action. At its base a cove was hollowed out and the far end formed a sharp corner. The watercourse here measured one hundred feet in breadth, and its two banks on each side were were not quite twenty feet wide. The river ran almost directly between the two walls of granite which were not quite as high further upstream; then it turned abruptly and disappeared under some brushwood at a distance of half a mile.
“Here’s water! And there’s wood!” said Pencroff. “Well, Harbert, all we need now is the house!”
The river water was clear. The sailor knew that, at this moment of low tide, the ocean had not reached here, and the water would be fresh. With this important point established, Harbert looked for some cavity which would serve as shelter, but it was useless. Everywhere the wall was smooth, flat and perpendicular.
However, at the very mouth of the river, above the line of high tide, landslides had formed a pile of enormous fallen rocks, like those often seen in countries with much granite, which are called “Chimneys.”
Pencroff and Harbert went far in among the rocks, along the sandy passages where light was not lacking because it entered through various openings among the granite rocks, some of which were supported only by a miracle of equilibrium. But, along with the light, there was also wind, a stiff corridor-type wind, which brought with it the sharp cold from the outside. However, the sailor thought that by closing these openings with a mixture of stones and sand, they could make the “Chimneys” liveable. The geometrical design of the “Chimneys” resembled the typographical sign “&” which signifies “et cetera” abbreviated. Now, by isolating the upper loop of the sign, through which the wind blew from the south and from the west, they would doubtless succeed in putting the lower part to use.
The Chimneys.
“This is our best bet,” said Pencroff, “and if we ever see Mr. Smith again he’ll know what to make of this labyrinth.”
“We will see him again, Pencroff,” exclaimed Harbert, “and, when he returns, he’ll find a halfway decent shelter here. It will be so if we can build a fireplace in the left passage and keep an opening for the smoke.”
“We can do it, my boy,” replied the sailor, “and these Chimneys”—the name Pencroff gave this temporary home—“will do nicely. But first let’s get a stock of fuel. I imagine that wood will be useful in stopping up these holes through which the very devil himself is blowing his trumpet.”
Harbert and Pencroff left the Chimneys, turned a corner, and began walking along the left bank of the river. The current was rather rapid and carried some dead wood. The rising tide—and it could already be felt at this time—was forcefully driving it back a considerable distance. It occurred to the sailor that they could use this ebb and flow to transport heavy objects.
After walking for a quarter of an hour, the sailor and the young boy arrived at a left turn in the river. Its course then passed through a forest of magnificent trees. These trees had kept their greenness in spite of the advanced season because they belonged to the family of conifers which grow in all regions of the globe, from the frigid climates to the tropics. The young naturalist recognized especially the “deodars,”2 a species very numerous in the Himalayan zone, which emit an agreeable odor. Among these fine trees grew clusters of fir trees whose opaque umbrella boughs spread wide around. In the tall grass, Pencroff felt his feet crushing dry branches which crackled like fireworks.
“Good, my boy,” he said to Harbert, “if the name of these trees escapes me, I know at least to classify them in the category of ‘firewood’ and, for the moment it is the only category that we need!”
“Let’s gather up some,” replied Harbert, getting to work at once.
The harvest was easy. It was not even necessary to break the branches off the trees because enormous quantities of dead wood were lying at their feet. But if the fuel was not lacking, the means of transporting it left something to be desired. This wood, being very dry, would burn rapidly but it would be necessary to carry a considerable quantity to the Chimneys and two men would not be enough. Harbert noted this.
“Well, my boy,” replied the sailor, “there must be some way of moving this wood. There is always a way to do everything! If we had a cart or a boat it would be quite easy.”
“But we have the river!” said Harbert.
“Right,” replied Pencroff. “The river will be for us a road which moves itself and rafts were not invented for nothing.”
“Only” observed Harbert, “right now our road is going the wrong way since the tide is rising.”
“We’ll wait till it ebbs,” replied the sailor, “and then it will be responsible for carrying our fuel to the Chimneys. Anyhow, let’s prepare our raft.”
The sailor, followed by Harbert, went to the bend that the edge of the forest made with the river. Each carried a load of wood tied in faggots. On the river’s bank, they found a large quantity of dead branches among grass where the foot of man had probably never trod. Pencroff began at once to put his raft together.
In an eddy, the sailor and the young boy placed some large pieces of wood attached together with dried vines. It formed a sort of raft. Then they piled up on top of it all their collected wood, a load for at least twenty men. In an hour, the work was finished and the raft, moored to the bank, waited for the change in tide.
They had several hours to wait. So Pencroff and Harbert decided to climb to the upper plateau to examine a wider span of the countryside.
Two hundred feet beyond the bend in the river, the wall, terminated by a pile of rocks, sloped away gently to the border of the forest. It was like a natural staircase. Harbert and the sailor began to climb. They reached the crest in a few moments and positioned themselves at the corner above the mouth of the river.
On arriving, their first glance was toward the ocean that they had crossed under such terrible conditions! They observed with strong emotions the coastline to the north where the catastrophe had occurred. It was there that Cyrus Smith had disappeared. They searched to see if some wreckage of their balloon, which a man might hang onto, was still floating. Nothing! The sea was a vast desert of water. As for the shore, it too was deserted. Neither the reporter nor Neb could be seen there, but it was possible that they were too far away.
“Something tells me,” Harbert said, “that a man as energetic as Mr. Cyrus would not allow himself to drown like a new born babe. He must have reached some point on the shore. Isn’t that so, Pencroff?”
The sailor sadly shook his head. He hardly expected to see Cyrus Smith again, but he wanted to give Harbert something to hope for. “Without doubt, without doubt,” he said, “our engineer is a man able to get out of a situation where others would succumb! …”
However he observed the coast very carefully. Beneath them was the sandy shore bounded to the right of the river’s mouth by a line of breakers. These rocks, still above water, resembled groups of amphibians lying in the surf. Beyond the strip of reefs, the sea sparkled under the sun’s rays. In the south, a sharp point hid the horizon, and they could not say if the land extended in this direction or if it ran from southeast to southwest which would have made this coast a sort of elongated peninsula. Up to the extreme north of the bay, the outline of the shore followed a more rounded contour. There the shore was low, flat, without cliffs, and with large sandy beaches uncovered by the ebbing tide. Pencroff and Harbert then turned to the west. First, they saw a mountain
