the dragon tree.

During the last week in August the weather changed again, the temperature fell a little, and the storm was over. The colonists at once started out. There must have been at least two feet of snow on the shore, but it was frozen over the top, which made it easy to walk over. Smith and his companions climbed up Prospect Plateau. What a change they beheld! The woods which they had left in bloom, especially the part nearest to them where the conifers were plenty, were now one uniform color.

Everything was white, from the top of Mount Franklin to the coast⁠—forests, prairie, lake, river, beach. The waters of the Mercy ran under a vault of ice, which cracked and broke with a loud noise at every change of tide. Thousands of birds⁠—ducks and woodpeckers⁠—flew over the surface of the lake. The rocks between which the cascade plunged to the borders of the Plateau were blocked up with ice. One would have said that the water leaped out of a huge gargoyle, cut by some fantastic artist of the Renaissance. To calculate the damage done to the forest by this hurricane would be impossible until the snow had entirely disappeared.

Spilett, Pencroff, and Herbert took this opportunity to look after their traps and had hard work finding them under their bed of snow. There was danger of their falling in themselves; a humiliating thing to be caught in one’s own trap! They were spared this annoyance, however, and found the traps had been untouched; not an animal had been caught, although there were a great many footprints in the neighborhood, among others, very clearly impressed marks of claws.

Herbert at once classified these carnivora among the cat tribe, a circumstance which justified the engineer’s belief in the existence of dangerous beasts on Lincoln Island. Doubtless these beasts dwelt in the dense Forests of the Far West; but driven by hunger, they had ventured as far as Prospect Plateau. Perhaps they scented the inhabitants of Granite House.

“What, exactly, are these carnivora?” asked Pencroff.

“They are tigers,” replied Herbert.

“I thought those animals were only found in warm countries.”

“In the New World,” replied the lad, “they are to be found from Mexico to the pampas of Buenos Aires. Now, as Lincoln Island is in almost the same latitude as La Plata, it is not surprising that tigers are found here.”

“All right, we will be on our guard,” replied Pencroff.

In the meantime, the temperature rising, the snow began to melt, it came on to rain, and gradually the white mantle disappeared. Notwithstanding the bad weather the colonists renewed their stock of provisions, both animal and vegetable.

This necessitated excursions into the forest, and thus they discovered how many trees had been beaten down by the hurricane. The sailor and Neb pushed forward with their wagon as far as the coal deposit in order to carry back some fuel. They saw on their way that the chimney of the pottery oven had been much damaged by the storm; at least six feet had been blown down.

They also renewed their stock of wood as well as that of coal, and the Mercy having become free once more, they employed the current to draw several loads to Granite House. It might be that the cold season was not yet over.

A visit had been made to the Chimneys also, and the colonists could not be sufficiently grateful that this had not been their home during the tempest. The sea had left undoubted signs of its ravages. Lashed by the fury of the wind from the offing, and rushing over Safety Island, it spent its full force upon these passages, leaving them half full of sand and the rocks thickly covered with seaweed.

While Neb, Herbert, and Pencroff spent their time in hunting and renewing their supply of fuel, Smith and Spilett set to work to clear out the Chimneys. They found the forge and furnaces almost unhurt, so carefully protected had they been by the banks of sand which the colonists had built around them.

It was a fortunate thing that they laid in a fresh supply of fuel, for the colonists had not yet seen the end of the intense cold. It is well known that in the Northern Hemisphere, the month of February is noted for its low temperature. The same rule held good in the Southern Hemisphere, and the end of August, which is the February of North America, did not escape from this climatic law.

About the 25th, after another snow and rain storm, the wind veered to the southeast, and suddenly the cold became intense. In the engineer’s opinion, a Fahrenheit thermometer would have indicated about eight degrees below zero, and the cold was rendered more severe by a cutting wind which lasted for several days.

The colonists were completely housed again, and as they were obliged to block up all their windows, only leaving one narrow opening for ventilation, the consumption of candles was considerable. In order to economize them, the colonists often contented themselves with only the light from the fire; for fuel was plenty.

Once or twice some of them ventured to the beach, among the blocks of