The Mysterious Island (16 page)

It would have been difficult to unite five men, better fitted to
struggle against fate, more certain to triumph over it.

"At the beginning," Cyrus Harding had said. Now this beginning of which
the engineer spoke was the construction of an apparatus which would
serve to transform the natural substances. The part which heat plays in
these transformations is known. Now fuel, wood or coal, was ready for
immediate use, an oven must be built to use it.

"What is this oven for?" asked Pencroft.

"To make the pottery which we have need of," replied Harding.

"And of what shall we make the oven?"

"With bricks."

"And the bricks?"

"With clay. Let us start, my friends. To save trouble, we will establish
our manufactory at the place of production. Neb will bring provisions,
and there will be no lack of fire to cook the food."

"No," replied the reporter; "but if there is a lack of food for want of
instruments for the chase?"

"Ah, if we only had a knife!" cried the sailor.

"Well?" asked Cyrus Harding.

"Well! I would soon make a bow and arrows, and then there could be
plenty of game in the larder!"

"Yes, a knife, a sharp blade." said the engineer, as if he was speaking
to himself.

At this moment his eyes fell upon Top, who was running about on the
shore. Suddenly Harding's face became animated.

"Top, here," said he.

The dog came at his master's call. The latter took Top's head between
his hands, and unfastening the collar which the animal wore round his
neck, he broke it in two, saying,—

"There are two knives, Pencroft!"

Two hurrahs from the sailor was the reply. Top's collar was made of a
thin piece of tempered steel. They had only to sharpen it on a piece of
sandstone, then to raise the edge on a finer stone. Now sandstone was
abundant on the beach, and two hours after the stock of tools in the
colony consisted of two sharp blades, which were easily fixed in solid
handles.

The production of these their first tools was hailed as a triumph. It
was indeed a valuable result of their labor, and a very opportune one.
They set out.

Cyrus Harding proposed that they should return to the western shore of
the lake, where the day before he had noticed the clayey ground of which
he possessed a specimen. They therefore followed the bank of the Mercy,
traversed Prospect Heights, and after a walk of five miles or more they
reached a glade, situated two hundred feet from Lake Grant.

On the way Herbert had discovered a tree, the branches of which the
Indians of South America employ for making their bows. It was the
crejimba, of the palm family, which does not bear edible fruit. Long
straight branches were cut, the leaves stripped off; it was shaped,
stronger in the middle, more slender at the extremities, and nothing
remained to be done but to find a plant fit to make the bow-string.
This was the "hibiscus heterophyllus," which furnishes fibers of such
remarkable tenacity that they have been compared to the tendons of
animals. Pencroft thus obtained bows of tolerable strength, for which he
only wanted arrows. These were easily made with straight stiff branches,
without knots, but the points with which they must be armed, that is
to say, a substance to serve in lieu of iron, could not be met with so
easily. But Pencroft said, that having done his part of the work, chance
would do the rest.

The settlers arrived on the ground which had been discovered the day
before. Being composed of the sort of clay which is used for making
bricks and tiles, it was very useful for the work in question. There was
no great difficulty in it. It was enough to scour the clay with sand,
then to mold the bricks and bake them by the heat of a wood fire.

Generally bricks are formed in molds, but the engineer contented himself
with making them by hand. All that day and the day following were
employed in this work. The clay, soaked in water, was mixed by the feet
and hands of the manipulators, and then divided into pieces of equal
size. A practiced workman can make, without a machine, about ten
thousand bricks in twelve hours; but in their two days work the five
brickmakers on Lincoln Island had not made more than three thousand,
which were ranged near each other, until the time when their complete
desiccation would permit them to be used in building the oven, that is
to say, in three or four days.

It was on the 2nd of April that Harding had employed himself in fixing
the orientation of the island, or, in other words, the precise spot
where the sun rose. The day before he had noted exactly the hour when
the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, making allowance for the
refraction. This morning he noted, no less exactly, the hour at which
it reappeared. Between this setting and rising twelve hours, twenty-four
minutes passed. Then, six hours, twelve minutes after its rising, the
sun on this day would exactly pass the meridian and the point of the sky
which it occupied at this moment would be the north. At the said hour,
Cyrus marked this point, and putting in a line with the sun two trees
which would serve him for marks, he thus obtained an invariable meridian
for his ulterior operations.

The settlers employed the two days before the oven was built in
collecting fuel. Branches were cut all round the glade, and they picked
up all the fallen wood under the trees. They were also able to hunt with
greater success, since Pencroft now possessed some dozen arrows armed
with sharp points. It was Top who had famished these points, by bringing
in a porcupine, rather inferior eating, but of great value, thanks to
the quills with which it bristled. These quills were fixed firmly at the
ends of the arrows, the flight of which was made more certain by some
cockatoos' feathers. The reporter and Herbert soon became very skilful
archers. Game of all sorts in consequence abounded at the Chimneys,
capybaras, pigeons, agouties, grouse, etc. The greater part of these
animals were killed in the part of the forest on the left bank of the
Mercy, to which they gave the name of Jacamar Wood, in remembrance of
the bird which Pencroft and Herbert had pursued when on their first
exploration.

This game was eaten fresh, but they preserved some capybara hams, by
smoking them above a fire of green wood, after having perfumed them with
sweet-smelling leaves. However, this food, although very strengthening,
was always roast upon roast, and the party would have been delighted
to hear some soup bubbling on the hearth, but they must wait till a pot
could be made, and, consequently, till the oven was built.

During these excursions, which were not extended far from the
brick-field, the hunters could discern the recent passage of animals of
a large size, armed with powerful claws, but they could not recognize
the species. Cyrus Harding advised them to be very careful, as the
forest probably enclosed many dangerous beasts.

And he did right. Indeed, Gideon Spilett and Herbert one day saw an
animal which resembled a jaguar. Happily the creature did not attack
them, or they might not have escaped without a severe wound. As soon
as he could get a regular weapon, that is to say, one of the guns which
Pencroft begged for, Gideon Spilett resolved to make desperate war
against the ferocious beasts, and exterminate them from the island.

The Chimneys during these few days was not made more comfortable, for
the engineer hoped to discover, or build if necessary, a more convenient
dwelling. They contented themselves with spreading moss and dry leaves
on the sand of the passages, and on these primitive couches the tired
workers slept soundly.

They also reckoned the days they had passed on Lincoln Island, and from
that time kept a regular account. The 5th of April, which was Wednesday,
was twelve days from the time when the wind threw the castaways on this
shore.

On the 6th of April, at daybreak, the engineer and his companions were
collected in the glade, at the place where they were going to perform
the operation of baking the bricks. Naturally this had to be in the open
air, and not in a kiln, or rather, the agglomeration of bricks made an
enormous kiln, which would bake itself. The fuel, made of well-prepared
fagots, was laid on the ground and surrounded with several rows of dried
bricks, which soon formed an enormous cube, to the exterior of which
they contrived air-holes. The work lasted all day, and it was not till
the evening that they set fire to the fagots. No one slept that night,
all watching carefully to keep up the fire.

The operation lasted forty-eight hours, and succeeded perfectly. It then
became necessary to leave the smoking mass to cool, and during this time
Neb and Pencroft, guided by Cyrus Harding, brought, on a hurdle made of
interlaced branches, loads of carbonate of lime and common stones,
which were very abundant, to the north of the lake. These stones, when
decomposed by heat, made a very strong quicklime, greatly increased by
slacking, at least as pure as if it had been produced by the calcination
of chalk or marble. Mixed with sand the lime made excellent mortar.

The result of these different works was, that, on the 9th of April,
the engineer had at his disposal a quantity of prepared lime and some
thousands of bricks.

Without losing an instant, therefore, they began the construction of
a kiln to bake the pottery, which was indispensable for their domestic
use. They succeeded without much difficulty. Five days after, the kiln
was supplied with coal, which the engineer had discovered lying open to
the sky towards the mouth of the Red Creek, and the first smoke escaped
from a chimney twenty feet high. The glade was transformed into a
manufactory, and Pencroft was not far wrong in believing that from this
kiln would issue all the products of modern industry.

In the meantime what the settlers first manufactured was a common
pottery in which to cook their food. The chief material was clay, to
which Harding added a little lime and quartz. This paste made regular
"pipe-clay," with which they manufactured bowls, cups molded on stones
of a proper size, great jars and pots to hold water, etc. The shape of
these objects was clumsy and defective, but after they had been baked
in a high temperature, the kitchen of the Chimneys was provided with a
number of utensils, as precious to the settlers as the most beautifully
enameled china. We must mention here that Pencroft, desirous to know if
the clay thus prepared was worthy of its name of pipe-clay, made some
large pipes, which he thought charming, but for which, alas! he had no
tobacco, and that was a great privation to Pencroft. "But tobacco
will come, like everything else!" he repeated, in a burst of absolute
confidence.

This work lasted till the 15th of April, and the time was well employed.
The settlers, having become potters, made nothing but pottery. When
it suited Cyrus Harding to change them into smiths, they would become
smiths. But the next day being Sunday, and also Easter Sunday, all
agreed to sanctify the day by rest. These Americans were religious men,
scrupulous observers of the precepts of the Bible, and their situation
could not but develop sentiments of confidence towards the Author of all
things.

On the evening of the 15th of April they returned to the Chimneys,
carrying with them the pottery, the furnace being extinguished until
they could put it to a new use. Their return was marked by a fortunate
incident; the engineer discovered a substance which replaced tinder.
It is known that a spongy, velvety flesh is procured from a certain
mushroom of the genus polyporous. Properly prepared, it is extremely
inflammable, especially when it has been previously saturated with
gunpowder, or boiled in a solution of nitrate or chlorate of potash.
But, till then, they had not found any of these polypores or even any of
the morels which could replace them. On this day, the engineer, seeing
a plant belonging to the wormwood genus, the principal species of which
are absinthe, balm-mint, tarragon, etc., gathered several tufts, and,
presenting them to the sailor, said,—

"Here, Pencroft, this will please you."

Pencroft looked attentively at the plant, covered with long silky hair,
the leaves being clothed with soft down.

"What's that, captain?" asked Pencroft. "Is it tobacco?"

"No," replied Harding, "it is wormwood; Chinese wormwood to the learned,
but to us it will be tinder."

When the wormwood was properly dried it provided them with a very
inflammable substance, especially afterwards when the engineer had
impregnated it with nitrate of potash, of which the island possessed
several beds, and which is in truth saltpeter.

The colonists had a good supper that evening. Neb prepared some agouti
soup, a smoked capybara ham, to which was added the boiled tubercules of
the "caladium macrorhizum," an herbaceous plant of the arum family.
They had an excellent taste, and were very nutritious, being something
similar to the substance which is sold in England under the name of
"Portland sago"; they were also a good substitute for bread, which the
settlers in Lincoln Island did not yet possess.

When supper was finished, before sleeping, Harding and his companions
went to take the air on the beach. It was eight o'clock in the evening;
the night was magnificent. The moon, which had been full five days
before, had not yet risen, but the horizon was already silvered by those
soft, pale shades which might be called the dawn of the moon. At the
southern zenith glittered the circumpolar constellations, and above all
the Southern Cross, which some days before the engineer had greeted on
the summit of Mount Franklin.

Cyrus Harding gazed for some time at this splendid constellation, which
has at its summit and at its base two stars of the first magnitude, at
its left arm a star of the second, and at its right arm a star of the
third magnitude.