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

at least in the principal one, which was in the centre. The floor was covered with sand, and, everything considered, they could establish themselves in this place while waiting for one better.

While working, Herbert and Pencroff chatted together.

“Perhaps,” said the boy, “our companions will have found a better place than ours.”

“It is possible.” answered the sailor, “but, until we know, don’t let us stop. Better have two strings to one’s bow than none at all!”

“Oh,” repeated Herbert, “if they can only find Mr. Smith, and bring him back with them, how thankful we will be!”

“Yes,” murmured Pencroff. “He was a good man.”

“Was!” said Herbert. “Do you think we shall not see him again?”

“Heaven forbid!” replied the sailor.

The work of division was rapidly accomplished, and Pencroff declared himself satisfied. “Now,” said he, “our friends may return, and they will find a good enough shelter.”

Nothing remained but to fix the fireplace and to prepare the meal, which, in truth, was a task easy and simple enough. Large flat stones were placed at the mouth of the first gallery to the left, where the smoke passage had been made; and this chimney was made so narrow that but little heat would escape up the flue, and the cavern would be comfortably warmed. The stock of wood was piled up in one of the chambers, and the sailor placed some logs and broken branches upon the stones. He was occupied in arranging them when Herbert asked him if he had some matches.

“Certainly,” replied Pencroff, “and moreover, fortunately; for without matches or tinder we would indeed be in trouble.”

“Could not we always make fire as the savages do,” replied Herbert, “by rubbing two bits of dry wood together?”

“Just try it, my boy, some time, and see if you do anything more than put your arms out of joint.”

“Nevertheless, it is often done in the islands of the Pacific.”

“I don’t say that it is not,” replied Pencroff, “but the savages must have a way of their own, or use a certain kind of wood, as more than once I have wanted to get fire in that way and have never yet been able to. For my part, I prefer matches; and, by the way, where are mine?”

Pencroff, who was an habitual smoker, felt in his vest for the box, which he was never without, but, not finding it, he searched the pockets of his trowsers, and to his profound amazement, it was not there.

“This is an awkward business,” said he, looking at Herbert. “My box must have fallen from my pocket, and I can’t find it. But you, Herbert, have you nothing: no steel, not anything, with which we can make fire?”

“Not a thing, Pencroff.”

The sailor, followed by the boy, walked out, rubbing his forehead.

On the sand, among the rocks, by the bank of the river, both of them searched with the utmost care, but without result. The box was of copper, and had it been there, they must have seen it.

“Pencroff,” asked Herbert, “did not you throw it out of the basket?”

“I took good care not to,” said the sailor. “But when one has been knocked around as we have been, so small a thing could easily have been lost; even my pipe is gone. The confounded box; where can it be?”

“Well, the tide is out; let us run to the place where we landed,” said Herbert.

It was little likely that they would find this box, which the sea would have rolled among the pebbles at high water; nevertheless, it would do no harm to search. They, therefore, went quickly to the place where they had first landed, some 200 paces from the Chimneys. There, among the pebbles, in the hollows of the rocks, they made minute search, but in vain. If the box had fallen here it must have been carried out by the waves. As the tide went down, the sailor peered into every crevice, but without Success. It was a serious loss, and, for the time, irreparable. Pencroff did not conceal his chagrin. He frowned, but did not speak, and Herbert tried to console him by saying, that, most probably, the matches would have been so wetted as to be useless.

“No, my boy,” answered the sailor. “They were in a tightly closing metal box. But now, what are we to do?”

“We will certainly find means of procuring fire,” said Herbert. “Mr. Smith or Mr. Spilett will not be as helpless as we are.”

“Yes, but in the meantime we are without it,” said Pencroff, “and our companions will find but a very sorry meal on their return.”

“But,” said Herbert, hopefully, “it is not possible that they will have neither tinder nor matches.”

“I doubt it,” answered the sailor, shaking his head. “In the first place, neither Neb nor Mr. Smith smoke, and then I’m afraid Mr. Spilett has more likely kept his notebook than his match-box.”

Herbert did not answer. This loss was evidently serious. Nevertheless, the lad thought surely they could make a fire in some way or other, but Pencroff, more experienced, although a man not easily discouraged, knew differently. At any rate there was but one thing to do:—to wait until the return of Neb and the reporter. It was necessary to give up the repast of cooked eggs which they had wished to prepare, and a diet of raw flesh did not seem to be, either for themselves or for the others, an agreeable prospect.

Before returning to the Chimneys, the companions, in case they failed of a fire, gathered a fresh lot of lithodomes, and then silently took the road to their dwelling. Pencroff, his eyes fixed upon the ground, still searched in every direction for the lost box. They followed again up the left bank of the river, from its mouth to the angle where the raft had been built. They returned to the upper plateau, and went in every direction, searching in the tall grass on the edge of the forest, but in vain. It was 5 o’clock when they returned again to the Chimneys, and it is needless to say that the passages were searched in their darkest recesses before all hope was given up.

Towards 6 o’clock, just as the sun was disappearing behind the high land in the west, Herbert, who was walking back and forth upon the shore, announced the return of Neb and of Gideon Spilett. They came back alone, and the lad felt his heart sink. The sailor had not, then, been wrong in his presentiments; they had been unable to find the engineer.

The reporter, when he came up, seated himself upon a rock, without speaking. Fainting from fatigue, half dead with hunger, he was unable to utter a word. As to Neb, his reddened eyes showed how he had been weeping, and the fresh tears which he was unable to restrain, indicated, but too clearly, that he had lost all hope.

The reporter at length gave the history of their search. Neb and he had followed the coast for more than eight miles, and, consequently, far beyond the point where the balloon had made the plunge which was followed by the disappearance of the engineer and Top. The shore was deserted. Not a recently turned stone, not a trace upon the sand, not a footprint, was upon all that part of the shore. It was evident that nobody inhabited that portion of the island. The sea was as deserted as the land; and it was there, at some hundreds of feet from shore, that the engineer had found his grave.

At that moment Neb raised his head, and in a voice which showed how he still struggled against despair, exclaimed:—

“No, he is not dead. It is impossible. It might happen to you or me, but never to him. He is a man who can get out of anything!”

Then his strength failing him, he murmured, “But I am used up.”

Herbert ran to him and cried:—

“Neb, we will find him; God will give him back to us; but you, you must be famishing; do eat something.”

And while speaking the lad offered the poor negro a handful of shell-fish—a meagre and insufficient nourishment enough.

But Neb, though he had eaten nothing for hours, refused them. Poor fellow! deprived of his master, he wished no longer to live.

As to Gideon Spilett, he devoured the mollusks, and then laid down upon the sand at the foot of a rock. He was exhausted, but calm. Herbert, approaching him, took his hand.

“Mr. Spilett,” said he, “we have discovered a shelter where you will be more comfortable. The night is coming on; so come and rest there. To-morrow we will see—”

The reporter rose, and, guided by the lad, proceeded towards the Chimneys. As he did so, Pencroff came up to him, and in an off-hand way asked him if, by chance, he had a match with him. The reporter stopped, felt in his pockets, and finding none, said:—

“I had some, but I must have thrown them all away.”

Then the sailor called Neb and asked him the same question, receiving a like answer.

“Curse it!” cried the sailor, unable to restrain the word.

The reporter heard it, and going to him said:—“Have you no matches?”

“Not one; and, of course, no fire.”

“Ah,” cried Neb, “if he was here, my master, he could soon make one.”

The four castaways stood still and looked anxiously at each other. Herbert was the first to break the silence, by saying:—

“Mr. Spilett, you are a smoker, you always have matches about you; perhaps you have not searched thoroughly. Look again; a single match will be enough.”

The reporter rummaged the pockets of his trowsers, his vest, and coat, and to the great joy of Pencroff, as well as to his own surprise, felt a little sliver of wood caught in the lining of his vest. He could feel it from the outside, but his fingers were unable to disengage it. If this should prove a match, and only one, it was extremely necessary not to rub off the phosphorus.

“Let me try,” said the lad. And very adroitly, without breaking it, he drew out this little bit of wood, this precious trifle, which to these poor men was of such great importance. It was uninjured.

“One match!” cried Pencroff.” “Why, it is as good as if we had a whole ship-load!”

He took it, and, followed by his companions, regained the Chimneys. This tiny bit of wood, which in civilised lands is wasted with indifference, as valueless, it was necessary here to use with the utmost care. The sailor, having assured himself that it was dry, said:—

“We must have some paper.”

“Here is some,” answered Spilett, who, after a little hesitation, had torn a leaf from his note-book.

Pencroff took the bit of paper and knelt down before the fire-place, where some handfuls of grass, leaves, and dry moss had been placed under the faggots in such a way that the air could freely circulate and make the dry wood readily ignite. Then Pencroff shaping the paper into a cone, as pipe-smokers do in the wind, placed it among the moss. Taking, then, a slightly rough stone and wiping it carefully, with beating heart and suspended breath, he gave the match a little rub. The first stroke produced no effect, as Pencroff fearing to break off the phosphorus had not rubbed hard enough.

“Ho, I won’t be able to do it,” said he; “my hand shakes—the match will miss—I can’t do it—I don’t want to try!” And, rising, he besought Herbert to undertake it.

Certainly, the boy had never in his life been so affected. His heart beat furiously. Prometheus, about to steal the fire from heaven, could not have been more excited.

Nevertheless he did not hesitate, but rubbed the stone with a quick stroke. A little sputtering was heard, and a light blue flame sprung out and produced a pungent smoke. Herbert gently turned the match, so as to feed the flame, and then slid it under the paper cone. In a few seconds the paper took fire, and then the