The Mysterious Island (43 page)

"Wolves, jaguars, or apes?" replied Neb.

"They have nearly reached the plateau," said the reporter.

"And our poultry-yard," exclaimed Herbert, "and our garden!"

"Where can they have crossed?" asked Pencroft.

"They must have crossed the bridge on the shore," replied the engineer,
"which one of us must have forgotten to close."

"True," said Spilett, "I remember having left it open."

"A fine job you have made of it, Mr. Spilett," cried the sailor.

"What is done cannot be undone," replied Cyrus Harding. "We must consult
what it will now be best to do."

Such were the questions and answers which were rapidly exchanged between
Harding and his companions. It was certain that the bridge had been
crossed, that the shore had been invaded by animals, and that whatever
they might be they could by ascending the left bank of the Mercy reach
Prospect Heights. They must therefore be advanced against quickly and
fought with if necessary.

"But what are these beasts?" was asked a second time, as the yelpings
were again heard more loudly than before. These yelps made Herbert
start, and he remembered having heard them before during his first visit
to the sources of the Red Creek.

"They are colpeo foxes!" he exclaimed.

"Forward!" shouted the sailor.

And all arming themselves with hatchets, carbines, and revolvers, threw
themselves into the lift and soon set foot on the shore.

Colpeos are dangerous animals when in great numbers and irritated by
hunger, nevertheless the colonists did not hesitate to throw themselves
into the midst of the troop, and their first shots vividly lighting up
the darkness made their assailants draw back.

The chief thing was to hinder these plunderers from reaching the
plateau, for the garden and the poultry-yard would then have been at
their mercy, and immense, perhaps irreparable mischief, would inevitably
be the result, especially with regard to the corn-field. But as the
invasion of the plateau could only be made by the left bank of the
Mercy, it was sufficient to oppose the colpeos on the narrow bank
between the river and the cliff of granite.

This was plain to all, and, by Cyrus Harding's orders, they reached the
spot indicated by him, while the colpeos rushed fiercely through
the gloom. Harding, Gideon Spilett, Herbert, Pencroft and Neb posted
themselves in impregnable line. Top, his formidable jaws open, preceded
the colonists, and he was followed by Jup, armed with knotty cudgel,
which he brandished like a club.

The night was extremely dark, it was only by the flashes from the
revolvers as each person fired that they could see their assailants, who
were at least a hundred in number, and whose eyes were glowing like hot
coals.

"They must not pass!" shouted Pencroft.

"They shall not pass!" returned the engineer.

But if they did not pass it was not for want of having attempted it.
Those in the rear pushed on the foremost assailants, and it was an
incessant struggle with revolvers and hatchets. Several colpeos already
lay dead on the ground, but their number did not appear to diminish,
and it might have been supposed that reinforcements were continually
arriving over the bridge.

The colonists were soon obliged to fight at close quarters, not without
receiving some wounds, though happily very slight ones. Herbert had,
with a shot from his revolver, rescued Neb, on whose back a colpeo had
sprung like a tiger cat. Top fought with actual fury, flying at the
throats of the foxes and strangling them instantaneously. Jup wielded
his weapon valiantly, and it was in vain that they endeavored to keep
him in the rear. Endowed doubtless with sight which enabled him to
pierce the obscurity, he was always in the thick of the fight uttering
from time to time—a sharp hissing sound, which was with him the sign of
great rejoicing.

At one moment he advanced so far, that by the light from a revolver
he was seen surrounded by five or six large colpeos, with whom he was
coping with great coolness.

However, the struggle was ended at last, and victory was on the side
of the settlers, but not until they had fought for two long hours! The
first signs of the approach of day doubtless determined the retreat of
their assailants, who scampered away towards the North, passing over the
bridge, which Neb ran immediately to raise. When day had sufficiently
lighted up the field of battle, the settlers counted as many as fifty
dead bodies scattered about on the shore.

"And Jup!" cried Pencroft; "where is Jup?" Jup had disappeared. His
friend Neb called him, and for the first time Jup did not reply to his
friend's call.

Everyone set out in search of Jup, trembling lest he should be found
among the slain; they cleared the place of the bodies which stained the
snow with their blood. Jup was found in the midst of a heap of colpeos
whose broken jaws and crushed bodies showed that they had to do with the
terrible club of the intrepid animal.

Poor Jup still held in his hand the stump of his broken cudgel, but
deprived of his weapon he had been overpowered by numbers, and his chest
was covered with severe wounds.

"He is living," cried Neb, who was bending over him.

"And we will save him," replied the sailor. "We will nurse him as if he
was one of ourselves."

It appeared as if Jup understood, for he leaned his head on Pencroft's
shoulder as if to thank him. The sailor was wounded himself, but his
wound was insignificant, as were those of his companions; for thanks to
their firearms they had been almost always able to keep their assailants
at a distance. It was therefore only the orang whose condition was
serious.

Jup, carried by Neb and Pencroft, was placed in the lift, and only a
slight moan now and then escaped his lips. He was gently drawn up to
Granite House. There he was laid on a mattress taken from one of the
beds, and his wounds were bathed with the greatest care. It did not
appear that any vital part had been reached, but Jup was very weak from
loss of blood, and a high fever soon set in after his wounds had been
dressed. He was laid down, strict diet was imposed, "just like a real
person," as Neb said, and they made him swallow several cups of
a cooling drink, for which the ingredients were supplied from the
vegetable medicine chest of Granite House. Jup was at first restless,
but his breathing gradually became more regular, and he was left
sleeping quietly. From time to time Top, walking on tip-toe, as one
might say, came to visit his friend, and seemed to approve of all the
care that had been taken of him. One of Jup's hands hung over the side
of his bed, and Top licked it with a sympathizing air.

They employed the day in interring the dead, who were dragged to the
forest of the Far West, and there buried deep.

This attack, which might have had such serious consequences, was a
lesson to the settlers, who from this time never went to bed until one
of their number had made sure that all the bridges were raised, and that
no invasion was possible.

However, Jup, after having given them serious anxiety for several
days, began to recover. His constitution brought him through, the fever
gradually subsided, and Gideon Spilett, who was a bit of a doctor,
pronounced him quite out of danger. On the 16th of August, Jup began to
eat. Neb made him nice little sweet dishes, which the invalid devoured
with great relish, for if he had a pet failing it was that of being
somewhat of a gourmend, and Neb had never done anything to cure him of
this fault.

"What would you have?" said he to Gideon Spilett, who sometimes
expostulated with him for spoiling the ape. "Poor Jup has no other
pleasure than that of the palate, and I am only too glad to be able to
reward his services in this way!"

Ten days after taking to his bed, on the 21st of August, Master Jup
arose. His wounds were healed, and it was evident that he would not
be long in regaining his usual strength and agility. Like all
convalescents, he was tremendously hungry, and the reporter allowed him
to eat as much as he liked, for he trusted to that instinct, which
is too often wanting in reasoning beings, to keep the orang from any
excess. Neb was delighted to see his pupil's appetite returning.

"Eat away, my Jup," said he, "and don't spare anything; you have shed
your blood for us, and it is the least I can do to make you strong
again!"

On the 25th of August Neb's voice was heard calling to his companions.

"Captain, Mr. Spilett, Mr. Herbert, Pencroft, come! come!"

The colonists, who were together in the dining-room, rose at Neb's call,
who was then in Jup's room.

"What's the matter?" asked the reporter.

"Look," replied Neb, with a shout of laughter. And what did they see?
Master Jup smoking calmly and seriously, sitting crosslegged like a Turk
at the entrance to Granite House!

"My pipe," cried Pencroft. "He has taken my pipe! Hello, my honest Jup,
I make you a present of it! Smoke away, old boy, smoke away!"

And Jup gravely puffed out clouds of smoke which seemed to give him
great satisfaction. Harding did not appear to be much astonished at this
incident, and he cited several examples of tame apes, to whom the use of
tobacco had become quite familiar.

But from this day Master Jup had a pipe of his own, the sailor's
ex-pipe, which was hung in his room near his store of tobacco. He filled
it himself, lighted it with a glowing coal, and appeared to be
the happiest of quadrumana. It may readily be understood that this
similarity of tastes of Jup and Pencroft served to tighten the bonds of
friendship which already existed between the honest ape and the worthy
sailor.

"Perhaps he is really a man," said Pencroft sometimes to Neb. "Should
you be surprised to hear him beginning to speak to us some day?"

"My word, no," replied Neb. "What astonishes me is that he hasn't spoken
to us before, for now he wants nothing but speech!"

"It would amuse me all the same," resumed the sailor, "if some fine day
he said to me, 'Suppose we change pipes, Pencroft.'"

"Yes," replied Neb, "what a pity he was born dumb!"

With the month of September the winter ended, and the works were again
eagerly commenced. The building of the vessel advanced rapidly, she was
already completely decked over, and all the inside parts of the hull
were firmly united with ribs bent by means of steam, which answered all
the purposes of a mold.

As there was no want of wood, Pencroft proposed to the engineer to give
a double lining to the hull, to insure the strength of the vessel.

Harding, not knowing what the future might have in store for them,
approved the sailor's idea of making the craft as strong as possible.
The interior and deck of the vessel was entirely finished towards the
15th of September. For calking the seams they made oakum of dry seaweed,
which was hammered in between the planks; then these seams were covered
with boiling tar, which was obtained in great abundance from the pines
in the forest.

The management of the vessel was very simple. She had from the first
been ballasted with heavy blocks of granite walled up, in a bed of lime,
twelve thousand pounds of which they stowed away.

A deck was placed over this ballast, and the interior was divided into
two cabins; two benches extended along them and served also as lockers.
The foot of the mast supported the partition which separated the two
cabins, which were reached by two hatchways let into the deck.

Pencroft had no trouble in finding a tree suitable for the mast. He
chose a straight young fir, with no knots, and which he had only to
square at the step, and round off at the top. The ironwork of the mast,
the rudder and the hull had been roughly but strongly forged at the
Chimneys. Lastly, yards, masts, boom, spars, oars, etc., were all
furnished by the first week in October, and it was agreed that a trial
trip should be taken round the island, so as to ascertain how the vessel
would behave at sea, and how far they might depend upon her.

During all this time the necessary works had not been neglected.
The corral was enlarged, for the flock of musmons and goats had been
increased by a number of young ones, who had to be housed and fed. The
colonists had paid visits also to the oyster bed, the warren, the coal
and iron mines, and to the till then unexplored districts of the Far
West forest, which abounded in game. Certain indigenous plants were
discovered, and those fit for immediate use contributed to vary the
vegetable stores of Granite House.

They were a species of ficoide, some similar to those of the Cape, with
eatable fleshy leaves, others bearing seeds containing a sort of flour.

On the 10th of October the vessel was launched. Pencroft was radiant
with joy, the operation was perfectly successful; the boat completely
rigged, having been pushed on rollers to the water's edge, was floated
by the rising tide, amid the cheers of the colonists, particularly of
Pencroft, who showed no modesty on this occasion. Besides his importance
was to last beyond the finishing of the vessel, since, after having
built her, he was to command her. The grade of captain was bestowed upon
him with the approbation of all. To satisfy Captain Pencroft, it was now
necessary to give a name to the vessel, and, after many propositions had
been discussed, the votes were all in favor of the "Bonadventure." As
soon as the "Bonadventure" had been lifted by the rising tide, it was
seen that she lay evenly in the water, and would be easily navigated.
However, the trial trip was to be made that very day, by an excursion
off the coast. The weather was fine, the breeze fresh, and the sea
smooth, especially towards the south coast, for the wind was blowing
from the northwest.

"All hands on board," shouted Pencroft; but breakfast was first
necessary, and it was thought best to take provisions on board, in the
event of their excursion being prolonged until the evening.