The Mysterious Island Page 8

  In this domestic atmosphere M. Zermatt, his wife, and his children, were as happy as mortal man can be. Yet they could not entirely forget their fears for the future, the improbability of rescue coming from outside, or their old homeland. Jenny, too—must not her heart have been rent sometimes when her thoughts turned to her father? Nothing had ever been heard of the ship that was taking her home, the Dorcas, and was it not the obvious conclusion that she had foundered with all hands?

  The unlooked-for event which altered their situation so profoundly has already been described.

  CHAPTER VI - PLANNING AND WORKING

  DURING the first few days following the departure of the Unicorn deep depression reigned at Rock Castle. M. and Mme. Zermatt were inconsolable at having let two of their children go, although they realised the necessity of doing so.

  But it is vain to ask of a parent's heart more than it is able to give. Fritz, that gallant young fellow, was gone, Fritz, the stout right arm of his family, in whose eyes he represented the future. Gone, too, was Frank, following in the footsteps of his eldest brother.

  Ernest and Jack were left, it is true. Ernest had never lost his taste for study and, thanks to his reading, his education was as solid as it was practical. Jack shared Fritz's love of hunting and fishing and riding and sailing, and, keenly eager to wrest her last secrets from New Switzerland, he would take his brother's place in daring explorations.

  And lastly, she, too, was gone, the charming and beloved Jenny, whose absence Betsy regretted as much as that of a dear daughter. It was heart-breaking to see their places in the rooms of Rock Castle, their seats at table and in the hall where all assembled in the evenings, empty.

  They would all come back, no doubt, and then the grief of the parting and the sadness of their absence would be forgotten. They would all come back, and new friends with them—Colonel Montrose, who would be unwilling to be separated from his daughter after he had given her as wife to her rescuer, and Dolly Wolston, and her brother James with his wife and child. They would all be glad to settle in this land. And other emigrants would soon be coming to populate this remote colony of Great Britain.

  Yes: in a year at latest, one fine day a ship would appear out beyond False Hope Point, sailing from the west, not to disappear in the north or east! She would shape her course into Deliverance Bay. Most likely she would be the Unicorn. But whatever ship she was, she would bring Colonel Montrose and his daughter, Fritz and Frank, Mr. and Mrs. Wolston's children!

  The situation was entirely altered. The inhabitants of this New Switzerland were no longer merely the shipwrecked survivors of the Landlord, who had found refuge on an unknown land. The position of this land was definitely established now in latitude and longitude. Lieutenant Littlestone had its exact bearings. He would report them to the Admiralty, and the Admiralty would give the necessary orders for taking possession. When she left New Switzerland the corvette uncoiled behind her, as it were, a cable thousands of miles in length, a cable which bound New Switzerland to the old world, and which nothing could break thereafter.

  As yet, indeed, only a portion of its northern coast was known, the thirty or forty miles, at most, between Unicorn Bay and the seas to the east of Burning Rock. Even the three deep bays, Deliverance, Nautilus and Pearl, had not been completely explored. In the whole course of these eleven years M. Zermatt and his sons had scarcely set foot beyond the great rampart of mountain outside the defile of Cluse. They had confined their excursions to the middle line of the Green Valley, and had never ascended the opposite heights.

  Owing to the presence of the Wolstons the number of inhabitants of Rock Castle had not been diminished by the departure of the Unicorn.

  Mr. Wolston, at this time forty-five years of age, was a man of sound constitution. He had been weakened by fever contracted in New South Wales, but the healthy climate of New Switzerland and the care which would be lavished on him there would soon restore him to health and strength. His engineering knowledge and experience could not fail to be of the greatest service, and M. Zermatt fully intended to use them in effecting improvements which he had not been able to carry out hitherto. But first of all Mr. Wolston, to whom Ernest felt himself drawn by a certain resemblance of tastes and character, must regain his health.

  Mrs. Wolston, Merry, was a few years younger than Mme. Zermatt. The two women could not fail to like each other, and their friendship would grow as they knew each other. Household duties engaged them together at Rock Castle, and they would share the work when visiting the farmsteads at Wood Grange, the hermitage at Eberfurt, and Sugar-cane Grove.

  Hannah Wolston was only seventeen. Her health, like her father's, had been impaired, and it was certain that her stay in the Promised Land would strengthen her constitution and bring back the colour to her pale cheeks. She gave promise of developing into a very attractive woman, being fair, with pretty features, a complexion which would soon recover its bloom, a pleasant look in her blue eyes and a graceful carriage. She presented a great contrast to her sister, the sparkling Dolly, with her fourteen years, and her fresh and ringing laugh, which would have filled the rooms of Rock Castle, a brunette who was always singing, always chattering, and full of merry repartee. But she, too, would come back soon, the bird that had flown away, and her warbling would again delight all this little world.

  Meantime the enlargement of Rock Castle was a matter of pressing necessity. When the Unicorn returned this dwelling would be too small. If only Colonel Montrose and Jenny, Fritz and Frank, James Wolston and his sister, wife, and child, were reckoned, they could not live there together unless some parts of the great cave were specially adapted to their use. If any fresh colonists came with them new houses would have to be built. There would be plenty of room for these along the right bank of Jackal River, the shore towards Flamingo Bay, or the shady road between Rock Castle and Falconhurst.

  M. Zermatt had many long talks with Mr. Wolston on this subject, talks in which Ernest eagerly took part, making sound suggestions.

  During this time Jack, who now undertook alone the duties he had formerly shared with his eldest brother, made it his constant business to supply the needs of the larder. Followed by his dogs, Brownie and Fawn, he went hunting every day in the woods and plains, where game, furred and feathered, abounded. He ransacked the marshes, where wild duck and snipe furnished a change for the daily bill of fare. Coco, Jack's jackal, was an ardent rival of the dogs, whose constant companion he was on these hunting expeditions. Sometimes the young hunter bestrode his onager, Lightfoot, who abundantly justified his name; sometimes the buffalo, Storm, who swept like a storm across the forest land. Strict injunctions had been laid upon the daring young fellow never to venture outside the confines of the Promised Land, and never to go through the defile of Cluse, opening into the Green Valley, where he would run the risk of encountering fierce animals. Yielding to his mother's urgent entreaty, he had promised not to be away longer than a day at a time, and always to come home for the evening meal. But in spite of his promises Betsy could not hide her fears when she saw him vanish like an arrow from a bow beyond the trees near Rock Castle.

  For his part, Ernest preferred the peaceful occupation of fishing to hunting. He would settle himself by the side of Jackal River or at the foot of the rocks in Flamingo Bay. There were quantities of crustaceans, molluscs, and fish there—salmon, herrings, mackerel, lobster, crayfish, oysters, and mussels. Sometimes Hannah Wolston would join him, not a little to his satisfaction.

  The young girl was unsparing of her attentions to the cormorant and the jackal brought from Burning Rock. It was to her that Jenny had committed them before she went away, and they were in good hands. When she came back Jenny would find her two faithful companions in the pink of health, and at liberty to come and go as they pleased in the paddocks of Rock Castle.

  While the cormorant agreed very well with the other inhabitants of the poultry yard, the jackal was on bad terms with Jack's jackal, which had tried in vain to make friends
. The two creatures were jealous of each other, and were forever scratching and quarrelling.

  "I give up trying to make them agree," Jack said one day to Hannah, "and I hand them over to you."

  "Trust me, Jack," Hannah replied. "With a little patience I hope to bring them together."

  "Try, my dear girl, for jackals should always be friends."

  "It seems to me, Jack, that your monkey, too—"

  "Nip the Second? Oh, all he wants is to bite Jenny's pet!"

  And really, Nip the Second did appear to be very ill-disposed towards the newcomer. Tame as these creatures were with human beings, it would be difficult to establish harmony between them.

  The days slipped by. Betsy and Merry never had an idle hour. While Mme. Zermatt was mending clothes, Mrs. Wolston, who was a very clever needlewoman, was making dresses and petticoats out of the materials that had been treasured from the wreck of the Landlord.

  The weather was superb, the heat still not excessive. In the forenoon the breeze blew off the land, in the afternoon off the sea. The nights remained fresh and restful. The last week of October, the April of the southern latitudes, was about to retire before November, the month of renewal, the month of spring in that hemisphere.

  The two families paid frequent visits to the farms, sometimes on foot, sometimes in the cart drawn by its team of buffaloes. More often than not Ernest rode the young ass, Rash, and Jack bestrode the ostrich. Mr. Wolston got much benefit from these walks. He had fewer and lighter attacks of fever.

  They used to go from Rock Castle to Falconhurst by the fine road planted ten years before, which was now completely shaded by chestnut, walnut, and cherry trees. Sometimes the stay at the aerial country-seat was prolonged for four and twenty hours; and it was delightful, when they had climbed the winding staircase inside, to step out onto the platform sheltered beneath the foliage of the magnificent mangrove. The dwelling-place seemed rather small now; but in Mr. Wolston's opinion there was no need to consider its enlargement. And one day M. Zermatt answered his argument thus:

  "You are quite right, my dear Wolston. To live among the branches of a tree was all very well for the Robinsons, whose first care was to find a refuge from wild beasts, and that was our case at the beginning of our life on this island. But now we are colonists, real colonists."

  "And besides," Mr. Wolston pointed out, "we have to get ready for the return of our children, and we have none too much time to put Rock Castle into a condition to receive them all."

  "Yes," said Ernest, "if there are any enlargements to be made it is at Rock Castle. Where could we find a more secure home during the rainy season? I agree with Mr. Wolston; Falconhurst has become insufficient, and during the summer I think it would be better to move into Wood Grange or Sugar-cane Grove."

  "I should prefer Prospect Hill," Mme. Zermatt remarked. "It would be quite easy with supplementary arrangements."

  "An excellent idea, mamma!" Jack exclaimed. "The view from Prospect Hill is delightful, right over the sea to Deliverance Bay. That hill is simply marked out as the site for a villa."

  "Or a fort," M. Zermatt replied; "a fort to command that point of the island."

  "A fort?" Jack repeated enquiringly.

  "Well, my boy," M. Zermatt answered, "we must not forget that New Switzerland is going to become an English possession, and that it will be to the interest of the English to fortify it. The battery on Shark's Island would not be strong enough to defend the future town which will probably be built between Flamingo Bay and Rock Castle. So it seems to me indispensable that Prospect Hill should be used in the near future for a fort."

  "Prospect Hill, or a little farther forward, on False Hope Point," Mr. Wolston suggested. "In that case the villa might be preserved."

  "I should like that much better," Jack declared.

  "And so should I," Mme. Zermatt added. "Let us try to keep all these memorials of our early days, Prospect Hill as well as Falconhurst. I should be very sorry to see them disappear."

  Of course, Betsy's feeling was a very natural one. But the situation had changed. While New Switzerland belonged to the shipwrecked survivors of the Landlord only, there had never been any question of putting it in a state of defence. When it became a dependency of England, it must have coast defences.

  And all things considered, could its first occupants really regret the consequences involved by the arrival of the Unicorn in these waters of New Switzerland?

  "No," was M. Zermatt's conclusion, "so let us leave the future to bring about gradually all the various changes it requires."

  Moreover, there were other things to be done that were much more urgent than the repairs at Falconhurst and Prospect Hill. It was nearly time to get in all the crops, to say nothing of the attention that had to be given to the animals at Wood Grange, the hermitage at Eberfurt, and Sugar-cane Grove.

  When they paid their first visit to Whale Island M. Zermatt and Mr. Wolston had been amazed at the number of rabbits it contained. There were hundreds of these most prolific rodents. Fortunately the island produced quite enough herbaceous plants and roots to guarantee their food supply. So Jenny, to whom M. Zermatt had made a present of this island, would find it in a highly prosperous condition when she returned.

  "You were very wise to enclose your rabbits there," Mr. Wolston remarked. "There will be thousands of them some day, and they would have eaten up every field in the Promised Land! In Australia, where I come from, these creatures threaten to become a worse plague than the locusts in Africa, and if the most stringent measures are not taken against the depredations of the breed, the entire surface of Australia will be consumed." (1 Mr. Wolston was not deceived in speaking- like this; seventy years later the extraordinary increase of the rabbits had become such a menace to Australia that the most active steps had to be taken for their destruction. )

  During these latter months of the year 1816 it was obvious more than once that Fritz and Frank were badly missed, although the Wolstons did not spare their efforts. The harvest season was always a very busy one. An immense amount of work was involved in the proper farming of the fields of maize and tapioca and of the rice plantation beyond the marsh near Flamingo Bay, in the cropping of the fruit trees, both the European species and the indigenous species, such as bananas, guavas, cacaos, cinnamons, and others, in the extraction and preparation of sago, and finally in the harvesting of the grain, wheat, rice, buckwheat and barley, and the cutting of the sugar-canes, which grew in such abundance on the farm fields of Sugarcane Grove. All this made heavy work for four men, although the three women helped them bravely. And it would all have to be begun over again in a few months, for the soil was so prolific that there was no danger of its being exhausted by two crops every year.

  On the other hand, it was important that Mme. Zermatt, Mrs. Wolston, and Hannah should not give up entirely their domestic work. And for this reason, while Mr. Wolston and M. Zermatt and his two sons went off to work out of doors, they most commonly remained at Rock Castle.

  Fertile as the soil of the Promised Land was, however, there was yet the possibility that its yield might be prejudicially affected by an excessive drought during the summer. What was lacking was a system of irrigation suitably carried all over the surface of this area of several hundred acres. The only watercourses were the Jackal and Falconhurst Rivers to the east, and to the west the Eastern River, which ran into the south end of Nautilus Bay. This defect had struck Mr. Wolston, and one day, the 9th of November, after the midday meal, he brought the conversation round to this subject.

  "Nothing would be easier," he said, "than to fix up a water wheel, using the Jackal River fall a mile and a half above Rock Castle. There are two ship's pumps among the material you took out of the Landlord, my dear Zermatt. Well, the wheel, once it is fixed, could work them with quite sufficient force, could pump the water up into a reservoir and carry it through pipes as far as the fields at Wood Grange and Sugar-cane Grove."

  "But the pipes," said Ernest; "how can w
e make them?"

  "We would do on a big scale what you have already done on a small scale to bring water from Jackal River to the kitchen garden at Rock Castle," Mr. Wolston replied. "Instead of using bamboos, we would use trunks of the sago tree, cleared of their pith. An installation like that would not be beyond our powers."

  "Splendid!" Jack declared. "When we have made our land more fertile still it will produce more; it will produce too much, and we shall not know what to do with our crops, for after all, there is no market yet at Rock Castle."

  "There will be one, Jack," M. Zermatt replied, "as there will be a town by and by, and then several towns, not only in the Promised Land, but all over New Switzerland. We must look ahead, my son."

  "And when there are towns," Ernest added, "there will be inhabitants whose food supply must be secured. So we must get out of the soil all that it is capable of yielding."

  "We shall get it all right," Mr. Wolston added reassuringly, "by means of this system of irrigation, which I will study if you like."

  Jack held his tongue and did not give in. It was by no means an agreeable idea to him that the English colony would some day number a considerable population, and if Mme. Zermatt's inmost heart could have been read the same regret at the thought of the future might have been found there.