The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne (books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📕

feet wide, rising ten feet above the surface of the water, this was the sole solid point which had not vanished beneath the waves of the Pacific.

It was all that remained of Granite House! The wall had been thrown over, then broken to pieces, and some of the rocks of the great hall had been so heaped together as to form this culminating point. All else had disappeared in the surrounding abyss: the lower cone of Mount Franklin, torn to pieces by the explosion; the lava jaws of Shark Gulf; Prospect Plateau, Safety Islet, the granite of Balloon Harbor; the basalt of Crypt Dakkar; Serpentine Peninsula—had been precipitated into the eruptive centre! All that remained of Lincoln Island was this rock, the refuge of the six colonists and their dog Top.

All the animals had perished in the catastrophe. The birds as well as the beasts, all were crashed or drowned, and poor Jup, alas! had been swallowed up in some crevasse in the ground!

Smith, Spilett, Herbert, Pencroff, Neb, and Ayrton had survived, because, being gathered together in their tent, they had been thrown into the sea, at the moment when the debris of the island rained down upon the water.

When they came again to the surface they saw nothing but this rock, half a cable length away, to which they swam.

They had been here nine days! Some provisions, brought from the magazine of Granite House before the catastrophe, a little soft water left by the rain in the crevice of the rock—this was all that the unfortunates possessed. Their last hope, their ship, had been broken to pieces. They had no means of leaving this reef. No fire, nor anything with which to make it. They were doomed to perish!

This day, the 18th of March, there remained a supply of food, which, with the strictest care, could last but forty-eight hours longer. All their knowledge, all their skill, could avail them nothing now. They were entirely at God’s mercy.

Smith was calm, Spilett somewhat nervous, and Pencroff, ready to throw himself into the sea. Herbert never left the engineer; and gazed upon him, as if demanding the succor which he could not give. Neb and Ayrton were resigned after their manner.

“Oh, misery! misery!” repeated Pencroff. “If we had but a walnut-shell to take us to Tabor Island! But nothing; not a thing!”

“And Captain Nemo is dead!” said Neb.

During the five days which followed, Smith and his companions ate just enough of the supply of food to keep them from famishing. Their feebleness was extreme. Herbert and Neb began to show signs of delirium.

In this situation had they a shadow of hope? No! What was their sole chance? That a ship would pass in sight of the rock? They knew, by experience, that ships never visited this part of the Pacific. Could they count, then, by a coincidence which would be truly providential, upon the Scotch yacht coming just at this time to search for Ayrton at Tabor Island? It was not probable. And, moreover, supposing that it came, since the colonists had placed no notice there indicating the place where Ayrton was to be found, the captain of the yacht, after a fruitless search of the island, would proceed at once to regain the lower latitudes.

No! they could entertain no hope of being saved, and a horrible death, a death by hunger and thirst, awaited them upon this rock!

Already they lay stretched out, inanimate, unconscious of what was going on around them. Only, Ayrton, by a supreme effort, raised his head, and cast a despairing look over this desert sea!

But, behold! on this morning of the 24th of March, Ayrton extended his arms towards some point in space; he rose up, first to his knees, then stood upright; he waved his hand—

A ship was in sight of the island! This ship did not sail these seas at hap-hazard. The reef was the point towards which she directed her course, crowding on all steam, and the unfortunates would have seen her many hours before, had they had the strength to scan the horizon!

“The Duncan!” murmured Ayrton, and then he fell senseless upon the rock.

*    *    *    *    *

When Smith and his companions regained consciousness, thanks to the care lavished upon them, they found themselves in the cabin of a steamer, unaware of the manner in which they had escaped death.

A word from Ayrton was sufficient to enlighten them.

“It is the Duncan,” he murmured.

“The Duncan!” answered Smith. And then, raising his arms to heaven, he exclaimed:—

“Oh, all powerful Providence! thou hast wished that we should be saved!”

It was, indeed, the Duncan, Lord Glenarvan’s yacht, at this time commanded by Robert, the son of Captain Grant, who had been sent to Tabor Island to search for Ayrton and bring him home after twelve years of expatriation!

The colonists were saved, they were already on the homeward route!

“Captain Robert,” asked Smith, “what suggested to you the idea, after leaving Tabor Island, where you were unable to find Ayrton, to come in this direction?”

“It was to search, not only for Ayrton, Mr. Smith, but for you and your companions!”

“My companions and myself?”

“Doubtless! On Lincoln Island!”

“Lincoln Island!” cried the others, greatly astonished.

“How did you know of Lincoln Island?” asked Smith. “It is not on the maps.”

“I knew of it by the notice which you left on Tabor Island,” answered Grant.

“The notice?” cried Spilett.

“Certainly, and here it is,” replied the other, handing him a paper indicating the exact position of the Lincoln Island, “the actual residence of Ayrton and of five American colonists.”

“Captain Nemo!” said Smith, after having read the notice, and recognized that it was in the same handwriting as the paper found at the corral.

“Ah!” said Pencroff, “it was he who took our Good Luck, he who ventured alone to Tabor Island!”

“To place this notice there!” answered Herbert.

“Then I was right when I said,” cried the sailor, “that he would do us a last service even after his death!”

“My friends,” said Smith, in a voice moved by emotion, “may the God of sinners receive the soul of Captain Nemo; he was our savior!”

The colonists, uncovering as Smith spake thus, murmured the name of the captain.

Then Ayrton, approaching the engineer, said to him, simply:—

“What shall be done with the coffer?”

Ayrton had saved this coffer at the risk of his life, at the moment when the island was engulfed. He now faithfully returned it to the engineer.

“Ayrton! Ayrton!” exclaimed Smith, greatly affected.

Then addressing Grant:—

“Captain,” he said, “where you left a criminal, you have found a man whom expiation has made honest, and to whom I am proud to give my hand!”

Thereupon Grant was informed of all the strange history of Captain Nemo and the colonists of Lincoln Island. And then, the bearings of this remaining reef having been taken, Captain Grant gave the order to go about.

Fifteen days later the colonists landed in America, which they found at peace after the terrible war which had ended in the triumph of justice and right. Of the wealth contained in the coffer, the greater part was employed in the purchase of a vast tract of land in Iowa. One single pearl, the most beautiful of all, was taken from the treasure and sent to Lady Glenarvan in the name of the castaways, who had been rescued by the Duncan.

To this domain the colonists invited to labor—that is, to fortune and to happiness—all those whom they had counted on receiving at Lincoln Island. Here they founded a great colony, to which they gave the name of the island which had disappeared in the depths of the Pacific. They found here a river which they called the Mercy, a mountain to which they gave the name of Franklin, a little lake which they called Lake Grant, and forests which became the forests of the Far West. It was like an island on terra-firma.

Here, under the skillful hand of the engineer and his companions, everything prospered. Not one of the former colonists was missing, for they had agreed always to live together, Neb wherever his master was, Ayrton always ready to sacrifice himself, Pencroff a better farmer than he had been a sailor, Herbert who finished his studies under Smith’s direction, Spilett who founded the New Lincoln Herald, which was the best edited journal in the whole world.

Here Smith and his companions often received visits from Lord and Lady Glenarvan, from Captain John Mangles and his wife, sister to Robert Grant, from Robert Grant himself, from Major MacNabbs, from all those who had been mixed up in the double history of Captain Grant and Captain Nemo.

Here, finally, all were happy, united in the present as they had been in the past; but never did they forget that island upon which they had arrived poor and naked, that island which, for four years, had sufficed for all their needs, and of which all that remained was a morsel of granite, beaten by the waves of the Pacific, the tomb of him who was Captain Nemo!

THE END.

GLOSSARY.

AGOUTI. A genus of rodent animals, the size of a rabbit, but more like the squirrel in appearance, with the exception of the tail, which is a short, bare stump. When at rest, they sit upon their haunches, holding their food between their fore-paws.

ALBATROSS. A genus of large, web-footed, acquatic birds, possessing prodigious powers of flight. Its wings, when extended, sometimes measure 15 feet.

ALGAROBA BEANS. The seeds of the algaroba or carob tree. These seeds were formerly used by jewellers as weights, and the sweetish honey in the seed-pod is supposed by some to be the wild honey upon which St. John lived in the wilderness. Animals, especially horses, are fond of the bean.

AI. The three-toed sloth. The only animal which can neither walk nor stand. It is herbivorous, and lives in trees, moving suspended from a branch by its long and powerful arms.

ANTHROPOMORPHI. Animals resembling human beings in form.

APYREXY. The intermission of a fever.

ARADS. An order of plants of which dragon-root, or jack-in-the-pulpit is a familiar example. Portland sago is made from the corms of some of these plants.

ARGALL. A species of moufflon or wild sheep.

AZOTH. The old name for nitrogen.

BALEEN. The substance called whale-bone.

BALLISTIC. Relating to engines for throwing missiles; such as the ancient ballista.

BANKSIA. A genus of plants remarkable for the beauty of their flowers and their evergreen foliage. They are sometimes called honey-suckle trees.

BUSTARD. A kind of wild turkey inhabiting the open plains of Europe, Asia and Africa.

CABIAI. The largest known rodent. Hystricidæ. from its aquatic habits it is sometimes called a water-hog.

CARAPACE. A thick, solid shell covering some reptiles, as the turtle.

CASAURINÆ. Tropical plants, so named on account of the resemblance their leaves bear to the drooping feathers of the cassowary. For this reason they are sometimes called cassowary trees.

CASSOWARY. A large, long-legged bird of the ostrich family, famous for its speed in running.

CATACLYSM. An inundation or deluge.

CELLULOSE. Called also celluline. A substance which constitutes the cellular tissue of all plants.

CEMENTATION. The process of changing the properties of bodies by heating them in contact with the powder of other substances.

CETACEA. The name of the genus of marine animals which includes whales, dolphins, etc.

CINCHONIA. A vegetable alkali found in the cinchona,—a genus of trees found in Peru,—the bark of which is much used as a febrifugal, and is known as Peruvian Bark. Cinchonia is not much used in medicine.

COCKATOO. A genus of birds of the parrot family, distinguished from all other parrots by a crest of feathers on the head, which the bird can raise or depress at pleasure.

CONIFERS. Coniferæ. An order of cone-bearing plants, including fir-trees, pines, cedars, junipers, etc.

CO-ORDINATES. A system of lines and angles by which the position of any point may be determined with reference to a fixed point.

CORM. The solid, underground stem of a plant, like the bulb of a tulip; differing, however, from a bulb in being solid.

COUROUCOUS. Birds of the warbler family, which, excepting the humming bird family, contains the smallest birds in the world. The Nightingale, Wood wren and Golden-crests are familiar examples.

CURASSOW. A gallinaceous bird, about the size of turkeys, and capable of domestication.

CYCAS. A genus of trees intermediate between the palms and the ferns, cultivated in China, and valued for its pith, which furnishes a kind of sago.

DEODAR. The Himalayan cedar. A genus of trees belonging to the order Pinaccæ; the same order as the cedars of Lebanon, celebrated for its beauty, its longevity, its magnitude, and the durability of its timber.

DUGONG. An herbivorous mammal having an elongated body, with flippers near the head, and terminated by a crescent-shaped tail. It drags itself along the shore and browses on the herbage that grows along the banks of the rivers which it frequents.

ECHIDNA. A genus of ovoviparous mammals, which have the general form of the ant-eater, but the body