The Eternal Adam and other stories (40 page)

As we stared at
one another with haggard eyes. Captain Morris unexpectedly ordered the fires to
be lighted. What notion was he giving way to? I still ask myself that; but the
order was obeyed; the speed of our vessel increased...

Two days later we
were suffering cruelly from hunger. After another two days, almost everyone
obstinately refused to leave his bunk; there was only the captain, Simonat, a
few members of the crew, and myself, with enough energy to keep the ship on
course.

The next day, the
fifth of our fast, the number of well-disposed steersmen and stokers had
decreased still further. Another twenty-four hours and none of us would have
the strength to stand.

We had then been
travelling for more than seven months. For more than seven months we had been
furrowing the sea in every direction. I think it must have been January 8th – I
say ‘I think’ for I cannot possibly be more precise, for by now the calendar
had lost much of its meaning for us.

And it was on
that day, while I was at the wheel and devoting all my flagging attention to
the compass, that I seemed to make out something towards the west. Thinking
that I was the plaything of some error, I stared...

No, I was not
mistaken!

I gave a
veritable roar, then, hanging on to the wheel, I shouted at the top of my
voice:

‘Land on the starboard
bow!’

What a magic
effect those words had! All those dying men revived at once, and their haggard
faces lined the starboard rail.

‘Yes, land it is,’
said Captain Morris, after scrutinising the cloud rising above the horizon.

Half an hour
later, it was impossible to feel the slightest doubt. It was certainly land
which, after seeking it in vain all over the former continents, we had found in
the midst of the Atlantic Ocean!

About three in
the afternoon we could make out the details of the coast which barred our way,
and we sank back into despair. In very truth this shore was unlike any other,
and not one of us could remember ever seeing a coast so completely, so
absolutely wild.

In the countries
where we had lived before the disaster, green had always been the most abundant
colour. Not one of us had ever known a coast so forsaken, a country so arid,
that we could not find upon it a few shrubs, even if only a few tufts of gorse,
or a few trails of lichen or moss. Here, nothing of the sort. All we could
distinguish was a tall blackish cliff, at whose foot lay a chaos of rocks,
without a plant, without a solitary blade of grass. It was the most complete,
the most total, desolation that one could imagine.

For two days we
coasted that abrupt cliff without finding the smallest gap. It was only towards
the evening of the second day that we discovered a large bay. well sheltered
against the winds of the open sea, in whose depths we let fall the anchor.

After reaching
land in our boats, our first care was to collect some food from the shore,
which was covered with turtles by the hundred and shell-fish by the million. In
the crevices of the rocks we found fabulous quantities of crabs and lobsters,
to say nothing of innumerable fish. To all appearances this sea was so richly
inhabited that, failing any other resources, it would suffice to assure our
subsistence for an indefinite time.

When we were
restored, a gap in the cliff enabled us to reach the plateau, which we found to
cover a wide expanse. The appearance of the coast had not deceived us: on all
sides, in every direction, there was nothing but arid rocks, covered with
seaweed and wrack – most of it dried up – without the smallest blade of grass,
with no living thing either on the ground or in the sky. Here and there were
tiny lakes, or rather ponds, gleaming in the sunshine, but when we sought to
quench our thirst, we realised that they were salt.

To tell the
truth, this did not surprise us. It confirmed what we had thought right from
the outset, that this unknown continent was born yesterday and had risen, in
one solid mass, from the depths of the sea. This explained both its aridity and
its utter loneliness. It moreover explained this thick layer of mud, uniformly
spread, which as the result of evaporation was beginning to crack and to fall
into dust.

Next day, at
noon, our bearings showed 17° 20’ north latitude and 23° 55’ west longitude. On
consulting the map, we found that this was right in the open sea, nearly on a
level with Cape Verde. And yet towards the west the land, and towards the east
the sea, now extended out of sight.

However repulsive
and inhospitable was this continent upon which we had set foot, we should have
to be satisfied with it. For this reason the unloading of the
Virginia
was begun without further delay. We carried on to the plateau, at random,
everything she contained. First, however, the ship had been securely moored
with four anchors, in fifteen fathoms of water. In this quiet bay she was in no
danger, and we could quite safely leave her to herself.

As soon as the unloading was complete,
our new life began. In the first place we had to...

When he reached this point in his translation Zartog Sofr had to pause.
In this place the manuscript had the first of its
lacunae
;
this seemed to involve a large number of pages, and it was followed by several
others which to all appearances were larger still. No doubt, in spite of the
protection given by the case, many of the sheets had been attacked by damp;
there remained only a few more or less lengthy fragments, their context having
been destroyed. They were in the following order:

... beginning to
get acclimatised.

How long is it
since we landed on this coast? I no longer know. I asked Dr Moreno, who keeps a
calendar of the days as they flow by. He told me: ‘Six months... " Then he
added, ‘Within a few days,’ for fear of being mistaken.

So there we are
already! It’s only needed six months for us not to be sure of keeping an exact
count of time. That promises well!

But on the whole
there is nothing surprising in our negligence. It takes all our attention, all
our efforts, to keep ourselves alive. To feed ourselves is a problem whose
solution takes the whole day. What do we eat? Fish, when we can find any, and
every day that gets harder, for our ceaseless hunt is scaring them. We also eat
turtles’ eggs and a few edible seaweeds. By evening we have fed, but we are
exhausted, and all we think about is sleep.

We have
improvised some tents out of the
Virginia’s
sails. I expect that soon
we’ll have to build some better shelter.

Sometimes we
shoot a bird; the air is not so completely deserted as we had thought, and a
dozen known species are represented on his new continent. They are one and all
migratory birds: the swallow, albatross, and so forth. Presumably they can find
no food on this land, devoid of vegetation as it is, for they never stop flying
round our camp, and this helps to eke out our wretched meals. Sometimes we are
able to pick up one that has died of hunger, which saves our powder and shot.

Fortunately,
however, there is a possibility that our situation will become less wretched.
We have found a sack of wheat in the
Virginia’s
hold, and we sowed half
of it. That will help us greatly when the wheat grows. But will it sprout? The
ground is covered with a thick sheet of alluvium, a sandy mud enriched by the decomposition
of the seaweeds; poor though its quality may be, it is soil all the same. When
we landed it was impregnated with salt; but since then torrential rains have
washed copiously
over the surface, and all the depressions are now full
of fresh water.

Yet the alluvial
layer has been freed from its salt only on its surface; the streams and the
very rivers which are beginning to form are all strongly brackish, and this
shows that its depths are still saturated.

To sow the corn and keep the other half
of it in reserve, we almost had to fight. Some of the
Virginia’s
crew
wanted to make all of it into bread at once. We have had to...

... that we had on board the
Virginia.
The two pairs of rabbits have run off into the interior and we haven’t seen
them since. I suppose they’ve found something to live on. Then does the land,
unknown to us. produce...

... two years, at
least, that we’ve been here!... The wheat has grown splendidly. We have almost
as much bread as we want, and our fields are alwaysgetting wider. But what a
struggle against the birds! They have multiplied amazingly, and all around our
crops...

In spite of the deaths I mentioned, our
little tribe is no smaller. On the contrary. My son and my ward have three
children, and each of the three other households likewise. All these kids are
in radiant health. Presumably the human species has a greater vigour, a more
intense vitality, now that it is so much less numerous. But what causes...

... here for ten
years, and we knew nothing about this continent. All we had seen of it was a
distance of several miles round our camp. It was Dr Bathurst who made us
ashamed of our weakness: at his suggestion we got the
Virginia
into
service, which took nearly six months, and made a voyage of exploration.

We got back the
day before yesterday. The voyage lasted longer than we thought, because we
wanted to carry it out thoroughly.

We went all round
this continent which, everything makes us think, must be, with our islet, the
only stretch of solid land that now exists on the earth’s surface. Its shores
seemed much the same everywhere, very craggy and very wild.

Our voyage was
interrupted by several excursions into the interior; we especially hoped to
find traces of the Azores and Madeira – situated, before the cataclysm, in the
Atlantic Ocean, which certainly ought to make them a part of the new continent.
– We could not recognise even the smallest vestige of them. All that we could
find is that everywhere round their position the ground is upheaved and covered
with a thick layer of lava; no doubt they were the centre of some great
volcanic eruption.

Yet, if we failed
to find what we were looking for, we found something we were not looking for at
all! Half buried in the lava, in the latitude of the Azores, some evidences of
human handiwork caught our eye – but not the handiwork of the inhabitants of
these islands, our contemporaries of yesteryear. These were the remains of some
columns and pottery, such as none of us had ever seen before. After studying
them, Dr Moreno put forward the theory that these remains must have come from
ancient Atlantis, and that it was the volcanic flow that restored them to the
light of day.

Dr Moreno may be
right. If it ever existed, the legendary Atlantis must certainly have been
somewhere near the new continent. If so it is certainly very strange that three
different races of man have followed one another in the same region.

However this may
be, I declare that the problem leaves me cold: we have plenty to keep us busy
in the present, without worrying about the past.

As soon as we got
back to our camp, it struck us that, compared with the rest of the country, the
region we occupied seems much favoured. This is due solely to the fact that the
colour green, formerly so abundant in nature, is not completely unknown here,
while it seems to have been radically suppressed elsewhere in the continent. We
had not noticed this before, but it cannot be denied. Some blades of grass,
which never existed at all before we landed, are now growing around us in
fairly large numbers. They belong only to a few of the most common species,
whose seeds were doubtless brought here by the birds.

It must not be
inferred, however, that except for these familiar species there is no
vegetation. Through the strangest work of adaptation, on the other hand, a
vegetation in at least a rudimentary and promising state exists all over the
continent.

The marine plants
which covered it when it emerged from the waves have mostly died in the
sunlight. A few, however, persisted in the lakes, the ponds, and the puddles of
water which the heat has gradually dried up. But at that time rivers and
rivulets began to flow, and these were the more suited for the existence of
wracks and seaweeds in that their waters were salt. When the surface, and then
the depths, of the soil were deprived of their salt, and the water became
fresh, most of these plants were destroyed.

A few, however,
able to adapt themselves to the new living conditions, flourished in the fresh
water just as they had in the salt. But the process did not stop there: a few
of these plants, gifted with an even greater power of accommodation, adapted
themselves first to fresh water and then to the open air. At first along the
banks and then further and further away from them they have spread into the
interior.

We surprised this
transformation in the very act, and we can see how their structures are getting
modified along with their physiological functions. Already a few stems are rising
timidly towards the sky. We can foresee that one day a flora of great variety
will thus be created and that a fierce struggle will begin between these new
species and those surviving from the ancient order of things.

What is true of the flora is true also of
the fauna. Along the watercourses we can see the former marine animals, mostly
molluscs and crustaceans, in process of becoming terrestrial. The air is
furrowed by flying fish, birds rather than fish, their wings having enlarged
beyond all reason and their incurved tails allowing them to...