Propeller Island

by Jules Verne

  This, as you may have guessed, was in imitation of the fantastic scenes customary on ships when they cross the Equator, a pendant to the baptism of the line. And, as a fact, this day was always chosen for the baptism of the children born since the departure from Madeleine Bay, and there was a similar baptismal ceremony with regard to the strangers who had not before entered the southern hemisphere.

  “It will be our turn then,” said Frascolin to his comrades, “and we are going to receive baptism.”

  “Fancy!” replied Sebastien Zorn, with protesting gestures of indignation.

  “Yes, my old bass scraper!” replied Pinchinat. “They will throw unblessed buckets of water on our head, seat us on planks that see-saw, pitch us into surprise depths, and Father Neptune will come on board with his company of buffoons to shave our faces with the black grease pot.”

  “If they think,” said Zorn, “that I will submit to this masquerade—”

  “We shall have to,” said Yvernès. “Every country has its customs, and the guests must submit.”

  “Not when they are detained against their will!” said the intractable chief of the quartette party.

  He need not have excited himself about this carnival with which many crews amuse themselves when crossing the line! He need have had no fear of Father Neptune! He and his comrades would not be sprinkled with sea water, but with champagne of the best brands. They would not be hoaxed by being shown the Equator previously drawn on the object glass of a telescope. That might do for sailors on board ship, but not for the serious people of Floating Island.

  The festival took place in the afternoon of the 5th of August. With the exception of the custom-house officers, who were never allowed to leave their posts, the State servants all had a holiday. All work was suspended in the town and harbours. The screws did not work. The accumulators possessed a voltage sufficient for the lighting and communications. The island was not stationary, but drifted with the current towards the line which divides the two hemispheres of the globe. Chants and prayers were heard in the churches, in the temple as at St. Mary’s church, and the organs played cheerily. Great rejoicings took place in the park, where the sporting events were brought off with remarkable enthusiasm. The different classes associated together. The richest gentlemen, with Walter Tankerdon at their head, did wonders at golf and tennis. When the sun had dropped perpendicularly below the horizon, leaving a twilight of only forty-eight minutes, the rockets would take their flight across space, and a moonless night would give the best of conditions for the display of firework magnificence.

  In the large room of the casino the quartette were baptized, as we have said, and by the hand of Cyrus Bikerstaff. The Governor offered them a foaming tankard, and the champagne flowed in torrents. The artistes had their full share of Cliquot and Roederer. Sebastien Zorn could not have the bad taste to complain of a baptism which in no way reminded him of the salt water he had imbibed to the earliest days of his life.

  To these testimonies of sympathy the quartette responded by the execution of the finest works in their repertory: the seventh quartette in F major, op. 59 of Beethoven; the fourth quartette in E flat, op. 10 of Mozart; the fourth quartette in D minor, op. 17 of Haydn; the seventh quartette (andante, scherzo, capriccioso, and fugue), op. 18 of Mendelssohn. Yes, all these marvels of concerted music, and there was no charge for hearing them! The crush at the doors was tremendous, and the room was suffocating. The pieces were encored and encored again, and the Governor presented to the executants a medal in gold encircled with diamonds respectable in the number of their carats, having on one face the arms of Milliard City, and on the other—

  Presented to the Quartette Party

  By the Company, the Municipality, and the People

  of Floating Island.

  And if all these honours did not reach to the very depths of the soul of the irreconcilable violoncellist, it was decidedly because he was a deplorable character, as his comrades told him.

  “Wait for the end!” he was content to reply, twisting his beard with a feverish hand.

  It was at thirty-five minutes past ten in the evening— the calculation was made by the astronomers of Floating Island—that the line would be crossed. At that precise moment a salute would be fired from one of the cannon in the Prow Battery. A wire connected this gun with an electric apparatus arranged in the centre of the square of the observatory. Extraordinary satisfaction of self-esteem for the notable on whom devolved the honour of sending the current which would provoke the formidable detonation!

  On this occasion the honour was sought by two important personages. These were, as may be guessed, Jem Tankerdon and Nat Coverley. Consequently, considerable embarrassment for Cyrus Bikerstaff. Difficult negotiations had been taking place between the town hall and the two sections of the city. No agreement had been arrived at. At the Governor’s invitation, the services of Calistus Munbar had been called in. Despite his well-known diplomatic adroitness, he had failed. Jem Tankerdon would not give way to Nat Coverley, who would not give way to Jem Tankerdon. An explosion was expected.

  It did not promise to be long in coming when the two chiefs met in the square. The apparatus was but five paces away from them. They had but to touch the button.

  Aware of the difficulty, the crowd, much interested in this question of precedence, had invaded the garden. After the concert, Sebastien Zorn, Yvernès, Frascolin, and Pinchinat had come to the square, curious to observe the phases of this rivalry, which, considering the dispositions of the Larboardites and Starboardites, was of exceptional gravity for the future.

  The two notables advanced towards the apparatus, without the slightest inclination of the head.

  “I think, sir,” said Jem Tankerdon, “that you will not contest this honour.”

  “That is exactly what I expect from you, sir,” replied Nat Coverley.

  “I shall not allow any one to deprive me of it.”

  “Nor shall I allow any one to deprive me of it.”

  “We shall see, then!” said Jem Tankerdon, taking a step towards the instrument.

  Nat Coverley also took a step. The partisans of the two notables began to mingle. Ill-sounding provocations broke out in the ranks. Doubtless Walter Tankerdon was ready to maintain the rights of his father; but when he caught sight of Miss Coverley standing a little way off, he was visibly embarrassed.

  As to the Governor, although the superintendent was at his side, ready to act as buffer, he was in intense distress at not being able to unite in a single bouquet the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster. And who knows if this deplorable competition might not have consequences as regrettable as the roses had in the fifteenth century for the English aristocracy?

  But the moment was approaching when the prow of Floating Island would cut the equinoctial line. Calculated precisely to a quarter of a second of time, the error could not be greater than eight metres. The signal would soon be sent from the observatory.

  “I have an idea,” murmured Pinchinat.

  “What?” asked Yvernès.

  “I will give a whack on the instrument, and that will put matters right.”

  “Don’t do that!” said Frascolin, stopping his Highness with a vigorous grip.

  No one knew how the matter would have ended if a detonation had not suddenly taken place.

  The report was certainly not from the Prow Battery. It came from a gun out at sea, which had been heard distinctly.

  The crowd paused in suspense. What could be the meaning of this discharge of a gun which did not belong to the island’s artillery?

  A telegram from Starboard Harbour almost immediately gave the explanation.

  Two or three miles off, a ship in distress had signalled its presence and demanded assistance.

  Fortunate and unexpected diversion! There was no more thought of touching the button nor saluting the crossing of the Equator. There was no time. The Equator was crossed, and the charge remained in the cannon. All the better for the honou
r of the Tankerdons and Coverleys.

  The public evacuated the square, and, as the trams were not working, proceeded rapidly on foot to Starboard Harbour.

  Immediately the signal had been heard, the harbour master had taken measures for the rescue. One of the electric launches moored in the wet dock had gone out. And at the moment the crowd arrived, the launch had brought back the crew from the ship, which had soon afterwards foundered in the Pacific.

  The ship was the Malay ketch which had followed Floating Island since its departure from the Sandwich Archipelago,

  CHAPTER XI.

  In the morning of the 29th of August, the Pearl of the Pacific reached the Marquesas Islands, lying between 70 55’ and 100 30’ south latitude, and 1410 and 1430 6’ longitude west of the meridian of Paris. It had traversed a distance of three thousand four hundred kilometres since leaving the Sandwich group.

  If this group is called after Mendana, it is because the Spaniard of that name discovered its southern portion in 1595. If it is called Revolution Islands, it is because it was visited by Captain Marchand in 1791, in its northwestern part. If it is called the Nuka Hiva Archipelago, it is because that is the name of the largest island in it. And yet, as a matter of justice, it ought to bear the name of Cook, for that celebrated navigator surveyed it in 1774.

  This was what Commodore Ethel Simcoe remarked to Frascolin, who thought the observation very reasonable, adding, —

  “We might also call it the French Archipelago, for we are not without a few marquises in France.”

  In fact, a Frenchman has the right to regard this group of eleven islands or islets as one of his country’s squadrons moored in the waters of the Pacific. The largest are vessels of the first class, Nuka-Hiva and Hiva-Oa; the moderate ones are cruisers of different ranks, Hiavu, Uapvu, Uahuka; the little ones are despatch boats, Motane, Fatu-Hiva, Taou-Ata; while the islets and atolls will do for the launches and boats. It is true, these islands could not move about like Floating Island.

  It was on the 1st of May, 1842, that the Commander of the naval station of the Pacific, Vice-Admiral Dupetit-Thouars, took possession of this archipelago in the name of France. It is separated by from a thousand to two thousand leagues from the coast of America, New Zealand, Australia, China, the Moluccas, and the Philippines. Under these conditions, was the act of the Vice-Admiral to be praised or blamed? He was blamed by the Opposition and praised by the Government. It is none the less true that France has there an insular domain where its whaling vessels can shelter and re-victual, and to which the Panama Canal, if it is ever open, will give very considerable commercial importance. This domain should be completed by the taking possession or declaration of a protectorate over the Paumotu Islands and the Society Islands, which form its natural prolongation. As British influence extends over the north-western regions of this immense ocean, it is good that French influence should counterbalance it in the regions of the south-east.

  “But,” asked Frascolin of his complaisant cicerone, “have we military forces there of any strength?”

  “Up to 1859,” replied the Commodore, “there was a detachment at Nuka-Hiva. Since the detachment has been withdrawn the care of the flag has been confided to the missionaries, and they will not leave it undefended.”

  “And now?”

  “You will only find at Taio-Hae a resident, a few gendarmes, and native soldiers, under the orders of an officer who fulfils the functions of a justice of the peace.”

  “In the native law-suits?”

  “For the natives and the colonists.”

  “Then there are colonists at Nuka-Hiva?”

  “Yes; twenty-four.”

  “Not enough to form an orchestra, Commodore, nor even a harmony, and hardly a fanfare!”

  The archipelago of the Marquesas extends over a hundred and ninety-five miles in length and forty-eight miles in width, covering an area of thirteen thousand superficial kilometres, and its population consists of twenty-four thousand natives. That gives one colonist to each thousand inhabitants.

  Is this population destined to increase when a new route of communication is made through the two Americas? The future will show. But as far as concerns the population of Floating Island, the number of it’s inhabitants had been increased several days before by the rescue of the Malays of the ketch, which took place in the evening of the 5th of August.

  They were ten in number, in addition to their captain, a man of energetic face and figure. This captain was about forty years of age, and his name was Sarol. His sailors were stoutly-built fellows of the Malay race, natives of the furthest islands of Western Malaysia. Three months before Sarol had brought them to Honolulu with a cargo of coprah. When Floating Island had come to stay there for ten days, its appearance had excited their surprise, as it excited surprise in every archipelago it visited. If they did not visit it, permission to do so being very difficult to obtain, it will not be forgotten how their ketch was often at sea observing it at close quarters, and coasting along it within half a cable’s length of its perimeter.

  The continual presence of this vessel had excited no suspicion, and neither did its departure from Honolulu a few hours after Commodore Simcoe. Besides, what was there to be uneasy about in this vessel of a hundred tons with not a dozen men on board?

  When the report of the gun attracted the attention of the officer at Starboard Harbour, the ketch was within two or three miles. The launch was fortunate enough to bring off the captain and his crew.

  These Malays spoke English fluently, in which there was nothing astonishing on the part of natives of the Western Pacific, where, as we have mentioned, British preponderance is unquestioned. They could thus describe the circumstances of their being in distress, and tell how they would have been lost in the depths of the ocean if the launch had been a few minutes later.

  According to these men, twenty-four hours before, during the night of the 4th of August, the ketch had been run into by a steamer at full speed. Although his lights were all showing, Captain Sarol had not been noticed. The collision had been so slight for the steamer that she seemed to feel nothing of it, and continued her voyage, unless—which is, unfortunately, not too rare—she had gone off at full speed “to avoid costly and disagreeable claims.”

  But the blow, insignificant for a vessel of heavy tonnage with her iron hull driven at considerable speed, was terrible for the Malay vessel. Cut down just before the mizen mast, it was hardly intelligible that she did not immediately sink. She remained, however, at the water level, the men clinging on to the deck. If the weather had been bad the wreck could not have resisted the waves. By good luck the current took them towards the east, and they arrived within sight of Floating Island.

  At the same time, when the Commodore questioned Captain Sarol he could not help manifesting his astonishment that the ketch, half submerged, had been able to drift within sight of Starboard Harbour.

  “Neither do I understand it,” replied the Malay. “Your island cannot have moved very far during the last twenty-four hours.”

  “That is the only explanation possible,” replied Commodore Simcoe. “It does not matter after all, we have been able to rescue you, that is the main point.”

  It was true. Before the launch had got a quarter of a mile away the ketch had gone down head foremost.

  Such was the story Captain Sarol told to the officer who had rescued him, then to the Commodore, then to the Governor, Cyrus Bickerstaff, after he had been given all the assistance that he and his crew seemed to be in urgent need of.

  Then arose the question as to sending these men home. They were bound for the New Hebrides when the collision occurred. Floating Island was going south-east, and could not change its route. Cyrus Bikerstaff proposed to put the captain and his men ashore at Nuka-Hiva, where they could wait for a merchant ship bound for the New Hebrides.

  The captain and his men looked at one another. They seemed greatly distressed. This proposal was hard on poor fellows, without resources, despo
iled of all they possessed with the ketch and its cargo. To wait at the Marquesas was to chance having to wait an interminable time, and how would they get a living?

  “Mr. Governor,” said the captain in a suppliant tone, “you have rescued us, and we don’t know how to show our gratitude. But yet we beg you will assure our return under better circumstances.”

  “And in what manner?” asked Cyrus Bikerstaff.

  “At Honolulu it was said that Floating Island after going south was to visit the Marquesas, Paumotu, the Society Islands, and then make for the west of the Pacific.”

  “That is true,” said the Governor, “and very probably we shall get as far as the Fijis before returning to Madeleine Bay.”

  “The Fijis,” continued the captain, “are an English archipelago, where we should easily find a ship to take us to the New Hebrides, which are not far off, and if you could keep us until then—”

  “I cannot promise you anything with regard to that,” said the Governor. “We are forbidden to give passages to foreigners. You must wait till we reach Nuka-Hiva. I will consult the administration by cable, and if they consent we will take you on to Fiji, whence you could get home more easily.”

  That is the reason why the Malays were on Floating Island when it came within sight of the Marquesas on the 29th of August.

  This archipelago is situated in the belt of the trade winds, as are also the Paumotu and Society Islands, which owe to these winds a moderate temperature and a salubrious climate.

  It was off the north-west of this group that Commodore Simcoe appeared in the early hours of the morning. He first sighted a sandy atoll which the maps called Coral Islet, and against which the sea, driven by the currents, beats with extreme violence.