Chapter 3 third chapter

After the engineer fell through the mesh, he was swept away by the waves.The dog in the hanging basket was also missing.The faithful dog took the initiative to jump out to rescue his owner.go on!cried the correspondent; and all four of them, Spilett, Herbert, Pencroft, and Neb, forgot their fatigue, and were looking everywhere.Poor Neb wept bitterly, and was heartbroken at the thought that the only one he loved in the world had died. From Cyrus.Smith was missing only two minutes before his partners touched down.So they hoped to get to him in time.cried Neb: Let us go to him!Let's go find him!

Yes, Neb, Keating.We will find him, says Spilett! is he still alive Must be alive! can he swimasked Pencroft. Yes, answered Neb, and Top was with him. The sailor shook his head as he watched the huge waves crashing on the shore. The engineer disappeared north of the waterfront, nearly half a mile from where the victims landed.That is to say, therefore, he was well half a mile from the nearest shore. It was nearly six o'clock now.The twilight looked extraordinarily dark under the shroud of thick fog.From the place where they had accidentally fallen, the wrecked traveled to the north into an unknown country, whose geographical position they could hardly guess.They trudged across the barren sand.The ground is rough and completely potholed in places, making walking very difficult.From time to time, many large birds that are not good at flying fly from these holes to various places.Flocks of more nimble birds passed over them like clouds.The sailors recognized these as seagulls and mandarin ducks, whose screams could not drown out the sound of the rushing tide.

These victims stood down from time to time and shouted loudly, listening to the sea for echoes.They thought that if the engineer had landed, and they were not too far from the place of disembarkation, they could at least hear Top's cry, if Smith could not indicate that he was there.They stood and listened, but heard nothing but the rushing of the water and the crashing of the shore.So the little group went on, intending to search every corner of the seashore. After walking for twenty minutes, the four victims suddenly found white waves churning under their feet and had to stop.The land ends here.They found themselves at the end of a promontory with the sea pounding violently on its tip.

It's a cape, said the sailor, and we'll have to go back the way we came, and go to the right, so we can get back where we came from. Maybe he is there, let's shout a few more times!As Neb spoke, he pointed to the dark, white-capped sea, and they called out again in chorus, but there was no answer, and after a short pause they called again, but again there was no answer. The victims had to go back; they walked along the other side of the cape, which was not only full of sand and stones, but also the road was rough.But Pencroft found the coast straighter and the ground higher, and told them that it adjoined the slopes of hills; through the fog he could dimly see the majesty of the mountains.There were fewer birds on this part of the coast, and less noise from the sea; they also noticed that the waves had subsided.The crash of the waves against the shore is barely audible.This side of the promontory evidently forms a semicircular harbor, the tip of which is concealed by the surf.This direction leads to the south, directly opposite the coast where Smith might have landed.After walking a mile and a half, they found no detour on the coast to turn back north.The end of this cape they had rounded must have been connected to the mainland.Although they are exhausted, they still muster their courage to move forward, hoping to suddenly come across a corner that will enable them to return to their original place.After walking almost two miles, they were disappointed when they came to a high headland, covered with wet and slippery rocks, and held back by the sea.

Said Pencroft: We are on a small island, and we have surveyed it from one end to the other. The sailor was right; the place where they fell was not a mainland, nor even an island, but a small island, not more than two miles long, and even less in breadth. This wasteland of seabirds is full of rocks, and there is no vegetation. Is it connected with other more important archipelagos?It's hard to say.While in the gondola, the pilots saw land through the clouds, but they didn't have time to take a closer look.Notwithstanding this, Pencroft's eyes, in the dimness of his many years of seafaring, were almost certain that the hazy figure in the west was the raised shore.But in the darkness they couldn't tell whether it was an isolated island or connected to other islands.They could not leave the island either, because the sea was all around; so they had to postpone the search for the engineer until the next day.The bad thing is that they didn't even hear a cry, so they couldn't know whether the engineer was dead or alive.

Our friend was silent, but that didn't mean anything. The correspondent said he might have fainted or was wounded, and he couldn't answer right away, so we needn't lose heart. The correspondent then proposed to light a fire on the island as a signal to the engineer.But there were sand and stones everywhere, and there were no branches or dry thorns to be found.Neb and his companions had great respect and love for the brave Smith, and their grief can only be described with a brush, not with words.Obviously, there was nothing they could do to help him.They could only endure as long as possible until dawn.Unless the engineer can escape himself and find a place of refuge on the coast, he is gone from this world forever!A long and painful time passed.It was very cold.The victims were in a difficult situation, but they hardly felt it.They don't want to rest even for a minute.Thinking about their leader, they continued to run on this barren land with hope, or a glimmer of hope, and returned to the northern end of the island several times, which is the place closest to the place of death.They listened, shouted, and shouted in unison, and they intended to shout louder, so that they could be heard far away.It's all calm now.Neb even seemed to hear an echo after one of his shouts, and Herbert reminded Pencroft that there was a coast not far to the west.The sailor nodded, trusting that his eyes would not deceive him.As long as he found land, no matter how vaguely, there must be land there.But only a distant echo answered Neb's call, and all the eastern part of the isle was dark.

During this time, the sky gradually cleared up.At midnight, the sky was full of stars, and if the engineer had been here, he would have told his companions that these were not the stars of the northern hemisphere.The North Star is nowhere to be seen here, and the constellations are not those commonly seen in the United States. The Southern Cross is shining brightly in the sky. The night passed.When it was nearly five o'clock in the morning on March 25, the sky was gradually getting brighter, but there was still darkness on the horizon.As dawn broke, a morning mist rose over the sea, and they stood there unable to see anything twenty feet away.In the end, a large piece of thick fog turbulently scattered and drifted away.

Unfortunately, however, the victims could not see anything around them.The correspondent and Neb surveyed the sea carefully, while the sailor and Herbert looked eagerly for a coast to the west.But there was not even a shadow of land.Never mind, said Pencroft, though I see no land, I feel that there must be land there as surely as we are no longer in Richmond.The morning mist ceased to rise before long, and it was only the haze of a sunny day.The hot sun soon hit the island.At about half past six, three quarters of an hour after sunrise, the smog became thinner.Its upper layer gradually thickened, while the lower layer dissipated.Soon an island appeared in its entirety, as if descending from a cloud.At the same time, the surrounding ocean also appeared. It stretched out to the east in the distance, but the west was blocked by the sudden insertion of the rapids.

Yes!There is land.At least they were safe for the time being, for there was a strait half a mile wide between the island and the opposite shore, and the current was very fast. At this time, one of the victims jumped into the water without a word because of inner drive and without consulting with his companions. This was Neb.He was anxious to get to the other bank, and climbed north.They couldn't stop him.Pencroft would not listen to him.The correspondent tried to follow, but Pencroft stopped him.Are you going to cross the Channel?he asked.Yes.Spilett replied.good!Sailor said: Wait a moment, Neb alone is enough to help his master.If we ventured into the channel we risked being swept out to sea by the rapids; the tide is now ebbing, if I read correctly.You see, the tide has receded on the beach.Don't worry, when the water is shallow, we can easily find a way to wade through it.You are right, replied the correspondent, that we should not spread out so much that we cannot take care of each other.

By this time Neb was wrestling fiercely with the tide.He is crossing the channel.As he paddled his black shoulders showed in the water.He was quickly swept downstream, but at last he was close to the opposite bank.It took more than half an hour to cross from the small island to the other side. When he landed, he was already hundreds of feet away from the starting point on the opposite side. He landed at the foot of a high granite rock, gave a great shake, and ran off, disappearing in a moment behind a rocky promontory.This cape is almost as high as the northern tip of the island. Neb's companions watched his daring attempt anxiously.When his figure disappeared, they ate the shellfish scattered on the sand, and at the same time looked at the land on which they pinned their safety hopes. Although this kind of food was difficult to eat, it was better than going hungry.The opposite bank formed a wide harbor, and at the southern end was a precipitous cape, with no grass growing on it, and it looked very desolate.This promontory adjoins the shore, forming a grotesque profile of granite, rising above the ground.On the contrary, the further you go to the North Harbor, the wider the coast becomes, and the coast here becomes more tortuous, bending from southwest to northeast, and forming a long and narrow corner at the end.The distance between the two ends of the arc that forms the harbor is about eight miles.The island is half a mile off the coast, resembling a large whale.No more than a quarter of a mile at its widest point.

The lowest level of the beach opposite the island is gravel with black stones strewn across it.After low tide, these stones are slowly exposed.The second level of the beach is separated from it by a vertical granite cliff, the top of which is jagged, at least three hundred feet high.The cliff stretched for three miles, ending abruptly on the right in what seemed to be a hewn cliff.On the left, above the promontory, the jagged cliff descends into a long slope of conglomerate which disappears into the ground of the southern point.There is not a single tree on the high ground by the sea, somewhat like the flat terraces of Cape Town on the Cape of Good Hope, only smaller; at least from the point of view of the island.There are many green plants on the right side of the cliff.At a glance they saw a vast expanse of woods beyond their horizon.Looking at the rolling granite hills and this green shade, they couldn't help but feel refreshed.At last, across the plateau, at a distance of at least seven miles to the northwest, they saw a white peak gleaming in the sun.This is a high mountain with snow on top. Whether this land is an isolated island or connected to the mainland is still hard to say, but geologists will definitely point out without hesitation after looking at the rock piles formed by the earthquake on the left that it was caused by a volcanic eruption. Yes, for these things are undoubtedly the result of internal shaking of the earth. Ji Ding.Spilett, Pencroft, and Herbert examined the land carefully.Maybe they will live here for several years.They may even spend their entire lives here if the desert island is far from the usual shipping routes. asked Herbert: Well, Pencroft, what do you think? As with everything, there is a good side and a bad side, replied the sailor, and wait and see, the tide is obviously going out now, and in three hours we can try to get over it.As soon as we were on the other side, we could try to get out of this difficult position, and I thought it possible to find Smith.And, as Pencroft had expected, three hours later, at low tide, a great part of the channel was exposed from the sand.There was only a narrow channel between the island and the opposite bank, and it was obviously easy to cross it. About ten o'clock, Keating.Spilett and his companions undressed, tied them over their heads, and stepped into the water, which was less than five feet deep.Herbert thought the water was too deep, and swam through it like a fish.All three reached the other side without incident.They dried quickly in the sun, put on their clothes they didn't let them soak and sat down to discuss what to do next.