by Jules Verne
Already he had drawn his glasses from their case, and was observing the forests that stretched out of sight towards the east.
There was the same panorama of verdure and sky as Briant had observed from the summit of the cape, not so extended, though, for the cliff was some hundred feet lower.
‘Well?’ asked Wilcox. ‘Do you see nothing?’
‘Nothing!’ answered Donagan.
‘Let me have a look,’ said Wilcox.
Donagan held out the glasses to his companion, not without evident satisfaction.
‘I do not see the least line of water,’ said Wilcox, lowering the glasses.
‘That is good enough,’ said Donagan, ‘to prove that there is none. You can look, Briant, and I think you will acknowledge your mistake.’
‘I do not care to do so,’ answered Briant. ‘I know I have made no mistake.’
‘That is rather strong!’
‘Not in the least. The cliff is lower than the cape, and the range of view is less. If we were as high as I was, the blue line would be seen six or seven miles off. You would then see it where I did, and you would see it was impossible to mistake it for a bank of cloud.’
‘It is easy to say that,’ said Wilcox.
‘And just as easy to prove,’ answered Briant. ‘Let us cross this flat and get through the forest and keep on till we get there.’
‘That is good,’ said Donagan. ‘We shall have to go rather far, and I am not sure that it is worth the trouble.
‘Stay here then, Donagan,’ said Briant. ‘Service and I will go on alone.’
‘We’ll go too,’ said Wilcox. ‘Come on, Donagan!’
‘Not till we have had something to eat.’ answered Service.
The necessity of this was acknowledged, and after half an hour the march was resumed.
The first mile was soon accomplished. The grassy soil presented no obstacle. Here and there a few mosses and lichens covered a few rocky mounds. An occasional clump of shrubs dotted the ground, a few tree-ferns or club mosses, heaths, hollies, or clumps of berberis with leathery leaves that will flourish even in the highest latitudes.
When Briant and his comrades had crossed the upper plateau, they found the descent on the other side of the cliff as high and perpendicular as that towards the sea. Had it not been for the bed of a half-dry torrent down which they made their way with difficulty, they would have had to keep on up to the cape.
When the forest was reached, the road became more difficult. Fallen trees obstructed the path, and the underwood was so thick that it had at times to be cut through. And the boys had to use their axes like the pioneers through the forests of the New World. This meant a stoppage almost every moment. Arms got more tired than legs, and owing to the delay not more than three or four miles had been accomplished when evening began to close in.
It certainly seemed as though no human beings had been through this forest before. At any rate they had left no trace of their passage. The trees had been felled by storms or old age, and not by the hand of man. Here and there through the thicket were signs of the recent passage of some small-sized animals, and the animals were caught sight of occasionally, without its being possible to recognize the species to which they belonged.
Donagan’s hand often itched to seize his gun and fire at these timorous quadrupeds, but common sense coming to the rescue, Briant had only to intervene to prevent his companion committing the imprudence of revealing their presence by the report of firearms. But although Donagan understood he must keep his favourite weapon silent, it was necessary to speak to him pretty often. At every step there flew up partridges of the tinamou species, which have very delicate flesh, or else the birds known as martinettes, besides thrushes, wild geese, and grouse, and numbers of other birds that could have been knocked down in hundreds. If the boys had to stop in this place the gun would procure them abundant food. This Donagan could not but admit, as he resolved to make up later on for the reserve circumstances now imposed upon him.
The forest chiefly consisted of birch and beech-trees, which developed their tender green foliage up to a hundred feet from the ground. Among the other trees were well-grown cypresses, myrtaceæ with reddish wood, and magnificent groups of ‘winters’ with their bark throwing off an aroma like that of cinnamon.
At two o’clock a second halt was made in a little clearing, through which ran a shallow stream—such a stream as would have been called a creek in North America. The waters of the creek were of perfect limpidity, and flowed, gently over the bed of blackish rocks. To look at its peaceful shallow current, cumbered with no deadwood or drifting bushes, no one would believe that its rise was far away. Nothing was easier than to cross it by the stones scattered in its bed. And in one place some flat stones lay so symmetrically as to attract attention.
‘That is strange!’ said Donagan.
It looked as though a causeway had been laid from one bank to the other.
‘You might call it a dam!’ said Service, beginning to cross it.
‘Wait! wait!’ said Briant. ‘We must have a look at these stones.’
‘They could not have put themselves there,’ said Wilcox.
‘No,’ said Briant ‘It looks as though some one had been making a path across the stream. Let us get nearer!’
They examined every stone of this curious pathway, which projected only a few inches above the stream, and would be covered in the rainy season. But could they say that the hand of man had put these stones in the creek? No! It was more likely that the stones had been brought down by the floods, and gradually piled up to form the dam. And this was the explanation adopted by Briant and his companion after a minute examination.
Neither the left nor right bank showed traces of footsteps, and there was nothing to prove that man had ever set foot on the gap in the forest.
The creek flowed away towards the north-east. Did it then throw itself into the sea, which Briant affirmed he had seen from the cape?
‘At least,’ said Donagan, ‘it may be the tributary of a river which flows towards the west.’
‘We shall see in time’ said Briant not caring to reopen the discussion. ‘But so long as it runs to the east we may as well follow it, if it does not wind too much.’
Crossing the creek by the dam the four boys set out on their road. It was easy to follow the bank except here and there where an occasional clump of trees ran their roots down into the water, while their branches met overhead and extended from bank to bank. Although the creek made an elbow now and then, yet its general direction was shown by the compass to be towards the east. But its mouth ought to be a long way off, for the stream did not gain in quickness nor did the bed become wider.
About half-past five Briant and Donagan were forced to agree that the creek’s course had undoubtedly turned towards the north, and to follow it would take them out of their way too much. So they had to abandon it, and plunge eastward under the thick foliage of beech and birch.
At times so high was the underwood that in order not to lose one another they had to keep up a constant shouting.
They had been walking all day and there was nothing to indicate the proximity of a sheet of water. Briant began to get anxious. Had he been the sport of an illusion when he descried the horizon from the summit of the cape?
‘No! no!’ he repeated to himself, ‘I am not mistaken! It cannot be! It is not so!’
It was now seven o’clock in the evening and the edge of the forest had not been reached. Darkness was coming on; it would soon be too dark to move.
It was resolved to halt and pass the night beneath the shelter of the trees. With a good slice of corned beef there was no chance of starving; with good coverings they need not fear the cold. Besides, they might light a fire with some dead branches, if the precaution, excellent as it might be against animals, was not dangerous as attractive to such natives as might be prowling about ‘Better not run the risk of being seen,’ said Donagan. All agreed to this; and only supper was troubled
about. There was no lack of appetite, and after making a deep hole in the rations they had brought with them, they were about to make themselves comfortable at the foot of a gigantic birch when Service pointed out a thicket a few yards off. From it rose a moderately-sized tree whose lower branches bent till they touched the ground. There on a heap of dry leaves the four boys lay down and wrapped themselves well up. At their age sleep is not long in coming. And they were soon soundly off, while Fan, left to guard them, copied their example.
Once or twice, however, the dog heard a prolonged growling. Evidently there were some animals, tame or wild, prowling in the forest; but they did not come near the camp.
It was nearly seven o’clock when Briant and the others awoke. The oblique rays of the sun, piercing the thick mass of leafage, dimly lighted up the place where they had passed the night.
Service was the first to go out of the thicket. Immediately he began to shout, or rather to exclaim, —
‘Briant! Donagan! Wilcox! Come here!’
‘What is the matter?’ asked Briant.
‘Yes, what is the matter?’ asked Wilcox, who must always say something. ‘Service, you frightened us.’
‘All the better!’ answered Service. ‘Look here! See where we have been sleeping.’
It was not a thicket at all It was a cabin made of leaves, one of those huts the Indians call ‘ajoupas’, and which are formed by interlacing branches. The ajoupa was a very old one, for the roof and walls were only held up by the tree; and its style was the same as that in use among the natives of South America.
‘Then there are inhabitants?’ said Donagan, casting a rapid glance around him.
‘Or at least there have been,’ said Briant, ‘for this hut could not have made itself.’
‘That explains the causeway across the creek,’ said Wilcox.
‘Well,’ said Service, ‘if there are inhabitants, they are very good fellows to build this hut expressly for our use last night.’
In reality nothing was less certain than that these natives were good fellows. It was evident that they frequented, or had frequented this part of the forest at some period more or less remote. But they might be Indians if the land was joined to the continent or Polynesians, or even cannibals, if the land was an island of one of the archipelagoes of Oceania, and in that case the danger was great and more than ever was it important to solve the difficulty.
Briant was starting off when Donagan proposed to carefully examine this hut, which seemed to have been abandoned for a long time. They might find some utensil or instrument or tool, the origin of which they could recognize.
The heap of dry leaves was carefully pulled over, and in one corner Service found a fragment of burnt clay which might have been a bowl or a flask—just a trace of the work of man but that was all.
They therefore set out, and at half-past seven had fairly started, compass in hand, bearing due east, the ground sloping gradually as they went. For two hours they kept on, slowly, very slowly, through dense thickets of shrubs and small trees, and once or twice having to cut their way through with the axe.
A little before ten o’clock they caught sight of a horizon through the trees. Beyond the forest was a wide plain dotted with mastic-trees, thyme-bushes, and clumps of heath. Half a mile to the eastward it was bounded by a strip of sand, on which beat the surf of the sea seen by Briant, and which extended right up to the horizon.
Donagan said nothing. He was angry to find that his companion had not made a mistake.
And Briant said nothing. He did not wish to triumph over his friend.
And glass at his eyes he searched the view all round.
On the north the shore, now brightly lighted by the sun’s rays, seemed to curve off to the left. At the south it was the same, but the curve was sharper.
There could be no doubt any longer. It was not a continent, it was an island on which the schooner had been wrecked, and all hope would have to be given up of getting away from it except through help from without.
Beyond, there was no other land in sight. It seemed as though the island lay lost by itself in the immensity of the Pacific.
The four boys crossed the plain to the beach and halted at the foot of a sandhill. Their intention was to have lunch and then go back through the forest. If they made haste they might get back to the wreck before nightfall.
The meal was not a cheerful one. Hardly a word did they exchange.
At length Donagan picked up his bag and his gun, and said. —
‘Let us be off!’
And all four, giving a last look at the sea, were making a move, when Fan ran off along the beach.
‘Fan! Here! Fan!’ shouted Service.
But the dog continued to caper along the wet sand, and at last rushed into the sea, and began to drink.
‘She drinks! She drinks!’ exclaimed Donagan.
And in an instant he was by the side of the sea and drinking the water that Fan so much enjoyed.
It was fresh!
It was a lake stretching away to the eastern horizon. It was not the sea!
CHAPTER VIII—THE CAVE.
AND SO the important question on which the safety of the boys depended was still unsolved. That the imagined sea was a lake there could be no doubt But was it not possible that the lake was on an island? If the exploration were continued, would not there be a sea discovered beyond—a sea there was no way of crossing?
The lake was of considerable size, for it touched the horizon on three of its sides, as Donagan observed, and it certainly was more likely to be on a continent than on an island.
‘Then it must be the American continent on which we have been wrecked,’ said Briant.
‘I always thought so,’ said Donagan, ‘and it seems that I was not mistaken.’
‘Anyhow,’ said Briant, ‘it was a line of water I saw to the east.’
‘Yes, but it was not the sea.’
Donagan’s satisfaction with himself was obvious from this reply, which betrayed more vanity than good-nature. Briant said no more. For the common welfare it was better that he had been mistaken. On a continent they would not be imprisoned as they would be on an island. But they would have to wait for a favourable time before they started towards the east. The difficulties experienced in reaching the lake were as nothing to what might be expected by the whole party on a much longer journey. And it was already the beginning of April, and the southern winter is earlier than the northern. There could be no thought of setting out before the return of the fine weather.
But the position would soon be untenable in the bay, exposed as it was to the winds. Before the end of the month the schooner would have to be left. If no cavern could be found in the cliffs, would the boys be better off here by the lake? Would it not be as well to explore its neighbourhood more carefully? The exploration would delay their return for a day or two, and would give Gordon some anxiety, but Briant and Donagan did not hesitate. Their provisions would last another day, and there was no sign of a change of weather. So it was decided to go south by the side of the lake.
There was another motive for the exploration being extended.
Undoubtedly the district had been inhabited or rather frequented by man. The causeway in the creek and the hut were clear indications of man’s presence at a period more or less recent and yielded evidence it was advisable to complete before moving to new quarters for the winter. Perhaps other evidence might be found? If savages had not been here, some shipwrecked sailor might have stayed for a time, until he started on his way to the towns of the continent. Evidently it was well worth while exploring the district bordering on the lake.
There was only one question to be decided. Should Briant and Donagan go to the south or the north? But as to go southwards was to move nearer the wreck, that direction was decided on. It would be seen later on if it was advisable to go to the end of the lake.
It was about half-past eight when the four boys began their march, skirting the grassy sandhills that mammi
llated the plain, bounded on the west by the masses of greenery.
Fan hunted about in front and put up several flocks of tinamous that hastened to shelter under the lentisk bushes and ferns. Here and there rose clumps of a sort of red and white cranberry, and plants of wild celery. But the guns had to be kept silent, for it was possible that the environs of the lake were visited by savages.
In following the shore, sometimes at the foot of the sandhills, sometimes along the sand, the boys easily accomplished a dozen miles during the day. They found no trace of savages. No smoke rose from the trees. No footprints marked the sand, wet with the sheet of water that stretched away into the offing. Not a sail was to be seen on the horizon, not a boat on the surface. The lake was deserted. If the country had been inhabited, it did not seem to be so now.
Wild beasts or ruminants there were none. Two or three times in the afternoon a few birds appeared on the edge of the forest, but it was impossible to get at them.
Service exclaimed, —
‘They are ostriches.’
‘Very small ostriches, then,’ answered Donagan, ‘for they are not over tall.’
‘If they are ostriches,’ said Briant, ‘and if we are on a continent—’
‘Do you still doubt it?’ asked Donagan ironically.
‘It must be the American continent, where such animals are very abundant,’ continued Briant, ‘that is all I wished to say.’
About seven o’clock in the evening a halt was called. Next day, unless something happened, the journey would be resumed to the wreck. That evening it was not possible to go further to the southward. At the halting-place one of the rivers flowed out from the lake, and this would have to be crossed by swimming. Darkness was setting in and the country could be but imperfectly seen, but it appeared as though there was a cliff on the right bank of this watercourse.
Briant, Donagan, Wilcox, and Service, after supper had been despatched, thought only of a night’s rest, under the stars this time, no hut being discoverable. And the stars were bright and sparkled brilliantly, and the crescent moon moved slowly down to set in the Pacific. All was quiet on the lake and on the beach. The four lads, nestled between the enormous roots of a beech-tree, slept so soundly that even a thunderstorm would not have awakened them.
