The Collected Works of Jules Verne: 36 Novels and Short Stories (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics)

by Jules Verne

  A quarter of an hour elapsed, and then came a respite. Had the wild beasts given up the attack which had cost the lives of so many amongst them? Were they waiting for the day to recommence the attempt under more favourable conditions?

  Whatever might be the reason, neither Godfrey nor Carefinotu desired to leave his post. The black had shown himself no less ready with the gun than Godfrey. If that was due only to the instinct of imitation, it must be admitted that it was indeed surprising.

  About two o'clock in the morning there came a new alarm--more furious than before. The danger was imminent, the position in the interior of Will Tree was becoming untenable. New growlings resounded round the foot of the sequoia. Neither Godfrey nor Carefinotu, on account of the situation of the windows, which were cut straight through, could see the assailants, nor, in consequence, could they fire with any chance of success.

  It was now the door which the beasts attacked, and it was only too evident that it would be beaten in by their weight or torn down by their claws.

  Godfrey and the black had descended to the ground. The door was already shaking beneath the blows from without. They could feel the heated breath making its way in through the cracks in the bark.

  Godfrey and Carefinotu attempted to prop back the door with the stakes which kept up the beds, but these proved quite useless.

  It was obvious that in a little while it would be driven in, for the beasts were mad with rage--particularly as no shots could reach them.

  Godfrey was powerless. If he and his companions were inside Will Tree when the assailants broke in, their weapons would be useless to protect them.

  Godfrey had crossed his arms. He saw the boards of the door open little by little. He could do nothing. In a moment of hesitation, he passed his hand across his forehead, as if in despair. But soon recovering his self-possession, he shouted,--

  "Up we go! Up! All of us!"

  And he pointed to the narrow passage which led up to the fork inside Will Tree.

  Carefinotu and he, taking their muskets and revolvers, supplied themselves with cartridges.

  And now he turned to make Tartlet follow them into these heights where he had never ventured before.

  Tartlet was no longer there. He had started up while his companions were firing.

  "Up!" repeated Godfrey.

  It was a last retreat, where they would assuredly be sheltered from the wild beasts. If any tiger or panther attempted to come up into the branches of the sequoia, it would be easy to defend the hole through which he would have to pass.

  Godfrey and Carefinotu had scarcely ascended thirty feet, when the roaring was heard in the interior of Will Tree. A few moments more and they would have been surprised. The door had just fallen in. They both hurried along, and at last reached the upper end of the hole.

  A scream of terror welcomed them. It was Tartlet, who imagined he saw a panther or tiger! The unfortunate professor was clasping a branch, frightened almost out of his life lest he should fall.

  Carefinotu went to him, and compelled him to lean against an upright bough, to which he firmly secured him with his belt.

  Then, while Godfrey selected a place whence he could command the opening, Carefinotu went to another spot whence he could deliver a cross fire.

  And they waited.

  Under these circumstances it certainly looked as though the besieged were safe from attack.

  Godfrey endeavoured to discover what was passing beneath them; but the night was still too dark. Then he tried to hear; and the growlings, which never ceased, showed that the assailants had no thought of abandoning the place.

  Suddenly, towards four o'clock in the morning, a great light appeared at the foot of the tree. At once it shot out through the door and windows. At the same time a thick smoke spread forth from the upper opening and lost itself in the higher branches.

  "What is that now?" exclaimed Godfrey.

  It was easily explained. The wild beasts, in ravaging the interior of Will Tree, had scattered the remains of the fire. The fire had spread to the things in the room. The flame had caught the bark, which had dried and become combustible. The gigantic sequoia was ablaze below.

  The position was now more terrible than it had ever been. By the light of the flames, which illuminated the space beneath the grove, they could see the wild beasts leaping round the foot of Will Tree.

  At the same instant, a fearful explosion occurred. The sequoia, violently wrenched, trembled from its roots to its summit.

  It was the reserve of gunpowder which had exploded inside Will Tree, and the air, violently expelled from the opening, rushed forth like the gas from a discharging cannon.

  Godfrey and Carefinotu were almost torn from their resting-places. Had Tartlet not been lashed to the branch, he would assuredly have been hurled to the ground.

  The wild beasts, terrified at the explosion, and more or less wounded, had taken to flight.

  But at the same time the conflagration, fed by the sudden combustion of the powder, had considerably extended. It swiftly grew in dimensions as it crept up the enormous stem.

  Large tongues of flame lapped the interior, and the highest soon reached the fork, and the dead wood snapped and crackled like shots from a revolver. A huge glare lighted up, not only the group of giant trees, but even the whole of the coast from Flag Point to the southern cape of Dream Bay.

  Soon the fire had reached the lower branches of the sequoia, and threatened to invade the spot where Godfrey and his companions had taken refuge. Were they then to be devoured by the flames, with which they could not battle, or had they but the last resource of throwing themselves to the ground to escape being burnt alive? In either case they must die!

  Godfrey sought about for some means of escape. He saw none!

  Already the lower branches were ablaze and a dense smoke was struggling with the first gleams of dawn which were rising in the east.

  At this moment there was a horrible crash of rending and breaking. The sequoia, burnt to the very roots, cracked violently--it toppled over--it fell!

  But as it fell the stem met the stems of the trees which environed it; their powerful branches were mingled with its own, and so it remained obliquely cradled at an angle of about forty-five degrees from the ground.

  At the moment that the sequoia fell, Godfrey and his companions believed themselves lost!

  "Nineteenth of January!" exclaimed a voice, which Godfrey, in spite of his astonishment, immediately recognized.

  It was Carefinotu! Yes, Carefinotu had just pronounced these words, and in that English language which up to then he had seemed unable to speak or to understand!

  "What did you say?" asked Godfrey, as he followed him along the branches.

  "I said, Mr. Morgan," answered Carefinotu, "that to-day your Uncle Will ought to reach us, and that if he doesn't turn up we are done for!"

  CHAPTER XXII.

  WHICH CONCLUDES BY EXPLAINING WHAT UP TO NOW HAD APPEARED INEXPLICABLE.

  At that instant, and before Godfrey could reply, the report of fire-arms was heard not far from Will Tree.

  At the same time one of those rain storms, regular cataracts in their fury, fell in a torrential shower just as the flames devouring the lower branches were threatening to seize upon the trees against which Will Tree was resting.

  What was Godfrey to think after this series of inexplicable events? Carefinotu speaking English like a cockney, calling him by his name, announcing the early arrival of Uncle Will, and then the sudden report of the fire-arms?

  He asked himself if he had gone mad; but he had no time for insoluble questions, for below him--hardly five minutes after the first sound of the guns--a body of sailors appeared hurrying through the trees.

  Godfrey and Carefinotu slipped down along the stem, the interior of which was still burning.

  But the moment that Godfrey touched the ground, he heard himself spoken to, and by two voices which even in his trouble it was impossible for him not to recognize.
/>   "Nephew Godfrey, I have the honour to salute you!"

  "Godfrey! Dear Godfrey!"

  "Uncle Will! Phina! You!" exclaimed Godfrey, astounded.

  Three seconds afterwards he was in somebody's arms, and was clasping that somebody in his own.

  At the same time two sailors, at the order of Captain Turcott who was in command, climbed up along the sequoia to set Tartlet free, and, with all due respect, pluck him from the branch as if he were a fruit.

  And then the questions, the answers, the explanations which passed!

  "Uncle Will! You?"

  "Yes! me!"

  "And how did you discover Phina Island?"

  "Phina Island!" answered William W. Kolderup. "You should say Spencer Island! Well, it wasn't very difficult. I bought it six months ago!"

  "Spencer Island!"

  "And you gave my name to it, you dear Godfrey!" said the young lady.

  "The new name is a good one, and we will keep to it," answered the uncle; "but for geographers this is Spencer Island, only three days' journey from San Francisco, on which I thought it would be a good plan for you to serve your apprenticeship to the Crusoe business!"

  "Oh! Uncle! Uncle Will! What is it you say?" exclaimed Godfrey. "Well, if you are in earnest, I can only answer that I deserved it! But then, Uncle Will, the wreck of the _Dream_?"

  "Sham!" replied William W. Kolderup, who had never seemed in such a good humour before. "The _Dream_ was quietly sunk by means of her water ballast, according to the instructions I had given Turcott. You thought she sank for good, but when the captain saw that you and Tartlet had got safely to land he brought her up and steamed away. Three days later he got back to San Francisco, and he it is who has brought us to Spencer Island on the date we fixed!"

  "Then none of the crew perished in the wreck?"

  "None--unless it was the unhappy Chinaman who hid himself away on board and could not be found!"

  "But the canoe?"

  "Sham! The canoe was of my own make."

  "But the savages?"

  "Sham! The savages whom luckily you did not shoot!"

  "But Carefinotu?"

  "Sham! Carefinotu was my faithful Jup Brass, who played his part of Friday marvellously well, as I see."

  "Yes," answered Godfrey. "He twice saved my life--once from a bear, once from a tiger--"

  "The bear was sham! the tiger was sham!" laughed William W. Kolderup. "Both of them were stuffed with straw, and landed before you saw them with Jup Brass and his companions!"

  "But he moved his head and his paws!"

  "By means of a spring which Jup Brass had fixed during the night a few hours before the meetings which were prepared for you."

  "What! all of them?" repeated Godfrey, a little ashamed at having been taken in by these artifices.

  "Yes! Things were going too smoothly in your island, and we had to get up a little excitement!"

  "Then," answered Godfrey, who had begun to laugh, "if you wished to make matters unpleasant for us, why did you send us the box which contained everything we wanted?"

  "A box?" answered William W. Kolderup. "What box? I never sent you a box! Perhaps by chance--"

  And as he said so he looked towards Phina, who cast down her eyes and turned away her head.

  "Oh! indeed!--a box! but then Phina must have had an accomplice--"

  And Uncle Will turned towards Captain Turcott, who laughingly answered,--

  "What could I do, Mr. Kolderup? I can sometimes resist you--but Miss Phina--it was too difficult! And four months ago, when you sent me to look round the island, I landed the box from my boat--"

  "Dearest Phina!" said Godfrey, seizing the young lady's hand.

  "Turcott, you promised to keep the secret!" said Phina with a blush.

  And Uncle William W. Kolderup, shaking his big head, tried in vain to hide that he was touched.

  But if Godfrey could not restrain his smiles as he listened to the explanations of Uncle Will, Professor Tartlet did not laugh in the least! He was excessively mortified at what he heard! To have been the object of such a mystification, he, a professor of dancing and deportment! And so advancing with much dignity he observed,--

  "Mr. William Kolderup will hardly assert, I imagine, that the enormous crocodile, of which I was nearly the unhappy victim, was made of pasteboard and wound up with a spring?"

  "A crocodile?" replied the uncle.

  "Yes, Mr. Kolderup," said Carefinotu, to whom we had better return his proper name of Jup Brass. "Yes, a real live crocodile, which went for Mr. Tartlet, and which I did not have in my collection!"

  Godfrey then related what had happened, the sudden appearance of the wild beasts in such numbers, real lions, real tigers, real panthers, and then the invasion of the snakes, of which during four months they had not seen a single specimen in the island!

  William W. Kolderup at this was quite disconcerted. He knew nothing about it. Spencer Island--it had been known for a long time--never had any wild beasts, did not possess even a single noxious animal; it was so stated in the deeds of sale.

  Neither did he understand what Godfrey told him of the attempts he had made to discover the origin of the smoke which had appeared at different points on the island. And he seemed very much troubled to find that all had not passed on the island according to his instructions, and that the programme had been seriously interfered with.

  As for Tartlet, he was not the sort of man to be humbugged. For his part he would admit nothing, neither the sham shipwreck, nor the sham savages, nor the sham animals, and above all he would never give up the glory which he had gained in shooting with the first shot from his gun the chief of the Polynesian tribe--one of the servants of the Kolderup establishment, who turned out to be as well as he was.

  All was described, all was explained, except the serious matter of the real wild beasts and the unknown smoke. Uncle Will became very thoughtful about this. But, like a practical man, he put off, by an effort of the will, the solution of the problems, and addressing his nephew,--

  "Godfrey," said he, "you have always been so fond of islands, that I am sure it will please you to hear that this is yours--wholly yours! I make you a present of it! You can do what you like with it! I never dreamt of bringing you away by force; and I would not take you away from it! Be then a Crusoe for the rest of your life, if your heart tells you to--"

  "I!" answered Godfrey. "I! All my life!"

  Phina stepped forward.

  "Godfrey," she asked, "would you like to remain on your island?"

  "I would rather die!" he exclaimed.

  But immediately he added, as he took the young lady's hand,--

  "Well, yes, I will remain; but on three conditions. The first is, you stay with me, dearest Phina; the second is, that Uncle Will lives with us; and the third is, that the chaplain of the _Dream_ marries us this very day!"

  "There is no chaplain on board the _Dream_, Godfrey!" replied Uncle Will. "You know that very well. But I think there is still one left in San Francisco, and that we can find some worthy minister to perform the service! I believe I read your thoughts when I say that before to-morrow we shall put to sea again!"

  Then Phina and Uncle Will asked Godfrey to do the honours of his island. Behold them then walking under the group of sequoias, along the stream up to the little bridge.

  Alas! of the habitation at Will Tree nothing remained. The fire had completely devoured the dwelling in the base of the tree! Without the arrival of William W. Kolderup, what with the approaching winter, the destruction of their stores, and the genuine wild beasts in the island, our Crusoes would have deserved to be pitied.

  "Uncle Will!" said Godfrey. "If I gave the island the name of Phina, let me add that I gave our dwelling the name of Will Tree!"

  "Well," answered the uncle, "we will take away some of the seed, and plant it in my garden at 'Frisco!"

  During the walk they noticed some wild animals in the distance; but they dared not attack so formidable a party as the sa
ilors of the _Dream_. But none the less was their presence absolutely incomprehensible.

  Then they returned on board, not without Tartlet asking permission to bring off "his crocodile"--a permission which was granted.

  That evening the party were united in the saloon of the _Dream_, and there was quite a cheerful dinner to celebrate the end of the adventures of Godfrey Morgan and his marriage with Phina Hollaney.

  On the morrow, the 20th of January, the _Dream_ set sail under the command of Captain Turcott. At eight o'clock in the morning Godfrey, not without emotion, saw the horizon in the west wipe out, as if it were a shadow, the island on which he had been to school for six months--a school of which he never forgot the lessons.

  The passage was rapid; the sea magnificent; the wind favourable. This time the _Dream_ went straight to her destination! There was no one to be mystified! She made no tackings without number as on the first voyage! She did not lose during the night what she had gained during the day!

  And so on the 23rd of January, after passing at noon through the Golden Gate, she entered the vast bay of San Francisco, and came alongside the wharf in Merchant Street.

  And what did they then see?

  They saw issue from the hold a man who, having swum to the _Dream_ during the night while she was anchored at Phina Island, had succeeded in stowing himself away for the second time!

  And who was this man?

  It was the Chinaman, Seng Vou, who had made the passage back as he had made the passage out!

  Seng Vou advanced towards William W. Kolderup.

  "I hope Mr. Kolderup will pardon me," said he very politely. "When I took my passage in the _Dream_, I thought she was going direct to Shanghai, and then I should have reached my country, but I leave her now, and return to San Francisco."

  Every one, astounded at the apparition, knew not what to answer, and laughingly gazed at the intruder.

  "But," said William W. Kolderup at last, "you have not remained six months in the hold, I suppose?"