The Mysterious Island
for a human creature, and we are bringing back a monster! After all, we
did what we could.”
The night passed, and whether the prisoner slept or not could not be
known, but at any rate, although he had been unbound, he did not
move. He was like a wild animal, which appears stunned at first by its
capture, and becomes wild again afterwards.
At daybreak the next morning, the 15th of October, the change of weather
predicted by Pencroft occurred. The wind having shifted to the northwest
favored the return of the “Bonadventure,” but at the same time it
freshened, which might render navigation more difficult.
At five o’clock in the morning the anchor was weighed. Pencroft took a
reef in the mainsail, and steered towards the north-east, so as to sail
straight for Lincoln Island.
The first day of the voyage was not marked by any incident. The prisoner
remained quiet in the fore-cabin, and as he had been a sailor it
appeared that the motion of the vessel might produce on him a salutary
reaction. Did some recollection of his former calling return to him?
However that might be, he remained tranquil, astonished rather than
depressed.
The next day the wind increased, blowing more from the north,
consequently in a less favorable direction for the “Bonadventure.”
Pencroft was soon obliged to sail close-hauled, and without saying
anything about it he began to be uneasy at the state of the sea, which
frequently broke over the bows. Certainly, if the wind did not moderate,
it would take a longer time to reach Lincoln Island than it had taken to
make Tabor Island.
Indeed, on the morning of the 17th, the “Bonadventure” had been
forty-eight hours at sea, and nothing showed that she was near the
island. It was impossible, besides, to estimate the distance traversed,
or to trust to the reckoning for the direction, as the speed had been
very irregular.
Twenty-four hours after there was yet no land in sight. The wind was
right ahead and the sea very heavy. The sails were close-reefed, and
they tacked frequently. On the 18th, a wave swept completely over the
“Bonadventure”; and if the crew had not taken the precaution of lashing
themselves to the deck, they would have been carried away.
On this occasion Pencroft and his companions, who were occupied with
loosing themselves, received unexpected aid from the prisoner, who
emerged from the hatchway as if his sailor’s instinct had suddenly
returned, broke a piece out of the bulwarks with a spar so as to let
the water which filled the deck escape. Then the vessel being clear, he
descended to his cabin without having uttered a word. Pencroft, Gideon
Spilett, and Herbert, greatly astonished, let him proceed.
Their situation was truly serious, and the sailor had reason to fear
that he was lost on the wide sea without any possibility of recovering
his course.
The night was dark and cold. However, about eleven o’clock, the wind
fell, the sea went down, and the speed of the vessel, as she labored
less, greatly increased.
Neither Pencroft, Spilett, nor Herbert thought of taking an hour’s
sleep. They kept a sharp look-out, for either Lincoln Island could not
be far distant and would be sighted at daybreak, or the “Bonadventure,”
carried away by currents, had drifted so much that it would be
impossible to rectify her course. Pencroft, uneasy to the last degree,
yet did not despair, for he had a gallant heart, and grasping the tiller
he anxiously endeavored to pierce the darkness which surrounded them.
About two o’clock in the morning he started forward,--
“A light! a light!” he shouted.
Indeed, a bright light appeared twenty miles to the northeast. Lincoln
Island was there, and this fire, evidently lighted by Cyrus Harding,
showed them the course to be followed. Pencroft, who was bearing too
much to the north, altered his course and steered towards the fire,
which burned brightly above the horizon like a star of the first
magnitude.
Chapter 15
The next day, the 20th of October, at seven o’clock in the morning,
after a voyage of four days, the “Bonadventure” gently glided up to the
beach at the mouth of the Mercy.
Cyrus Harding and Neb, who had become very uneasy at the bad weather and
the prolonged absence of their companions, had climbed at daybreak to
the plateau of Prospect Heights, and they had at last caught sight of
the vessel which had been so long in returning.
“God be praised! there they are!” exclaimed Cyrus Harding.
As to Neb in his joy, he began to dance, to twirl round, clapping his
hands and shouting, “Oh! my master!” A more touching pantomime than the
finest discourse.
The engineer’s first idea, on counting the people on the deck of the
“Bonadventure,” was that Pencroft had not found the castaway of Tabor
Island, or at any rate that the unfortunate man had refused to leave his
island and change one prison for another.
Indeed Pencroft, Gideon Spilett, and Herbert were alone on the deck of
the “Bonadventure.”
The moment the vessel touched, the engineer and Neb were waiting on
the beach, and before the passengers had time to leap on to the sand,
Harding said: “We have been very uneasy at your delay, my friends! Did
you meet with any accident?”
“No,” replied Gideon Spilett; “on the contrary, everything went
wonderfully well. We will tell you all about it.”
“However,” returned the engineer, “your search has been unsuccessful,
since you are only three, just as you went!”
“Excuse me, captain,” replied the sailor, “we are four.”
“You have found the castaway?”
“Yes.”
“And you have brought him?”
“Yes.”
“Living?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he? Who is he?”
“He is,” replied the reporter, “or rather he was a man! There, Cyrus,
that is all we can tell you!”
The engineer was then informed of all that had passed during the voyage,
and under what conditions the search had been conducted; how the only
dwelling in the island had long been abandoned; how at last a castaway
had been captured, who appeared no longer to belong to the human
species.
“And that’s just the point,” added Pencroft, “I don’t know if we have
done right to bring him here.”
“Certainly you have, Pencroft,” replied the engineer quickly.
“But the wretched creature has no sense!”
“That is possible at present,” replied Cyrus Harding, “but only a few
months ago the wretched creature was a man like you and me. And who
knows what will become of the survivor of us after a long solitude on
this island? It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it
must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason, since you
have found this poor creature in such a state!”
“But, captain,” asked Herbert, “what leads you to think that the
brutishness of the unfortunate man began only a few months back?”
“Because the document we found had been recently written,” answered the
engineer, “and the castaway alone can have written it.”
“Always supposing,” observed Gideon Spilett, “that it had not been
written by a companion of this man, since dead.”
“That is impossible, my dear Spilett.”
“Why so?” asked the reporter.
“Because the document would then have spoken of two castaways,” replied
Harding, “and it mentioned only one.”
Herbert then in a few words related the incidents of the voyage, and
dwelt on the curious fact of the sort of passing gleam in the prisoner’s
mind, when for an instant in the height of the storm he had become a
sailor.
“Well, Herbert,” replied the engineer, “you are right to attach great
importance to this fact. The unfortunate man cannot be incurable, and
despair has made him what he is; but here he will find his fellow-men,
and since there is still a soul in him, this soul we shall save!”
The castaway of Tabor Island, to the great pity of the engineer and
the great astonishment of Neb, was then brought from the cabin which he
occupied in the fore part of the “Bonadventure”; when once on land he
manifested a wish to run away.
But Cyrus Harding approaching, placed his hand on his shoulder with a
gesture full of authority, and looked at him with infinite tenderness.
Immediately the unhappy man, submitting to a superior will, gradually
became calm, his eyes fell, his head bent, and he made no more
resistance.
“Poor fellow!” murmured the engineer.
Cyrus Harding had attentively observed him. To judge by his appearance
this miserable being had no longer anything human about him, and
yet Harding, as had the reporter already, observed in his look an
indefinable trace of intelligence.
It was decided that the castaway, or rather the stranger as he was
thenceforth termed by his companions, should live in one of the rooms
of Granite House, from which, however, he could not escape. He was led
there without difficulty, and with careful attention, it might, perhaps,
be hoped that some day he would be a companion to the settlers in
Lincoln Island.
Cyrus Harding, during breakfast, which Neb had hastened to prepare,
as the reporter, Herbert, and Pencroft were dying of hunger, heard in
detail all the incidents which had marked the voyage of exploration to
the islet. He agreed with his friends on this point, that the stranger
must be either English or American, the name Britannia leading them
to suppose this, and, besides, through the bushy beard, and under
the shaggy, matted hair, the engineer thought he could recognize the
characteristic features of the Anglo-Saxon.
“But, by the bye,” said Gideon Spilett, addressing Herbert, “you never
told us how you met this savage, and we know nothing, except that you
would have been strangled, if we had not happened to come up in time to
help you!”
“Upon my word,” answered Herbert, “it is rather difficult to say how it
happened. I was, I think, occupied in collecting my plants, when I heard
a noise like an avalanche falling from a very tall tree. I scarcely
had time to look round. This unfortunate man, who was without doubt
concealed in a tree, rushed upon me in less time than I take to tell you
about it, and unless Mr. Spilett and Pencroft--”
“My boy!” said Cyrus Harding, “you ran a great danger, but, perhaps,
without that, the poor creature would have still hidden himself from
your search, and we should not have had a new companion.”
“You hope, then, Cyrus, to succeed in reforming the man?” asked the
reporter.
“Yes,” replied the engineer.
Breakfast over, Harding and his companions left Granite House and
returned to the beach. They there occupied themselves in unloading the
“Bonadventure,” and the engineer, having examined the arms and tools,
saw nothing which could help them to establish the identity of the
stranger.
The capture of pigs, made on the islet, was looked upon as being very
profitable to Lincoln Island, and the animals were led to the sty, where
they soon became at home.
The two barrels, containing the powder and shot, as well as the box
of caps, were very welcome. It was agreed to establish a small
powder-magazine, either outside Granite House or in the Upper Cavern,
where there would be no fear of explosion. However, the use of pyroxyle
was to be continued, for this substance giving excellent results, there
was no reason for substituting ordinary powder.
When the unloading of the vessel was finished,--
“Captain,” said Pencroft, “I think it would be prudent to put our
‘Bonadventure’ in a safe place.”
“Is she not safe at the mouth of the Mercy?” asked Cyrus Harding.
“No, captain,” replied the sailor. “Half of the time she is stranded on
the sand, and that works her. She is a famous craft, you see, and she
behaved admirably during the squall which struck us on our return.”
“Could she not float in the river?”
“No doubt, captain, she could; but there is no shelter there, and in the