The Mysterious Island

The hurricane of 1865⁠—Cries in the air⁠—A balloon caught by a waterspout⁠—Only the sea in sight⁠—Five passengers⁠—What took place in the basket⁠—Land ahead⁠—The end.

“Are we going up again?”

“No. On the contrary; we are going down!”

“Worse than that, Mr. Smith, we are falling!”

“For God’s sake throw over all the ballast!”

“The last sack is empty!”

“And the balloon rises again?”

“No!”

“I hear the splashing waves!”

“The sea is under us!”

“It is not five hundred feet off!”

Then a strong, clear voice shouted:⁠—

“Overboard with all we have, and God help us!”

Such were the words which rang through the air above the vast wilderness of the Pacific, towards four o’clock in the afternoon of the 23rd of March, 1865:⁠—

Doubtless, no one has forgotten that terrible northeast gale which vented its fury during the equinox of that year. It was a hurricane lasting without intermission from the 18th to the 26th of March. Covering a space of 1,800 miles, drawn obliquely to the equator, between the 35° of north latitude and 40° south, it occasioned immense destruction both in America and Europe and Asia. Cities in ruins, forests uprooted, shores devastated by the mountains of water hurled upon them, hundreds of shipwrecks, large tracts of territory desolated by the waterspouts which destroyed everything in their path, thousands of persons crushed to the earth or engulfed in the sea; such were the witnesses to its fury left behind by this terrible hurricane. It surpassed in disaster those storms which ravaged Havana and Guadeloupe in 1810 and 1825.

Meantime the night advanced; and it was about two o’clock when Pencroff was suddenly aroused from a deep sleep by finding himself vigorously shaken.

“What’s the matter?” he cried, rousing and collecting himself with the quickness peculiar to sailors.

The reporter was bending over him and saying:⁠—

“Listen, Pencroff, listen!”

The sailor listened, but could hear no sounds other than those caused by the gusts.

“It is the wind,” he said.

“No,” answered Spilett, listening again, “I think I heard⁠—”

“What?”

“The barking of a dog!”

“A dog!” cried Pencroff, springing to his feet.

“Yes⁠—the barking⁠—”

“Impossible!” answered the sailor. “How, in the roarings of the tempest⁠—”

“Wait⁠—listen,” said the reporter.

Pencroff listened most attentively, and at length, during a lull, he thought he caught the sound of distant barking.

“Is it?” asked the reporter, squeezing the sailor’s hand.

“Yes⁠—yes!” said Pencroff.

“It is Top! It is Top!” cried Herbert, who had just wakened, and the three rushed to the entrance of the Chimneys.

It was nearly eight o’clock when they set foot on the summit of the cone. The darkness was by this time complete, and they could hardly see a couple of miles around them. Was the land an island, or the eastern extremity of a continent? They could not yet discover. Towards the west a band of cloud, clearly defined against the horizon, deepened the obscurity, and confounded sea with sky.

But at one point of the horizon suddenly appeared a vague light, which slowly sank as the clouds mounted to the zenith. It was the slender crescent of the moon, just about to disappear. But the line of the horizon was now cloudless, and as the moon touched it, the engineer could see her face mirrored for an instant on a liquid surface. He seized the boy’s hand⁠—

“An island!” said he, as the lunar crescent disappeared behind the waves.

The sailor, followed by Neb, hastened to the kitchen, and was soon absorbed over the oven. The two prepared a magnificent repast; the two little peccaries, kangaroo soup, smoked ham, pistachio nuts, dragon-tree wine, Oswego tea; in a word, everything of the best. But the favorite dish of all was the savory peccaries made into a stew. At five o’clock, dinner was served in the dining-room of Granite House. The kangaroo soup smoked upon the table. It was pronounced excellent.

After the soup came the peccaries, which Pencroff begged to be allowed to carve, and of which he gave huge pieces to everyone. These sucking pigs were indeed delicious, and Pencroff plied his knife and fork with intense earnestness, when suddenly a cry and an oath escaped him.

“What’s the matter?” said Smith.

“The matter is that I have just lost a tooth!” replied the sailor.

“Are there pebbles in your peccaries, then?” said Spilett.

“It seems so,” said the sailor, taking out of his mouth the object which had cost him a grinder.

It was not a pebble, it was a leaden pellet.

“I have said, Pencroff, that we will leave everything to your judgment.”

“Ah,” said Pencroff, “if only there was a lighthouse on this coast it would be easier for sailors.”

“Yes,” answered Herbert, “and this time we have no thoughtful engineer to light a fire to guide us into harbor.”

“By the way, Cyrus,” said Spilett, “we have never thanked you for that; but indeed, without that fire we would not have reached⁠—”

“A fire?” demanded Smith, astounded by the words of the reporter.

“We wish to say, sir,” said Pencroff, “that we would have been in a bad fix on board the Good Luck, when we were nearly back, and that we would have passed to windward of the island unless you had taken the precaution to light a fire, on the night of the 19th of October, upon the plateau above Granite House.”

“Oh, yes, yes! It was a happy thought!” replied Smith.

“And now,” added Pencroff, “unless Ayrton thinks of it, there is not a soul to do us this little service.”

“No⁠—no one!” replied Smith.

And a moment or two later, being alone with Spilett, the engineer whispered to him:⁠—

“If there is anything sure in this world, Spilett, it is that I never lit a fire on that night, either on the plateau or anywhere else!”