Chapter 42 Chapter Twenty

Things happened just as Pencroft had foreseen, and his predictions are seldom wrong.The wind blew stronger, and soon changed from a breeze to a full-scale storm; its speed reached forty to forty-five miles an hour. The sails of the mast and mast would also fly forward, and the Windbreaker reached the mouth of the harbor at about six o'clock, but the tide changed at this time, so she could not enter the harbor.They were obliged, therefore, to keep a certain distance from the shore; and, in the circumstances, Pencroft could not have attempted to go to the mouth of the Mercy.He hoisted the jib as a stormsail atop the top of the mainmast, and brought the ship to rest with her bows toward land.

The wind was strong, but the waves were not too high, thanks to the land, so that they did not have to worry about the waves that often threatened the boat.The Rider's ballast was in good condition; so she could never capsize; however, the keel could not stand the keel and might be damaged if a great deal of sea water hit the deck.Pencroft was an experienced sailor, and he was on guard against everything.Of course, he was sure of his ship, but he still waited for the dawn with some anxiety. Tonight, Cyrus.Smith and Keating.Spilett had no occasion to speak, but what the engineer had whispered to the correspondent, and the mysterious power over Lincoln Island, was well worth discussing.Ji Ding.Spilett kept thinking of this new, unimaginable oddity that a wildfire had broken out on the coast of the deserted island.The fire was indeed seen!And he saw it with Herbert and Pencroft!The fire, which marked Lincoln Island in the night, had always been believed to have been lit by the engineer; but now CyrusSmith insisted that he never did such a thing!Spilett decided to re-study immediately after Riding the Wind and the Waves returned, and advocated letting Cyrus.Smith told his companions about these strange things.Perhaps it will all be decided to jointly conduct a thorough search of all parts of Lincoln Island.

At any rate, there was no wildfire that night on the strange shore at the mouth of the harbour, and the boat lay at anchor all night. When daylight first appeared on the eastern horizon, the wind abated a little, and changed two directions, which made it much easier for Pencroft to enter the narrow harbour.Near seven o'clock in the morning the Windbreaker sailed upwind of the North Jaw Cape, crossing the channel and gliding over the sea, which was surrounded on all sides by grotesque cliffs of lava. Well, said Pencroft, this bay is a good place for a ship, and it is roomy enough for a whole fleet!

Strangely enough, Smith said, this harbor was formed by the condensation of magma from two volcanic eruptions. It must have gone through several eruptions before it accumulated into this shape.The result was that the harbor was closed on all sides, and I am sure that even in the worst of the storm it would be as calm here as in the lake. Of course, the sailor said, there is only a narrow pass between the two capes, and the northern cape also shields the southern cape, so it is very difficult for the wind to blow in.I bet our Ride of the Wind has been here for a whole year without moving her anchor!

This harbor is too big for it!said the correspondent. good!Mr. Spilett, the sailor said, I also think that the harbor is too big to only berth the Ride the Waves, but if the American fleet wants to find a naval port in the Pacific Ocean, I don’t think there is a better place than here! We're in the mouth of a shark.said Neb, referring to the state of the harbor. Going to its mouth, my good Neb!said Herbert, are you afraid it will shut up and not let us out? Not afraid, Mr. Herbert, replied Neb, but I don't like this harbor very much!It looks so ugly! Look!cried Pencroft, I was about to dedicate this harbor to America, and Neb despised it!

Leaving aside anything else, is the water here deep enough?Deep enough for the Rider, but not necessarily deep enough for our armored ships, the engineer asked. It's easy to know.replied Pencroft. So the sailor tied a piece of iron to a long rope, which served as a plumb line, and made measurements.This rope was almost fifty fathoms long, but when it was all lowered, it could not reach the bottom. look!cried Pencroft, our armored ships are ready to come!They will not run aground! Indeed, Keating.Spilett said that this harbor is a bottomless pit. Since the island was formed by volcanic eruptions, it is not surprising that there is such an abyss in the harbor.

These crags must be straight, said Herbert, and I believe that if Pencroft had used a rope five or six times longer than the one just now, he would not have touched the sea below the crags. That is all very well, went on the correspondent, but I must tell you one thing, Pencroft, that this harbor has one great defect! What defect, Monsieur Spilett? There is one less gap or passage leading to the interior of the deserted island.I can't find a place to log in. It is true that there is no place on the cliffs formed by the lava for landing.The crags form an impassable barrier, and the sight of them reminds one of the Norwegian fjords, only here they are more desolate and desolate.Riding the Wind and Breaking the Waves tried to move as close to the broken rock as possible, but they didn't even find a dike where passengers could go ashore.

Pencroft reassured himself that, if necessary, a single mine would soon blow a breach in the cliff; and they were in the harbor, apparently having nothing to do, and the sailors turned the bow towards the Strait, about two o'clock in the afternoon, they crossed the harbor. well!Neb breathed a sigh of relief. The faithful black person really felt uncomfortable in that big mouth. Jawbone Point is less than eight miles from the mouth of the Mercy River.With her bow facing Granite Palace, the sails were filled by a breeze, and she sailed swiftly on the sea a mile offshore. After the great lava cliffs passed, soon came the strangely shaped dune country, where the engineer was inexplicably rescued; this area is often visited by tens of thousands of seagulls.

About four o'clock Pencroft steered to starboard from the headland of the isle, and entered the channel between the isle and the coast, and at five o'clock the Rider dropped anchor on the sands of the mouth of the Mercy. The migrants were separated from their houses for three days.Ayrton was waiting for them on the beach, and Japp greeted them cheerfully, with a murmur of delight. Now, the coast of the deserted island has been searched, but nothing suspicious has been found.If something mysterious lived on the desert island, it could only be hidden under the impenetrable forests of the Serpentine Peninsula, for that was the only place the settlers had not yet searched.

Ji Ding.After discussing these circumstances with the engineer, Spilett decided to call the attention of his companions to the strange occurrences that had occurred on the island, and of all these, the most recent one was the most incomprehensible. However, when it came to the question of outsiders lighting the coast, Smith couldn't help asking the correspondent, who had asked him almost twenty times: Are you sure you saw fire, was it a partial eruption of a volcano, or some kind of meteor? No, Cyrus, replied the correspondent, it is quite true that the fire was lit by men.If you don't believe me, you can ask Pencroft and Herbert.They see as I do, and they can attest to My words.

A few days later, therefore, on the evening of the twenty-fifth of April, when the inhabitants were assembled on Prospect Heights, CyrusSmith began to say to everyone: Friends, I feel it is my duty to draw your attention to some of the things that are happening on the island, and I hope you can offer your views on this issue.These things are miraculous magic!Exclaimed the sailor, with a puff of smoke, can there really be miracles on our island? No, Pencroft, but it is certainly a mystery, replied the engineer, unless you can solve the problem which Spilett and I have not yet been able to understand. Go ahead, Mr. Smith.said the sailor. Well, then said the engineer, do you see how I came a quarter of a mile inland after I fell in the sea, and didn't know anything about it? Perhaps it was unconscious at the time, said Pencroft. It doesn't make sense, said the engineer, and the grotto you lived in was five miles away from the cave where I lay, how did Top find it there, do you know? A dog's intuition says Herbert. This intuition is too strange!Besides, said the correspondent, the storm continued that night, but when Top arrived at the grotto he was dry and free from mud! We went on, and the engineer said, how Top was somehow thrown over the water after a fight with the dugong in the lake, do you understand? not understand!I confess that I do not understand at all, replied Pencroft, nor do I understand the dugong's side wound, which seems to have been cut with some sharp object. And, said Smith, how could there be a bullet in little Desiree; how a box should be well laid out on the beach without the remains of a wrecked ship; How coincidentally our barge broke its rope, and floated to us from the Mercy River, just when we needed our boats; how coincidentally, the ladder fell from Granite Palace, after the apes invaded us; and at last , Ayrton insisted that he never wrote a note, how did it get into our hands; do you understand these questions? When Cyrus.When Smith listed these strange things that happened on the desert island one by one, Herbert, Neb and Pencroft all looked at me and I looked at you, not knowing how to answer. Today was the first time they were grouped together. After hearing this, they couldn't help being very surprised. Yes, Pencroft admitted at last, and you are right, Mr. Smith, that all these things are very difficult to explain! And, my friends, continued the engineer, there has been a recent addition, which is perhaps even stranger than the previous ones! What's the matter, Mr. Smith?Herbert asked immediately! Pencroft, went on the engineer, you said that there was a bonfire on Lincoln Island when you came back from Tabor Island, did you not? certainly.replied the sailor. Are you sure you did see the fire? Of course, I can be sure that seeing the fire that day is as real as seeing you now. Did you see that too, Herbert? Why, Mr. Smith, cried Herbert, that fire is as bright as a first-magnitude star! But is that a star?the engineer asked. No, replied Pencroft, the sky was full of dark clouds, and, after all, the stars did not dip below the horizon.M. Spilett sees it as we do, and he can confirm our words. Let me add, the correspondent said, that the flames were very bright, like a flash of lightning. Yes Yes!Not at all, echoed Herbert; it must have been pointed at the high hill of Granite Palace. Well, my friends, Cyrus.Smith said that neither Neb nor I lit a fire on the beach during the night of October 19th. You didn't light the fire?Pencroft was so taken aback by this, that he was at a loss for words. We did not leave Granite House, Cyrus.Smith said that if you see a fire on the beach, it must have been lit by someone else! Pencroft, Herbert, and Neb were all stunned.This was by no means delusional; they had indeed seen a bonfire on the night of October 19th. Yes, they have to admit that there is a secret here!Whenever Lincoln Island came to a head, there was an uncanny force at work that certainly helped the settlers, yet piqued their curiosity.Could there be something hiding in the most hidden place?This must be confirmed at any cost. Smith also mentioned to his companions that Top and Jup sometimes walked back and forth strangely beside the mouth of the well that communicated the Granite Palace and the sea. The engineer told everyone that he had explored the bottom of the well, but found nothing suspicious. .After this conversation, the whole team decided that when the season turned warm, they would search the entire deserted island immediately. From that day on, however, Pencroft became restless.He used to think that the deserted island was his own private property, but now he felt that this property no longer belonged entirely to him, but was shared with another owner, and whether the sailor wanted it or not, he felt that he was at the mercy of this person .Neb and he often talked of these inexplicable things, and from their constant suspicion, they almost thought that some supernatural power secretly ruled Lincoln Island. From May onwards, that is November in the northern hemisphere, the weather turns bad.It looks like this year's winter must be cold and come earlier.So they immediately began to prepare for the winter. Although the winter will be quite cold, the immigrants are well prepared.By this time the mouflons were in great numbers, supplying a great deal of the wool necessary for the manufacture of felt, and they made many garments of this warm fabric. It goes without saying that they also provided Ayrton with such comfortable clothes.Cyrus.Smith suggested to him to come and spend the winter with them at Granite Palace, as it was more comfortable to live there than in the corral; and Ayrton promised to come as soon as the work in the corral was finished.In mid-April, he moved in.From then on, Ayrton lived a collective life with everyone. On any occasion, he tried his best, but he was still so humble and melancholy, unable to talk and laugh with his companions. The inhabitants spent most of their third winter on Lincoln Island at Granite Palace.There were several violent storms which seemed to shake their very foundations.The monstrous waves seem to be flooding the entire island, no matter what kind of ship, as long as it is parked on the shore, it will be smashed to pieces.In one storm the flood from the Mercy's overflow nearly washed away the bridges twice, and each time a raging tide hit the beach, with a splash, the embankment was hidden from sight, and it was necessary to reinforce the shore. the bridge body. This kind of storm is similar to a tornado with rain and snow. It is conceivable that the storm caused great disasters on the high ground of Prospect Heights.Losses to mills and poultry farms were especially significant.Immigrants often had to fix it right away, or the safety of the poultry would be seriously threatened. In the worst of weather, a few jaguars and herds of apes have come to the edge of the highlands, and it is possible for these nimble and bold beasts, driven by hunger, to leap over rivers, especially in rivers. It was easy to get across when it was frozen; this worried the inhabitants.If no one keeps watch, once they come, the crops and livestock will inevitably suffer. Therefore, guns are often used to receive these dangerous guests and keep them away.There is no lack of work for the immigrants this winter, except for the outdoors, they always have thousands of plans to equip their granite palace. On frosty days, they also went hunting several times in the wide swamp.There are innumerable ducks, sandpipers, mallards, and other waterfowl, Gideon.With the cooperation of Japp and Top, Spilett and Herbert have always hit the target without a hitch.Hunters can easily get to the hunting grounds in this area; whether they cross the bridge of Mercy River, take the road leading to Balloon Harbor, or go around the cliffs from Relic Point, they are only two or three miles from Granite Palace. . The four months of winter, June, July, August, and September, were passed in this way, and the weather was indeed cold enough during this period.On the whole, however, Granite House was not much threatened by the storm, nor was the Corral, which, being less exposed than the Highlands, was partly sheltered by Mount Franklin, and had forest and coastal cliffs in front of it. The storm is already very weak.The damage there was very little, and Ayrton returned to the corral for a few days in October, and with his swiftness and skill, he repaired all the damage in a short time. Nothing new and strange happened this winter.Although Pencroft and Neb were inclined to think of mysterious origins in even the most insignificant incidents, still nothing strange happened.Top and Japp no ​​longer lingered at the well, nor seemed disturbed.It seemed as though this series of strange occurrences had ceased, but they often talked of them at night in Granite Palace, and their determination to search the desert island thoroughly, even in the most intractable places, remained the same.At this moment, a very important thing made Cyrus.A temporary change of plans by Smith and his companions might have dire consequences. It was October.In a blink of an eye, the earth will rejuvenate.The nature is waking up, and the edge of the forest is evergreen trees of the coniferous family. Among them, the mountain, Himalayan fir and some other trees have grown young leaves. You may remember, Gideon.Spilett and Herbert took landscape photographs on Lincoln Island more than once. On the afternoon of October 17, near three o'clock, the fine weather tempted Herbert to take a picture of the scenery of Union Bay, just opposite Prospect Heights, with Mandible Cape at one end and It is the claw angle. The horizon is clear and moving, the sea is as calm as the lake, but under the gentle wind, the ripples are slightly stirred up, the sun is shining, and silver light is reflected everywhere. The camera rests on a window in the dining room of Granite Palace, overlooking the coast and the entire harbour.Herbert took the shot in the usual way. After the film was exposed to light, he went to a dark corner to fix it with medicine. Then he returned to the light and looked carefully, and Herbert saw a small dark spot on the horizon of the negative that was not clearly visible.He washed it several times, trying to get it off, but couldn't. This is the spot on the lens.he thought so. But driven by curiosity, he unscrewed a large magnifying glass from the telescope, intending to take a closer look at the spot. As soon as he read it, he shouted immediately, and the magnifying glass almost fell from his hand. He ran at once to Cyrus.Smith, handed the negative and the magnifying glass to the engineer, and pointed to the small black spots on the negative. Smith took a closer look, then grabbed the binoculars and rushed to the window. The telescope swept across the horizon slowly, and finally stopped at the point you were looking for, Cyrus.Smith put down the binoculars and said only one sentence: a boat! Sure enough, not far from Lincoln Island, there was a boat parked there!