Imagine their disappointment when, after about two miles, they found themselves once again stopped by the sea on a high bluff of slippery rocks.
“We’re on a small island,” said Pencroff, “and we’ve surveyed it from one end to the other.”
The sailor was right. The castaways had been thrown not on a continent, not even on an island, but on an tiny islet that did not measure more than two miles in length and much less in width.
But was this barren, rock-strewn islet merely the desolate refuge for a few sea birds or part of an important archipelago? They could not say. When the balloon passengers were in the basket, they could see land only indistinctly through the fog. They were not able to judge its size. However, Pencroff, whose sailor’s eyes were accustomed to piercing through the gloom, believed that he could see several indistinct masses in the west which could be a high coastline.
But in the darkness they could not decide whether or not the islet was part of a larger system of islands. They could not leave the islet because the sea surrounded them. They were forced to delay until the next day their search for the engineer who had not signaled his presence by any cry.
“Cyrus’s silence proves nothing,” said the reporter. “He may have fainted or might be injured and in no condition to respond. We must not give in to despair.”
The reporter then had the idea of lighting a fire at the point of the islet to serve as a signal to the engineer. They looked in vain for dry wood or brushwood, but found only sand and stones, nothing else.
One can understand the grief of Neb and his companions who were keenly attached to the intrepid Cyrus Smith. It was quite evident that they were powerless to help him. They had to wait for daylight. Either the engineer had been able to save himself and had already found refuge at some point on the coast, or he was lost forever!
These were long and painful hours. The cold was sharp. The castaways suffered cruelly but they scarcely felt it. It did not occur to them for a moment to rest. Forgetting themselves for the sake of their leader, hoping, always wanting to hope, they went back and forth across the barren islet, always coming back to its north point, closest to the place of the catastrophe. They shouted, listened, and tried to detect some feeble answer. Their voices must have carried far since the weather was calm and the noise of the sea began to diminish with the size of the swells.
One of Neb’s cries even seemed, for a moment, to produce an echo. Harbert brought this to Pencroff’s attention, adding:
“This proves that there is a shoreline not too far to the west.”
The sailor made an affirmative sign. Besides, his eyes could not deceive him. If he had distinguished land however faintly, it was because land was there.
But this remote echo was the only response provoked by Neb’s shouts, and all else on the eastern part of the islet remained silent.
Little by little the sky cleared. Toward midnight, some stars began to appear and, if the engineer had been with them at that moment, he would have remarked that these stars were no longer those of the northern hemisphere. In fact, the pole star did not appear above this new horizon, and the polar constellations were no longer those usually observed in North America. It was the Southern Cross which was shining at the south pole of the sky.
Night passed. About five o’clock in the morning, the 25th of March, the upper levels of the sky began to change color slightly. The horizon was still dark but, with the first light of day, an opaque fog rose from the sea and reduced visibility to no more than about twenty feet. Large and heavy wreaths of fog rolled in.
It was a serious setback. The castaways could not distinguish anything around them. While Neb and the reporter looked toward the ocean, the sailor and Harbert searched for a coastline in the west, but not a bit of land was visible.
“No matter,” said Pencroff, “if I don’t see the coastline, I can feel it … It is there … there … just as surely as we are no longer in Richmond.”
But the fog, only a fine haze, soon lifted. A warm sun heated its upper layers, and this heat filtered down to the surface of the islet.
At about half past six, three quarters of an hour after sunrise, the fog became more transparent. It persisted above but dissipated below. Soon the entire islet appeared as if it had dropped from a cloud. The sea encircling them could now be seen, infinite in the east but bounded by a high and abrupt coast in the west.
Yes! Land was there. Their safety was at least provisionally assured. Between the islet and the coast, separated by an open channel a half mile wide, a rapid current flowed noisily.
One of the castaways, following his heart, immediately threw himself into the current, without asking the opinions of his companions and without saying a single word. It was Neb. He was in a hurry to be on this coast and to rush northward. No one could hold him back. Pencroff called to him but in vain. The reporter was inclined to follow Neb.
Pencroff then went to him:
“Do you want to cross this channel?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Gideon Spilett.
“Well then listen,” the sailor said, “Neb will be able to bring help to his master. If we throw ourselves into this channel, we’ll risk being carried out to sea by its extremely violent current. If I’m not mistaken, it’s ebb tide. The sea is going down on the beach. Let’s have patience. At low tide, it’s possible we’ll find a fordable passage …”
“You’re right,” replied the reporter. “Let’s not split up any more than we have to …”
During this time, Neb was struggling against the current. He crossed it at an angle. They saw his black shoulders emerge at each stroke. He was swept on at an extreme speed but he also got closer to the shore. It took him a half hour to cross the half mile that separated the islet from the mainland and he reached the opposite shore several thousand feet downstream from the point on the islet where he had started.
Neb set foot at the base of a high granite wall and shook himself vigorously. Then, running, he soon disappeared behind a pile of rocks that extended into the sea.
Neb’s companions anxiously followed his daring efforts. When he was out of sight, they turned their attention to this land on which they would be taking refuge, while eating some shellfish which were scattered on the sand. It was a meager meal but it was something.
The opposite coast formed a vast bay, terminated in the south by a very sharp point which was devoid of all vegetation and had a very bleak appearance. This point was joined to the shore by uneven ground and was abutted by high granite rocks. Toward the north, on the other hand, a wide bay formed a more rounded coast, running from southwest to northeast and ending with a sharp cape. Between these two extreme points of the bay’s arc, the distance was perhaps eight miles. A half mile from shore, the islet occupied a narrow strip of the sea and, although larger in scale, resembled the body of an enormous whale. Its width even at its greatest point was not more than a quarter of a mile.
Facing the islet, the shoreline opposite them was composed of sand scattered with blackish rocks which were reappearing little by little with the ebbing tide. Behind that was a sort of smooth granite facade crowned by a capricious ridge at a height of 300 feet. It ran for three miles and ended abruptly on the right with a slanted corner that one would think was made by the hand of man. On the left, in contrast, beyond the promontory, this irregular cliff broke into jagged fragments of conglomerate rocks, sloping downward by an elongated slope which gradually blended in with the rocks at the southern point.
There was