The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne (free novel reading sites txt) 📕

Herbert was about to propose to give it the name of the engineer, and his companions would have applauded the choice, when Cyrus Smith said quietly:—

“Let us give it the name of a great citizen, my friends, of the defender of American unity! Let us call it Lincoln Island!”

They greeted the proposal with three hurrahs.

CHAPTER XII.

REGULATION OF WATCHES—PENCROFF IS SATISFIED—A SUSPICIOUS SMOKE—THE COURSE OF RED CREEK—THE FLORA OF THE ISLAND—ITS FAUNA—MOUNTAIN PHEASANTS—A KANGAROO CHASE—THE AGOUTI—LAKE GRANT—RETURN TO THE CHIMNEYS.

The colonists of Lincoln Island cast a last look about them and walked once around the verge of the crater. Half an hour afterwards they were again upon the lower plateau, at their encampment of the previous night. Pencroff thought it was breakfast time, and so came up the question of regulating the watches of Smith and Spilett. The reporter’s chronometer was uninjured by the sea water, as he had been cast high up on the sand beyond the reach of the waves. It was an admirable time-piece, a veritable pocket chronometer, and Spilett had wound it up regularly every day. The engineer’s watch, of course, had stopped while he lay upon the downs. He now wound it up, and set it at 9 o’clock, estimating the time approximately by the height of the sun. Spilett was about to do the same, when the engineer stopped him.

“Wait, my dear Spilett,” said he. “You have the Richmond time, have you not?”

“Yes.”

“Your watch, then, is regulated by the meridian of that city, which is very nearly that of Washington?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, keep it so. Wind it up carefully, but do not touch the hands. This may be of use to us.”

“What’s the use of that?” thought the sailor.

They made such a hearty meal, that little was left of the meat and pistachio-nuts; but Pencroff did not trouble himself about that. Top, who had not been forgotten in the feast, would certainly find some new game in the thicket. Besides, the sailor had made up his mind to ask Smith to make some powder and one or two shot-guns, which, he thought, would be an easy matter.

As they were leaving the plateau, Smith proposed to his companions to take a new road back to the Chimneys. He wished to explore Lake Grant, which lay surrounded so beautifully with trees. They followed the crest of one of the spurs in which the creek which fed the lake probably had its source. The colonists employed in conversation only the proper names which they had just devised, and found that they could express themselves much more easily. Herbert and Pencroff, one of whom was young and the other something of a child, were delighted, and the sailor said as they walked along:—

“Well, Herbert, this is jolly! We can’t lose ourselves now, my boy, since, whether we follow Lake Grant or get to the Mercy through the woods of the Far West, we must come to Prospect Plateau, and so to Union Bay.”

It had been agreed that, without marching in a squad, the colonists should not keep too far apart. Dangerous wild beasts surely inhabited the forest recesses, and they must be on their guard. Usually Pencroff, Herbert, and Neb walked in front, preceded by Top, who poked his nose into every corner. The reporter and engineer walked together, the former ready to note down every incident, the latter seldom speaking, and turning aside only to pick up sometimes one thing, sometimes another, vegetable or mineral, which he put in his pocket without saying a word.

“What, the mischief, is he picking up?” muttered Pencroff. “There’s no use in looking; I see nothing worth the trouble of stooping for.”

About 10 o’clock the little company descended the last declivities of Mount Franklin. A few bushes and trees were scattered over the ground. They were walking on a yellowish, calcined soil, forming a plain about a mile long, which extended to the border of the wood. Large fragments of that basalt which, according to Bischof’s theory, has taken 350,000,000 years to cool, strewed the uneven surface of the plain. Yet there was no trace of lava, which had especially found an exit down the northern declivities. Smith thought they should soon reach the creek, which he expected to find flowing under the trees by the plain, when he saw Herbert running back, and Neb and the sailor hiding themselves behind the rocks.

“What’s the matter, my boy?” said Spilett.

“Smoke,” answered Herbert. “We saw smoke ascending from among the rocks, a hundred steps in front.”

“Men in this region!” cried the reporter.

“We must not show ourselves till we know with whom we have to deal,” answered Smith. “I have more fear than hope of the natives, if there are any such on the island. Where is Top?”

“Top is on ahead.”

“And has not barked?”

“No.”

“That is strange. Still, let us try to call him back.”

In a few moments the three had rejoined their companions, and had hidden themselves, like Neb and Pencroff, behind the basalt rubbish. Thence they saw, very evidently, a yellowish smoke curling into the air. Top was recalled by a low whistle from his master, who motioned to his comrades to wait, and stole forward under cover of the rocks. In perfect stillness the party awaited the result, when a call from Smith summoned them forward. In a moment they were by his side, and were struck at once by the disagreeable smell which pervaded the atmosphere. This odor, unmistakable as it was, had been sufficient to reassure the engineer.

“Nature is responsible for that fire,” he said, “or rather for that smoke. It is nothing but a sulphur spring, which will be good for our sore throats.”

“Good!” said Pencroff; “what a pity I have not a cold!”

The colonists walked towards the smoke. There they beheld a spring of sulphate of soda, which flowed in currents among the rocks, and whose waters, absorbing the oxygen of the air, gave off a lively odor of sulpho-hydric acid. Smith dipped his hand into the spring and found it oily. He tasted it, and perceived a sweetish savor. Its temperature he estimated at 95° Fahrenheit; and when Herbert asked him on what he based his estimate:—

“Simply, my boy,” said he, “because when I put my hand into this water, I have no sensation either of heat or of cold. Therefore, it is at the same temperature as the human body, that is, about 95°.”

Then as the spring of sulphur could be put to no present use, the colonists walked towards the thick border of the forest, a few hundred paces distant. There, as they had thought, the brook rolled its bright limpid waters between high, reddish banks, whose color betrayed the presence of oxide of iron. On account of this color, they instantly named the water course Red Creek. It was nothing but a large mountain brook, deep and clear, here, flowing quietly over the lands, there, gurgling amid rocks, or falling in a cascade, but always flowing towards the lake. It was a mile and a half long; its breadth varied from thirty to forty feet. Its water was fresh, which argued that those of the lake would be found the same—a fortunate occurrence, in case they should find upon its banks a more comfortable dwelling than the Chimneys.

The trees which, a few hundred paces down stream overshadowed the banks of the creek, belonged principally to the species which abound in the temperate zone of Australia or of Tasmania, and belong to those conifers which clothed the portion of the island already explored, some miles around Prospect Plateau. It was now the beginning of April, a month which corresponds in that hemisphere to our October, yet their leaves had not begun to fall. They were, especially, casuarinæ and eucalypti, some of which, in the ensuing spring, would furnish a sweetish manna like that of the East. Clumps of Australian cedars rose in the glades, covered high with that sort of moss which the New-Hollanders call tussocks; but the cocoa-palm, so abundant in the archipelagoes of the Pacific, was conspicuous by its absence. Probably the latitude of the island was too low.

“What a pity!” said Herbert, “such a useful tree and such splendid nuts!”

There were flocks of birds on the thin boughs of the eucalypti and the casuarinæ, which gave fine play to their wings. Black, white, and grey cockatoos, parrots and parroquets of all colors, king-birds, birds of paradise, of brilliant green, with a crowd of red, and blue lories, glowing with every prismatic color, flew about with deafening clamors. All at once, a strange volley of discordant sounds seemed to come from the thicket. The colonists heard, one after another, the song of birds, the cries of four-footed beasts, and a sort of clucking sound strangely human. Neb and Herbert rushed towards the thicket, forgetting the most elementary rules of prudence. Happily, there was neither formidable wild beast nor savage native, but merely half-a-dozen of those mocking birds which they recognized as “mountain pheasants.” A few skillfully aimed blows with a stick brought this parody to an end, and gave them excellent game for dinner that evening. Herbert also pointed out superb pigeons with bronze-colored wings, some with a magnificent crest, others clad in green, like their congeners at Port-Macquarie; but like the troops of crows and magpies which flew about, they were beyond reach. A load of small-shot would have killed hosts of them; but the colonists had nothing but stones and sticks, very insufficient weapons. They proved even more inadequate when a troop of quadrupeds leaped away through the underbrush with tremendous bounds thirty feet long, so that they almost seemed to spring from tree to tree, like squirrels.

“Kangaroos!” cried Herbert.

“Can you eat them?” said Pencroff.

“They make a delicious stew,” said the reporter.

The words had hardly escaped his lips, when the sailor, with Neb and Herbert at his heels, rushed after the kangaroos. Smith tried in vain to recall them, but equally in vain did they pursue the game, whose elastic leaps left them far behind. After five minutes’ chase, they gave it up, out of breath.

“You see, Mr. Smith,” said Pencroff, “that guns are a necessity. Will it be possible to make them?”

“Perhaps,” replied the engineer; “but we will begin by making bows and arrows, and you will soon use them as skilfully as the Australian hunters.”

“Bows and arrows!” said Pencroff, with a contemptuous look. “They are for children!”

“Don’t be so proud, my friend,” said the reporter. “Bows and arrows were sufficient for many centuries for the warfare of mankind. Powder is an invention of yesterday, while war, unhappily, is as old as the race.”

“That’s true, Mr. Spilett,” said the sailor. “I always speak before I think. Forgive me.”

Meanwhile Herbert, with his Natural History always uppermost in his thoughts, returned to the subject of kangaroos.

“Those which escaped us,” he said, “belong to the species most difficult to capture—very large, with long grey hair, but I am sure there are black and red kangaroos, rock-kangaroos, kangaroo-rats—”

“Herbert,” said the sailor, “for me there is only one kind—the ‘kangaroo-on-the-spit’—and that is just what we haven’t got.”

They could not help laughing at Professor Pencroff’s new classification. He was much cast down at the prospect of dining on mountain-phesants; but chance was once more kind to him. Top, who felt his dinner at stake, rushed hither and thither, his instinct quickened by sharp appetite. In fact, he would have left very little of what he might catch or any one else, had not Neb watched him shrewdly. About 3 o’clock he disappeared into the rushes, from which came grunts and growls which indicated a deadly tustle. Neb rushed in, and found Top greedily devouring an animal, which in ten seconds more would have totally disappeared. But the dog had luckily fallen on a litter, and two more rodents—for to this species did the beasts belong—lay strangled on the ground. Neb reappeared in triumph with a rodent in each hand. They had yellow hair, with patches