The Mysterious Island
dam, as it were, the torrent, and thus compel it to pour itself into the
lake.
The colonists hastened to the dockyard. They returned with shovels,
picks, axes, and by means of banking the earth with the aid of fallen
trees they succeeded in a few hours in raising an embankment three feet
high and some hundreds of paces in length. It seemed to them, when
they had finished, as if they had scarcely been working more than a few
minutes.
It was not a moment too soon. The liquefied substances soon after
reached the bottom of the barrier. The stream of lava swelled like a
river about to overflow its banks, and threatened to demolish the sole
obstacle which could prevent it from overrunning the whole Far West. But
the dam held firm, and after a moment of terrible suspense the torrent
precipitated itself into Grant Lake from a height of twenty feet.
The colonists, without moving or uttering a word, breathlessly regarded
this strife of the two elements.
What a spectacle was this conflict between water and fire! What pen
could describe the marvelous horror of this scene--what pencil could
depict it? The water hissed as it evaporated by contact with the boiling
lava. The vapor whirled in the air to an immeasurable height, as if
the valves of an immense boiler had been suddenly opened. But, however
considerable might be the volume of water contained in the lake, it must
eventually be absorbed, because it was not replenished, while the stream
of lava, fed from an inexhaustible source, rolled on without ceasing new
waves of incandescent matter.
The first waves of lava which fell in the lake immediately solidified
and accumulated so as speedily to emerge from it. Upon their surface
fell other waves, which in their turn became stone, but a step
nearer the center of the lake. In this manner was formed a pier which
threatened to gradually fill up the lake, which could not overflow, the
water displaced by the lava being evaporated. The hissing of the water
rent the air with a deafening sound, and the vapor, blown by the wind,
fell in rain upon the sea. The pier became longer and longer, and the
blocks of lava piled themselves one on another. Where formerly stretched
the calm waters of the lake now appeared an enormous mass of smoking
rocks, as if an upheaving of the soil had formed immense shoals. Imagine
the waters of the lake aroused by a hurricane, then suddenly solidified
by an intense frost, and some conception may be formed of the aspect of
the lake three hours after the eruption of this irresistible torrent of
lava.
This time water would be vanquished by fire.
Nevertheless it was a fortunate circumstance for the colonists that the
effusion of lava should have been in the direction of Lake Grant. They
had before them some days’ respite. The plateau of Prospect Heights,
Granite House, and the dockyard were for the moment preserved. And these
few days it was necessary to employ in planking and carefully calking
the vessel, and launching her. The colonists would then take refuge on
board the vessel, content to rig her after she should be afloat on the
waters. With the danger of an explosion which threatened to destroy the
island there could be no security on shore. The walls of Granite House,
once so sure a retreat, might at any moment fall in upon them.
During the six following days, from the 25th to the 30th of January, the
colonists accomplished as much of the construction of their vessel as
twenty men could have done. They hardly allowed themselves a moment’s
repose, and the glare of the flames which shot from the crater enabled
them to work night and day. The flow of lava continued, but perhaps
less abundantly. This was fortunate, for Lake Grant was almost entirely
choked up, and if more lava should accumulate it would inevitably spread
over the plateau of Prospect Heights, and thence upon the beach.
But if the island was thus partially protected on this side, it was not
so with the western part.
In fact, the second stream of lava, which had followed the valley of
Falls River, a valley of great extent, the land on both sides of the
creek being flat, met with no obstacle. The burning liquid had then
spread through the forest of the Far West. At this period of the year,
when the trees were dried up by a tropical heat, the forest caught fire
instantaneously, in such a manner that the conflagration extended itself
both by the trunks of the trees and by their higher branches, whose
interlacement favored its progress. It even appeared that the current
of flame spread more rapidly among the summits of the trees than the
current of lava at their bases.
Thus it happened that the wild animals, jaguars, wild boars, capybaras,
koalas, and game of every kind, mad with terror, had fled to the banks
of the Mercy and to the Tadorn Marsh, beyond the road to Port Balloon.
But the colonists were too much occupied with their task to pay any
attention to even the most formidable of these animals. They had
abandoned Granite House, and would not even take shelter at the
Chimneys, but encamped under a tent, near the mouth of the Mercy.
Each day Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett ascended the plateau of
Prospect Heights. Sometimes Herbert accompanied them, but never
Pencroft, who could not bear to look upon the prospect of the island now
so utterly devastated.
It was, in truth, a heart-rending spectacle. All the wooded part of the
island was now completely bare. One single clump of green trees raised
their heads at the extremity of Serpentine Peninsula. Here and there
were a few grotesque blackened and branchless stumps. The side of the
devastated forest was even more barren than Tadorn Marsh. The eruption
of lava had been complete. Where formerly sprang up that charming
verdure, the soil was now nothing but a savage mass of volcanic tufa.
In the valleys of the Falls and Mercy rivers no drop of water now
flowed towards the sea, and should Lake Grant be entirely dried up,
the colonists would have no means of quenching their thirst. But,
fortunately the lava had spared the southern corner of the lake,
containing all that remained of the drinking water of the island.
Towards the northwest stood out the rugged and well-defined outlines of
the sides of the volcano, like a gigantic claw hovering over the island.
What a sad and fearful sight, and how painful to the colonists, who,
from a fertile domain covered with forests, irrigated by watercourses,
and enriched by the produce of their toils, found themselves, as it
were, transported to a desolate rock, upon which, but for their reserves
of provisions, they could not even gather the means of subsistence!
“It is enough to break one’s heart!” said Gideon Spilett, one day.
“Yes, Spilett,” answered the engineer. “May God grant us the time to
complete this vessel, now our sole refuge!”
“Do not you think, Cyrus, that the violence of the eruption has somewhat
lessened? The volcano still vomits forth lava, but somewhat less
abundantly, if I mistake not.”
“It matters little,” answered Cyrus Harding. “The fire is still burning
in the interior of the mountain, and the sea may break in at any moment.
We are in the condition of passengers whose ship is devoured by a
conflagration which they cannot extinguish, and who know that sooner or
later the flames must reach the powder-magazine. To work, Spilett, to
work, and let us not lose an hour!”
During eight days more, that is to say until the 7th of February,
the lava continued to flow, but the eruption was confined within the
previous limits. Cyrus Harding feared above all lest the liquefied
matter should overflow the shore, for in that event the dockyard could
not escape. Moreover, about this time the colonists felt in the frame of
the island vibrations which alarmed them to the highest degree.
It was the 20th of February. Yet another month must elapse before the
vessel would be ready for sea. Would the island hold together till then?
The intention of Pencroft and Cyrus Harding was to launch the vessel
as soon as the hull should be complete. The deck, the upperworks, the
interior woodwork and the rigging might be finished afterwards, but the
essential point was that the colonists should have an assured refuge
away from the island. Perhaps it might be even better to conduct the
vessel to Port Balloon, that is to say, as far as possible from the
center of eruption, for at the mouth of the Mercy, between the islet and
the wall of granite, it would run the risk of being crushed in the event
of any convulsion. All the exertions of the voyagers were therefore
concentrated upon the completion of the hull.
Thus the 3rd of March arrived, and they might calculate upon launching
the vessel in ten days.
Hope revived in the hearts of the colonists, who had, in this fourth
year of their sojourn on Lincoln island, suffered so many trials. Even
Pencroft lost in some measure the somber taciturnity occasioned by
the devastation and ruin of his domain. His hopes, it is true, were
concentrated upon his vessel.
“We shall finish it,” he said to the engineer, “we shall finish it,
captain, and it is time, for the season is advancing and the equinox
will soon be here. Well, if necessary, we must put in to Tabor island
to spend the winter. But think of Tabor island after Lincoln Island. Ah,
how unfortunate! Who could have believed it possible?”
“Let us get on,” was the engineer’s invariable reply.
And they worked away without losing a moment.
“Master,” asked Neb, a few days later, “do you think all this could have
happened if Captain Nemo had been still alive?”
“Certainly, Neb,” answered Cyrus Harding.
“I, for one, don’t believe it!” whispered Pencroft to Neb.
“Nor I!” answered Neb seriously.
During the first week of March appearances again became menacing.
Thousands of threads like glass, formed of fluid lava, fell like rain
upon the island. The crater was again boiling with lava which overflowed
the back of the volcano. The torrent flowed along the surface of the
hardened tufa, and destroyed the few meager skeletons of trees which had
withstood the first eruption. The stream, flowing this time towards the
southwest shore of Lake Grant, stretched beyond Creek Glycerine, and
invaded the plateau of Prospect Heights. This last blow to the work of
the colonists was terrible. The mill, the buildings of the inner court,
the stables, were all destroyed. The affrighted poultry fled in all
directions. Top and Jup showed signs of the greatest alarm, as if their
instinct warned them of an impending catastrophe. A large number of the
animals of the island had perished in the first eruption. Those which
survived found no refuge but Tadorn Marsh, save a few to which the
plateau of Prospect Heights afforded asylum. But even this last retreat
was now closed to them, and the lava-torrent, flowing over the edge of
the granite wall, began to pour down upon the beach its cataracts of
fire. The sublime horror of this spectacle passed all description.
During the night it could only be compared to a Niagara of molten fluid,
with its incandescent vapors above and its boiling masses below.
The colonists were driven to their last entrenchment, and although the
upper seams of the vessel were not yet calked, they decided to launch
her at once.
Pencroft and Ayrton therefore set about the necessary preparations for
the launching, which was to take place the morning of the next day, the
9th of March.
But during the night of the 8th an enormous column of vapor escaping
from the crater rose with frightful explosions to a height of more than
three thousand feet. The wall of Dakkar Grotto had evidently given way
under the pressure of gases, and the sea, rushing through the central
shaft into the igneous gulf, was at once converted into vapor. But