Lastly, to the rear beyond the plateau, in a northwesterly direction and at a distance of at least seven miles, glittered a white peak reflecting the sun’s rays. It was a snowy cap crowning some distant mountain.
They could not say if the land formed an island or if it was part of a continent. But, looking at the twisted rocks piled up on the left, a geologist would not have hesitated to give them a volcanic origin, because they were incontestably the result of subterranean activity.
Gideon Spilett, Pencroff, and Harbert carefully observed this land on which they would perhaps spend many long years, or perhaps even die, if they were not on the shipping lanes.
“Well,” asked Harbert, “what do you say, Pencroff?”
“Well,” replied the sailor, “there is good here and bad, as in everything. We’ll see. Ebb tide is almost here. In three hours we’ll try to cross over and, once there, hope to find Mr. Smith!”
Pencroff was not wrong in his prediction. Three hours later, at low tide, most of the sand that formed the bed of the canal was uncovered. Between the shore and the islet there remained only a narrow channel which would be easy to cross.
About ten o’clock, Gideon Spilett and his two companions took off their clothing, placed them in bundles over their heads, and ventured into the channel whose depth was now no more than five feet. Harbert, for whom the water was too high, swam like a fish and managed wonderfully. All arrived without difficulty on the other side. The sun rapidly dried them, they put on their clothes which they had kept away from the water, and they discussed what they would do next.
*On the 5th of April, Richmond fell to Grant. The revolt of the rebels was suppressed, Lee withdrew to the west, and the cause of the American Union triumphed.
CHAPTER IV
The reporter told the sailor to wait for him in this very spot, and he headed down the beach in the direction Neb had gone several hours earlier. He rapidly disappeared behind a corner, so anxious was he for news about the engineer.
Harbert wanted to go with him.
“Stay here, my boy,” the sailor said. “We must prepare a camp and see if we can find something better to eat than shellfish. Our friends will need to recuperate on their return. Each to his task.”
“I’m ready, Pencroff,” replied Harbert.
“Good!” replied the sailor. “Let’s proceed methodically. We’re tired, cold and hungry. So we must find shelter, fire and food. The forest has wood, the nests have eggs; we still need to find a house.”
“Very well,” replied Harbert, “I’ll look for a cave among these rocks. I’m sure to find some hole that we can curl up in.”
“That’s the spirit,” replied Pencroff. “Let’s go, my boy.”
They both walked to the foot of the enormous wall on this beach left largely uncovered by the receding tide. But instead of going north, they went south. Several hundred feet from where they had landed, Pencroff saw that the beach was cut by a narrow opening which, in his opinion, could be the mouth of a river or a brook. Now, on the one hand, it was important to settle in an area with fresh water; on the other, it was not impossible that the current may have thrown Cyrus Smith on this side.
The cliff rose to a height of 300 feet but its face was solid throughout. Even at its base, barely washed by the sea, it did not show the smallest fissure which could serve as a temporary shelter. It was a perpendicular wall, made of a very hard granite, never eroded by the waves. Near the summit all kinds of sea birds fluttered about, various web-footed species with long pointed beaks who were squawking loudly. They were not afraid of the humans who, for the first time no doubt, were disturbing their solitude. Among these web-footers Pencroff recognized several skua, a sort of sea gull which is sometimes called Stercorarius and also the voracious little sea mews which nested in the crevices of the granite. A gunshot fired into this swarm of birds would have killed a great number. But to fire a gunshot, a gun was needed, and neither Pencroff nor Harbert had one. Besides, these sea mews and skua are only barely edible and even their eggs have a detestable taste.
Meanwhile Harbert, who had gone a little more to the left, saw some seaweed covered rocks which the high tide would cover again a few hours later. On these rocks, amid slippery seaweed, bivalve shellfish abounded which famished people could not refuse. Harbert called Pencroff, who quickly ran up.
“Ah! These are mussels!” shouted the sailor. “Here’s something to replace the eggs we don’t have!”
“They’re not mussels!” replied young Harbert, who carefully examined the mollusks attached to the rocks, “they’re lithodomes.”1
“Are they edible?” asked Pencroff.
“Are they edible?” asked Pencroff.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s eat lithodomes!”
The sailor could rely on Harbert. The young boy was very strong in natural history and had a veritable passion for this science. His father had encouraged him in this line by letting him take courses with the best professors in Boston who were fond of this intelligent and industrious lad. His instincts as a naturalist would afterwards be used more than once, and on this first occasion, they did not disappoint.
These lithodomes were oval shells, tightly attached in clusters to the rocks. They belonged to that species of molluscous perforators which bore holes in the hardest stones. Their shell is rounded at both ends, a feature not found in the ordinary mussel.
Pencroff and Harbert made a good meal of these lithodomes which were then half opened to the sun. They ate them like oysters, and found them to have a strong peppery taste which consoled them, since they had neither pepper nor any other condiment.
Their hunger was appeased for the moment, but not their thirst, which increased after they ate these naturally spiced mollusks. But it would be easy to find fresh water in such hilly terrain. Pencroff and Harbert filled their pockets and handkerchiefs with an ample supply of lithodomes and went back to the foot of the cliff. Two hundred feet further along, they arrived at an indentation in the coastline where, if Pencroff guessed correctly, a small river should be flowing. At this point, the wall appeared to have been separated by some violent subterranean 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