The Mysterious Island (40 page)

When Pencroft had once got a plan in his head, he had no peace till it
was executed. Now he wished to visit Tabor Island, and as a boat of a
certain size was necessary for this voyage, he determined to build one.

What wood should he employ? Elm or fir, both of which abounded in the
island? They decided for the fir, as being easy to work, but which
stands water as well as the elm.

These details settled, it was agreed that since the fine season would
not return before six months, Cyrus Harding and Pencroft should work
alone at the boat. Gideon Spilett and Herbert were to continue to
hunt, and neither Neb nor Master Jup, his assistant, were to leave the
domestic duties which had devolved upon them.

Directly the trees were chosen, they were felled, stripped of their
branches, and sawn into planks as well as sawyers would have been able
to do it. A week after, in the recess between the Chimneys and the
cliff, a dockyard was prepared, and a keel five-and-thirty feet long,
furnished with a stern-post at the stern and a stem at the bows, lay
along the sand.

Cyrus Harding was not working in the dark at this new trade. He knew as
much about ship-building as about nearly everything else, and he had
at first drawn the model of his ship on paper. Besides, he was ably
seconded by Pencroft, who, having worked for several years in a dockyard
in Brooklyn, knew the practical part of the trade. It was not until
after careful calculation and deep thought that the timbers were laid on
the keel.

Pencroft, as may be believed, was all eagerness to carry out his new
enterprise, and would not leave his work for an instant.

A single thing had the honor of drawing him, but for one day only, from
his dockyard. This was the second wheat-harvest, which was gathered in
on the 15th of April. It was as much a success as the first, and yielded
the number of grains which had been predicted.

"Five bushels, captain," said Pencroft, after having scrupulously
measured his treasure.

"Five bushels," replied the engineer; "and a hundred and thirty thousand
grains a bushel will make six hundred and fifty thousand grains."

"Well, we will sow them all this time," said the sailor, "except a
little in reserve."

"Yes, Pencroft, and if the next crop gives a proportionate yield, we
shall have four thousand bushels."

"And shall we eat bread?"

"We shall eat bread."

"But we must have a mill.

"We will make one."

The third corn-field was very much larger than the two first, and the
soil, prepared with extreme care, received the precious seed. That done,
Pencroft returned to his work.

During this time Spilett and Herbert hunted in the neighborhood, and
they ventured deep into the still unknown parts of the Far West, their
guns loaded with ball, ready for any dangerous emergency. It was a vast
thicket of magnificent trees, crowded together as if pressed for room.
The exploration of these dense masses of wood was difficult in
the extreme, and the reporter never ventured there without the
pocket-compass, for the sun scarcely pierced through the thick foliage
and it would have been very difficult for them to retrace their way.
It naturally happened that game was more rare in those situations where
there was hardly sufficient room to move; two or three large herbivorous
animals were however killed during the last fortnight of April. These
were koalas, specimens of which the settlers had already seen to the
north of the lake, and which stupidly allowed themselves to be killed
among the thick branches of the trees in which they took refuge. Their
skins were brought back to Granite House, and there, by the help of
sulphuric acid, they were subjected to a sort of tanning process which
rendered them capable of being used.

On the 30th of April, the two sportsmen were in the depth of the Far
West, when the reporter, preceding Herbert a few paces, arrived in
a sort of clearing, into which the trees more sparsely scattered had
permitted a few rays to penetrate. Gideon Spilett was at first surprised
at the odor which exhaled from certain plants with straight stalks,
round and branchy, bearing grape-like clusters of flowers and very small
berries. The reporter broke off one or two of these stalks and returned
to the lad, to whom he said,—

"What can this be, Herbert?"

"Well, Mr. Spilett," said Herbert, "this is a treasure which will secure
you Pencroft's gratitude forever."

"Is it tobacco?"

"Yes, and though it may not be of the first quality, it is none the less
tobacco!"

"Oh, good old Pencroft! Won't he be pleased! But we must not let him
smoke it all, he must give us our share."

"Ah! an idea occurs to me, Mr. Spilett," replied Herbert. "Don't let us
say anything to Pencroft yet; we will prepare these leaves, and one fine
day we will present him with a pipe already filled!"

"All right, Herbert, and on that day our worthy companion will have
nothing left to wish for in this world."

The reporter and the lad secured a good store of the precious plant, and
then returned to Granite House, where they smuggled it in with as much
precaution as if Pencroft had been the most vigilant and severe of
custom-house officers.

Cyrus Harding and Neb were taken into confidence, and the sailor
suspected nothing during the whole time, necessarily somewhat long,
which was required in order to dry the small leaves, chop them up, and
subject them to a certain torrefaction on hot stones. This took two
months; but all these manipulations were successfully carried on unknown
to Pencroft, for, occupied with the construction of his boat, he only
returned to Granite House at the hour of rest.

For some days they had observed an enormous animal two or three miles
out in the open sea swimming around Lincoln Island. This was a whale
of the largest size, which apparently belonged to the southern species,
called the "Cape Whale."

"What a lucky chance it would be if we could capture it!" cried the
sailor. "Ah! if we only had a proper boat and a good harpoon, I would
say 'After the beast,' for he would be well worth the trouble of
catching!"

"Well, Pencroft," observed Harding, "I should much like to watch you
handling a harpoon. It would be very interesting."

"I am astonished," said the reporter, "to see a whale in this
comparatively high latitude."

"Why so, Mr. Spilett?" replied Herbert. "We are exactly in that part of
the Pacific which English and American whalemen call the whale field,
and it is here, between New Zealand and South America, that the whales
of the Southern Hemisphere are met with in the greatest numbers."

And Pencroft returned to his work, not without uttering a sigh of
regret, for every sailor is a born fisherman, and if the pleasure of
fishing is in exact proportion to the size of the animal, one can judge
how a whaler feels in sight of a whale. And if this had only been for
pleasure! But they could not help feeling how valuable such a prize
would have been to the colony, for the oil, fat, and bones would have
been put to many uses.

Now it happened that this whale appeared to have no wish to leave the
waters of the island. Therefore, whether from the windows of Granite
House, or from Prospect Heights, Herbert and Gideon Spilett, when they
were not hunting, or Neb, unless presiding over his fires, never left
the telescope, but watched all the animal's movements. The cetacean,
having entered far into Union Bay, made rapid furrows across it from
Mandible Cape to Claw Cape, propelled by its enormously powerful flukes,
on which it supported itself, and making its way through the water
at the rate little short of twelve knots an hour. Sometimes also it
approached so near to the island that it could be clearly distinguished.
It was the southern whale, which is completely black, the head being
more depressed than that of the northern whale.

They could also see it throwing up from its air-holes to a great
height a cloud of vapor, or of water, for, strange as it may appear,
naturalists and whalers are not agreed on this subject. Is it air or is
it water which is thus driven out? It is generally admitted to be vapor,
which, condensing suddenly by contact with the cold air, falls again as
rain.

However, the presence of this mammifer preoccupied the colonists. It
irritated Pencroft especially, as he could think of nothing else while
at work. He ended by longing for it, like a child for a thing which it
has been denied. At night he talked about it in his sleep, and certainly
if he had had the means of attacking it, if the sloop had been in a fit
state to put to sea, he would not have hesitated to set out in pursuit.

But what the colonists could not do for themselves chance did for them,
and on the 3rd of May shouts from Neb, who had stationed himself at the
kitchen window, announced that the whale was stranded on the beach of
the island.

Herbert and Gideon Spilett, who were just about to set out hunting,
left their guns, Pencroft threw down his ax, and Harding and Neb joining
their companions, all rushed towards the scene of action.

The stranding had taken place on the beach of Flotsam Point, three miles
from Granite House, and at high tide. It was therefore probable that the
cetacean would not be able to extricate itself easily; at any rate it
was best to hasten, so as to cut off its retreat if necessary. They ran
with pick-axes and iron-tipped poles in their hands, passed over the
Mercy bridge, descended the right bank of the river, along the beach,
and in less than twenty minutes the settlers were close to the enormous
animal, above which flocks of birds already hovered.

"What a monster!" cried Neb.

And the exclamation was natural, for it was a southern whale, eighty
feet long, a giant of the species, probably not weighing less than a
hundred and fifty thousand pounds!

In the meanwhile, the monster thus stranded did not move, nor attempt by
struggling to regain the water while the tide was still high.

It was dead, and a harpoon was sticking out of its left side.

"There are whalers in these quarters, then?" said Gideon Spilett
directly.

"Oh, Mr. Spilett, that doesn't prove anything!" replied Pencroft.
"Whales have been known to go thousands of miles with a harpoon in
the side, and this one might even have been struck in the north of the
Atlantic and come to die in the south of the Pacific, and it would be
nothing astonishing."

Pencroft, having torn the harpoon from the animal's side, read this
inscription on it:

MARIA STELLA, VINEYARD

"A vessel from the Vineyard! A ship from my country!" he cried. "The
'Maria Stella!' A fine whaler, 'pon my word; I know her well! Oh, my
friends, a vessel from the Vineyard!—a whaler from the Vineyard!"

And the sailor brandishing the harpoon, repeated, not without emotion,
the name which he loved so well—the name of his birthplace.

But as it could not be expected that the "Maria Stella" would come to
reclaim the animal harpooned by her, they resolved to begin cutting it
up before decomposition should commence. The birds, who had watched
this rich prey for several days, had determined to take possession of it
without further delay, and it was necessary to drive them off by firing
at them repeatedly.

The whale was a female, and a large quantity of milk was taken from it,
which, according to the opinion of the naturalist Duffenbach, might pass
for cow's milk, and, indeed, it differs from it neither in taste, color,
nor density.

Pencroft had formerly served on board a whaling-ship, and he could
methodically direct the operation of cutting up, a sufficiently
disagreeable operation lasting three days, but from which the settlers
did not flinch, not even Gideon Spilett, who, as the sailor said, would
end by making a "real good castaway."

The blubber, cut in parallel slices of two feet and a half in thickness,
then divided into pieces which might weigh about a thousand pounds each,
was melted down in large earthen pots brought to the spot, for they did
not wish to taint the environs of Granite House, and in this fusion it
lost nearly a third of its weight.

But there was an immense quantity of it; the tongue alone yielded six
thousand pounds of oil, and the lower lip four thousand. Then, besides
the fat, which would insure for a long time a store of stearine and
glycerine, there were still the bones, for which a use could doubtless
be found, although there were neither umbrellas nor stays used at
Granite House. The upper part of the mouth of the cetacean was, indeed,
provided on both sides with eight hundred horny blades, very elastic,
of a fibrous texture, and fringed at the edge like great combs, at which
the teeth, six feet long, served to retain the thousands of animalculae,
little fish, and molluscs, on which the whale fed.

The operation finished, to the great satisfaction of the operators, the
remains of the animal were left to the birds, who would soon make every
vestige of it disappear, and their usual daily occupations were resumed
by the inmates of Granite House.

However, before returning to the dockyard, Cyrus Harding conceived
the idea of fabricating certain machines, which greatly excited the
curiosity of his companions. He took a dozen of the whale's bones, cut
them into six equal parts, and sharpened their ends.

"This machine is not my own invention, and it is frequently employed
by the Aleutian hunters in Russian America. You see these bones, my
friends; well, when it freezes, I will bend them, and then wet them
with water till they are entirely covered with ice, which will keep them
bent, and I will strew them on the snow, having previously covered them
with fat. Now, what will happen if a hungry animal swallows one of these
baits? Why, the heat of his stomach will melt the ice, and the bone,
springing straight, will pierce him with its sharp points."