Godfrey Morgan

By

Jules Verne

www.freeclassicebooks.com

CHAPTER I.. 4

CHAPTER II.. 14

CHAPTER III.. 27

CHAPTER IV.. 39

CHAPTER V.. 48

CHAPTER VI.. 58

CHAPTER VII.. 67

CHAPTER VIII.. 83

CHAPTER IX.. 96

CHAPTER X.. 109

CHAPTER XI.. 122

CHAPTER XII.. 133

CHAPTER XIII.. 146

CHAPTER XIV.. 158

CHAPTER XV.. 169

CHAPTER XVI.. 180

CHAPTER XVII.. 191

CHAPTER XVIII.. 204

CHAPTER XIX.. 217

CHAPTER XX.. 229

CHAPTER XXI.. 244

CHAPTER XXII.. 261

GODFREY MORGAN.

CHAPTER I.

IN WHICH THE READER HAS THE OPPORTUNITY OF BUYING AN ISLAND IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN.

"An island to sell, for cash, to the highest bidder!" said Dean Felporg,

the auctioneer, standing behind his rostrum in the room where the

conditions of the singular sale were being noisily discussed.

"Island for sale! island for sale!" repeated in shrill tones again and

again Gingrass, the crier, who was threading his way in and out of the

excited crowd closely packed inside the largest saloon in the auction

mart at No. 10, Sacramento Street.

The crowd consisted not only of a goodly number of Americans from the

States of Utah, Oregon, and California, but also of a few Frenchmen, who

form quite a sixth of the population.

Mexicans were there enveloped in their sarapes; Chinamen in their

large-sleeved tunics, pointed shoes, and conical hats; one or two

Kanucks from the coast; and even a sprinkling of Black Feet,

Grosventres, or Flatheads, from the banks of the Trinity river.

The scene is in San Francisco, the capital of California, but not at the

period when the placer-mining fever was raging--from 1849 to 1852. San

Francisco was no longer what it had been then, a caravanserai, a

terminus, an inn, where for a night there slept the busy men who were

hastening to the gold-fields west of the Sierra Nevada. At the end of

some twenty years the old unknown Yerba-Buena had given place to a town

unique of its kind, peopled by 100,000 inhabitants, built under the

shelter of a couple of hills, away from the shore, but stretching off to

the farthest heights in the background--a city in short which has

dethroned Lima, Santiago, Valparaiso, and every other rival, and which

the Americans have made the queen of the Pacific, the "glory of the

western coast!"

It was the 15th of May, and the weather was still cold. In California,

subject as it is to the direct action of the polar currents, the first

weeks of this month are somewhat similar to the last weeks of March in

Central Europe. But the cold was hardly noticeable in the thick of the

auction crowd. The bell with its incessant clangour had brought

together an enormous throng, and quite a summer temperature caused the

drops of perspiration to glisten on the foreheads of the spectators

which the cold outside would have soon solidified.

Do not imagine that all these folks had come to the auction-room with

the intention of buying. I might say that all of them had but come to

see. Who was going to be mad enough, even if he were rich enough, to

purchase an isle of the Pacific, which the government had in some

eccentric moment decided to sell? Would the reserve price ever be

reached? Could anybody be found to work up the bidding? If not, it would

scarcely be the fault of the public crier, who tried his best to tempt

buyers by his shoutings and gestures, and the flowery metaphors of his

harangue. People laughed at him, but they did not seem much influenced

by him.

"An island! an isle to sell!" repeated Gingrass.

"But not to buy!" answered an Irishman, whose pocket did not hold enough

to pay for a single pebble.

"An island which at the valuation will not fetch six dollars an acre!"

said the auctioneer.

"And which won't pay an eighth per cent.!" replied a big farmer, who was

well acquainted with agricultural speculations.

"An isle which measures quite sixty-four miles round and has an area of

two hundred and twenty-five thousand acres!"

"Is it solid on its foundation?" asked a Mexican, an old customer at the

liquor-bars, whose personal solidity seemed rather doubtful at the

moment.

"An isle with forests still virgin!" repeated the crier, "with prairies,

hills, watercourses--"

"Warranted?" asked a Frenchman, who seemed rather inclined to nibble.

"Yes! warranted!" added Felporg, much too old at his trade to be moved

by the chaff of the public.

"For two years?"

"To the end of the world!"

"Beyond that?"

"A freehold island!" repeated the crier, "an island without a single

noxious animal, no wild beasts, no reptiles!--"

"No birds?" added a wag.

"No insects?" inquired another.

"An island for the highest bidder!" said Dean Felporg, beginning again.

"Come, gentlemen, come! Have a little courage in your pockets! Who wants

an island in perfect state of repair, never been used, an island in the

Pacific, that ocean of oceans? The valuation is a mere nothing! It is

put at eleven hundred thousand dollars, is there any one will bid? Who

speaks first? You, sir?--you, over there nodding your head like a

porcelain mandarin? Here is an island! a really good island! Who says an

island?"

"Pass it round!" said a voice as if they were dealing with a picture or

a vase.

And the room shouted with laughter, but not a half-dollar was bid.

However, if the lot could not be passed round, the map of the island was

at the public disposal. The whereabouts of the portion of the globe

under consideration could be accurately ascertained. There was neither

surprise nor disappointment to be feared in that respect. Situation,

orientation, outline, altitudes, levels, hydrography, climatology, lines

of communication, all these were easily to be verified in advance.

People were not buying a pig in a poke, and most undoubtedly there could

be no mistake as to the nature of the goods on sale. Moreover, the

innumerable journals of the United States, especially those of

California, with their dailies, bi-weeklies, weeklies, bi-monthlies,

monthlies, their reviews, magazines, bulletins, &c., had been for

several months directing constant attention to the island whose sale by

auction had been authorized by Act of Congress.

The island was Spencer Island, which lies in the west-south-west of the

Bay of San Francisco, about 460 miles from the Californian coast, in 32°

15' north latitude, and 145° 18' west longitude, reckoning from

Greenwich. It would be impossible to imagine a more isolated position,

quite out of the way of all maritime or commercial traffic, although

Spencer Island was relatively, not very far off, and situated

practically in American waters. But thereabouts the regular currents

diverging to the north and south have formed a kind of lake of calms,

which is sometimes known as the "Whirlpool of Fleurieu."

It is in the centre of this enormous eddy, which has hardly an

appreciable movement, that Spencer Island is situated. And so it is

sighted by very few ships. The main routes of the Pacific, which join

the new to the old continent, and lead away to China or Japan, run in a

more southerly direction. Sailing-vessels would meet with endless calms

in the Whirlpool of Fleurieu; and steamers, which always take the

shortest road, would gain no advantage by crossing it. Hence ships of

neither class know anything of Spencer Island, which rises above the

waters like the isolated summit of one of the submarine mountains of the

Pacific. Truly, for a man wishing to flee from the noise of the world,

seeking quiet in solitude, what could be better than this island, lost

within a few hundred miles of the coast? For a voluntary Robinson

Crusoe, it would be the very ideal of its kind! Only of course he must

pay for it.

And now, why did the United States desire to part with the island? Was

it for some whim? No! A great nation cannot act on caprice in any

matter, however simple. The truth was this: situated as it was, Spencer

Island had for a long time been known as a station perfectly useless.

There could be no practical result from settling there. In a military

point of view it was of no importance, for it only commanded an

absolutely deserted portion of the Pacific. In a commercial point of

view there was a similar want of importance, for the products would not

pay the freight either inwards or outwards. For a criminal colony it was

too far from the coast. And to occupy it in any way, would be a very

expensive undertaking. So it had remained deserted from time immemorial,

and Congress, composed of "eminently practical" men, had resolved to put

it up for sale--on one condition only, and that was, that its purchaser

should be a free American citizen. There was no intention of giving away

the island for nothing, and so the reserve price had been fixed at

$1,100,000. This amount for a financial society dealing with such

matters was a mere bagatelle, if the transaction could offer any

advantages; but as we need hardly repeat, it offered none, and competent

men attached no more value to this detached portion of the United

States, than to one of the islands lost beneath the glaciers of the

Pole.

In one sense, however, the amount was considerable. A man must be rich

to pay for this hobby, for in any case it would not return him a

halfpenny per cent. He would even have to be immensely rich for the

transaction was to be a "cash" one, and even in the United States it is

as yet rare to find citizens with $1,100,000 in their pockets, who would

care to throw them into the water without hope of return.

And Congress had decided not to sell the island under the price. Eleven

hundred thousand dollars, not a cent less, or Spencer Island would

remain the property of the Union.

It was hardly likely that any one would be mad enough to buy it on the

terms.

Besides, it was expressly reserved that the proprietor, if one offered,

should not become king of Spencer Island, but president of a republic.

He would gain no right to have subjects, but only fellow-citizens, who

could elect him for a fixed time, and would be free from re-electing him

indefinitely. Under any circumstances he was forbidden to play at

monarchy. The Union could never tolerate the foundation of a kingdom, no

matter how small, in American waters.

This reservation was enough to keep off many an ambitious millionaire,

many an aged nabob, who might like to compete with the kings of the

Sandwich, the Marquesas, and the other archipelagoes of the Pacific.

In short, for one reason or other, nobody presented himself. Time was

getting on, the crier was out of breath in his efforts to secure a

buyer, the auctioneer orated without obtaining a single specimen of

those nods which his estimable fraternity are so quick to discover; and

the reserve price was not even mentioned.

However, if the hammer was not wearied with oscillating above the

rostrum, the crowd was not wearied with waiting around it. The joking

continued to increase, and the chaff never ceased for a moment. One

individual offered two dollars for the island, costs included. Another

said that a man ought to be paid that for taking it.

And all the time the crier was heard with,--

"An island to sell! an island for sale!"

And there was no one to buy it.

"Will you guarantee that there are flats there?" said Stumpy, the grocer

of Merchant Street, alluding to the deposits so famous in alluvial

gold-mining.

"No," answered the auctioneer, "but it is not impossible that there are,

and the State abandons all its rights over the gold lands."

"Haven't you got a volcano?" asked Oakhurst, the bar-keeper of

Montgomery Street.

"No volcanoes," replied Dean Felporg, "if there were, we could not sell

at this price!"

An immense shout of laughter followed.

"An island to sell! an island for sale!" yelled Gingrass, whose lungs

tired themselves out to no purpose.

"Only a dollar! only a half-dollar! only a cent above the reserve!" said

the auctioneer for the last time, "and I will knock it down! Once!

Twice!"

Perfect silence.

"If nobody bids we must put the lot back! Once! Twice!

"Twelve hundred thousand dollars!"

The four words rang through the room like four shots from a revolver.

The crowd, suddenly speechless, turned towards the bold man who had

dared to bid.

It was William W. Kolderup, of San Francisco.

CHAPTER II.

HOW WILLIAM W. KOLDERUP, OF SAN FRANCISCO, WAS AT LOGGERHEADS WITH J. R. TASKINAR, OF STOCKTON.

A man extraordinarily rich, who counted dollars by the million as other

men do by the thousand; such was William W. Kolderup.

People said he was richer than the Duke of Westminster, whose income is

some $4,000,000 a year, and who can spend his $10,000 a day, or seven

dollars every minute; richer than Senator Jones, of Nevada, who has

$35,000,000 in the funds; richer than Mr. Mackay himself, whose annual

$13,750,000 give him $1560 per hour, or half-a-dollar to spend every

second of his life.

I do not mention such minor millionaires as the Rothschilds, the

Vanderbilts, the Dukes of Northumberland, or the Stewarts, nor the

directors of the powerful bank of California, and other opulent

personages of the old and new worlds whom William W. Kolderup would have

been able to comfortably pension. He could, without inconvenience, have

given away a million just as you and I might give away a shilling.

It was in developing the early placer-mining enterprises in California

that our worthy speculator had laid the solid foundations of his

incalculable fortune. He was the principal associate of Captain Sutter,

the Swiss, in the localities, where, in 1848, the first traces were

discovered. Since then, luck and shrewdness combined had helped him on,

and he had interested himself in all the great enterprises of both

worlds. He threw himself boldly into commercial and industrial

speculations. His inexhaustible funds were the life of hundreds of

factories, his ships were on every sea. His wealth increased not in

arithmetical but in geometrical progression. People spoke of him as one

of those few "milliardaires" who never know how much they are worth. In

reality he knew almost to a dollar, but he never boasted of it.

At this very moment when we introduce him to our readers with all the

consideration such a many-sided man merits, William W. Kolderup had 2000

branch offices scattered over the globe, 80,000 employés in America,

Europe, and Australia, 300,000 correspondents, a fleet of 500 ships

which continually ploughed the ocean for his profit, and he was spending

not less than a million a year in bill-stamps and postages. In short, he

was the honour and glory of opulent Frisco--the nickname familiarly

given by the Americans to the Californian capital.

A bid from William W. Kolderup could not but be a serious one. And when

the crowd in the auction room had recognized who it was that by $100,000

had capped the reserve price of Spencer Island, there was an

irresistible sensation, the chaffing ceased instantly, jokes gave place

to interjections of admiration, and cheers resounded through the saloon.

Then a deep silence succeeded to the hubbub, eyes grew bigger, and ears

opened wider. For our part had we been there we would have had to hold

our breath that we might lose nothing of the exciting scene which would

follow should any one dare to bid against William W. Kolderup.

But was it probable? Was it even possible?

No! And at the outset it was only necessary to look at William W.

Kolderup to feel convinced that he could never yield on a question where

his financial gallantry was at stake.

He was a big, powerful man, with huge head, large shoulders, well-built

limbs, firmly knit, and tough as iron. His quiet but resolute look was

not willingly cast downwards, his grey hair, brushed up in front, was as

abundant as if he were still young. The straight lines of his nose

formed a geometrically-drawn right-angled triangle. No moustache; his

beard cut in Yankee fashion bedecked his chin, and the two upper points

met at the opening of the lips and ran up to the temples in

pepper-and-salt whiskers; teeth of snowy whiteness were symmetrically

placed on the borders of a clean-cut mouth. The head of one of those

true kings of men who rise in the tempest and face the storm. No

hurricane could bend that head, so solid was the neck which supported

it. In these battles of the bidders each of its nods meant an additional

hundred thousand dollars.

There was no one to dispute with him.

"Twelve hundred thousand dollars--twelve hundred thousand!" said the

auctioneer, with that peculiar accent which men of his vocation find

most effective.

"Going at twelve hundred thousand dollars!" repeated Gingrass the crier.

"You could safely bid more than that," said Oakhurst, the bar-keeper;

"William Kolderup will never give in."

"He knows no one will chance it," answered the grocer from Merchant

Street.

Repeated cries of "Hush!" told the two worthy tradesmen to be quiet. All

wished to hear. All hearts palpitated. Dare any one raise his voice in

answer to the voice of William W. Kolderup? He, magnificent to look

upon, never moved. There he remained as calm as if the matter had no

interest for him. But--and this those near to him noticed--his eyes were

like revolvers loaded with dollars, ready to fire.

"Nobody speaks?" asked Dean Felporg.

Nobody spoke.

"Once! Twice!"

"Once! Twice!" repeated Gingrass, quite accustomed to this little

dialogue with his chief.

"Going!"

"Going!"

"For twelve--hundred--thousand--dollars--Spencer--Island--com--plete!"

"For twelve--hundred--thousand--dollars!"

"That is so? No mistake?"

"No withdrawal?"

"For twelve hundred thousand dollars, Spencer Island!"

The waistcoats rose and fell convulsively. Could it be possible that at

the last second a higher bid would come? Felporg with his right hand

stretched on the table was shaking his ivory hammer--one rap, two raps,

and the deed would be done.

The public could not have been more absorbed in the face of a summary

application of the law of Justice Lynch!

The hammer slowly fell, almost touched the table, rose again, hovered

an instant like a sword which pauses ere the drawer cleaves the victim

in twain; then it flashed swiftly downwards.

But before the sharp rap could be given, a voice was heard giving

utterance to these four words,--

"Thirteen--hundred--thousand--dollars!"

There was a preliminary "Ah!" of general stupefaction, then a second

"Ah!" of not less general satisfaction. Another bidder had presented

himself! There was going to be a fight after all!

But who was the reckless individual who had dared to come to dollar

strokes with William W. Kolderup of San Francisco?

It was J. R. Taskinar, of Stockton.

J. R. Taskinar was rich, but he was more than proportionately fat. He

weighed 490 lbs. If he had only run second in the last fat-man show at

Chicago, it was because he had not been allowed time to finish his

dinner, and had lost about a dozen pounds.

This colossus, who had had to have special chairs made for his portly

person to rest upon, lived at Stockton, on the San Joachim. Stockton is

one of the most important cities in California, one of the depôt centres

for the mines of the south, the rival of Sacramento the centre for the

mines of the north. There the ships embark the largest quantity of

Californian corn.

Not only had the development of the mines and speculations in wheat

furnished J. R. Taskinar with the occasion of gaining an enormous

fortune, but petroleum, like another Pactolus, had run through his

treasury. Besides, he was a great gambler, a lucky gambler, and he had

found "poker" most prodigal of its favours to him.

But if he was a Croesus, he was also a rascal; and no one would have

addressed him as "honourable," although the title in those parts is so

much in vogue. After all, he was a good war-horse, and perhaps more was

put on his back than was justly his due. One thing was certain, and that

was that on many an occasion he had not hesitated to use his

"Derringer"--the Californian revolver.

Now J. R. Taskinar particularly detested William W. Kolderup. He envied

him for his wealth, his position, and his reputation. He despised him as

a fat man despises a lean one. It was not the first time that the

merchant of Stockton had endeavoured to do the merchant of San Francisco

out of some business or other, good or bad, simply owing to a feeling of

rivalry. William W. Kolderup thoroughly knew his man, and on all

occasions treated him with scorn enough to drive him to distraction.

The last success which J. R. Taskinar could not forgive his opponent

was that gained in the struggle over the state elections.

Notwithstanding his efforts, his threats, and his libels, not to mention

the millions of dollars squandered by his electoral courtiers, it was

William W. Kolderup who sat in his seat in the Legislative Council of

Sacramento.

J. R. Taskinar had learnt--how, I cannot tell--that it was the intention

of William W. Kolderup to acquire possession of Spencer Island. This

island seemed doubtless as useless to him as it did to his rival. No

matter. Here was another chance for fighting, and perhaps for

conquering. J. R. Taskinar would not allow it to escape him.

And that is why J. R. Taskinar had come to the auction room among the

curious crowd who could not be aware of his designs, why at all points

he had prepared his batteries, why before opening fire, he had waited

till his opponent had covered the reserve, and why when William W.

Kolderup had made his bid of--

"Twelve hundred thousand dollars!"

J. R. Taskinar at the moment when William W. Kolderup thought he had

definitely secured the island, woke up with the words shouted in

stentorian tones,--

"Thirteen hundred thousand dollars!"

Everybody as we have seen turned to look at him.

"Fat Taskinar!"

The name passed from mouth to mouth. Yes. Fat Taskinar! He was known

well enough! His corpulence had been the theme of many an article in the

journals of the Union.

I am not quite sure which mathematician it was who had demonstrated by

transcendental calculations, that so great was his mass that it actually

influenced that of our satellite and in an appreciable manner disturbed

the elements of the lunar orbit.

But it was not J. R. Taskinar's physical composition which interested

the spectators in the room. It was something far different which excited

them; it was that he had entered into direct public rivalry with William

W. Kolderup. It was a fight of heroes, dollar versus dollar, which had

opened, and I do not know which of the two coffers would turn out to be

best lined. Enormously rich were both these mortal enemies! After the

first sensation, which was rapidly suppressed, renewed silence fell on

the assembly. You could have heard a spider weaving his web.

It was the voice of Dean Felporg which broke the spell.

"For thirteen hundred thousand dollars, Spencer Island!" declaimed he,

drawing himself up so as to better command the circle of bidders.

William W. Kolderup had turned towards J. R. Taskinar. The bystanders

moved back, so as to allow the adversaries to behold each other. The

man of Stockton and the man of San Francisco were face to face, mutually

staring, at their ease. Truth compels me to state that they made the

most of the opportunity. Never would one of them consent to lower his

eyes before those of his rival.

"Fourteen hundred thousand dollars," said William W. Kolderup.

"Fifteen hundred thousand!" retorted J. R. Taskinar.

"Sixteen hundred thousand!"

"Seventeen hundred thousand!"

Have you ever heard the story of the two mechanics of Glasgow, who tried

which should raise the other highest up the factory chimney at the risk

of a catastrophe? The only difference was that here the chimney was of

ingots of gold.

Each time after the capping bid of J. R. Taskinar, William W. Kolderup

took a few moments to reflect before he bid again. On the contrary

Taskinar burst out like a bomb, and did not seem to require a second to

think.

"Seventeen hundred thousand dollars!" repeated the auctioneer. "Now,

gentlemen, that is a mere nothing! It is giving it away!"

And one can well believe that, carried away by the jargon of his

profession, he was about to add,--

"The frame alone is worth more than that!" When--

"Seventeen hundred thousand dollars!" howled Gingrass, the crier.

"Eighteen hundred thousand!" replied William W. Kolderup.

"Nineteen hundred thousand!" retorted J. R. Taskinar.

"Two millions!" quoth William W. Kolderup, and so quickly that this time

he evidently had not taken the trouble to think. His face was a little

pale when these last words escaped his lips, but his whole attitude was

that of a man who did not intend to give in.

J. R. Taskinar was simply on fire. His enormous face was like one of

those gigantic railway bull's-eyes which, screened by the red, signal

the stoppage of the train. But it was highly probable that his rival

would disregard the block, and decline to shut off steam.

This J. R. Taskinar felt. The blood mounted to his brows, and seemed

apoplectically congested there. He wriggled his fat fingers, covered

with diamonds of great price, along the huge gold chain attached to his

chronometer. He glared at his adversary, and then shutting his eyes so

as to open them with a more spiteful expression a moment afterwards.

"Two million, four hundred thousand dollars!" he remarked, hoping by

this tremendous leap to completely rout his rival.

"Two million, seven hundred thousand!" replied William W. Kolderup in a

peculiarly calm voice.

"Two million, nine hundred thousand!"

"Three millions!"

Yes! William W. Kolderup, of San Francisco, said three millions of

dollars!

Applause rang through the room, hushed, however, at the voice of the

auctioneer, who repeated the bid, and whose oscillating hammer

threatened to fall in spite of himself by the involuntary movement of

his muscles. It seemed as though Dean Felporg, surfeited with the

surprises of public auction sales, would be unable to contain himself

any longer.

All glances were turned on J. R. Taskinar. That voluminous personage was

sensible of this, but still more was he sensible of the weight of these

three millions of dollars, which seemed to crush him. He would have

spoken, doubtless to bid higher--but he could not. He would have liked

to nod his head--he could do so no more.

After a long pause, however, his voice was heard; feeble it is true, but

sufficiently audible.

"Three millions, five hundred thousand!"

"Four millions," was the answer of William W. Kolderup.

It was the last blow of the bludgeon. J. R. Taskinar succumbed. The

hammer gave a hard rap on the marble table and--

Spencer Island fell for four millions of dollars to William W. Kolderup,

of San Francisco.

"I will be avenged!" muttered J. R. Taskinar, and throwing a glance of

hatred at his conqueror, he returned to the Occidental Hotel.

But "hip, hip, hurrah," three times thrice, smote the ears of William W.

Kolderup, then cheers followed him to Montgomery Street, and such was

the delirious enthusiasm of the Americans that they even forgot to

favour him with the customary bars of "Yankee Doodle."

CHAPTER III.

THE CONVERSATION OF PHINA HOLLANEY AND GODFREY MORGAN, WITH A PIANO

ACCOMPANIMENT.

William W. Kolderup had returned to his mansion in Montgomery Street.

This thoroughfare is the Regent Street, the Broadway, the Boulevard des

Italiens of San Francisco. Throughout its length, the great artery which

crosses the city parallel with its quays is astir with life and

movement; trams there are innumerable; carriages with horses, carriages

with mules; men bent on business, hurrying to and fro over its stone

pavements, past shops thronged with customers; men bent on pleasure,

crowding the doors of the "bars," where at all hours are dispensed the

Californian's drinks.

There is no need for us to describe the mansion of a Frisco nabob. With

so many millions, there was proportionate luxury. More comfort than

taste. Less of the artistic than the practical. One cannot have

everything.

So the reader must be contented to know that there was a magnificent

reception-room, and in this reception-room a piano, whose chords were

permeating the mansion's warm atmosphere when the opulent Kolderup

walked in.

"Good!" he said. "She and he are there! A word to my cashier, and then

we can have a little chat."

And he stepped towards his office to arrange the little matter of

Spencer Island, and then dismiss it from his mind. He had only to

realize a few certificates in his portfolio and the acquisition was

settled for. Half-a-dozen lines to his broker--no more. Then William W.

Kolderup devoted himself to another "combination" which was much more to

his taste.

Yes! she and he were in the drawing-room--she, in front of the piano;

he, half reclining on the sofa, listening vaguely to the pearly

arpeggios which escaped from the fingers of the charmer.

"Are you listening?" she said.

"Of course."

"Yes! but do you understand it?"

"Do I understand it, Phina! Never have you played those 'Auld Robin

Gray' variations more superbly."

"But it is not 'Auld Robin Gray,' Godfrey: it is 'Happy Moments.'"

"Oh! ah! yes! I remember!" answered Godfrey, in a tone of indifference

which it was difficult to mistake. The lady raised her two hands, held

them suspended for an instant above the keys as if they were about to

grasp another chord, and then with a half-turn on her music-stool she

remained for a moment looking at the too tranquil Godfrey, whose eyes

did their best to avoid hers.

Phina Hollaney was the goddaughter of William W. Kolderup. An orphan, he

had educated her, and given her the right to consider herself his

daughter, and to love him as her father. She wanted for nothing. She was

young, "handsome in her way" as people say, but undoubtedly fascinating,

a blonde of sixteen with the ideas of a woman much older, as one could

read in the crystal of her blue-black eyes. Of course, we must compare

her to a lily, for all beauties are compared to lilies in the best

American society. She was then a lily, but a lily grafted into an

eglantine. She certainly had plenty of spirit, but she had also plenty

of practical common-sense, a somewhat selfish demeanour, and but little

sympathy with the illusions and dreams so characteristic of her sex and

age.

Her dreams were when she was asleep, not when she was awake. She was not

asleep now, and had no intention of being so.

"Godfrey?" she continued.

"Phina?" answered the young man.

"Where are you now?"

"Near you--in this room--"

"Not near me, Godfrey! Not in this room! But far far away, over the

seas, is it not so?"

And mechanically Phina's hand sought the key-board and rippled along a

series of sinking sevenths, which spoke of a plaintive sadness,

unintelligible perhaps to the nephew of William W. Kolderup.

For such was this young man, such was the relationship he bore towards

the master of the house. The son of a sister of this buyer of islands,

fatherless and motherless for a good many years, Godfrey Morgan, like

Phina, had been brought up in the house of his uncle, in whom the fever

of business had still left a place for the idea of marrying these two to

each other.

Godfrey was in his twenty-third year. His education now finished, had

left him with absolutely nothing to do. He had graduated at the

University, but had found it of little use. For him life opened out but

paths of ease; go where he would, to the right or the left, whichever

way he went, fortune would not fail him.

Godfrey was of good presence, gentlemanly, elegant--never tying his

cravat in a ring, nor starring his fingers, his wrists or his

shirt-front with those jewelled gimcracks so dear to his

fellow-citizens.

I shall surprise no one in saying that Godfrey Morgan was going to

marry Phina Hollaney. Was he likely to do otherwise? All the proprieties

were in favour of it. Besides, William W. Kolderup desired the marriage.

The two people whom he loved most in this world were sure of a fortune

from him, without taking into consideration whether Phina cared for

Godfrey, or Godfrey cared for Phina. It would also simplify the

bookkeeping of the commercial house. Ever since their births an account

had been opened for the boy, another for the girl. It would then be only

necessary to rule these off and transfer the balances to a joint account

for the young couple. The worthy merchant hoped that this would soon be

done, and the balances struck without error or omission.

But it is precisely that there had been an omission and perhaps an error

that we are about to show.

An error, because at the outset Godfrey felt that he was not yet old

enough for the serious undertaking of marriage; an omission, because he

had not been consulted on the subject.

In fact, when he had finished his studies Godfrey had displayed a quite

premature indifference to the world, in which he wanted for nothing, in

which he had no wish remaining ungratified, and nothing whatever to do.

The thought of travelling round the world was always present to him. Of

the old and new continents he knew but one spot--San Francisco, where he

was born, and which he had never left except in a dream. What harm was

there in a young man making the tour of the globe twice or

thrice--especially if he were an American? Would it do him any good?

Would he learn anything in the different adventures he would meet with

in a voyage of any length? If he were not already satiated with a life

of adventure, how could he be answered? Finally, how many millions of

leagues of observation and instruction were indispensable for the

completion of the young man's education?

Things had reached this pass; for a year or more Godfrey had been

immersed in books of voyages of recent date, and had passionately

devoured them. He had discovered the Celestial Empire with Marco Polo,

America with Columbus, the Pacific with Cook, the South Pole with Dumont

d'Urville. He had conceived the idea of going where these illustrious

travellers had been without him. In truth, he would not have considered

an exploring expedition of several years to cost him too dear at the

price of a few attacks of Malay pirates, several ocean collisions, and a

shipwreck or two on a desert island where he could live the life of a

Selkirk or a Robinson Crusoe! A Crusoe! To become a Crusoe! What young

imagination has not dreamt of this in reading as Godfrey had often, too

often done, the adventures of the imaginary heroes of Daniel de Foe and

De Wyss?

Yes! The nephew of William W. Kolderup was in this state when his uncle

was thinking of binding him in the chains of marriage. To travel in this

way with Phina, then become Mrs. Morgan, would be clearly impossible! He

must go alone or leave it alone. Besides, once his fancy had passed

away, would not she be better disposed to sign the settlements? Was it

for the good of his wife that he had not been to China or Japan, not

even to Europe? Decidedly not.

And hence it was that Godfrey was now absent in the presence of Phina,

indifferent when she spoke to him, deaf when she played the airs which

used to please him; and Phina, like a thoughtful, serious girl, soon

noticed this.

To say that she did not feel a little annoyance mingled with some

chagrin, is to do her a gratuitous injustice. But accustomed to look

things in the face, she had reasoned thus,--

"If we must part, it had better be before marriage than afterwards!"

And thus it was that she had spoken to Godfrey in these significant

words.

"No! You are not near me at this moment--you are beyond the seas!"

Godfrey had risen. He had walked a few steps without noticing Phina,

and unconsciously his index finger touched one of the keys of the piano.

A loud C# of the octave below the staff, a note dismal enough, answered

for him.

Phina had understood him, and without more discussion was about to bring

matters to a crisis, when the door of the room opened.

William W. Kolderup appeared, seemingly a little preoccupied as usual.

Here was the merchant who had just finished one negotiation and was

about to begin another.

"Well," said he, "there is nothing more now than for us to fix the

date."

"The date?" answered Godfrey, with a start. "What date, if you please,

uncle?"

"The date of your wedding!" said William W. Kolderup. "Not the date of

mine, I suppose!"

"Perhaps that is more urgent?" said Phina.

"Hey?--what?" exclaimed the uncle--"what does that matter? We are only

talking of current affairs, are we not?"

"Godfather Will," answered the lady. "It is not of a wedding that we are

going to fix the date to-day, but of a departure."

"A departure!"

"Yes, the departure of Godfrey," continued Phina, "of Godfrey who,

before he gets married, wants to see a little of the world!"

"You want to go away--you?" said William W. Kolderup, stepping towards

the young man and raising his arms as if he were afraid that this

"rascal of a nephew" would escape him.

"Yes; I do, uncle," said Godfrey gallantly.

"And for how long?"

"For eighteen months, or two years, or more, if--"

"If--"

"If you will let me, and Phina will wait for me."

"Wait for you! An intended who intends until he gets away!" exclaimed

William W. Kolderup.

"You must let Godfrey go," pleaded Phina; "I have thought it carefully

over. I am young, but really Godfrey is younger. Travel will age him,

and I do not think it will change his taste! He wishes to travel, let

him travel! The need of repose will come to him afterwards, and he will

find me when he returns."

"What!" exclaimed William W. Kolderup, "you consent to give your bird

his liberty?"

"Yes, for the two years he asks."

"And you will wait for him?"

"Uncle Will, if I could not wait for him I could not love him!" and so

saying Phina returned to the piano, and whether she willed it or no,

her fingers softly played a portion of the then fashionable "Départ du

Fiancé," which was very appropriate under the circumstances. But Phina,

without perceiving it perhaps, was playing in "A minor," whereas it was

written in "A major," and all the sentiment of the melody was

transformed, and its plaintiveness chimed in well with her hidden

feelings.

But Godfrey stood embarrassed, and said not a word. His uncle took him

by the head and turning it to the light looked fixedly at him for a

moment or two. In this way he questioned him without having to speak,

and Godfrey was able to reply without having occasion to utter a

syllable.

And the lamentations of the "Départ du Fiancé" continued their sorrowful

theme, and then William W. Kolderup, having made the turn of the room,

returned to Godfrey, who stood like a criminal before the judge. Then

raising his voice,--

"You are serious," he asked.

"Quite serious!" interrupted Phina, while Godfrey contented himself with

making a sign of affirmation.

"You want to try travelling before you marry Phina! Well! You shall try

it, my nephew!"

He made two or three steps and stopping with crossed arms before

Godfrey, asked,--

"Where do you want to go to?"

"Everywhere."

"And when do you want to start?"

"When you please, Uncle Will."

"All right," replied William W. Kolderup, fixing a curious look on his

nephew.

Then he muttered between his teeth,--

"The sooner the better."

At these last words came a sudden interruption from Phina. The little

finger of her left hand touched a G#, and the fourth had, instead of

falling on the key-note, rested on the "sensible," like Ralph in the

"Huguenots," when he leaves at the end of his duet with Valentine.

Perhaps Phina's heart was nearly full, she had made up her mind to say

nothing.

It was then that William W. Kolderup, without noticing Godfrey,

approached the piano.

"Phina," said he gravely, "you should never remain on the 'sensible'!"

And with the tip of his large finger he dropped vertically on to one of

the keys and an "A natural" resounded through the room.

CHAPTER IV.

IN WHICH T. ARTELETT, OTHERWISE TARTLET, IS DULY INTRODUCED TO THE

READER.

If T. Artelett had been a Parisian, his compatriots would not have

failed to nickname him Tartlet, but as he had already received this

title we do not hesitate to describe him by it. If Tartlet was not a

Frenchman he ought to have been one.

In his "Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem," Chateaubriand tells of a

little man "powdered and frizzed in the old-fashioned style, with a coat

of apple green, a waistcoat of drouget, shirt-frill and cuffs of muslin,

who scraped a violin and made the Iroquois dance 'Madeleine Friquet.'"

The Californians are not Iroquois, far from it; but Tartlet was none the

less professor of dancing and deportment in the capital of their state.

If they did not pay him for his lessons, as they had his predecessor in

beaver-skins and bear-hams, they did so in dollars. If in speaking of

his pupils he did not talk of the "bucks and their squaws," it was

because his pupils were highly civilized, and because in his opinion he

had contributed considerably to their civilization.

Tartlet was a bachelor, and aged about forty-five at the time we

introduce him to our readers. But for a dozen years or so his marriage

with a lady of somewhat mature age had been expected to take place.

Under present circumstances it is perhaps advisable to give "two or

three lines" concerning his age, appearance, and position in life. He

would have responded to such a request we imagine as follows, and thus

we can dispense with drawing his portrait from a moral and physical

point of view.

"He was born on the 17th July, 1835, at a quarter-past three in the

morning.

"His height is five feet, two inches, three lines.

"His girth is exactly two feet, three inches.

"His weight, increased by some six pounds during the last year, is one

hundred and fifty one pounds, two ounces.

"He has an oblong head.

"His hair, very thin above the forehead, is grey chestnut, his forehead

is high, his face oval, his complexion fresh coloured.

"His eyes--sight excellent--a greyish brown, eyelashes and eyebrows

clear chestnut, eyes themselves somewhat sunk in their orbits beneath

the arches of the brows.

"His nose is of medium size, and has a slight indentation towards the

end of the left nostril.

"His cheeks and temples are flat and hairless.

"His ears are large and flat.

"His mouth, of middling size, is absolutely free from bad teeth.

"His lips, thin and slightly pinched, are covered with a heavy moustache

and imperial, his chin is round and also shaded with a many-tinted

beard.

"A small mole ornaments his plump neck--in the nape.

"Finally, when he is in the bath it can be seen that his skin is white

and smooth.

"His life is calm and regular. Without being robust, thanks to his great

temperance, he has kept his health uninjured since his birth. His lungs

are rather irritable, and hence he has not contracted the bad habit of

smoking. He drinks neither spirits, coffee, liqueurs, nor neat wine. In

a word, all that could prejudicially affect his nervous system is

vigorously excluded from his table. Light beer, and weak wine and water

are the only beverages he can take without danger. It is on account of

his carefulness that he has never had to consult a doctor since his life

began.

"His gesture is prompt, his walk quick, his character frank and open.

His thoughtfulness for others is extreme, and it is on account of this

that in the fear of making his wife unhappy, he has never entered into

matrimony."

Such would have been the report furnished by Tartlet, but desirable as

he might be to a lady of a certain age, the projected union had hitherto

failed. The professor remained a bachelor, and continued to give lessons

in dancing and deportment.

It was in this capacity that he entered the mansion of William W.

Kolderup. As time rolled on his pupils gradually abandoned him, and he

ended by becoming one wheel more in the machinery of the wealthy

establishment.

After all, he was a brave man, in spite of his eccentricities. Everybody

liked him. He liked Godfrey, he liked Phina, and they liked him. He had

only one ambition in the world, and that was to teach them all the

secrets of his art, to make them in fact, as far as deportment was

concerned, two highly accomplished individuals.

Now, what would you think? It was he, this Professor Tartlet, whom

William W. Kolderup had chosen as his nephew's companion during the

projected voyage. Yes! He had reason to believe that Tartlet had not a

little contributed to imbue Godfrey with this roaming mania, so as to

perfect himself by a tour round the world. William W. Kolderup had

resolved that they should go together. On the morrow, the 16th of April,

he sent for the professor to his office.

The request of the nabob was an order for Tartlet. The professor left

his room, with his pocket violin--generally known as a kit--so as to be

ready for all emergencies. He mounted the great staircase of the mansion

with his feet academically placed as was fitting for a dancing-master;

knocked at the door of the room, entered--his body half inclined, his

elbows rounded, his mouth on the grin--and waited in the third position,

after having crossed his feet one before the other, at half their

length, his ankles touching and his toes turned out. Any one but

Professor Tartlet placed in this sort of unstable equilibrium would have

tottered on his base, but the professor preserved an absolute

perpendicularity.

"Mr. Tartlet," said William W. Kolderup, "I have sent for you to tell

you some news which I imagine will rather surprise you."

"As you think best!" answered the professor.

"My nephew's marriage is put off for a year or eighteen months, and

Godfrey, at his own request, is going to visit the different countries

of the old and new world."

"Sir," answered Tartlet, "my pupil, Godfrey, will do honour to the

country of his birth, and--"

"And, to the professor of deportment who has initiated him into

etiquette," interrupted the merchant, in a tone of which the guileless

Tartlet failed to perceive the irony.

And, in fact, thinking it the correct thing to execute an "assemblée,"

he first moved one foot and then the other, by a sort of semi-circular

side slide, and then with a light and graceful bend of the knee, he

bowed to William W. Kolderup.

"I thought," continued the latter, "that you might feel a little regret

at separating from your pupil?"

"The regret will be extreme," answered Tartlet, "but should it be

necessary--"

"It is not necessary," answered William W. Kolderup, knitting his bushy

eyebrows.

"Ah!" replied Tartlet.

Slightly troubled, he made a graceful movement to the rear, so as to

pass from the third to the fourth position; but he left the breadth of a

foot between his feet, without perhaps being conscious of what he was

doing.

"Yes!" added the merchant in a peremptory tone, which admitted not of

the ghost of a reply; "I have thought it would really be cruel to

separate a professor and a pupil so well made to understand each other!"

"Assuredly!--the journey?" answered Tartlet, who did not seem to want to

understand.

"Yes! Assuredly!" replied William W. Kolderup; "not only will his

travels bring out the talents of my nephew, but the talents of the

professor to whom he owes so correct a bearing."

Never had the thought occurred to this great baby that one day he would

leave San Francisco, California, America, to roam the seas. Such an idea

had never entered the brain of a man more absorbed in choregraphy than

geography, and who was still ignorant of the suburbs of the capital

beyond ten miles radius. And now this was offered to him. He was to

understand that nolens volens he was to expatriate himself, he himself

was to experience with all their costs and inconveniences the very

adventures he had recommended to his pupil! Here, decidedly, was

something to trouble a brain much more solid than his, and the

unfortunate Tartlet for the first time in his life felt an involuntary

yielding in the muscles of his limbs, suppled as they were by

thirty-five years' exercise.

"Perhaps," said he, trying to recall to his lips the stereotyped smile

of the dancer which had left him for an instant,--"perhaps--am I not--"

"You will go!" answered William W. Kolderup like a a man with whom

discussion was useless.

To refuse was impossible. Tartlet did not even think of such a thing.

What was he in the house? A thing, a parcel, a package to be sent to

every corner of the world. But the projected expedition troubled him not

a little.

"And when am I to start?" demanded he, trying to get back into an

academical position.

"In a month."

"And on what raging ocean has Mr. Kolderup decided that his vessel

should bear his nephew and me?"

"The Pacific, at first."

"And on what point of the terrestrial globe shall I first set foot?"

"On the soil of New Zealand," answered William W. Kolderup; "I have

remarked that the New Zealanders always stick their elbows out! Now you

can teach them to turn them in!"

And thus was Professor Tartlet selected as the travelling-companion of

Godfrey Morgan.

A nod from the merchant gave him to understand that the audience had

terminated. He retired, considerably agitated, and the performance of

the special graces which he usually displayed in this difficult act left

a good deal to be desired. In fact, for the first time in his life,

Professor Tartlet, forgetting in his preoccupation the most elementary

principles of his art, went out with his toes turned in!

CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH THEY PREPARE TO GO, AND AT THE END OF WHICH THEY GO FOR GOOD.

Before the long voyage together through life, which men call marriage,

Godfrey then was to make the tour of the world--a journey sometimes even

more dangerous. But he reckoned on returning improved in every respect;

he left a lad, he would return a man. He would have seen, noted,

compared. His curiosity would be satisfied. There would only remain for

him to settle down quietly, and live happily at home with his wife, whom

no temptation would take him from. Was he wrong or right? Was he to

learn a valuable lesson? The future will show.

In short, Godfrey was enchanted.

Phina, anxious without appearing to be so, was resigned to this

apprenticeship.

Professor Tartlet, generally so firm on his limbs, had lost all his

dancing equilibrium. He had lost all his usual self-possession, and

tried in vain to recover it; he even tottered on the carpet of his room

as if he were already on the floor of a cabin, rolling and pitching on

the ocean.

As for William W. Kolderup, since he had arrived at a decision, he had

become very uncommunicative, especially to his nephew. The closed lips,

and eyes half hidden beneath their lids, showed that there was some

fixed idea in the head where generally floated the highest commercial

speculations.

"Ah! you want to travel," muttered he every now and then; "travel

instead of marrying and staying at home! Well, you shall travel."

Preparations were immediately begun.

In the first place, the itinerary had to be projected, discussed, and

settled.

Was Godfrey to go south, or east, or west? That had to be decided in the

first place.

If he went southwards, the Panama, California and British Columbia

Company, or the Southampton and Rio Janeiro Company would have to take

him to Europe.

If he went eastwards, the Union Pacific Railway would take him in a few

days to New York, and thence the Cunard, Inman, White Star,

Hamburg-American, or French-Transatlantic Companies would land him on

the shores of the old world.

If he went westwards, the Golden Age Steam Transoceanic would render it

easy for him to reach Melbourne, and thence he could get to the Isthmus

of Suez by the boats of the Peninsular and Oriental Company.

The means of transport were abundant, and thanks to their mathematical

agreement the round of the world was but a simple pleasure tour.

But it was not thus that the nephew and heir of the nabob of Frisco was

to travel.

No! William W. Kolderup possessed for the requirements of his business

quite a fleet of steam and sailing-vessels. He had decided that one of

these ships should be "put at the disposal" of Godfrey Morgan, as if he

were a prince of the blood, travelling for his pleasure--at the expense

of his father's subjects.

By his orders the Dream, a substantial steamer of 600 tons and 200

horse-power, was got ready. It was to be commanded by Captain Turcott, a

tough old salt, who had already sailed in every latitude in every sea. A

thorough sailor, this friend of tornadoes, cyclones, and typhoons, had

already spent of his fifty years of life, forty at sea. To bring to in a

hurricane was quite child's play to this mariner, who was never

disconcerted, except by land-sickness when he was in port. His

incessantly unsteady existence on a vessel's deck had endowed him with

the habit of constantly balancing himself to the right or the left, or

behind or in front, as though he had the rolling and pitching variety of

St. Vitus's dance.

A mate, an engineer, four stokers, a dozen seamen, eighteen men in all,

formed the crew of the Dream. And if the ship was contented to get

quietly through eight miles an hour, she possessed a great many

excellent nautical qualities. If she was not swift enough to race the

waves when the sea was high, the waves could not race over her, and that

was an advantage which quite compensated for the mediocrity of her

speed, particularly when there was no hurry. The Dream was brigantine

rigged, and in a favourable wind, with her 400 square yards of canvas,

her steaming rate could be considerably increased.

It should be borne in mind all through that the voyage of the Dream

was carefully planned, and would be punctually performed. William W.

Kolderup was too practical a man not to put to some purpose a journey of

15,000 or 16,000 leagues across all the oceans of the globe. His ship

was to go without cargo, undoubtedly, but it was easy to get her down to

her right trim by means of water ballast, and even to sink her to her

deck, if it proved necessary.

The Dream was instructed to communicate with the different branch

establishments of the wealthy merchant. She was to go from one market to

another.

Captain Turcott, never fear, would not find it difficult to pay the

expenses of the voyage! Godfrey Morgan's whim would not cost the

avuncular purse a single dollar! That is the way they do business in the

best commercial houses!

All this was decided at long, very secret interviews between William W.

Kolderup and Captain Turcott. But it appeared that the regulation of

this matter, simple as it seemed, could not be managed alone, for the

captain paid numerous visits to the merchant's office. When he came

away, it would be noticed that his face bore a curious expression, that

his hair stood on end as if he had been ruffling it up with fevered

hands, and that all his body rolled and pitched more than usual. High

words were constantly heard, proving that the interviews were stormy.

Captain Turcott, with his plain speaking, knew how to withstand William

W. Kolderup, who loved and esteemed him enough to permit him to

contradict him.

And now all was arranged. Who had given in? William W. Kolderup or

Turcott? I dare not say, for I do not even know the subject of their

discussion. However, I rather think it must have been the captain.

Anyhow, after eight days of interviewing, the merchant and the captain

were in accord, but Turcott did not cease to grumble between his teeth.

"May five hundred thousand Davy Joneses drag me to the bottom if ever I

had a job like this before!"

However, the Dream fitted out rapidly, and her captain neglected

nothing which would enable him to put to sea in the first fortnight in

June. She had been into dock, and the hull had been gone over with

composition, whose brilliant red contrasted vividly with the black of

her upper works.

A great number of vessels of all kinds and nationalities came into the

port of San Francisco. In a good many years the old quays of the town,

built straight along the shore, would have been insufficient for the

embarkation and disembarkation of their cargoes, if engineers had not

devised subsidiary wharves. Piles of red deal were driven into the

water, and many square miles of planks were laid on them and formed huge

platforms. A good deal of the bay was thus taken up, but the bay is

enormous. There were also regular landing-stages, with numberless cranes

and crabs, at which steamers from both oceans, steamboats from the

Californian rivers, clippers from all countries, and coasters from the

American seaboard were ranged in proper order, so as not to interfere

one with the other.

It was at one of these artificial quays, at the extremity of Mission

Wharf Street, that the Dream had been securely moored after she had

come out of dock.

Nothing was neglected, and the steamer would start under the most

favourable conditions. Provisioning, outfit, all were minutely studied.

The rigging was perfect, the boilers had been tested and the screw was

an excellent one. A steam launch was even carried, to facilitate

communication with the shore, and this would probably be of great

service during the voyage.

Everything was ready on the 10th of June. They had only to put to sea.

The men shipped by Captain Turcott to work the sails or drive the engine

were a picked crew, and it would have been difficult to find a better

one. Quite a stock of live animals, agouties, sheep, goats, poultry,

&c., were stowed between decks, the material wants of the travellers

were likewise provided for by numerous cases of preserved meats of the

best brands.

The route the Dream was to follow had doubtless been the subject of

the long conferences which William W. Kolderup had had with his captain.

All knew that they were first bound for Auckland, in New Zealand, unless

want of coal necessitated by the persistence of contrary winds obliged

them to refill perhaps at one of the islands of the Pacific or some

Chinese port.

All this detail mattered little to Godfrey once he was on the sea, and

still less to Tartlet, whose troubled spirit exaggerated from day to day

the dangers of navigation. There was only one formality to be gone

through--the formality of being photographed.

An engaged man could not decently start on a long voyage round the world

without taking with him the image of her he loved, and in return leaving

his own image behind him.

Godfrey in tourist costume accordingly handed himself over to Messrs

Stephenson and Co., photographers of Montgomery Street, and Phina, in

her walking-dress, confided in like manner to the sun the task of fixing

her charming but somewhat sorrowing features on the plate of those able

operators.

It is also the custom to travel together, and so Phina's portrait had

its allotted place in Godfrey's cabin, and Godfrey's portrait its

special position in Phina's room. As for Tartlet, who had no betrothed

and who was not thinking of having one at present, he thought it better

to confide his image to sensitised paper. But although great was the

talent of the photographers they failed to present him with a

satisfactory proof. The negative was a confused fog in which it was

impossible to recognize the celebrated professor of dancing and

deportment.

This was because the patient could not keep himself still, in spite of

all that was said about the invariable rule in studios devoted to

operations of this nature.

They tried other means, even the instantaneous process. Impossible.

Tartlet pitched and rolled in anticipation as violently as the captain

of the Dream.

The idea of obtaining a picture of the features of this remarkable man

had thus to be abandoned. Irreparable would be the misfortune if--but

far from us be the thought!--if in imagining he was leaving the new

world for the old world Tartlet had left the new world for the other

world from which nobody returns.

On the 9th of June all was ready. The Dream was complete. Her papers,

bills of lading, charter-party, assurance policy, were all in order, and

two days before the ship-broker had sent on the last signatures.

On that day a grand farewell breakfast was given at the mansion in

Montgomery Street. They drank to the happy voyage of Godfrey and his

safe return.

Godfrey was rather agitated, and he did not strive to hide it. Phina

showed herself much the most composed. As for Tartlet he drowned his

apprehensions in several glasses of champagne, whose influence was

perceptible up to the moment of departure. He even forgot his kit, which

was brought to him as they were casting off the last hawsers of the

Dream.

The last adieux were said on board, the last handshakings took place on

the poop, then the engine gave two or three turns of the screw and the

steamer was under way.

"Good-bye, Phina!"

"Good-bye, Godfrey!"

"May Heaven protect you!" said the uncle.

"And above all may it bring us back!" murmured Professor Tartlet.

"And never forget, Godfrey," added William W. Kolderup, "the device

which the Dream bears on her stern, 'Confide, recte agens.'"

"Never, Uncle Will! Good-bye, Phina!"

"Good-bye, Godfrey!"

The steamer moved off, handkerchiefs were shaken as long as she remained

in sight from the quay, and even after. Soon the bay of San Francisco,

the largest in the world, was crossed, the Dream passed the narrow

throat of the Golden Gate and then her prow cleft the waters of the

Pacific Ocean. It was as though the Gates of Gold had closed upon her.

CHAPTER VI.

IN WHICH THE READER MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A NEW PERSONAGE.

The voyage had begun. There had not been much difficulty so far, it must

be admitted.

Professor Tartlet, with incontestable logic, often repeated,--

"Any voyage can begin! But where and how it finishes is the important

point."

The cabin occupied by Godfrey was below the poop of the Dream and

opened on to the dining-saloon. Our young traveller was lodged there as

comfortably as possible. He had given Phina's photograph the best place

on the best lighted panel of his room. A cot to sleep on, a lavatory for

toilet purposes, some chests of drawers for his clothes and his linen, a

table to work at, an armchair to sit upon, what could a young man in his

twenty-second year want more? Under such circumstances he might have

gone twenty-two times round the world! Was he not at the age of that

practical philosophy which consists in good health and good humour? Ah!

young people, travel if you can, and if you cannot--travel all the same!

Tartlet was not in a good humour. His cabin, near that of his pupil,

seemed to him too narrow, his bed too hard, the six square yards which

he occupied quite insufficient for his steps and strides. Would not the

traveller in him absorb the professor of dancing and deportment? No! It

was in the blood, and when Tartlet reached the hour of his last sleep

his feet would be found placed in a horizontal line with the heels one

against the other, in the first position.

Meals were taken in common. Godfrey and Tartlet sat opposite to each

other, the captain and mate occupying each end of the rolling table.

This alarming appellation, the "rolling table," is enough to warn us

that the professor's place would too often be vacant.

At the start, in the lovely month of June, there was a beautiful breeze

from the north-east, and Captain Turcott was able to set his canvas so

as to increase his speed. The Dream thus balanced hardly rolled at

all, and as the waves followed her, her pitching was but slight. This

mode of progressing was not such as to affect the looks of the

passengers and give them pinched noses, hollow eyes, livid foreheads, or

colourless cheeks. It was supportable. They steered south-west over a

splendid sea, hardly lifting in the least, and the American coast soon

disappeared below the horizon.

For two days nothing occurred worthy of mention. The Dream made good

progress. The commencement of the voyage promised well--so that Captain

Turcott seemed occasionally to feel an anxiety which he tried in vain to

hide. Each day as the sun crossed the meridian he carefully took his

observations. But it could be noticed that immediately afterwards he

retired with the mate into his cabin, and then they remained in secret

conclave as if they were discussing some grave eventuality. This

performance passed probably unnoticed by Godfrey, who understood nothing

about the details of navigation, but the boatswain and the crew seemed

somewhat astonished at it, particularly as for two or three times during

the first week, when there was not the least necessity for the

manoeuvre, the course of the Dream at night was completely altered,

and resumed again in the morning. In a sailing-ship this might be

intelligible; but in a steamer, which could keep on the great circle

line and only use canvas when the wind was favourable, it was somewhat

extraordinary.

During the morning of the 12th of June a very unexpected incident

occurred on board.

Captain Turcott, the mate, and Godfrey, were sitting down to breakfast

when an unusual noise was heard on deck. Almost immediately afterwards

the boatswain opened the door and appeared on the threshold.

"Captain!" he said.

"What's up?" asked Turcott, sailor as he was, always on the alert.

"Here's a--Chinee!" said the boatswain.

"A Chinese!"

"Yes! a genuine Chinese we have just found by chance at the bottom of

the hold!"

"At the bottom of the hold!" exclaimed Turcott. "Well, by all

the--somethings--of Sacramento, just send him to the bottom of the sea!"

"All right!" answered the boatswain.

And that excellent man with all the contempt of a Californian for a son

of the Celestial Empire, taking the order as quite a natural one, would

have had not the slightest compunction in executing it.

However, Captain Turcott rose from his chair, and followed by Godfrey

and the mate, left the saloon and walked towards the forecastle of the

Dream.

There stood a Chinaman, tightly handcuffed, and held by two or three

sailors, who were by no means sparing of their nudges and knocks. He was

a man of from five-and-thirty to forty, with intelligent features, well

built, of lithe figure, but a little emaciated, owing to his sojourn for

sixteen hours at the bottom of a badly ventilated hold.

Captain Turcott made a sign to his men to leave the unhappy intruder

alone.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"A son of the sun."

"And what is your name?"

"Seng Vou," answered the Chinese, whose name in the Celestial language

signifies "he who does not live."

"And what are you doing on board here?"

"I am out for a sail!" coolly answered Seng Vou, "but am doing you as

little harm as I can."

"Really! as little harm!--and you stowed yourself away in the hold when

we started?"

"Just so, captain."

"So that we might take you for nothing from America to China, on the

other side of the Pacific?"

"If you will have it so."

"And if I don't wish to have it so, you yellow-skinned nigger. If I will

have it that you have to swim to China."

"I will try," said the Chinaman with a smile, "but I shall probably sink

on the road!"

"Well, John," exclaimed Captain Turcott, "I am going to show you how to

save your passage-money."

And Captain Turcott, much more angry than circumstances necessitated,

was perhaps about to put his threat into execution, when Godfrey

intervened.

"Captain," he said, "one more Chinee on board the Dream is one Chinee

less in California, where there are too many."

"A great deal too many!" answered Captain Turcott.

"Yes, too many. Well, if this poor beggar wishes to relieve San

Francisco of his presence, he ought to be pitied! Bah! we can throw him

on shore at Shanghai, and there needn't be any fuss about it!"

In saying that there were too many Chinese in California Godfrey held

the same language as every true Californian. The emigration of the sons

of the Celestial Empire--there are 300,000,000 in China as against

30,000,000 of Americans in the United States--has become dangerous to

the provinces of the Far West; and the legislators of these States of

California, Lower California, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and even Congress

itself, are much concerned at this new epidemic of invasion, to which

the Yankees have given the name of the "yellow-plague."

At this period there were more than 50,000 Chinese, in the State of

California alone. These people, very industrious at gold-washing, very

patient, living on a pinch of rice, a mouthful of tea, and a whiff of

opium, did an immense deal to bring down the price of manual labour, to

the detriment of the native workmen. They had to submit to special laws,

contrary to the American constitution--laws which regulated their

immigration, and withheld from them the right of naturalization, owing

to the fear that they would end by obtaining a majority in the Congress.

Generally ill-treated, much as Indians or negroes, so as to justify the

title of "pests" which was applied to them, they herded together in a

sort of ghetto, where they carefully kept up the manners and customs of

the Celestial Empire.

In the Californian capital, it is in the Sacramento Street district,

decked with their banners and lanterns, that this foreign race has taken

up its abode. There they can be met in thousands, trotting along in

their wide-sleeved blouses, conical hats, and turned-up shoes. Here, for

the most part, they live as grocers, gardeners, or laundresses--unless

they are working as cooks or belong to one of those dramatic troupes

which perform Chinese pieces in the French theatre at San Francisco.

And--there is no reason why we should conceal the fact--Seng Vou

happened to form part of one of these troupes, in which he filled the

rôle of "comic lead," if such a description can apply to any Chinese

artiste. As a matter of fact they are so serious, even in their fun,

that the Californian romancer, Bret Harte, has told us that he never

saw a genuine Chinaman laugh, and has even confessed that he is unable

to say whether one of the national pieces he witnessed was a tragedy or

a farce.

In short, Seng Vou was a comedian. The season had ended, crowned with

success--perhaps out of proportion to the gold pieces he had amassed--he

wished to return to his country otherwise than as a corpse, for Chinamen

always like to get buried at home and there are special steamers who

carry dead Celestials and nothing else. At all risks, therefore, he had

secretly slipped on board the Dream.

Loaded with provisions, did he hope to get through, incognito, a passage

of several weeks, and then to land on the coast of China without being

seen?

It is just possible. At any rate, the case was hardly one for a death

penalty.

So Godfrey had good reason to interfere in favour of the intruder, and

Captain Turcott, who pretended to be angrier than he really was, gave up

the idea of sending Seng Vou overboard to battle with the waves of the

Pacific.

Seng Vou, however, did not return to his hiding-place in the hold,

though he was rather an incubus on board. Phlegmatic, methodic, and by

no means communicative, he carefully avoided the seamen, who had always

some prank to play off on him, and he kept to his own provisions. He

was thin enough in all conscience, and his additional weight but

imperceptibly added to the cost of navigating the Dream. If Seng Vou

got a free passage it was obvious that his carriage did not cost William

W. Kolderup very much.

His presence on board put into Captain Turcott's head an idea which his

mate probably was the only one to understand thoroughly.

"He will bother us a bit--this confounded Chinee!--after all, so much

the worse for him."

"What ever made him stow himself away on board the Dream?" answered

the mate.

"To get to Shanghai!" replied Captain Turcott. "Bless John and all

John's sons too!"

CHAPTER VII.

IN WHICH IT WILL BE SEEN THAT WILLIAM W. KOLDERUP WAS PROBABLY RIGHT IN

INSURING HIS SHIP.

During the following days, the 13th, 14th, and 15th of June, the

barometer slowly fell, without an attempt to rise in the slightest

degree, and the weather became variable, hovering between rain and wind

or storm. The breeze strengthened considerably, and changed to

south-westerly. It was a head-wind for the Dream, and the waves had

now increased enormously, and lifted her forward. The sails were all

furled, and she had to depend on her screw alone; under half steam,

however, so as to avoid excessive labouring.

Godfrey bore the trial of the ship's motion without even losing his

good-humour for a moment. Evidently he was fond of the sea.

But Tartlet was not fond of the sea, and it served him out.

It was pitiful to see the unfortunate professor of deportment deporting

himself no longer, the professor of dancing dancing contrary to every

rule of his art. Remain in his cabin, with the seas shaking the ship

from stem to stern, he could not.

"Air! air!" he gasped.

And so he never left the deck. A roll sent him rolling from one side to

the other, a pitch sent him pitching from one end to the other. He clung

to the rails, he clutched the ropes, he assumed every attitude that is

absolutely condemned by the principles of the modern choregraphic art.

Ah! why could he not raise himself into the air by some balloon-like

movement, and escape the eccentricities of that moving plane? A dancer

of his ancestors had said that he only consented to set foot to the

ground so as not to humiliate his companions, but Tartlet would

willingly never have come down at all on the deck, whose perpetual

agitation threatened to hurl him into the abyss.

What an idea it was for the rich William W. Kolderup to send him here.

"Is this bad weather likely to last?" asked he of Captain Turcott twenty

times a day.

"Dunno! barometer is not very promising!" was the invariable answer of

the captain, knitting his brows.

"Shall we soon get there?"

"Soon, Mr. Tartlet? Hum! soon!"

"And they call this the Pacific Ocean!" repeated the unfortunate man,

between a couple of shocks and oscillations.

It should be stated that, not only did Professor Tartlet suffer from

sea-sickness, but also that fear had seized him as he watched the great

seething waves breaking into foam level with the bulwarks of the

Dream, and heard the valves, lifted by the violent beats, letting the

steam off through the waste-pipes, as he felt the steamer tossing like a

cork on the mountains of water.

"No," said he with a lifeless look at his pupil, "it is not impossible

for us to capsize."

"Take it quietly, Tartlet," replied Godfrey. "A ship was made to float!

There are reasons for all this."

"I tell you there are none."

And, thinking thus, the professor had put on his life-belt. He wore it

night and day, tightly buckled round his waist. He would not have taken

it off for untold gold. Every time the sea gave him a moment's respite

he would replenish it with another puff. In fact, he never blew it out

enough to please him.

We must make some indulgence for the terrors of Tartlet. To those

unaccustomed to the sea, its rolling is of a nature to cause some

alarm, and we know that this passenger-in-spite-of-himself had not even

till then risked his safety on the peaceable waters of the Bay of San

Francisco; so that we can forgive his being ill on board a ship in a

stiffish breeze, and his feeling terrified at the playfulness of the

waves.

The weather became worse and worse, and threatened the Dream with a

gale, which, had she been near the shore, would have been announced to

her by the semaphores.

During the day the ship was dreadfully knocked about, though running at

half steam so as not to damage her engines. Her screw was continually

immerging and emerging in the violent oscillations of her liquid bed.

Hence, powerful strokes from its wings in the deeper water, or fearful

tremors as it rose and ran wild, causing heavy thunderings beneath the

stern, and furious gallopings of the pistons which the engineer could

master but with difficulty.

One observation Godfrey made, of which at first he could not discover

the cause. This was, that during the night the shocks experienced by the

steamer were infinitely less violent than during the day. Was he then to

conclude that the wind then fell, and that a calm set in after sundown?

This was so remarkable that, on the night between the 21st and 22nd of

June, he endeavoured to find out some explanation of it. The day had

been particularly stormy, the wind had freshened, and it did not appear

at all likely that the sea would fall at night, lashed so capriciously

as it had been for so many hours.

Towards midnight then Godfrey dressed, and, wrapping himself up warmly,

went on deck.

The men on watch were forward, Captain Turcott was on the bridge.

The force of the wind had certainly not diminished. The shock of the

waves, which should have dashed on the bows of the Dream, was,

however, very much less violent. But in raising his eyes towards the top

of the funnel, with its black canopy of smoke, Godfrey saw that the

smoke, instead of floating from the bow aft, was, on the contrary,

floating from aft forwards, and following the same direction as the

ship.

"Has the wind changed?" he said to himself.

And extremely glad at the circumstance he mounted the bridge. Stepping

up to Turcott,--

"Captain!" he said.

The latter, enveloped in his oilskins, had not heard him approach, and

at first could not conceal a movement of annoyance in seeing him close

to him.

"You, Mr. Godfrey, you--on the bridge?"

"Yes, I, captain. I came to ask--"

"What?" answered Captain Turcott sharply.

"If the wind has not changed?"

"No, Mr. Godfrey, no. And, unfortunately, I think it will turn to a

storm!"

"But we now have the wind behind us!"

"Wind behind us--yes--wind behind us!" replied the captain, visibly

disconcerted at the observation. "But it is not my fault."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that in order not to endanger the vessel's safety I have had to

put her about and run before the storm."

"That will cause us a most lamentable delay!" said Godfrey.

"Very much so," answered Captain Turcott, "but when day breaks, if the

sea falls a little, I shall resume our westerly route. I should

recommend you, Mr. Godfrey, to get back to your cabin. Take my advice,

try and sleep while we are running before the wind. You will be less

knocked about."

Godfrey made a sign of affirmation; turning a last anxious glance at the

low clouds which were chasing each other with extreme swiftness, he left

the bridge, returned to his cabin, and soon resumed his interrupted

slumbers. The next morning, the 22nd of June, as Captain Turcott had

said, the wind having sensibly abated, the Dream was headed in proper

direction.

This navigation towards the west during the day, towards the east during

the night, lasted for forty-eight hours more; but the barometer showed

some tendency to rise, its oscillations became less frequent; it was to

be presumed that the bad weather would end in northerly winds. And so in

fact it happened.

On the 25th of June, about eight o'clock in the morning, when Godfrey

stepped on deck, a charming breeze from the north-east had swept away

the clouds, the sun's rays were shining through the rigging and tipping

its projecting points with touches of fire. The sea, deep green in

colour, glittered along a large section of its surface beneath the

direct influence of its beams. The wind blew only in feeble gusts which

laced the wave-crests with delicate foam. The lower sails were set.

Properly speaking, they were not regular waves on which the sea rose and

fell, but only lengthened undulations which gently rocked the steamer.

Undulations or waves, it is true, it was all one to Professor Tartlet,

as unwell when it was "too mild," as when it was "too rough." There he

was, half crouching on the deck, with his mouth open like a carp fainted

out of water.

The mate on the poop, his telescope at his eye, was looking towards the

north-east.

Godfrey approached him.

"Well, sir," said he gaily, "to-day is a little better than yesterday."

"Yes, Mr. Godfrey," replied the mate, "we are now in smooth water."

"And the Dream is on the right road!"

"Not yet."

"Not yet? and why?"

"Because we have evidently drifted north-eastwards during this last

spell, and we must find out our position exactly."

"But there is a good sun and a horizon perfectly clear."

"At noon in taking its height we shall get a good observation, and then

the captain will give us our course."

"Where is the captain?" asked Godfrey.

"He has gone off."

"Gone off?"

"Yes! our look-outs saw from the whiteness of the sea that there were

some breakers away to the east; breakers which are not shown on the

chart. So the steam launch was got out, and with the boatswain and three

men, Captain Turcott has gone off to explore."

"How long ago?"

"About an hour and a half!"

"Ah!" said Godfrey, "I am sorry he did not tell me. I should like to

have gone too."

"You were asleep, Mr. Godfrey," replied the mate, "and the captain did

not like to wake you."

"I am sorry; but tell me, which way did the launch go?"

"Over there," answered the mate, "over the starboard bow,

north-eastwards."

"And can you see it with the telescope?"

"No, she is too far off."

"But will she be long before she comes back?"

"She won't be long, for the captain is going to take the sights himself,

and to do that he must be back before noon."

At this Godfrey went and sat on the forecastle, having sent some one for

his glasses. He was anxious to watch the return of the launch. Captain

Turcott's reconnaissance did not cause him any surprise. It was natural

that the Dream should not be run into danger on a part of the sea

where breakers had been reported.

Two hours passed. It was not until half-past ten that a light line of

smoke began to rise on the horizon.

It was evidently the steam launch which, having finished the

reconnaissance, was making for the ship.

It amused Godfrey to follow her in the field of his glasses. He saw her

little by little reveal herself in clearer outline, he saw her grow on

the surface of the sea, and then give definite shape to her smoke

wreath, as it mingled with a few curls of steam on the clear depth of

the horizon.

She was an excellent little vessel, of immense speed, and as she came

along at full steam, she was soon visible to the naked eye. Towards

eleven o'clock, the wash from her bow as she tore through the waves was

perfectly distinct, and behind her the long furrow of foam gradually

growing wider and fainter like the tail of a comet.

At a quarter-past eleven, Captain Turcott hailed and boarded the

Dream.

"Well, captain, what news?" asked Godfrey, shaking his hand.

"Ah! Good morning, Mr. Godfrey!"

"And the breakers?"

"Only show!" answered Captain Turcott. "We saw nothing suspicious, our

men must have been deceived, but I am rather surprised at that, all the

same."

"We are going ahead then?" said Godfrey.

"Yes, we are going on now, but I must first take an observation."

"Shall we get the launch on board?" asked the mate.

"No," answered the captain, "we may want it again. Leave it in tow!"

The captain's orders were executed, and the launch, still under steam,

dropped round to the stern of the Dream.

Three-quarters of an hour afterwards, Captain Turcott, with his sextant

in his hand, took the sun's altitude, and having made his observation,

he gave the course. That done, having given a last look at the horizon,

he called the mate, and taking him into his cabin, the two remained

there in a long consultation.

The day was a very fine one. The sails had been furled, and the Dream

steamed rapidly without their help. The wind was very slight, and with

the speed given by the screw there would not have been enough to fill

them.

Godfrey was thoroughly happy. This sailing over a beautiful sea, under a

beautiful sky, could anything be more cheering, could anything give more

impulse to thought, more satisfaction to the mind? And it is scarcely to

be wondered at that Professor Tartlet also began to recover himself a

little. The state of the sea did not inspire him with immediate

inquietude, and his physical being showed a little reaction. He tried to

eat, but without taste or appetite. Godfrey would have had him take off

the life-belt which encircled his waist, but this he absolutely refused

to do. Was there not a chance of this conglomeration of wood and iron,

which men call a vessel, gaping asunder at any moment.

The evening came, a thick mist spread over the sky, without descending

to the level of the sea. The night was to be much darker than would have

been thought from the magnificent daytime.

There was no rock to fear in these parts, for Captain Turcott had just

fixed his exact position on the charts; but collisions are always

possible, and they are much more frequent on foggy nights.

The lamps were carefully put into place as soon as the sun set. The

white one was run up the mast, and the green light to the right and the

red one to the left gleamed in the shrouds. If the Dream was run down,

at the least it would not be her fault--that was one consolation. To

founder even when one is in order is to founder nevertheless, and if any

one on board made this observation it was of course Professor Tartlet.

However, the worthy man, always on the roll and the pitch, had regained

his cabin, Godfrey his; the one with the assurance, the other in the

hope that he would pass a good night, for the Dream scarcely moved on

the crest of the lengthened waves.

Captain Turcott, having handed over the watch to the mate, also came

under the poop to take a few hours' rest. All was in order. The steamer

could go ahead in perfect safety, although it did not seem as though

the thick fog would lift.

In about twenty minutes Godfrey was asleep, and the sleepless Tartlet,

who had gone to bed with his clothes on as usual, only betrayed himself

by distant sighs. All at once--at about one in the morning--Godfrey was

awakened by a dreadful clamour.

He jumped out of bed, slipped on his clothes, his trousers, his

waistcoat and his sea-boots.

Almost immediately a fearful cry was heard on deck, "We are sinking! we

are sinking!"

In an instant Godfrey was out of his cabin and in the saloon. There he

cannoned against an inert mass which he did not recognize. It was

Professor Tartlet.

The whole crew were on deck, hurrying about at the orders of the mate

and captain.

"A collision?" asked Godfrey.

"I don't know, I don't know--this beastly fog--" answered the mate; "but

we are sinking!"

"Sinking?" exclaimed Godfrey.

And in fact the Dream, which had doubtless struck on a rock was

sensibly foundering. The water was creeping up to the level of the deck.

The engine fires were probably already out below.

"To the sea! to the sea, Mr. Morgan!" exclaimed the captain. "There is

not a moment to lose! You can see the ship settling down! It will draw

you down in the eddy!"

"And Tartlet?"

"I'll look after him!--We are only half a cable from the shore!"

"But you?"

"My duty compels me to remain here to the last, and I remain!" said the

captain. "But get off! get off!"

Godfrey still hesitated to cast himself into the waves, but the water

was already up to the level of the deck.

Captain Turcott knowing that Godfrey swam like a fish, seized him by the

shoulders, and did him the service of throwing him overboard.

It was time! Had it not been for the darkness, there would doubtless

have been seen a deep raging vortex in the place once occupied by the

Dream.

But Godfrey, in a few strokes in the calm water, was able to get swiftly

clear of the whirlpool, which would have dragged him down like the

maelstrom.

All this was the work of a minute.

A few minutes afterwards, amid shouts of despair, the lights on board

went out one after the other.

Doubt existed no more; the Dream had sunk head downwards!

As for Godfrey he had been able to reach a large lofty rock away from

the surf. There, shouting vainly in the darkness, hearing no voice in

reply to his own, not knowing if he should find himself on an isolated

rock or at the extremity of a line of reefs, and perhaps the sole

survivor of the catastrophe, he waited for the dawn.

CHAPTER VIII.

WHICH LEADS GODFREY TO BITTER REFLECTIONS ON THE MANIA FOR TRAVELLING.

Three long hours had still to pass before the sun reappeared above the

horizon. These were such hours that they might rather be called

centuries.

The trial was a rough one to begin with, but, we repeat, Godfrey had not

come out for a simple promenade. He himself put it very well when he

said he had left behind him quite a lifetime of happiness and repose,

which he would never find again in his search for adventures. He tried

his utmost therefore to rise to the situation.

He was, temporarily, under shelter. The sea after all could not drive

him off the rock which lay anchored alone amid the spray of the surf.

Was there any fear of the incoming tide soon reaching him? No, for on

reflection he concluded that the wreck had taken place at the highest

tide of the new moon.

But was the rock isolated? Did it command a line of breakers scattered

on this portion of the sea? What was this coast which Captain Turcott

had thought he saw in the darkness? To which continent did it belong? It

was only too certain that the Dream had been driven out of her route

during the storm of the preceding days. The position of the ship could

not have been exactly fixed. How could there be a doubt of this when the

captain had two hours before affirmed that his charts bore no indication

of breakers in these parts! He had even done better and had gone himself

to reconnoitre these imaginary reefs which his look-outs had reported

they had seen in the east.

It nevertheless had been only too true, and Captain Turcott's

reconnaissance would have certainly prevented the catastrophe if it had

only been pushed far enough. But what was the good of returning to the

past?

The important question in face of what had happened--a question of life

or death--was for Godfrey to know if he was near to some land. In what

part of the Pacific there would be time later on to determine. Before

everything he must think as soon as the day came of how to leave the

rock, which in its biggest part could not measure more that twenty yards

square. But people do not leave one place except to go to another. And

if this other did not exist, if the captain had been deceived in the

fog, if around the breakers there stretched a boundless sea, if at the

extreme point of view the sky and the water seemed to meet all round the

horizon?

The thoughts of the young man were thus concentrated on this point. All

his powers of vision did he employ to discover through the black night

if any confused mass, any heap of rocks or cliffs, would reveal the

neighbourhood of land to the eastward of the reef.

Godfrey saw nothing. Not a smell of earth reached his nose, not a

sensation of light reached his eyes, not a sound reached his ears. Not a

bird traversed the darkness. It seemed that around him there was nothing

but a vast desert of water.

Godfrey did not hide from himself that the chances were a thousand to

one that he was lost. He no longer thought of making the tour of the

world, but of facing death, and calmly and bravely his thoughts rose to

that Providence which can do all things for the feeblest of its

creatures, though the creatures can do nothing of themselves. And so

Godfrey had to wait for the day to resign himself to his fate, if safety

was impossible; and, on the contrary, to try everything, if there was

any chance of life.

Calmed by the very gravity of his reflections, Godfrey had seated

himself on the rock. He had stripped off some of his clothes which had

been saturated by the sea-water, his woollen waistcoat and his heavy

boots, so as to be ready to jump into the sea if necessary.

However, was it possible that no one had survived the wreck? What! not

one of the men of the Dream carried to shore? Had they all been sucked

in by the terrible whirlpool which the ship had drawn round herself as

she sank? The last to whom Godfrey had spoken was Captain Turcott,

resolved not to quit his ship while one of his sailors was still there!

It was the captain himself who had hurled him into the sea at the moment

the Dream was disappearing.

But the others, the unfortunate Tartlet, and the unhappy Chinese,

surprised without doubt, and swallowed up, the one in the poop, the

other in the depths of the hold, what had become of them? Of all those

on board the Dream, was he the only one saved? And had the steam

launch remained at the stern of the steamer? Could not a few passengers

or sailors have saved themselves therein, and found time to flee from

the wreck? But was it not rather to be feared that the launch had been

dragged down by the ship under several fathoms of water?

Godfrey then said to himself, that if in this dark night he could not

see, he could at least make himself heard. There was nothing to prevent

his shouting and hailing in the deep silence. Perhaps the voice of one

of his companions would respond to his.

Over and over again then did he call, giving forth a prolonged shout

which should have been heard for a considerable distance round. Not a

cry answered to his.

He began again, many times, turning successively to every point of the

horizon.

Absolute silence.

"Alone! alone!" he murmured.

Not only had no cry answered to his, but no echo had sent him back the

sound of his own voice. Had he been near a cliff, not far from a group

of rocks, such as generally border the shore, it was certain that his

shouts, repelled by the obstacles, would have returned to him. Either

eastwards of the reef, therefore, stretched a low-lying shore

ill-adapted for the production of an echo, or there was no land in his

vicinity, the bed of breakers on which he had found refuge was isolated.

Three hours were passed in these anxieties. Godfrey, quite chilled,

walked about the top of the rock, trying to battle with the cold. At

last a few pale beams of light tinged the clouds in the zenith. It was

the reflection of the first colouring of the horizon.

Godfrey turned to this side--the only one towards which there could be

land--to see if any cliff outlined itself in the shadow. With its early

rays the rising sun might disclose its features more distinctly.

But nothing appeared through the misty dawn. A light fog was rising

over the sea, which did not even admit of his discovering the extent of

the breakers.

[Illustration: Nothing appeared through the mist. page 82]

He had, therefore, to satisfy himself with illusions. If Godfrey were

really cast on an isolated rock in the Pacific, it was death to him

after a brief delay, death by hunger, by thirst, or if necessary, death

at the bottom of the sea as a last resource!

However, he kept constantly looking, and it seemed as though the

intensity of his gaze increased enormously, for all his will was

concentrated therein.

At length the morning mist began to fade away. Godfrey saw the rocks

which formed the reef successively defined in relief on the sea, like a

troop of marine monsters. It was a long and irregular assemblage of dark

boulders, strangely worn, of all sizes and forms, whose direction was

almost west and east. The enormous block on the top of which Godfrey

found himself emerged from the sea on the western edge of the bank

scarcely thirty fathoms from the spot where the Dream had gone down.

The sea hereabouts appeared to be very deep, for of the steamer nothing

was to be seen, not even the ends of her masts. Perhaps by some

under-current she had been drawn away from the reefs.

A glance was enough for Godfrey to take in this state of affairs.

There was no safety on that side. All his attention was directed towards

the other side of the breakers, which the lifting fog was gradually

disclosing. The sea, now that the tide had retired, allowed the rocks to

stand out very distinctly. They could be seen to lengthen as there humid

bases widened. Here were vast intervals of water, there a few shallow

pools. If they joined on to any coast, it would not be difficult to

reach it.

Up to the present, however, there was no sign of any shore. Nothing yet

indicated the proximity of dry land, even in this direction.

The fog continued to lift, and the field of view persistently watched by

Godfrey continued to grow. Its wreaths had now rolled off for about half

a mile or so. Already a few sandy flats appeared among the rocks,

carpeted with their slimy sea-weed.

Did not this sand indicate more or less the presence of a beach, and if

the beach existed, could there be a doubt but what it belonged to the

coast of a more important land? At length a long profile of low hills,

buttressed with huge granitic rocks, became clearly outlined and seemed

to shut in the horizon on the east. The sun had drunk up all the morning

vapours, and his disc broke forth in all its glory.

"Land! land!" exclaimed Godfrey.

And he stretched his hands towards the shore-line, as he knelt on the

reef and offered his thanks to Heaven.

It was really land. The breakers only formed a projecting ridge,

something like the southern cape of a bay, which curved round for about

two miles or more. The bottom of the curve seemed to be a level beach,

bordered by trifling hills, contoured here and there with lines of

vegetation, but of no great size.

From the place which Godfrey occupied, his view was able to grasp the

whole of this side.

Bordered north and south by two unequal promontories, it stretched away

for, at the most, five or six miles. It was possible, however, that it

formed part of a large district. Whatever it was, it offered at the

least temporary safety. Godfrey, at the sight, could not conceive a

doubt but that he had not been thrown on to a solitary reef, and that

this morsel of ground would satisfy his earliest wants.

"To land! to land!" he said to himself.

But before he left the reef, he gave a look round for the last time. His

eyes again interrogated the sea away up to the horizon. Would some raft

appear on the surface of the waves, some fragment of the Dream, some

survivor, perhaps?

Nothing. The launch even was not there, and had probably been dragged

into the common abyss.

Then the idea occurred to Godfrey that among the breakers some of his

companions might have found a refuge, and were, like him, waiting for

the day to try and reach the shore.

There was nobody, neither on the rocks, nor on the beach! The reef was

as deserted as the ocean!

But in default of survivors, had not the sea thrown up some of the

corpses? Could not Godfrey find among the rocks, along to the utmost

boundary of the surf, the inanimate bodies of some of his companions?

No! Nothing along the whole length of the breakers, which the last

ripples of the ebb had now left bare.

Godfrey was alone! He could only count on himself to battle with the

dangers of every sort which environed him!

Before this reality, however, Godfrey, let it be said to his credit, did

not quail. But as before everything it was best for him to ascertain the

nature of the ground from which he was separated by so short a distance,

he left the summit of the rock and began to approach the shore.

When the interval which separated the rocks was too great to be cleared

at a bound, he got down into the water, and sometimes walking and

sometimes swimming he easily gained the one next in order. When there

was but a yard or two between, he jumped from one rock to the other.

His progress over these slimy stones, carpeted with glistening

sea-weeds, was not easy, and it was long. Nearly a quarter of a mile had

thus to be traversed.

But Godfrey was active and handy, and at length he set foot on the land

where there probably awaited him, if not early death, at least a

miserable life worse than death. Hunger, thirst, cold, and nakedness,

and perils of all kinds; without a weapon of defence, without a gun to

shoot with, without a change of clothes--such the extremities to which

he was reduced.

How imprudent he had been! He had been desirous of knowing if he was

capable of making his way in the world under difficult circumstances! He

had put himself to the proof! He had envied the lot of a Crusoe! Well,

he would see if the lot were an enviable one!

And then there returned to his mind the thought of his happy existence,

that easy life in San Francisco, in the midst of a rich and loving

family, which he had abandoned to throw himself into adventures. He

thought of his Uncle Will, of his betrothed Phina, of his friends who

would doubtless never see him again.

As he called up these remembrances his heart swelled, and in spite of

his resolution a tear rose to his eyes.

And again, if he was not alone, if some other survivor of the shipwreck

had managed, like him, to reach the shore, and even in default of the

captain or the mate, this proved to be Professor Tartlet, how little he

could depend on that frivolous being, and how slightly improved the

chances of the future appeared! At this point, however, he still had

hope. If he had found no trace among the breakers, would he meet with

any on the beach?

Who else but he had already touched the shore, seeking a companion who

was seeking him?

Godfrey took another long look from north to south. He did not notice a

single human being. Evidently this portion of the earth was uninhabited.

In any case there was no sign, not a trace of smoke in the air, not a

vestige.

"Let us get on!" said Godfrey to himself.

And he walked along the beach towards the north, before venturing to

climb the sand dunes, which would allow him to reconnoitre the country

over a larger extent.

The silence was absolute. The sand had received no other footmark. A few

sea-birds, gulls or guillemots, were skimming along the edge of the

rocks, the only living things in the solitude.

Godfrey continued his walk for a quarter of an hour. At last he was

about to turn on to the talus of the most elevated of the dunes, dotted

with rushes and brushwood, when he suddenly stopped.

A shapeless object, extraordinarily distended, something like the

corpse of a sea monster, thrown there, doubtless, by the late storm, was

lying about thirty paces off on the edge of the reef.

Godfrey hastened to run towards it.

The nearer he approached the more rapidly did his heart beat. In truth,

in this stranded animal he seemed to recognize a human form.

Godfrey was not ten paces away from it, when he stopped as if rooted to

the soil, and exclaimed,--

"Tartlet!"

It was the professor of dancing and deportment.

Godfrey rushed towards his companion, who perhaps still breathed.

A moment afterwards he saw that it was the life-belt which produced this

extraordinary distension, and gave the aspect of a monster of the sea to

the unfortunate professor.

But although Tartlet was motionless, was he dead? Perhaps this natatory

clothing had kept him above water, while the surf had borne him to

shore?

Godfrey set to work. He knelt down by Tartlet; he unloosed the life-belt

and rubbed him vigorously. He noticed at last a light breath on the

half-opened lips! He put his hand on his heart! The heart still beat.

Godfrey spoke to him.

Tartlet shook his head, then he gave utterance to a hoarse exclamation,

followed by incoherent words.

Godfrey shook him violently.

Tartlet then opened his eyes, passed his left hand over his brow, lifted

his right hand and assured himself that his precious kit and bow, which

he tightly held, had not abandoned him.

"Tartlet! My dear Tartlet!" shouted Godfrey, lightly raising his head.

The head with his mass of tumbled hair gave an affirmative nod.

"It is I! I! Godfrey!"

"Godfrey?" asked the professor.

And then he turned over, and rose on to his knees, and looked about, and

smiled, and rose to his feet! He had discovered that at last he was on a

solid base! He had gathered that he was no longer on the ship's deck,

exposed to all the uncertainties of its pitches and its rolls! The sea

had ceased to carry him! He stood on firm ground!

And then Professor Tartlet recovered the aplomb which he had lost since

his departure; his feet placed themselves naturally, with their toes

turned out, in the regulation position; his left hand seized his kit,

his right hand grasped his bow.

Then, while the strings, vigorously attacked, gave forth a humid sound

of melancholy sonorousness, these words escaped his smiling lips,--

"In place, miss!"

The good man was thinking of Phina.

CHAPTER IX.

IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT CRUSOES DO NOT HAVE EVERYTHING AS THEY WISH.

That done, the professor and his pupil rushed into one another's arms.

"My dear Godfrey!" exclaimed Tartlet.

"My good Tartlet!" replied Godfrey.

"At last we are arrived in port!" observed the professor in the tone of

a man who had had enough of navigation and its accidents.

He called it arriving in port!

Godfrey had no desire to contradict him.

"Take off your life-belt," he said. "It suffocates you and hampers your

movements."

"Do you think I can do so without inconvenience?" asked Tartlet.

"Without any inconvenience," answered Godfrey. "Now put up your fiddle,

and let us take a look round."

"Come on," replied the professor; "but if you don't mind, Godfrey, let

us go to the first restaurant we see. I am dying of hunger, and a dozen

sandwiches washed down with a glass or two of wine will soon set me on

my legs again."

"Yes! to the first restaurant!" answered Godfrey, nodding his head; "and

even to the last, if the first does not suit us."

"And," continued Tartlet, "we can ask some fellow as we go along the

road to the telegraph office so as to send a message off to your Uncle

Kolderup. That excellent man will hardly refuse to send on some

necessary cash for us to get back to Montgomery Street, for I have not

got a cent with me!"

"Agreed, to the first telegraph office," answered Godfrey, "or if there

isn't one in this country, to the first post office. Come on, Tartlet."

The professor took off his swimming apparatus, and passed it over his

shoulder like a hunting-horn, and then both stepped out for the edge of

the dunes which bordered the shore.

What more particularly interested Godfrey, whom the encounter with

Tartlet had imbued with some hope, was to see if they too were the only

survivors of the Dream.

A quarter of an hour after the explorers had left the edge of the reef

they had climbed a dune about sixty or eighty feet high, and stood on

its crest. Thence they looked on a large extent of coast, and examined

the horizon in the east, which till then had been hidden by the hills on

the shore.

Two or three miles away in that direction a second line of hills formed

the background, and beyond them nothing was seen of the horizon.

Towards the north the coast trended off to a point, but it could not be

seen if there was a corresponding cape behind. On the south a creek ran

some distance into the shore, and on this side it looked as though the

ocean closed the view. Whence this land in the Pacific was probably a

peninsula, and the isthmus which joined it to the continent would have

to be sought for towards the north or north-east.

The country, however, far from being barren, was hidden beneath an

agreeable mantle of verdure; long prairies, amid which meandered many

limpid streams, and high and thick forests, whose trees rose above one

another to the very background of hills. It was a charming landscape.

But of houses forming town, village, or hamlet, not one was in sight! Of

buildings grouped and arranged as a farm of any sort, not a sign! Of

smoke in the sky, betraying some dwelling hidden among the trees, not a

trace. Not a steeple above the branches, not a windmill on an isolated

hill. Not even in default of houses a cabin, a hut, an ajoupa, or a

wigwam? No! nothing. If human beings inhabited this unknown land, they

must live like troglodytes, below, and not above the ground. Not a road

was visible, not a footpath, not even a track. It seemed that the foot

of man had never trod either a rock of the beach or a blade of the grass

on the prairies.

"I don't see the town," remarked Tartlet, who, however, remained on

tiptoe.

"That is perhaps because it is not in this part of the province!"

answered Godfrey.

"But a village?"

"There's nothing here."

"Where are we then?"

"I know nothing about it."

"What! You don't know! But Godfrey, we had better make haste and find

out."

"Who is to tell us?"

"What will become of us then?" exclaimed Tartlet, rounding his arms and

lifting them to the sky.

"Become a couple of Crusoes!"

At this answer the professor gave a bound such as no clown had ever

equalled.

Crusoes! They! A Crusoe! He! Descendants of that Selkirk who had lived

for long years on the island of Juan Fernandez! Imitators of the

imaginary heroes of Daniel Defoe and De Wyss whose adventures they had

so often read! Abandoned, far from their relatives, their friends;

separated from their fellow-men by thousands of miles, destined to

defend their lives perhaps against wild beasts, perhaps against savages

who would land there, wretches without resources, suffering from hunger,

suffering from thirst, without weapons, without tools, almost without

clothes, left to themselves. No, it was impossible!

"Don't say such things, Godfrey," exclaimed Tartlet. "No! Don't joke

about such things! The mere supposition will kill me! You are laughing

at me, are you not?"

"Yes, my gallant Tartlet," answered Godfrey. "Reassure yourself. But in

the first place, let us think about matters that are pressing."

In fact, they had to try and find some cavern, a grotto or hole, in

which to pass the night, and then to collect some edible mollusks so as

to satisfy the cravings of their stomachs.

Godfrey and Tartlet then commenced to descend the talus of the dunes in

the direction of the reef. Godfrey showed himself very ardent in his

researches, and Tartlet considerably stupefied by his shipwreck

experiences. The first looked before him, behind him, and all around

him; the second hardly saw ten paces in front of him.

"If there are no inhabitants on this land, are there any animals?"

asked Godfrey.

He meant to say domestic animals, such as furred and feathered game, not

wild animals which abound in tropical regions, and with which they were

not likely to have to do.

Several flocks of birds were visible on the shore, bitterns, curlews,

bernicle geese, and teal, which hovered and chirped and filled the air

with their flutterings and cries, doubtless protesting against the

invasion of their domain.

Godfrey was justified in concluding that where there were birds there

were nests, and where there were nests there were eggs. The birds

congregated here in such numbers, because rocks provided them with

thousands of cavities for their dwelling-places. In the distance a few

herons and some flocks of snipe indicated the neighbourhood of a marsh.

Birds then were not wanting, the only difficulty was to get at them

without fire-arms. The best thing to do now was to make use of them in

the egg state, and consume them under that elementary but nourishing

form.

But if the dinner was there, how were they to cook it? How were they to

set about lighting a fire? An important question, the solution of which

was postponed.

Godfrey and Tartlet returned straight towards the reef, over which some

sea-birds were circling. An agreeable surprise there awaited them.

Among the indigenous fowl which ran along the sand of the beach and

pecked about among the sea-weed and under the tufts of aquatic plants,

was it a dozen hens and two or three cocks of the American breed that

they beheld? No! There was no mistake, for at their approach did not a

resounding cock-a-doodle-do-oo-oo rend the air like the sound of a

trumpet?

And farther off, what were those quadrupeds which were gliding in and

out of the rocks, and making their way towards the first slopes of the

hills, or grubbing beneath some of the green shrubs? Godfrey could not

be mistaken. There were a dozen agouties, five or six sheep, and as many

goats, who were quietly browsing on the first vegetation on the very

edge of the prairie.

"Look there, Tartlet!" he exclaimed.

And the professor looked, but saw nothing, so much was he absorbed with

the thought of this unexpected situation.

A thought flashed across the mind of Godfrey, and it was correct: it was

that these hens, agouties, goats, and sheep had belonged to the Dream.

At the moment she went down, the fowls had easily been able to reach the

reef and then the beach. As for the quadrupeds, they could easily have

swum ashore.

"And so," remarked Godfrey, "what none of our unfortunate companions

have been able to do, these simple animals, guided by their instinct,

have done! And of all those on board the Dream, none have been saved

but a few beasts!"

"Including ourselves!" answered Tartlet naively.

As far as he was concerned, he had come ashore unconsciously, very much

like one of the animals. It mattered little. It was a very fortunate

thing for the two shipwrecked men that a certain number of these animals

had reached the shore. They would collect them, fold them, and with the

special fecundity of their species, if their stay on this land was a

lengthy one, it would be easy to have quite a flock of quadrupeds, and a

yard full of poultry.

But on this occasion, Godfrey wished to keep to such alimentary

resources as the coast could furnish, either in eggs or shell-fish.

Professor Tartlet and he set to work to forage among the interstices of

the stones, and beneath the carpet of sea-weeds, and not without

success. They soon collected quite a notable quantity of mussels and

periwinkles, which they could eat raw. A few dozen eggs of the bernicle

geese were also found among the higher rocks which shut in the bay on

the north. They had enough to satisfy a good many; and, hunger pressing,

Godfrey and Tartlet hardly thought of making difficulties about their

first repast.

"And the fire?" said the professor.

"Yes! The fire!" said Godfrey.

It was the most serious of questions, and it led to an inventory being

made of the contents of their pockets. Those of the professor were empty

or nearly so. They contained a few spare strings for his kit, and a

piece of rosin for his bow. How would you get a light from that, I

should like to know? Godfrey was hardly better provided. However, it was

with extreme satisfaction that he discovered in his pocket an excellent

knife, whose leather case had kept it from the sea-water. This knife,

with blade, gimlet, hook, and saw, was a valuable instrument under the

circumstances. But besides this tool, Godfrey and his companion had only

their two hands; and as the hands of the professor had never been used

except in playing his fiddle, and making his gestures, Godfrey concluded

that he would have to trust to his own.

He thought, however, of utilizing those of Tartlet for procuring a fire

by means of rubbing two sticks of wood rapidly together. A few eggs

cooked in the embers would be greatly appreciated at their second meal

at noon.

While Godfrey then was occupied in robbing the nests in spite of the

proprietors, who tried to defend their progeny in the shell, the

professor went off to collect some pieces of wood which had been dried

by the sun at the foot of the dunes. These were taken behind a rock

sheltered from the wind from the sea. Tartlet then chose two very dry

pieces, with the intention of gradually obtaining sufficient heat by

rubbing them vigorously and continuously together. What simple

Polynesian savages commonly did, why should not the professor, so much

their superior in his own opinion, be able to do?

Behold him then, rubbing and rubbing, in a way to dislocate the muscles

of his arm and shoulder. He worked himself into quite a rage, poor man!

But whether it was that the wood was not right, or its dryness was not

sufficient, or the professor held it wrongly, or had not got the

peculiar turn of hand necessary for operations of this kind, if he did

not get much heat out of the wood, he succeeded in getting a good deal

out of himself. In short, it was his own forehead alone which smoked

under the vapours of his own perspiration.

When Godfrey returned with his collection of eggs, he found Tartlet in a

rage, in a state to which his choregraphic exercises had never doubtless

provoked him.

"Doesn't it do?" he asked.

"No, Godfrey, it does not do," replied the professor. "And I begin to

think that these inventions of the savages are only imaginations to

deceive the world."

"No," answered Godfrey. "But in that, as in all things, you must know

how to do it."

"These eggs, then?"

"There is another way. If you attach one of these eggs to the end of a

string and whirl it round rapidly, and suddenly arrest the movement of

rotation, the movement may perhaps transform itself into heat, and

then--"

"And then the egg will be cooked?"

"Yes, if the rotation has been swift enough and the stoppage sudden

enough. But how do you produce the stoppage without breaking the egg?

Now, there is a simpler way, dear Tartlet. Behold!"

And carefully taking one of the eggs of the bernicle goose, he broke the

shell at its end, and adroitly swallowed the inside without any further

formalities.

Tartlet could not make up his mind to imitate him, and contented himself

with the shell-fish.

It now remained to look for a grotto or some shelter in which to pass

the night.

"It is an unheard-of thing," observed the professor, "that Crusoes

cannot at the least find a cavern, which, later on, they can make their

home!"

"Let us look," said Godfrey.

It was unheard of. We must avow, however, that on this occasion the

tradition was broken. In vain did they search along the rocky shore on

the southern part of the bay. Not a cavern, not a grotto, not a hole was

there that would serve as a shelter. They had to give up the idea.

Godfrey resolved to reconnoitre up to the first trees in the background

beyond the sandy coast.

Tartlet and he then remounted the first line of sandhills and crossed

the verdant prairies which they had seen a few hours before.

A very odd circumstance, and a very fortunate one at the time, that the

other survivors of the wreck voluntarily followed them. Evidently, cocks

and hens, and sheep, goats and agouties, driven by instinct, had

resolved to go with them. Doubtless they felt too lonely on the beach,

which did not yield sufficient food.

Three-quarters of an hour later Godfrey and Tartlet--they had scarcely

spoken during the exploration--arrived at the outskirt of the trees. Not

a trace was there of habitation or inhabitant. Complete solitude. It

might even be doubted if this part of the country had ever been trodden

by human feet.

In this place were a few handsome trees, in isolated groups, and others

more crowded about a quarter of a mile in the rear formed a veritable

forest of different species.

Godfrey looked out for some old trunk, hollowed by age, which could

offer a shelter among its branches, but his researches were in vain,

although he continued them till night was falling.

Hunger made itself sharply felt, and the two contented themselves with

mussels, of which they had thoughtfully brought an ample supply from the

beach. Then, quite tired out, they lay down at the foot of a tree, and

trusting to Providence, slept through the night.

CHAPTER X.

IN WHICH GODFREY DOES WHAT ANY OTHER SHIPWRECKED MAN WOULD HAVE DONE

UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES.

The night passed without incident. The two men, quite knocked up with

excitement and fatigue, had slept as peacefully as if they had been in

the most comfortable room in the mansion in Montgomery Street.

On the morrow, the 27th of June, at the first rays of the rising sun,

the crow of the cock awakened them.

Godfrey immediately recognized where he was, but Tartlet had to rub his

eyes and stretch his arms for some time before he did so.

"Is breakfast this morning to resemble dinner yesterday?" was his first

observation.

"I am afraid so," answered Godfrey. "But I hope we shall dine better

this evening."

The professor could not restrain a significant grimace. Where were the

tea and sandwiches which had hitherto been brought to him when he

awoke? How could he wait till breakfast-time, the bell for which would

perhaps never sound, without this preparatory repast?

But it was necessary to make a start. Godfrey felt the responsibility

which rested on him, on him alone, for he could in no way depend on his

companion. In that empty box which served the professor for a cranium

there could be born no practical idea; Godfrey would have to think,

contrive, and decide for both.

His first thought was for Phina, his betrothed, whom he had so stupidly

refused to make his wife; his second for his Uncle Will, whom he had so

imprudently left, and then turning to Tartlet,--

"To vary our ordinary," he said, "here are some shell-fish and half a

dozen eggs."

"And nothing to cook them with!"

"Nothing!" said Godfrey. "But if the food itself was missing, what would

you say then, Tartlet?"

"I should say that nothing was not enough," said Tartlet drily.

Nevertheless, they had to be content with this repast.

The very natural idea occurred to Godfrey to push forward the

reconnaissance commenced the previous evening. Above all it was

necessary to know as soon as possible in what part of the Pacific Ocean

the Dream had been lost, so as to discover some inhabited place on

the shore, where they could either arrange the way of returning home or

await the passing of some ship.

Godfrey observed that if he could cross the second line of hills, whose

picturesque outline was visible beyond the first, that he might perhaps

be able to do this. He reckoned that they could get there in an hour or

two, and it was to this urgent exploration that he resolved to devote

the first hours of the day. He looked round him. The cocks and hens were

beginning to peck about among the high vegetation. Agouties, goats,

sheep, went and came on the skirt of the forest.

Godfrey did not care to drag all this flock of poultry and quadrupeds

about with him. But to keep them more safely in this place, it would be

necessary to leave Tartlet in charge of them.

Tartlet agreed to remain alone, and for several hours to act as shepherd

of the flock.

He made but one observation,--

"If you lose yourself, Godfrey?"

"Have no fear of that," answered the young man, "I have only this forest

to cross, and as you will not leave its edge I am certain to find you

again."

"Don't forget the telegram to your Uncle Will, and ask him for a good

many hundred dollars."

"The telegram--or the letter! It is all one!" answered Godfrey, who so

long as he had not fixed on the position of this land was content to

leave Tartlet to his illusions.

Then having shaken hands with the professor, he plunged beneath the

trees, whose thick branches scarcely allowed the sun's rays to

penetrate. It was their direction, however, which was to guide our young

explorer towards the high hill whose curtain hid from his view the whole

of the eastern horizon.

Footpath there was none. The ground, however, was not free from all

imprint. Godfrey in certain places remarked the tracks of animals. On

two or three occasions he even believed he saw some rapid ruminants

moving off, either elans, deer, or wapiti, but he recognized no trace of

ferocious animals such as tigers or jaguars, whose absence, however, was

no cause for regret.

The first floor of the forest, that is to say all that portion of the

trees comprised between the first fork and the branches, afforded an

asylum to a great number of birds--wild pigeons by the hundred beneath

the trees, ospreys, grouse, aracaris with beaks like a lobster's claw,

and higher, hovering above the glades, two or three of those

lammergeiers whose eye resembles a cockade. But none of the birds were

of such special kinds that he could therefrom make out the latitude of

this continent.

So it was with the trees of this forest. Almost the same species as

those in that part of the United States which comprises Lower

California, the Bay of Monterey, and New Mexico.

Arbutus-trees, large-flowered cornels, maples, birches, oaks, four or

five varieties of magnolias and sea-pines, such as are met with in South

Carolina, then in the centre of vast clearances, olive-trees, chestnuts,

and small shrubs. Tufts of tamarinds, myrtles, and mastic-trees, such as

are produced in the temperate zone. Generally, there was enough space

between the trees to allow him to pass without being obliged to call on

fire or the axe. The sea breeze circulated freely amid the higher

branches, and here and there great patches of light shone on the ground.

And so Godfrey went along striking an oblique line beneath these large

trees. To take any precautions never occurred to him. The desire to

reach the heights which bordered the forest on the east entirely

absorbed him. He sought among the foliage for the direction of the solar

rays so as to march straight on his goal. He did not even see the

guide-birds, so named because they fly before the steps of the

traveller, stopping, returning, and darting on ahead as if they were

showing the way. Nothing could distract him.

His state of mind was intelligible. Before an hour had elapsed his fate

would be settled! Before an hour he would know if it were possible to

reach some inhabited portion of the continent.

Already Godfrey, reasoning on what had been the route followed and the

way made by the Dream during a navigation of seventeen days, had

concluded that it could only be on the Japanese or Chinese coast that

the ship had gone down.

Besides the position of the sun, always in the south, rendered it quite

certain that the Dream had not crossed the line.

Two hours after he had started Godfrey reckoned the distance he had

travelled at about five miles, considering several circuits which he had

had to make owing to the density of the forest. The second group of

hills could not be far away.

Already the trees were getting farther apart from each other, forming

isolated groups, and the rays of light penetrated more easily through

the lofty branches. The ground began slightly to slope, and then

abruptly to rise.

Although he was somewhat fatigued, Godfrey had enough will not to

slacken his pace. He would doubtless have run had it not been for the

steepness of the earlier ascents.

He had soon got high enough to overlook the general mass of the verdant

dome which stretched away behind him, and whence several heads of trees

here and there emerged.

But Godfrey did not dream of looking back. His eyes never quitted the

line of the denuded ridge, which showed itself about 400 or 500 feet

before and above him. That was the barrier which all the time hid him

from the eastern horizon.

A tiny cone, obliquely truncated, overlooked this rugged line and joined

on with its gentle slope to the sinuous crest of the hills.

"There! there!" said Godfrey, "that is the point I must reach! The top

of that cone! And from there what shall I see?--A town?--A village?--A

desert?"

Highly excited, Godfrey mounted the hill, keeping his elbows at his

chest to restrain the beating of his heart. His panting tired him, but

he had not the patience to stop so as to recover himself. Were he to

have fallen half fainting on the summit of the cone which shot up about

100 feet above his head, he would not have lost a minute in hastening

towards it.

A few minutes more and he would be there. The ascent seemed to him steep

enough on his side, an angle perhaps of thirty or thirty-five degrees.

He helped himself up with hands and feet; he seized on the tufts of

slender herbs on the hill-side, and on a few meagre shrubs, mastics

and myrtles, which stretched away up to the top.

A last effort was made! His head rose above the platform of the cone,

and then, lying on his stomach, his eyes gazed at the eastern horizon.

It was the sea which formed it. Twenty miles off it united with the line

of the sky!

He turned round.

Still sea--west of him, south of him, north of him! The immense ocean

surrounding him on all sides!

"An island!"

[Illustration: "An Island!" page 111]

As he uttered the word Godfrey felt his heart shrink. The thought had

not occurred to him that he was on an island. And yet such was the case!

The terrestrial chain which should have attached him to the continent

was abruptly broken. He felt as though he had been a sleeping man in a

drifted boat, who awoke with neither oar nor sail to help him back to

shore.

But Godfrey was soon himself again. His part was taken, to accept the

situation. If the chances of safety did not come from without, it was

for him to contrive them.

He set to work at first then as exactly as possible to ascertain the

disposition of this island which his view embraced over its whole

length. He estimated that it ought to measure about sixty miles round,

being, as far as he could see, about twenty miles long from south to

north, and twelve miles wide from east to west.

Its central part was screened by the green depths of forest which

extended up to the ridge dominated by the cone, whose slope died away on

the shore.

All the rest was prairie, with clumps of trees, or beach with rocks,

whose outer ring was capriciously tapered off in the form of capes and

promontories. A few creeks cut out the coast, but could only afford

refuge for two or three fishing-boats.

The bay at the bottom of which the Dream lay shipwrecked was the only

one of any size, and that extended over some seven or eight miles. An

open roadstead, no vessel would have found it a safe shelter, at least

unless the wind was blowing from the east.

But what was this island? To what geographical group did it belong? Did

it form part of an archipelago, or was it alone in this portion of the

Pacific?

In any case, no other island, large or small, high or low, appeared

within the range of vision.

Godfrey rose and gazed round the horizon. Nothing was to be seen along

the circular line where sea and sky ran into each other. If, then, there

existed to windward or to leeward any island or coast of a continent, it

could only be at a considerable distance.

Godfrey called up all his geographical reminiscences, in order to

discover what island of the Pacific this could be. In reasoning it out

he came to this conclusion.

The Dream for seventeen days had steered very nearly south-west. Now

with a speed of from 150 to 180 miles every four-and-twenty hours, she

ought to have covered nearly fifty degrees. Now it was obvious that she

had not crossed the equator.

The situation of the island, or of the group to which it belonged, would

therefore have to be looked for in that part of the ocean comprised

between the 160th and 170th degrees of west longitude.

In this portion of the Pacific it seemed to Godfrey that the map showed

no other archipelago than that of the Sandwich Islands, but outside this

archipelago were there not any isolated islands whose names escaped him

and which were dotted here and there over the sea up to the coast of the

Celestial Empire?

It was not of much consequence. There existed no means of his going in

search of another spot on the ocean which might prove more hospitable.

"Well," said Godfrey to himself, "if I don't know the name of this

island, I'll call it Phina Island, in memory of her I ought never to

have left to run about the world, and perhaps the name will bring us

some luck."

Godfrey then occupied himself in trying to ascertain if the island was

inhabited in the part which he had not yet been able to visit.

From the top of the cone he saw nothing which betrayed the presence of

aborigines, neither habitations on the prairie nor houses on the skirt

of the trees, not even a fisherman's hut on the shore.

But if the island was deserted, the sea which surrounded it was none the

less so, for not a ship showed itself within the limits of what, from

the height of the cone, was a considerable circuit.

Godfrey having finished his exploration had now only to get down to the

foot of the hill and retake the road through the forest so as to rejoin

Tartlet. But before he did so his eyes were attracted by a sort of

cluster of trees of huge stature, which rose on the boundary of the

prairie towards the north. It was a gigantic group, it exceeded by a

head all those which Godfrey had previously seen.

"Perhaps," he said, "it would be better to take up our quarters over

there, more especially as if I am not mistaken I can see a stream which

should rise in the central chain and flow across the prairie."

This was to be looked into on the morrow.

Towards the south the aspect of the island was slightly different.

Forests and prairies rapidly gave place to the yellow carpet of the

beach, and in places the shore was bounded with picturesque rocks.

But what was Godfrey's surprise, when he thought he saw a light smoke,

which rose in the air beyond this rocky barrier.

"Are there any of our companions?" he exclaimed. "But no, it is not

possible! Why should they have got so far from the bay since yesterday,

and round so many miles of reef? Is it a village of fishermen, or the

encampment of some indigenous tribe?"

Godfrey watched it with the closest attention. Was this gentle vapour

which the breeze softly blew towards the west a smoke? Could he be

mistaken? Anyhow it quickly vanished, a few minutes afterwards nothing

could be seen of it.

It was a false hope.

Godfrey took a last look in its direction, and then seeing nothing,

glided down the slope, and again plunged beneath the trees.

An hour later he had traversed the forest and found himself on its

skirt.

There Tartlet awaited him with his two-footed and four-footed flock. And

how was the obstinate professor occupying himself? In the same way. A

bit of wood was in his right hand another piece in his left, and he

still continued his efforts to set them alight. He rubbed and rubbed

with a constancy worthy of a better fate.

"Well," he shouted as he perceived Godfrey some distance off--"and the

telegraph office?"

"It is not open!" answered Godfrey, who dared not yet tell him anything

of the situation.

"And the post?"

"It is shut! But let us have something to eat!--I am dying with hunger!

We can talk presently."

And this morning Godfrey and his companion had again to content

themselves with a too meagre repast of raw eggs and shell-fish.

"Wholesome diet!" repeated Godfrey to Tartlet, who was hardly of that

opinion and picked his food with considerable care.

CHAPTER XI.

IN WHICH THE QUESTION OF LODGING IS SOLVED AS WELL AS IT COULD BE.

The day was already far advanced. Godfrey resolved to defer till the

morrow the task of proceeding to a new abode. But to the pressing

questions which the professor propounded on the results of his

exploration he ended by replying that it was an island, Phina Island, on

which they both had been cast, and that they must think of the means of

living before dreaming of the means of departing.

"An island!" exclaimed Tartlet.

"Yes! It is an island!"

"Which the sea surrounds?"

"Naturally."

"But what is it?"

"I have told you, Phina Island, and you understand why I gave it that

name."

"No, I do not understand!" answered Tartlet, making a grimace; "and I

don't see the resemblance! Miss Phina is surrounded by land, not water!"

After this melancholy reflection, he prepared to pass the night with as

little discomfort as possible. Godfrey went off to the reef to get a new

stock of eggs and mollusks, with which he had to be contented, and then,

tired out, he came back to the tree and soon fell asleep, while Tartlet,

whose philosophy would not allow him to accept such a state of affairs,

gave himself over to the bitterest meditations. On the morrow, the 28th

of June, they were both afoot before the cock had interrupted their

slumbers.

To begin with, a hasty breakfast, the same as the day before. Only water

from a little brook was advantageously replaced by a little milk given

by one of the goats.

Ah! worthy Tartlet! Where were the "mint julep," the "port wine

sangaree," the "sherry cobbler," the "sherry cocktail," which he hardly

drank, but which were served him at all hours in the bars and taverns of

San Francisco? How he envied the poultry, the agouties, and the sheep,

who cheerfully quenched their thirst without the addition of such

saccharine or alcoholic mixtures to their water from the stream! To

these animals no fire was necessary to cook their food; roots and herbs

and seeds sufficed, and their breakfast was always served to the minute

on their tablecloth of green.

"Let us make a start," said Godfrey.

And behold the two on their way, followed by a procession of domestic

animals, who refused to be left behind. Godfrey's idea was to explore,

in the north of the island, that portion of the coast on which he had

noticed the group of gigantic trees in his view from the cone. But to

get there he resolved to keep along the shore. The surf might perhaps

have cast up some fragment of the wreck. Perhaps they might find on the

beach some of their companions in the Dream to which they could give

Christian burial. As for finding any one of them living, it was hardly

to be hoped for, after a lapse of six-and-thirty hours.

The first line of hills was surmounted, and Godfrey and his companion

reached the beginning of the reef, which looked as deserted as it had

when they had left it. There they renewed their stock of eggs and

mollusks, in case they should fail to find even such meagre resources

away to the north. Then, following the fringe of sea-weed left by the

last tide, they again ascended the dunes, and took a good look round.

Nothing! always nothing!

We must certainly say that if misfortune had made Crusoes of these

survivors of the Dream, it had shown itself much more rigorous towards

them than towards their predecessors, who always had some portion of the

vessel left to them, and who, after bringing away crowds of objects of

necessity had been able to utilize the timbers of the wreck. Victuals

for a considerable period, clothes, tools, weapons, had always been left

them with which to satisfy the elementary exigencies of existence. But

here there was nothing of all this! In the middle of that dark night the

ship had disappeared in the depths of the sea, without leaving on the

reefs the slightest traces of its wreck! It had not been possible to

save a thing from her--not even a lucifer-match--and to tell the truth,

the want of that match was the most serious of all wants.

I know well, good people comfortably installed in your easy-chairs

before a comfortable hearth at which is blazing brightly a fire of wood

or coals, that you will be apt to say,--

"But nothing was more easy than for them to get a fire! There are a

thousand ways of doing that! Two pebbles! A little dry moss! A little

burnt rag,"--and how do you burn the rag? "The blade of a knife would do

for a steel, or two bits of wood rubbed briskly together in Polynesian

fashion!"

Well, try it!

It was about this that Godfrey was thinking as he walked, and this it

was that occupied his thoughts more than anything else. Perhaps he too,

poking his coke fire and reading his travellers' tales, had thought the

same as you good people! But now he had to put matters to the test, and

he saw with considerable disquietude the want of a fire, that

indispensable element which nothing could replace.

He kept on ahead, then, lost in thought, followed by Tartlet, who by his

shouts and gestures, kept together the flock of sheep, agouties, goats,

and poultry.

Suddenly his look was attracted by the bright colours of a cluster of

small apples which hung from the branches of certain shrubs, growing in

hundreds at the foot of the dunes. He immediately recognized them as

"manzanillas," which serve as food to the Indians in certain parts of

California.

"At last," he exclaimed, "there is something which will be a change from

our eggs and mussels."

"What? Do you eat those things?" said Tartlet with his customary

grimace.

"You shall soon see!" answered Godfrey.

And he set to work to gather the manzanillas, and eat them greedily.

They were only wild apples, but even their acidity did not prevent them

from being agreeable. The professor made little delay in imitating his

companion, and did not show himself particularly discontented at the

work. Godfrey thought, and with reason, that from these fruits there

could be made a fermented liquor which would be preferable to the water.

The march was resumed. Soon the end of the sand dunes died away in a

prairie traversed by a small stream. This was the one Godfrey had seen

from the top of the cone. The large trees appeared further on, and after

a journey of about nine miles the two explorers, tired enough by their

four hours' walk, reached them a few minutes after noon.

The site was well worth the trouble of looking at, of visiting, and,

doubtless, occupying.

On the edge of a vast prairie, dotted with manzanilla bushes and other

shrubs, there rose a score of gigantic trees which could have even borne

comparison with the same species in the forests of California. They were

arranged in a semi-circle. The carpet of verdure, which stretched at

their feet, after bordering the stream for some hundreds of feet, gave

place to a long beach, covered with rocks, and shingle, and sea-weed,

which ran out into the water in a narrowing point to the north.

These "big trees," as they are commonly called in Western America,

belong to the genus Sequoia, and are conifers of the fir family. If

you ask the English for their distinguishing name, you will be told

"Wellingtonias," if you ask the Americans they will reply

"Washingtonias." But whether they recall the memory of the phlegmatic

victor of Waterloo, or of the illustrious founder of the American

Republic, they are the hugest products known of the Californian and

Nevadan floras. In certain districts in these states there are entire

forests of these trees, such as the groups at Mariposa and Calaveras,

some of the trees of which measure from sixty to eighty feet in

circumference, and some 300 feet in height. One of them, at the entrance

of the Yosemite Valley, is quite 100 feet round. When living--for it is

now prostrate--its first branches could have overtopped Strasburg

Cathedral, or, in other words, were above eighty feet from the ground.

Besides this tree there are "The Mother of the Forest," "The Beauty of

the Forest," "The Hut of the Pioneer," "The Two Sentinels," "General

Grant," "Miss Emma," "Miss Mary," "Brigham Young and his Wife," "The

Three Graces," "The Bear," &c., &c.; all of them veritable vegetable

phenomena. One of the trees has been sawn across at its base, and on it

there has been built a ball-room, in which a quadrille of eight or ten

couples can be danced with ease.

But the giant of giants, in a forest which is the property of the state,

about fifteen miles from Murphy, is "The Father of the Forest," an old

sequoia, 4000 years old, which rises 452 feet from the ground, higher

than the cross of St. Peter's, at Rome, higher than the great pyramid

of Ghizeh, higher than the iron bell-turret which now caps one of the

towers of Rouen Cathedral, and which ought to be looked upon as the

highest monument in the world.

It was a group of some twenty of these colossi that nature had planted

on this point of the island, at the epoch, probably, when Solomon was

building that temple at Jerusalem which has never risen from its ruins.

The largest was, perhaps, 300 feet high, the smallest nearly 200.

Some of them, hollowed out by age, had enormous arches through their

bases, beneath which a troop of horsemen could have ridden with ease.

Godfrey was struck with admiration in the presence of these natural

phenomena, as they are not generally found at altitudes of less than

from 5000 to 6000 feet above the level of the sea. He even thought that

the view alone was worth the journey. Nothing he had seen was comparable

to these columns of clear brown, which outlined themselves almost

without sensible diminution of their diameters to their lowest fork. The

cylindrical trunks rising from 80 to 100 feet above the earth, ramified

into such thick branches that they themselves looked like tree-stems of

huge dimensions bearing quite a forest in the air.

One of these specimens of Sequoia gigantea--one of the biggest in the

group--more particularly attracted Godfrey's attention.

Gazing at its base it displayed an opening of from four to five feet in

width, and ten feet high, which gave entrance to its interior. The

giant's heart had disappeared, the alburnum had been dissipated into

soft whitish dust; but if the tree did not depend so much on its

powerful roots as on its solid bark, it could still keep its position

for centuries.

"In default of a cavern or a grotto," said Godfrey, "here is a

ready-made dwelling. A wooden house, a tower, such as there is in no

inhabited land. Here we can be sheltered and shut in. Come along,

Tartlet! come!"

And the young man, catching hold of his companion, dragged him inside

the sequoia.

The base was covered with a bed of vegetable dust, and in diameter could

not be less than twenty feet.

As for the height to which its vault extended, the gloom prevented even

an estimate. For not a ray of light found its way through the bark wall.

Neither cleft nor fault was there through which the wind or rain could

come. Our two Crusoes would therein find themselves in a position to

brave with impunity the inclemency of the weather. No cave could be

firmer, or drier, or compacter. In truth it would have been difficult to

have anywhere found a better.

"Eh, Tartlet, what do you think of our natural house?" asked Godfrey.

"Yes, but the chimney?" answered Tartlet.

"Before we talk about the chimney," replied Godfrey, "let us wait till

we have got the fire!"

This was only logical.

Godfrey went to reconnoitre the neighbourhood. As we have said, the

prairie extended to this enormous mass of sequoias which formed its

edge. The small stream meandering through the grassy carpet gave a

healthy freshness to its borders, and thereon grew shrubs of different

kinds; myrtles, mastic bushes, and among others a quantity of

manzanillas, which gave promise of a large crop of their wild apples.

Farther off, on ground that grew gradually higher, were scattered

several clumps of trees, made up of oaks and beeches, sycamores and

nettle-trees, but trees of great stature as they were, they seemed but

simple underwood by the side of the "mammoths," whose huge shadows the

sun was throwing even into the sea. Across the prairie lay minor lines

of bushes, and vegetable clumps and verdant thickets, which Godfrey

resolved to investigate on the following day.

If the site pleased him, it did not displease the domestic animals.

Agouties, goats, and sheep had soon taken possession of this domain,

which offered them roots to nibble at, and grass to browse on far beyond

their needs. As for the fowls they were greedily pecking away at the

seeds and worms in the banks of the rivulet. Animal life was already

manifesting itself in such goings and comings, such flights and gambols,

such bleatings and gruntings and cluckings as had doubtless never been

heard of in these parts before.

Then Godfrey returned to the clump of sequoias, and made a more

attentive examination of the tree in which he had chosen to take up his

abode. It appeared to him that it would be difficult, if not impossible,

to climb into the first branches, at least by the exterior; for the

trunk presented no protuberances. Inside it the ascent might be easier,

if the tree were hollow up to the fork.

In case of danger it would be advisable to seek refuge among the thick

boughs borne by the enormous trunk. But this matter could be looked into

later on.

When he had finished his inquiries the sun was low on horizon, and it

seemed best to put off till to-morrow the preparations for their

definitely taking up their abode.

But, after a meal with dessert composed of wild apples, what could they

do better than pass the night on a bed of the vegetable dust which

covered the ground inside the sequoia?

And this, under the keeping of Providence, was what was done, but not

until after Godfrey, in remembrance of his uncle, William W. Kolderup,

had given to the giant the name of "Will Tree," just as its prototypes

in the forests of California and the neighbouring states bear the names

of the great citizens of the American Republic.

CHAPTER XII.

WHICH ENDS WITH A THUNDER-BOLT.

It must be acknowledged that Godfrey was in a fair way to become a new

man in this completely novel position to one so frivolous, so

light-minded, and so thoughtless. He had hitherto only had to allow

himself to live. Never had care for the morrow disquieted his rest. In

the opulent mansion in Montgomery Street, where he slept his ten hours

without a break, not the fall of a rose leaf had ever troubled his

slumbers.

It was so no longer. On this unknown land he found himself thoroughly

shut off from the rest of the world, left entirely to his own resources,

obliged to face the necessities of life under conditions in which a man

even much more practical might have been in great difficulty. Doubtless

when it was found that the Dream did not return, a search for him

would be made. But what were these two? Less than a needle in a hayrick

or a sand-grain on the sea-bottom! The incalculable fortune of Uncle

Kolderup could not do everything.

When Godfrey had found his fairly acceptable shelter, his sleep in it

was by no means undisturbed. His brain travelled as it had never done

before. Ideas of all kinds were associated together: those of the past

which he bitterly regretted, those of the present of which he sought the

realization, those of the future which disquieted him more than all!

But in these rough trials, the reason and, in consequence, the reasoning

which naturally flows from it, were little by little freed from the

limbo in which they had hitherto slept. Godfrey was resolved to strive

against his ill-luck, and to do all he could to get out of his

difficulties. If he escaped, the lesson would certainly not be lost on

him for the future.

At daybreak he was astir, with the intention of proceeding to a more

complete installation. The question of food, above all that of fire,

which was connected with it, occupied the first place; then there were

tools or arms to make, clothes to procure, unless they were anxious of

soon appearing attired in Polynesian costume.

Tartlet still slumbered. You could not see him in the shadow, but you

could hear him. That poor man, spared from the wreck, remained as

frivolous at forty-five as his pupil had formerly been. He was a gain

in no sense. He even might be considered an incubus, for he had to be

cared for in all ways. But he was a companion!

He was worth more in that than the most intelligent dog, although he was

probably of less use! He was a creature able to talk--although only at

random; to converse--if the matter were never serious; to complain--and

this he did most frequently! As it was, Godfrey was able to hear a human

voice. That was worth more than the parrot's in Robinson Crusoe! Even

with a Tartlet he would not be alone, and nothing was so disheartening

as the thought of absolute solitude.

"Crusoe before Friday, Crusoe after Friday; what a difference!" thought

he.

However, on this morning, that of June 29th, Godfrey was not sorry to be

alone, so as to put into execution his project of exploring the group of

sequoias. Perhaps he would be fortunate enough to discover some fruit,

some edible root, which he could bring back--to the extreme satisfaction

of the professor. And so he left Tartlet to his dreams, and set out.

A light fog still shrouded the shore and the sea, but already it had

commenced to lift in the north and east under the influence of the solar

rays, which little by little were condensing it. The day promised to be

fine. Godfrey, after having cut himself a substantial walking-stick,

went for two miles along that part of the beach which he did not know,

and whose return formed the outstretched point of Phina Island.

There he made a first meal of shell-fish, mussels, clams, and especially

some capital little oysters which he found in great abundance.

"If it comes to the worst," he said to himself, "we need never die of

hunger! Here are thousands of dozens of oysters to satisfy the calls of

the most imperious stomach! If Tartlet complains, it is because he does

not like mollusks! Well, he will have to like them!"

Decidedly, if the oyster did not absolutely replace bread and meat, it

furnished an aliment in no whit less nutritive and in a condition

capable of being absorbed in large quantities. But as this mollusk is of

very easy digestion, it is somewhat dangerous in its use, to say nothing

of its abuse.

This breakfast ended, Godfrey again seized his stick, and struck off

obliquely towards the south-east, so as to walk up the right bank of the

stream. In this direction, he would cross the prairie up to the groups

of trees observed the night before beyond the long lines of shrubs and

underwood, which he wished to carefully examine.

Godfrey then advanced in this direction for about two miles. He

followed the bank of the stream, carpeted with short herbage and smooth

as velvet. Flocks of aquatic birds noisily flew round this being, who,

new to them, had come to trouble their domain. Fish of many kinds were

seen darting about in the limpid waters of the brook, here abouts some

four or five yards wide.

It was evident that there would be no difficulty in catching these fish,

but how to cook them? Always this insoluble question!

Fortunately, when Godfrey reached the first line of shrubs he recognized

two sorts of fruits or roots. One sort had to pass through the fiery

trial before being eaten, the other was edible in its natural state. Of

these two vegetables the American Indians make constant use.

The first was a shrub of the kind called "camas," which thrives even in

lands unfit for culture. With these onion-like roots, should it not be

found preferable to treat them as potatoes, there is made a sort of

flour very rich and glutinous. But either way, they have to be subjected

to a certain cooking, or drying.

The other bush produces a species of bulb of oblong form, bearing the

indigenous name of "yamph," and if it possesses less nutritive

principles than the camas, it is much the better for one thing,--it can

be eaten raw.

Godfrey, highly pleased at his discovery, at once satisfied his hunger

on a few of these excellent roots, and not forgetting Tartlet's

breakfast, collected a large bundle, and throwing it over his shoulder,

retook the road to Will Tree.

That he was well received on his arrival with the crop of yamphs need

not be insisted on. The professor greedily regaled himself, and his

pupil had to caution him to be moderate.

"Ah!" he said. "We have got some roots to-day. Who knows whether we

shall have any to-morrow?"

"Without any doubt," replied Godfrey, "to-morrow and the day after, and

always. There is only the trouble of going and fetching them."

"Well, Godfrey, and the camas?"

"Of the camas we will make flour and bread when we have got a fire."

"Fire!" exclaimed the professor, shaking his head. "Fire! And how shall

we make it?"

"I don't know yet, but somehow or other we will get at it."

"May Heaven hear you, my dear Godfrey! And when I think that there are

so many fellows in this world who have only got to rub a bit of wood on

the sole of their boot to get it, it annoys me! No! Never would I have

believed that ill-luck would have reduced me to this state! You need

not take three steps down Montgomery Street, before you will meet with a

gentleman, cigar in mouth, who thinks it a pleasure to give you a light,

and here--"

"Here we are not in San Francisco, Tartlet, nor in Montgomery Street,

and I think it would be wiser for us not to reckon on the kindness of

those we meet!"

"But, why is cooking necessary for bread and meat? Why did not nature

make us so that we might live upon nothing?"

"That will come, perhaps!" answered Godfrey with a good-humoured smile.

"Do you think so?"

"I think that our scientists are probably working out the subject."

"Is it possible! And how do they start on their research as to this new

mode of alimentation?"

"On this line of reasoning," answered Godfrey, "as the functions of

digestion and respiration are connected, the endeavour is to substitute

one for the other. Hence the day when chemistry has made the aliments

necessary for the food of man capable of assimilation by respiration,

the problem will be solved. There is nothing wanted beyond rendering the

air nutritious. You will breathe your dinner instead of eating it, that

is all!"

"Ah! Is it not a pity that this precious discovery is not yet made!"

exclaimed the professor. "How cheerfully would I breathe half a dozen

sandwiches and a silverside of beef, just to give me an appetite!"

And Tartlet plunged into a semi-sensuous reverie, in which he beheld

succulent atmospheric dinners, and at them unconsciously opened his

mouth and breathed his lungs full, oblivious that he had scarcely the

wherewithal to feed upon in the ordinary way.

Godfrey roused him from his meditation, and brought him back to the

present. He was anxious to proceed to a more complete installation in

the interior of Will Tree.

The first thing to do was to clean up their future dwelling-place. It

was at the outset necessary to bring out several bushels of that

vegetable dust which covered the ground and in which they sank almost up

to their knees. Two hours' work hardly sufficed to complete this

troublesome task, but at length the chamber was clear of the pulverulent

bed, which rose in clouds at the slightest movement.

The ground was hard and firm, as if floored with joists, the large roots

of the sequoia ramifying over its surface. It was uneven but solid. Two

corners were selected for the beds and of these several bundles of

herbage, thoroughly dried in the sun, were to form the materials. As for

other furniture, benches, stools, or tables, it was not impossible to

make the most indispensable things, for Godfrey had a capital knife,

with its saw and gimlet. The companions would have to keep inside during

rough weather, and they could eat and work there. Daylight did not fail

them, for it streamed through the opening. Later on, if it became

necessary to close this aperture for greater safety, Godfrey could try

and pierce one or two embrasures in the bark of the sequoia to serve as

windows.

As for discovering to what height the opening ran up into the trunk,

Godfrey could not do so without a light. All that he could do was to

find out with the aid of a pole ten or twelve feet long, held above his

head, that he could not touch the top.

The question, however, was not an urgent one. It would be solved

eventually.

The day passed in these labours, which were not ended at sunset. Godfrey

and Tartlet, tired as they were, found their novel bed-clothes formed of

the dried herbage, of which they had an ample supply, most excellent;

but they had to drive away the poultry who would willingly have roosted

in the interior of Will Tree. Then occurred to Godfrey the idea of

constructing a poultry-house in some other sequoia, as, to keep them out

of the common room, he was building up a hurdle of brushwood.

Fortunately neither the sheep nor the agouties, nor the goats

experienced the like temptation. These animals remained quietly outside,

and had no fancy to get through the insufficient barrier.

The following days were employed in different jobs, in fitting up the

house or bringing in food; eggs and shell-fish were collected, yamph

roots and manzanilla apples were brought in, and oysters, for which each

morning they went to the bank or the shore. All this took time, and the

hours passed away quickly.

The "dinner things" consisted now of large bivalve shells, which served

for dishes or plates. It is true that for the kind of food to which the

hosts of Will Tree were reduced, others were not needed.

There was also the washing of the linen in the clear water of the

stream, which occupied the leisure of Tartlet. It was to him that this

task fell; but he only had to see to the two shirts, two handkerchiefs,

and two pairs of socks, which composed the entire wardrobe of both.

While this operation was in progress, Godfrey and Tartlet had to wear

only waistcoat and trousers, but in the blazing sun of that latitude the

clothes quickly dried. And so matters went on without either rain or

wind till July 3rd. Already they had begun to be fairly comfortable in

their new home, considering the condition in which they had been cast on

the island.

However, it was advisable not to neglect the chances of safety which

might come from without. Each day Godfrey examined the whole sector of

sea which extended from the east to the north-west beyond the

promontory.

This part of the Pacific was always deserted. Not a vessel, not a

fishing-boat, not a ribbon of smoke detaching itself from the horizon,

proclaimed the passage of a steamer. It seemed that Phina Island was

situated out of the way of all the itineraries of commerce. All they

could do was to wait, trusting in the Almighty who never abandons the

weak.

Meanwhile, when their immediate necessities allowed them leisure,

Godfrey, incited by Tartlet, returned to that important and vexed

question of the fire.

He tried at first to replace amadou, which he so unfortunately lacked,

by another and analogous material. It was possible that some of the

varieties of mushrooms which grew in the crevices of the old trees,

after having been subjected to prolonged drying, might be transformed

into a combustible substance.

Many of these mushrooms were collected and exposed to the direct action

of the sun, until they were reduced to powder. Then with the back of his

knife, Godfrey endeavoured to strike some sparks off with a flint, so

that they might fall on this substance. It was useless. The spongy

stuff would not catch fire. Godfrey then tried to use that fine

vegetable dust, dried during so many centuries, which he had found in

the interior of Will Tree. The result was equally discouraging.

In desperation he then, by means of his knife and flint, strove to

secure the ignition of a sort of sponge which grew under the rocks. He

fared no better. The particle of steel, lighted by the impact of the

silex, fell on to the substance, but went out immediately. Godfrey and

Tartlet were in despair. To do without fire was impossible. Of their

fruits and mollusks they were getting tired, and their stomachs began to

revolt at such food. They eyed, the professor especially, the sheep,

agouties, and fowls which went and came round Will Tree. The pangs of

hunger seized them as they gazed. With their eyes they ate the living

meat!

No! It could not go on like this!

But an unexpected circumstance, a providential one if you will, came to

their aid.

In the night of the 3rd of July the weather, which had been on the

change for a day or so, grew stormy, after an oppressive heat which the

sea-breeze had been powerless to temper.

Godfrey and Tartlet at about one o'clock in the morning were awakened by

heavy claps of thunder, and most vivid flashes of lightning. It did not

rain as yet, but it soon promised to do so, and then regular cataracts

would be precipitated from the cloudy zone, owing to the rapid

condensation of the vapour.

Godfrey got up and went out so as to observe the state of the sky.

There seemed quite a conflagration above the domes of the giant trees

and the foliage appeared on fire against the sky, like the fine network

of a Chinese shadow.

Suddenly, in the midst of the general uproar, a vivid flash illuminated

the atmosphere. The thunder-clap followed immediately, and Will Tree was

permeated from top to bottom with the electric force.

Godfrey, staggered by the return shock, stood in the midst of a rain of

fire which showered around him. The lightning had ignited the dry

branches above him. They were incandescent particles of carbon which

crackled at his feet.

Godfrey with a shout awoke his companion.

"Fire! Fire!"

"Fire!" answered Tartlet. "Blessed be Heaven which sends it to us!"

Instantly they possessed themselves of the flaming twigs, of which some

still burned, while others had been consumed in the flames. Hurriedly,

at the same time, did they heap together a quantity of dead wood such

as was never wanting at the foot of the sequoia, whose trunk had not

been touched by the lightning.

Then they returned into their gloomy habitation as the rain, pouring

down in sheets, extinguished the fire which threatened to devour the

upper branches of Will Tree.

CHAPTER XIII.

IN WHICH GODFREY AGAIN SEES A SLIGHT SMOKE OVER ANOTHER PART OF THE

ISLAND.

That was a storm which came just when it was wanted! Godfrey and Tartlet

had not, like Prometheus, to venture into space to bring down the

celestial fire! "It was," said Tartlet, "as if the sky had been obliging

enough to send it down to them on a lightning flash."

With them now remained the task of keeping it!

"No! we must not let it go out!" Godfrey had said.

"Not until the wood fails us to feed it!" had responded Tartlet, whose

satisfaction showed itself in little cries of joy.

"Yes! but who will keep it in?"

"I! I will! I will watch it day and night, if necessary," replied

Tartlet, brandishing a flaming bough.

And he did so till the sun rose.

Dry wood, as we have said, abounded beneath the sequoias. Until the dawn

Godfrey and the professor, after heaping up a considerable stock, did

not spare to feed the fire. By the foot of one of the large trees in a

narrow space between the roots the flames leapt up, crackling clearly

and joyously. Tartlet exhausted his lungs blowing away at it, although

his doing so was perfectly useless. In this performance he assumed the

most characteristic attitudes in following the greyish smoke whose

wreaths were lost in the foliage above.

But it was not that they might admire it that they had so longingly

asked for this indispensable fire, not to warm themselves at it. It was

destined for a much more interesting use. There was to be an end of

their miserable meals of raw mollusks and yamph roots, whose nutritive

elements boiling water and simple cooking in the ashes had never

developed. It was in this way that Godfrey and Tartlet employed it

during the morning.

"We could eat a fowl or two!" exclaimed Tartlet, whose jaws moved in

anticipation. "Not to mention an agouti ham, a leg of mutton, a quarter

of goat, some of the game on the prairie, without counting two or three

freshwater fish and a sea fish or so."

"Not so fast," answered Godfrey, whom the declaration of this modest

bill of fare had put in good humour. "We need not risk indigestion to

satisfy a fast! We must look after our reserves, Tartlet! Take a couple

of fowls--one apiece--and if we want bread, I hope that our camsa roots

can be so prepared as to replace it with advantage!" This cost the lives

of two innocent hens, who, plucked, trussed, and dressed by the

professor, were stuck on a stick, and soon roasted before the crackling

flames.

Meanwhile, Godfrey was getting the camas roots in a state to figure

creditably at the first genuine breakfast on Phina Island. To render

them edible it was only necessary to follow the Indian method, which the

Californians were well acquainted with.

This was what Godfrey did.

A few flat stones selected from the beach were thrown in the fire so as

to get intensely hot. Tartlet seemed to think it a great shame to use

such a good fire "to cook stones with," but as it did not hinder the

preparation of his fowls in any way he had no other complaint to make.

While the stones were getting warm Godfrey selected a piece of ground

about a yard square from which he tore up the grass; then with his hands

armed with large scallop shells he dug the soil to the depth of about

ten inches. That done he laid at the bottom of the cavity a fire of dry

wood, which he so arranged as to communicate to the earth heaped up at

its bottom some considerable heat.

When all the wood had been consumed and the cinders taken away, the

camas roots, previously cleaned and scraped, were strewn in the hole, a

thin layer of sods thrown over them and the glowing stones placed on the

top, so as to serve as the basis of a new fire which was lighted on

their surface.

In fact, it was a kind of oven which had been prepared; and in a very

short time--about half an hour or so--the operation was at an end.

Beneath the double layer of stones and sods lay the roots cooked by this

violent heating. On crushing them there was obtainable a flour well

fitted for making into bread, but, even eaten as they were, they proved

much like potatoes of highly nutritive quality.

It was thus that this time the roots were served and we leave our

readers to imagine what a breakfast our two friends made on the chickens

which they devoured to the very bones, and on the excellent camas roots,

of which they had no need to be sparing. The field was not far off where

they grew in abundance. They could be picked up in hundreds by simply

stooping down for them.

The repast over, Godfrey set to work to prepare some of the flour, which

keeps for any length of time, and which could be transformed into bread

for their daily wants.

The day was passed in different occupations. The fire was kept up with

great care. Particularly was the fuel heaped on for the night; and

Tartlet, nevertheless, arose on many occasions to sweep the ashes

together and provoke a more active combustion. Having done this, he

would go to bed again, to get up as soon as the fire burnt low, and thus

he occupied himself till the day broke. The night passed without

incident, the cracklings of the fire and the crow of the cock awoke

Godfrey and his companion, who had ended his performances by falling off

to sleep.

At first Godfrey was surprised at feeling a current of air coming down

from above in the interior of Will Tree. He was thus led to think that

the sequoia was hollow up to the junction of the lower branches where

there was an opening which they would have to stop up if they wished to

be snug and sheltered.

"But it is very singular!" said Godfrey to himself.

"How was it that during the preceding nights I did not feel this current

of air? Could it have been the lightning?"

And to get an answer to this question, the idea occurred to him to

examine the trunk of the sequoia from the out side.

When he had done so, he understood what had happened during the storm.

The track of the lightning was visible on the tree, which had had a

long strip of its bark torn off from the fork down to the roots.

Had the electric spark found its way into the interior of the sequoia in

place of keeping to the outside, Godfrey and his companion would have

been struck. Most decidedly they had had a narrow escape.

"It is not a good thing to take refuge under trees during a storm," said

Godfrey. "That is all very well for people who can do otherwise. But

what way have we to avoid the danger who live inside the tree? We must

see!"

Then examining the sequoia from the point where the long lightning trace

began--"It is evident," said he, "that where the flash struck the tree

has been cracked. But since the air penetrates by this orifice the tree

must be hollow along its whole length and only lives in its bark? Now

that is what I ought to see about!"

And Godfrey went to look for a resinous piece of wood that might do for

a torch.

A bundle of pine twigs furnished him with the torch he needed, as from

them exuded a resin which, once inflamed, gave forth a brilliant light.

Godfrey then entered the cavity which served him for his house. To

darkness immediately succeeded light, and it was easy to see the state

of the interior of Will Tree. A sort of vault of irregular formation

stretched across in a ceiling some fifteen feet above the ground.

Lifting his torch Godfrey distinctly saw that into this there opened a

narrow passage whose further development was lost in the shadow. The

tree was evidently hollow throughout its length; but perhaps some

portion of the alburnum still remained intact. In that case, by the help

of the protuberances it would be possible if not easy to get up to the

fork.

Godfrey, who was thinking of the future, resolved to know without delay

if this were so.

He had two ends in view; one, to securely close the opening by which the

rain and wind found admission, and so render Will Tree almost habitable;

the other, to see if in case of danger, or an attack from animals or

savages, the upper branches of the tree would not afford a convenient

refuge.

He could but try. If he encountered any insurmountable obstacle in the

narrow passage, Godfrey could be got down again.

After firmly sticking his torch between two of the roots below, behold

him then commencing to raise himself on to the first interior knots of

the bark. He was lithe, strong, and accustomed to gymnastics like all

young Americans. It was only sport to him. Soon he had reached in this

uneven tube a part much narrower, in which, with the aid of his back and

knees, he could work his way upwards like a chimney-sweep. All he feared

was that the hole would not continue large enough for him to get up.

However, he kept on, and each time he reached a projection he would stop

and take breath.

Three minutes after leaving the ground, Godfrey had mounted about sixty

feet, and consequently could only have about twenty feet further to go.

In fact, he already felt the air blowing more strongly on his face. He

inhaled it greedily, for the atmosphere inside the sequoia was not,

strictly speaking, particularly fresh.

After resting for a minute, and shaking off the fine dust which he had

rubbed on to him off the wall, Godfrey started again up the long tunnel,

which gradually narrowed.

But at this moment his attention was attracted by a peculiar noise,

which appeared to him somewhat suspicious. There was a sound as of

scratching, up the tree. Almost immediately a sort of hissing was heard.

Godfrey stopped.

"What is that?" he asked. "Some animal taken refuge in the sequoia? Was

it a snake? No! We have not yet seen one on the island! Perhaps it is a

bird that wants to get out!"

Godfrey was not mistaken; and as he continued to mount, a cawing,

followed by a rapid flapping of wings, showed him that it was some bird

ensconced in the tree whose sleep he was doubtless disturbing.

Many a "frrr-frrr!" which he gave out with the whole power of his lungs,

soon determined the intruder to clear off.

It proved to be a kind of jackdaw, of huge stature, which scuttled out

of the opening, and disappeared into the summit of Will Tree.

A few seconds afterwards, Godfrey's head appeared through the same

opening, and he soon found himself quite at his ease, installed on a

fork of the tree where the lower branches gave off, at about eighty feet

from the ground.

There, as has been said, the enormous stem of the sequoia supported

quite a forest. The capricious network of its upper boughs presented the

aspect of a wood crowded with trees, which no gap rendered passable.

However, Godfrey managed, not without difficulty, to get along from one

branch to another, so as to gain little by little the upper story of

this vegetable phenomenon.

A number of birds with many a cry flew off at his approach, and hastened

to take refuge in the neighbouring members of the group, above which

Will Tree towered by more than a head.

Godfrey continued to climb as well as he could, and did not stop until

the ends of the higher branches began to bend beneath his weight.

A huge horizon of water surrounded Phina Island, which lay unrolled like

a relief-map at his feet. Greedily his eyes examined that portion of the

sea. It was still deserted. He had to conclude once more, that the

island lay away from the trade routes of the Pacific.

Godfrey uttered a heavy sigh; then his look fell on the narrow domain on

which fate had condemned him to live, doubtless for long, perhaps for

ever.

But what was his surprise when he saw, this time away to the north, a

smoke similar to that which he had already thought he had seen in the

south. He watched it with the keenest attention.

[Illustration: There was the column of smoke. page 152]

A very light vapour, calm and pure, greyish blue at its tip, rose

straight in the air.

"No! I am not mistaken!" exclaimed Godfrey. "There is a smoke, and

therefore a fire which produces it! And that fire could not have been

lighted except by--By whom?"

Godfrey then with extreme precision took the bearings of the spot in

question.

The smoke was rising in the north-east of the island, amid the high

rocks which bordered the beach. There was no mistake about that. It was

less than five miles from Will Tree. Striking straight to the north-east

across the prairie, and then following the shore, he could not fail

to find the rocks above which the vapour rose.

With beating heart Godfrey made his way down the scaffolding of branches

until he reached the fork. There he stopped an instant to clear off the

moss and leaves which clung to him, and that done he slid down the

opening, which he enlarged as much as possible, and rapidly gained the

ground. A word to Tartlet not to be uneasy at his absence, and Godfrey

hastened off in the north-easterly direction so as to reach the shore.

It was a two hours' walk across the verdant prairie, through clumps of

scattered trees, or hedges of spiny shrubs, and then along the beach. At

length the last chain of rocks was reached.

But the smoke which Godfrey had seen from the top of the tree he

searched for in vain when he had reached the ground. As he had taken the

bearings of the spot with great care, he came towards it without any

mistake.

There Godfrey began his search. He carefully explored every nook and

corner of this part of the shore. He called. No one answered to his

shout. No human being appeared on the beach. Not a rock gave him a trace

of a newly lighted fire--nor of a fire now extinct, which could have

been fed by sea herbs and dry algæ thrown up by the tide.

"But it is impossible that I should have been mistaken!" repeated

Godfrey to himself. "I am sure it was smoke that I saw! And besides!--"

As Godfrey could not admit that he had been the dupe of a delusion, he

began to think that there must exist some well of heated water, or kind

of intermittent geyser, which he could not exactly find, but which had

given forth the vapour.

There was nothing to show that in the island there were not many of such

natural wells, and the apparition of the column of smoke could be easily

explained by so simple a geological phenomenon.

Godfrey left the shore and returned towards Will Tree, observing the

country as he went along a little more carefully than he had done as he

came. A few ruminants showed themselves, amongst others some wapiti, but

they dashed past with such speed that it was impossible to get near

them.

In about four hours Godfrey got back. Just before he reached the tree he

heard the shrill "twang! squeak!" of the kit, and soon found himself

face to face with Professor Tartlet, who, in the attitude of a vestal,

was watching the sacred fire confided to his keeping.

CHAPTER XIV.

WHEREIN GODFREY FINDS SOME WRECKAGE, TO WHICH HE AND HIS COMPANION GIVE

A HEARTY WELCOME.

To put up with what you cannot avoid is a philosophical principle, that

may not perhaps lead you to the accomplishment of great deeds, but is

assuredly eminently practical. On this principle Godfrey had resolved to

act for the future. If he had to live in this island, the wisest thing

for him to do was to live there as comfortably as possible until an

opportunity offered for him to leave it.

And so, without delay, he set to work to get the interior of Will Tree

into some order. Cleanliness was of the first importance. The beds of

dried grass were frequently renewed. The plates and dishes were only

scallop shells, it is true, but no American kitchen could show cleaner

ones. It should be said to his praise that Professor Tartlet was a

capital washer. With the help of his knife Godfrey, by flattening out a

large piece of bark, and sticking four uprights into the ground, had

contrived a table in the middle of the room. Some large stumps served

for stools. The comrades were no longer reduced to eating on their

knees, when the weather prevented their dining in the open air.

There was still the question of clothing, which was of great interest to

them, and they did the best they could. In that climate, and under that

latitude, there was no reason why they should not go about half naked;

but, at length, trousers, waistcoat, and linen shirt were all worn out.

How could they replace them? Were the sheep and the goats to provide

them with skins for clothing, after furnishing them with flesh for food?

It looked like it. Meanwhile, Godfrey had the few garments he possessed

frequently washed. It was on Tartlet, transformed into a laundress, that

this task fell, and he acquitted himself of it to the general

satisfaction.

Godfrey busied himself specially in providing food, and in arranging

matters generally. He was, in fact, the caterer. Collecting the edible

roots and the manzanilla fruit occupied him some hours every day; and so

did fishing with plaited rushes, sometimes in the waters of the stream,

and sometimes in the hollows of the rocks on the beach when the tide had

gone out. The means were primitive, no doubt, but from time to time a

fine crustacean or a succulent fish figured on the table of Will Tree,

to say nothing of the mollusks, which were easily caught by hand.

But we must confess that the pot--of all the pieces in the battery of

the cook undoubtedly the most essential--the simple iron pot, was

wanting. Its absence could not but be deeply felt. Godfrey knew not how

to replace the vulgar pipkin, whose use is universal. No hash, no stew,

no boiled meat, no fish, nothing but roasts and grills. No soup appeared

at the beginning of a meal. Constantly and bitterly did Tartlet

complain--but how to satisfy the poor man?

Godfrey was busied with other cares. In visiting the different trees of

the group he had found a second sequoia of great height, of which the

lower part, hollowed out by the weather, was very rugged and uneven.

Here he devised his poultry-house, and in it the fowls took up their

abode. The hens soon became accustomed to their home, and settled

themselves to set on eggs placed in the dried grass, and chickens began

to multiply. Every evening the broods were driven in and shut up, so as

to keep them from birds of prey, who, aloft in the branches, watched

their easy victims, and would, if they could, have ended by destroying

them.

As for the agoutis, the sheep, and the goats, it would have been useless

then to have looked out a stable or a shelter for them. When the bad

weather came, there would be time enough to see to that. Meanwhile they

prospered on the luxuriant pasturage of the prairie, with its abundance

of sainfoin and edible roots, of which the porcine representatives

showed genuine appreciation. A few kids had been dropped since the

arrival in the island, and as much milk as possible was left to the

goats with which to nourish their little ones.

From all this it resulted that the surroundings of Will Tree were quite

lively. The well-fed domestic animals came during the warm hours of the

day to find there a refuge from the heat of the sun. No fear was there

of their wandering abroad, or of their falling a prey to wild beasts, of

which Phina Island seemed to contain not a single specimen.

And so things went on, with a present fairly comfortable perhaps, but a

future very disquieting, when an unexpected incident occurred which

bettered the position considerably.

It was on the 29th of July.

Godfrey was strolling in the morning along that part of the shore which

formed the beach of the large bight to which he had given the name of

Dream Bay. He was exploring it to see if it was as rich in shell-fish as

the coast on the north. Perhaps he still hoped that he might yet come

across some of the wreck, of which it seemed to him so strange that the

tide had as yet brought in not a single fragment.

On this occasion he had advanced to the northern point which terminated

in a sandy spit, when his attention was attracted by a rock of curious

shape, rising near the last group of algæ and sea-weeds.

A strange presentiment made him hasten his steps. What was his surprise,

and his joy, when he saw that what he had taken for a rock was a box,

half buried in the sand.

Was it one of the packages of the Dream? Had it been here ever since

the wreck? Was it not rather all that remained of another and more

recent catastrophe? It was difficult to say. In any case no matter

whence it came or what it held, the box was a valuable prize.

Godfrey examined it outwardly. There was no trace of an address not even

a name, not even one of those huge initials cut out of thin sheet metal

which ornament the boxes of the Americans. Perhaps he would find inside

it some paper which would indicate the origin, or nationality, or name

of the proprietor? Any how it was apparently hermetically sealed, and

there was hope that its contents had not been spoiled by their sojourn

in the sea-water. It was a very strong wooden box, covered with thick

leather, with copper corner plates at the angles, and large straps all

over it.

Impatient as he was to view the contents of the box, Godfrey did not

think of damaging it, but of opening it after destroying the lock; as to

transporting it from the bottom of Dream Bay to Will Tree, its weight

forbade it, and he never gave that a thought.

"Well," said Godfrey to himself, "we must empty it where it is, and make

as many journeys as may be necessary to take away all that is inside."

It was about four miles from the end of the promontory to the group of

sequoias. It would therefore take some time to do this, and occasion

considerable fatigue. Time did not press, however. As for the fatigue,

it was hardly worth thinking about.

What did the box contain? Before returning to Will Tree, Godfrey had a

try at opening it.

He began by unbuckling the straps, and once they were off he very

carefully lifted the leather shield which protected the lock. But how

was he to force it?

It was a difficult job. Godfrey had no lever with which to bring his

strength to bear. He had to guard against the risk of breaking his

knife, and so he looked about for a heavy stone with which he could

start the staple.

The beach was strewn with lumps of hard silex in every form which could

do for a hammer.

Godfrey picked out one as thick as his wrist, and with it he gave a

tremendous whack on the plate of copper.

To his extreme surprise the bolt shot through the staple immediately

gave way.

Either the staple was broken by the blow, or the lock was not turned.

Godfrey's heart beat high as he stooped to lift up the box lid.

It rose unchecked, and in truth had Godfrey had to get it to pieces he

would not have done so without trouble. The trunk was a regular

strong-box. The interior was lined with sheet zinc, so that the

sea-water had failed to penetrate. The objects it contained, however

delicate they might be, would be found in a perfect state of

preservation.

And what objects! As he took them out Godfrey could not restrain

exclamations of joy! Most assuredly the box must have belonged to some

highly practical traveller, who had reckoned on getting into a country

where he would have to trust to his own resources.

In the first place there was linen--shirts, table-cloths, sheets,

counterpanes; then clothes--woollen jerseys, woollen socks, cotton

socks, cloth trousers, velveteen trousers, knitted waistcoats,

waistcoats of good heavy stuffs; then two pairs of strong boots, and

hunting-shoes and felt hats.

Then came a few kitchen and toilet utensils; and an iron pot--the famous

pot which was wanted so badly--a kettle, a coffee-pot, a tea-pot, some

spoons, some forks, some knives, a looking-glass, and brushes of all

kinds, and, what was by no means to be despised, three cans, containing

about fifteen pints of brandy and tafia, and several pounds of tea and

coffee.

Then, in the third place, came some tools--an auger, a gimlet, a

handsaw, an assortment of nails and brads, a spade, a shovel, a pickaxe,

a hatchet, an adze, &c., &c.

In the fourth place, there were some weapons, two hunting-knives in

their leather sheaths, a carbine and two muskets, three six-shooter

revolvers, a dozen pounds of powder, many thousand caps, and an

important stock of lead and bullets, all the arms seeming to be of

English make. There was also a small medicine-chest, a telescope, a

compass, and a chronometer. There were also a few English books, several

quires of blank paper, pencils, pens, and ink, an almanac, a Bible with

a New York imprint, and a "Complete Cook's Manual."

Verily this is an inventory of what under the circumstances was an

inestimable prize.

Godfrey could not contain himself for joy. Had he expressly ordered the

trousseau for the use of shipwrecked folks in difficulties, he could not

have made it more complete.

Abundant thanks were due for it to Providence. And Providence had the

thanks, and from an overflowing heart.

Godfrey indulged himself in the pleasure of spreading out all his

treasure on the beach. Every object was looked over, but not a scrap of

paper was there in the box to indicate to whom it belonged, or the ship

on which it had been embarked.

Around, the sea showed no signs of a recent wreck.

Nothing was there on the rocks, nothing on the sands. The box must have

been brought in by the flood, after being afloat for perhaps many days.

In fact, its size in proportion to its weight had assured for it

sufficient buoyancy.

The two inhabitants of Phina Island would for some time be kept provided

in a large measure with the material wants of life,--tools, arms,

instruments, utensils, clothes--due to the luckiest of chances.

Godfrey did not dream of taking all the things to Will Tree at once.

Their transport would necessitate several journeys but he would have to

make haste for fear of bad weather.

Godfrey then put back most of the things in the box. A gun, a revolver,

a certain quantity of powder and lead, a hunting-knife, the telescope,

and the iron pot, he took as his first load.

The box was carefully closed and strapped up, and with a rapid step

Godfrey strode back along the shore.

Ah! What a reception he had from Tartlet, an hour later! And the delight

of the Professor when his pupil ran over the list of their new riches!

The pot--that pot above everything--threw him into transports of joy,

culminating in a series of "hornpipes" and "cellar-flaps," wound up by a

triumphant "six-eight breakdown."

It was only noon as yet. Godfrey wished after the meal to get back at

once to Dream Bay. He would never rest until the whole was in safety at

Will Tree.

Tartlet made no objection, and declared himself ready to start. It was

no longer necessary to watch the fire. With the powder they could always

get a light. But the Professor was desirous that during their absence

the soup which he was thinking about might be kept gently on the simmer.

The wonderful pot was soon filled with water from the stream, a whole

quarter of a goat was thrown in, accompanied by a dozen yamph roots, to

take the place of vegetables, and then a pinch or two of salt found in

the crevices of the rocks gave seasoning to the mixture.

"It must skim itself," exclaimed Tartlet, who seemed highly satisfied

at his performance.

And off they started for Dream Bay by the shortest road. The box had not

been disturbed. Godfrey opened it with care. Amid a storm of admiring

exclamations from Tartlet, he began to pick out the things.

In this first journey Godfrey and his companion, transformed into beasts

of burden, carried away to Will Tree the arms, the ammunition, and a

part of the wearing apparel.

Then they rested from their fatigue beside the table, on which there

smoked the stewed agouti, which they pronounced most excellent. As for

the meat, to listen to the Professor it would have been difficult even

to imagine anything more exquisite! Oh! the marvellous effect of

privation!

On the 30th, the next day, Godfrey and Tartlet set forth at dawn, and in

three other journeys succeeded in emptying and carrying away all that

the box contained. Before the evening, tools, weapons, instruments,

utensils, were all brought, arranged, and stowed away in Will Tree.

On the 1st of August, the box itself, dragged along the beach not

without difficulty, found a place in the tree, and was transformed into

a linen-closet.

Tartlet, with the fickleness of his mind, now looked upon the future

through none but rosy glasses. We can hardly feel astonished then that

on this day, with his kit in his hand, he went out to find his pupil,

and said to him in all seriousness, as if he were in the drawing-room of

Kolderup's mansion,--

"Well, Godfrey, my boy, don't you think it is time to resume our dancing

lessons?"

CHAPTER XV.

IN WHICH THERE HAPPENS WHAT HAPPENS AT LEAST ONCE IN THE LIFE OF EVERY

CRUSOE, REAL OR IMAGINARY.

And now the future looked less gloomy. But if Tartlet saw in the

possession of the instruments, the tools, and the weapons only the means

of making their life of isolation a little more agreeable, Godfrey was

already thinking of how to escape from Phina Island. Could he not now

construct a vessel strong enough to enable them to reach if not some

neighbouring land, at least some ship passing within sight of the

island?

Meanwhile the weeks which followed were principally spent in carrying

out not these ideas, but those of Tartlet. The wardrobe at Will Tree was

now replenished, but it was decided to use it with all the discretion

which the uncertainty of the future required. Never to wear any of the

clothes unless necessity compelled him to do so, was the rule to which

the professor was forced to submit.

"What is the good of that?" grumbled he. "It is a great deal too

stingy, my dear Godfrey! Are we savages, that we should go about half

naked?"

"I beg your pardon, Tartlet," replied Godfrey; "we are savages, and

nothing else."

"As you please; but you will see that we shall leave the island before

we have worn the clothes!"

"I know nothing about it, Tartlet, and it is better to have than to

want."

"But on Sunday now, surely on Sunday, we might dress up a little?"

"Very well, on Sundays then, and perhaps on public holidays," answered

Godfrey, who did not wish to anger his frivolous companion; "but as to

day is Monday we shall have to wait a whole week before we come out in

our best."

We need hardly mention that from the moment he arrived on the island

Godfrey had not omitted to mark each day as it passed. By the aid of the

calendar he found in the box he was able to verify that the day was

really Monday.

Each performed his daily task according to his ability. It was no longer

necessary for them to keep watch by day and night over a fire which they

had now the means of relighting.

Tartlet therefore abandoned, not without regret, a task which suited

him so well. Henceforwards he took charge of the provisioning with yamph

and camas roots--of that in short which formed the daily bread of the

establishment, so that the professor went every day and collected them,

up to the lines of shrubs with which the prairie was bordered behind

Will Tree. It was one or two miles to walk, but he accustomed himself to

it. Between whiles he occupied his time in collecting oysters or other

mollusks, of which they consumed a great quantity.

Godfrey reserved for himself the care of the domestic animals and the

poultry. The butchering trade was hardly to his taste, but he soon

overcame his repugnance. Thanks to him, boiled meats appeared frequently

on the table, followed by an occasional joint of roast meat to afford a

sufficiently varied bill of fare. Game abounded in the woods of Phina

Island, and Godfrey proposed to begin his shooting when other more

pressing cares allowed him time. He thought of making good use of the

guns, powder, and bullets in his arsenal, but he in the first place

wished to complete his preparations. His tools enabled him to make

several benches inside and outside Will Tree. The stools were cut out

roughly with the axe, the table made a little less roughly became more

worthy of the dishes and dinner things with which Professor Tartlet

adorned it. The beds were arranged in wooden boxes and their litter of

dry grass assumed a more inviting aspect. If mattresses and palliasses

were still wanting, counterpanes at least were not. The various cooking

utensils stood no longer on the ground, but had their places on planks

fixed along the walls. Stores, linen, and clothes were carefully put

away in cavities hollowed out in the bark of the sequoia. From strong

pegs were suspended the arms and instruments, forming quite a trophy on

the walls.

Godfrey was also desirous of putting a door to the house, so that the

other living creatures--the domestic animals--should not come during the

night and trouble their sleep. As he could not cut out boards with his

only saw, the handsaw, he used large and thick pieces of bark, which he

got off very easily. With these he made a door sufficiently massive to

close the opening into Will Tree, at the same time he made two little

windows, one opposite to the other, so as to let light and air into the

room. Shutters allowed him to close them at night, but from the morning

to the evening it was no longer necessary to take refuge in flaring

resinous torches which filled the dwelling with smoke. What Godfrey

would think of to yield them light during the long nights of winter he

had as yet no idea. He might take to making candles with the mutton fat,

or he might be contented with resinous torches more carefully prepared.

We shall see.

Another of his anxieties was how to construct a chimney in Will Tree.

While the fine weather lasted, the fire outside among the roots of the

sequoia sufficed for all the wants of the kitchen, but when the bad

weather came and the rain fell in torrents, and they would have to

battle with the cold, whose extreme rigour during a certain time they

reasonably feared, they would have to have a fire inside their house,

and the smoke from it must have some vent. This important question

therefore had to be settled.

One very useful work which Godfrey undertook was to put both banks of

the river in communication with each other on the skirt of the

sequoia-trees.

He managed, after some difficulty, to drive a few stakes into the

river-bed, and on them he fixed a staging of planks, which served for a

bridge. They could thus get away to the northern shore without crossing

the ford, which led them a couple of miles out of their road.

But if Godfrey took all these precautions so as to make existence a

little more possible on this lone isle of the Pacific, in case he and

his companion were destined to live on it for some time, or perhaps live

on it for ever, he had no intention of neglecting in any way the chances

of rescue.

Phina Island was not on the routes taken by the ships--that was only too

evident. It offered no port of call, nor means of revictualling. There

was nothing to encourage ships to take notice of it. At the same time

it was not impossible that a war-ship or a merchant-vessel might come in

sight. It was advisable therefore to find some way of attracting

attention, and showing that the island was inhabited.

With this object Godfrey erected a flagstaff at the end of the cape

which ran out to the north, and for a flag he sacrificed a piece of one

of the cloths found in the trunk. As he thought that the white colour

would only be visible in a strong light, he tried to stain his flag with

the berries of a sort of shrub which grew at the foot of the dunes. He

obtained a very vivid red, which he could not make indelible owing to

his having no mordant, but he could easily re-dye the cloth when the

wind or rain had faded it.

These varied employments occupied him up to the 15th of August. For many

weeks the sky had been constantly clear, with the exception of two or

three storms of extreme violence which had brought down a large quantity

of water, to be greedily drunk in by the soil.

About this time Godfrey began his shooting expeditions. But if he was

skilful enough in the use of the gun, he could not reckon on Tartlet,

who had yet to fire his first shot.

Many days of the week did Godfrey devote to the pursuit of fur and

feather, which, without being abundant, were yet plentiful enough for

the requirements of Will Tree.

A few partridges, some of the red-legged variety, and a few snipes, came

as a welcome variation of the bill of fare. Two or three antelopes fell

to the prowess of the young stalker; and although he had had nothing to

do with their capture, the professor gave them a no less welcome than he

did when they appeared as haunches and cutlets.

But while he was out shooting, Godfrey did not forget to take a more

complete survey of the island. He penetrated the depths of the dense

forests which occupied the central districts. He ascended the river to

its source. He again mounted the summit of the cone, and redescended by

the talus on the eastern shore, which he had not, up to then, visited.

"After all these explorations," repeated Godfrey to himself, "there can

be no doubt that Phina Island has no dangerous animals, neither wild

beasts, snakes, nor saurians! I have not caught sight of one! Assuredly

if there had been any, the report of the gun would have woke them up! It

is fortunate, indeed. If it were to become necessary to fortify Will

Tree against their attacks, I do not know how we should get on!"

Then passing on to quite a natural deduction--

"It must also be concluded," continued he, "that the island is not

inhabited at all. Either natives or people shipwrecked here would have

appeared before now at the sound of the gun! There is, however, that

inexplicable smoke which I twice thought I saw."

The fact is, that Godfrey had never been able to trace any fire. As for

the hot water springs to which he attributed the origin of the vapour he

had noticed, Phina Island being in no way volcanic did not appear to

contain any, and he had to content himself with thinking that he had

twice been the victim of an illusion.

Besides, this apparition of the smoke or the vapour was not repeated.

When Godfrey the second time ascended the central cone, as also when he

again climbed up into Will Tree, he saw nothing to attract his

attention. He ended by forgetting the circumstance altogether.

Many weeks passed in different occupations about the tree, and many

shooting excursions were undertaken. With every day their mode of life

improved.

Every Sunday, as had been agreed, Tartlet donned his best clothes. On

that day he did nothing but walk about under the big trees, and indulge

in an occasional tune on the kit. Many were the glissades he performed,

giving lessons to himself, as his pupil had positively refused to

continue his course.

"What is the good of it?" was Godfrey's answer to the entreaties of the

professor. "Can you imagine Robinson Crusoe taking lessons in dancing

and deportment?"

"And why not?" asked Tartlet seriously. "Why should Robinson Crusoe

dispense with deportment? Not for the good of others, but of himself, he

should acquire refined manners."

To which Godfrey made no reply. And as he never came for his lesson, the

professor became professor "emeritus."

The 13th of September was noted for one of the greatest and cruellest

deceptions to which, on a desert island, the unfortunate survivors of a

shipwreck could be subjected.

Godfrey had never again seen that inexplicable and undiscoverable smoke

on the island; but on this day, about three o'clock in the afternoon,

his attention was attracted by a long line of vapour, about the origin

of which he could not be deceived.

He had gone for a walk to the end of Flag Point--the name which he had

given to the cape on which he had erected his flagstaff. While he was

looking through his glass he saw above the horizon a smoke driven by the

west wind towards the island.

Godfrey's heart beat high.

"A ship!" he exclaimed.

But would this ship, this steamer, pass in sight of Phina Island? And if

it passed, would it come near enough for the signal thereon to be seen

on board?

Or would not rather the semi-visible smoke disappear with the vessel

towards the north-west or south-west of the horizon?

For two hours Godfrey was a prey to alternating emotions more easy to

indicate than to describe.

The smoke got bigger and bigger. It increased when the steamer re-stoked

her fires, and diminished almost to vanishing-point as the fuel was

consumed. Continually did the vessel visibly approach. About four

o'clock her hull had come up on the line between the sky and the sea.

She was a large steamer, bearing north-east. Godfrey easily made that

out. If that direction was maintained, she would inevitably approach

Phina Island.

Godfrey had at first thought of running back to Will Tree to inform

Tartlet. What was the use of doing so? The sight of one man making

signals could do as much good as that of two. He remained there, his

glass at his eye, losing not a single movement of the ship.

The steamer kept on her course towards the coast, her bow steered

straight for the cape. By five o'clock the horizon-line was already

above her hull, and her rig was visible. Godfrey could even recognize

the colours at her gaff.

She carried the United States' ensign.

"But if I can see their flag, cannot they see mine? The wind keeps it

out, so that they could easily see my flag with their glasses. Shall I

make signals, by raising it and lowering it a few times, so as to show

that I want to enter into communication with them? Yes! I have not an

instant to lose."

It was a good idea. Godfrey ran to the end of Flag Point, and began to

haul his flag up and down, as if he were saluting. Then he left it

half-mast high, so as to show, in the way usual with seafaring people,

that he required help and succour.

The steamer still approached to within three miles of the shore, but her

flag remained immovable at the peak, and replied not to that on Flag

Point. Godfrey felt his heart sink. He would not be noticed! It was

half-past six, and the sun was about to set!

The steamer was now about two miles from the cape, which she was rapidly

nearing. At this moment the sun disappeared below the horizon. With the

first shadows of night, all hope of being seen had to be given up.

Godfrey again, with no more success, began to raise and lower his flag.

There was no reply.

He then fired his gun two or three times, but the distance was still

great, and the wind did not set in that direction! No report would be

heard on board!

The night gradually came on; soon the steamer's hull grew invisible.

Doubtless in another hour she would have passed Phina Island.

Godfrey, not knowing what to do, thought of setting fire to a group of

resinous trees which grew at the back of Flag Point. He lighted a heap

of dry leaves with some gunpowder, and then set light to the group of

pines, which flared up like an enormous torch.

But no fire on the ship answered to the one on the land, and Godfrey

returned sadly to Will Tree, feeling perhaps more desolate than he had

ever felt till then.

CHAPTER XVI.

IN WHICH SOMETHING HAPPENS WHICH CANNOT FAIL TO SURPRISE THE READER.

To Godfrey the blow was serious. Would this unexpected chance which had

just escaped him ever offer again? Could he hope so? No! The

indifference of the steamer as she passed in sight of the island,

without even taking a look at it, was obviously shared in by all the

vessels venturing in this deserted portion of the Pacific. Why should

they put into port more than she had done? The island did not possess a

single harbour.

Godfrey passed a sorrowful night. Every now and then jumping up as if he

heard a cannon out at sea, he would ask himself if the steamer had not

caught sight of the huge fire which still burnt on the coast, and if she

were not endeavouring to answer the signal by a gun-shot?

Godfrey listened. It was only an illusion of his over-excited brain.

When the day came, he had come to look upon the apparition of the ship

as but a dream, which had commenced about three o'clock on the previous

afternoon.

But no! He was only too certain that a ship had been in sight of Phina

Island, maybe within two miles of it, and certainly she had not put in.

Of this deception Godfrey said not a word to Tartlet. What was the good

of talking about it? Besides, his frivolous mind could not see more than

twenty-four hours ahead. He was no longer thinking of the chances of

escaping from the island which might offer. He no longer imagined that

the future had great things in store for them. San Francisco was fading

out of his recollection. He had no sweetheart waiting for him, no Uncle

Will to return to. If at this end of the world he could only commence a

course of lessons on dancing, his happiness would be complete--were it

only with one pupil.

If the professor dreamt not of immediate danger, such as to compromise

his safety in this island--bare, as it was, of wild beasts and

savages--he was wrong. This very day his optimism was to be put to a

rude test.

About four o'clock in the afternoon Tartlet had gone, according to his

custom, to collect some oysters and mussels, on that part of the shore

behind Flag Point, when Godfrey saw him coming back as fast as his legs

could carry him to Will Tree. His hair stood on end round his

temples. He looked like a man in flight, who dared not turn his head to

the right or to the left.

"What is the matter?" shouted Godfrey, not without alarm, running to

meet his companion.

"There! there!" answered Tartlet, pointing with his finger towards the

narrow strip of sea visible to the north between the trees.

"But what is it?" asked Godfrey, whose first movement was to run to the

edge of the sequoias.

"A canoe!"

[Illustration: "A Canoe!" page 181]

"A canoe?"

"Yes! Savages! Quite a fleet of savages! Cannibals, perhaps!"

Godfrey looked in the direction pointed out.

It was not a fleet, as the distracted Tartlet had said; but he was only

mistaken about the quantity.

In fact, there was a small vessel gliding through the water, now very

calm, about half-a-mile from the coast, so as to double Flag Point.

"And why should they be cannibals?" asked Godfrey, turning towards the

professor.

"Because in Crusoe Islands," answered Tartlet, "there are always

cannibals, who arrive sooner or later."

"Is it not a boat from some merchant-ship?"

"From a ship?"

"Yes. From a steamer which passed here yesterday afternoon, in sight of

our island?"

"And you said nothing to me about it!" exclaimed Tartlet, lifting his

hands to the sky.

"What good should I have done?" asked Godfrey. "Besides, I thought that

the vessel had disappeared! But that boat might belong to her! Let us go

and see!"

Godfrey ran rapidly back to Will Tree, and, seizing his glass, returned

to the edge of the trees.

He then examined with extreme attention the little vessel, which would

ere then have perceived the flag on Flag Point as it fluttered in the

breeze.

The glass fell from his hands.

"Savages! Yes! They are really savages!" he exclaimed.

Tartlet felt his knees knock together, and a tremor of fright ran

through his body.

It was a vessel manned by savages which Godfrey saw approaching the

island. Built like a Polynesian canoe, she carried a large sail of woven

bamboo; an outrigger on the weather side kept her from capsizing as she

heeled down to the wind.

Godfrey easily distinguished the build of the vessel. She was a proa,

and this would indicate that Phina Island was not far from Malaysia. But

they were not Malays on board; they were half-naked blacks, and there

were about a dozen of them.

The danger of being found was thus great. Godfrey regretted that he had

hoisted the flag, which had not been seen by the ship, but would be by

these black fellows. To take it down now would be too late.

It was, in truth, very unfortunate. The savages had probably come to the

island thinking it was uninhabited, as indeed it had been before the

wreck of the Dream. But there was the flag, indicating the presence of

human beings on the coast! How were they to escape them if they landed?

Godfrey knew not what to do. Anyhow his immediate care must be to watch

if they set foot on the island. He could think of other things

afterwards.

With his glass at his eye he followed the proa; he saw it turn the point

of the promontory, then run along the shore and then approach the mouth

of the small stream, which, two miles up, flowed past Will Tree.

If the savages intended to paddle up the river, they would soon reach

the group of sequoias--and nothing could hinder them. Godfrey and

Tartlet ran rapidly back to their dwelling. They first of all set about

guarding them selves against surprise, and giving themselves time to

prepare their defence.

At least that is what Godfrey thought of. The ideas of the professor

took quite a different turn.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "It is destiny! This is as it was written? We could

not escape it! You cannot be a Crusoe without a canoe coming to your

island, without cannibals appearing one day or another! Here we have

been for only three months, and there they are already! Assuredly,

neither Defoe, nor De Wyss exaggerated matters! You can make yourself a

Crusoe, if you like!"

Worthy Tartlet, folks do not make themselves Crusoes, they become

Crusoes, and you are not sure that you are wise in comparing your

position with that of the heroes of the two English and Swiss romances!

The precautions taken by Godfrey as soon as he returned to Will Tree

were as follows. The fire burning among the roots of the sequoia was

extinguished, and the embers scattered broadcast, so as to leave no

trace; cocks, hens, and chickens were already in their house for the

night, and the entrance was hidden with shrubs and twigs as much as

possible; the other animals, the goats, agoutis, and sheep, were driven

on to the prairie, but it was unlucky that there was no stable to shut

them up in; all the instruments and tools were taken into the tree.

Nothing was left outside that could indicate the presence or the passage

of human beings.

Then the door was closely shut, after Godfrey and Tartlet had gone in.

The door made of the sequoia bark was indistinguishable from the bark of

the trunk, and might perhaps escape the eyes of the savages, who would

not look at it very closely. It was the same with the two windows, in

which the lower boards were shut. Then all light was extinguished in the

dwelling, and our friends remained in total darkness. How long that

night was! Godfrey and Tartlet heard the slightest sounds outside. The

creaking of a dry branch, even a puff of wind, made them start. They

thought they heard some one walking under the trees. It seemed that they

were prowling round Will Tree. Then Godfrey climbed up to one of the

windows, opened one of the boards, and anxiously peered into the gloom.

Nothing!

However, Godfrey at last heard footsteps on the ground. His ear could

not deceive him this time. He still looked, but could only see one of

the goats come for shelter beneath the trees.

Had any of the savages happened to discover the house hidden in the

enormous sequoia, Godfrey had made up his mind what to do: he would drag

up Tartlet with him by the chimney inside, and take refuge in the higher

branches, where he would be better able to resist. With guns and

revolvers in his possession, and ammunition in abundance, he would

there have some chance against a dozen savages devoid of fire-arms.

If in the event of their being armed with bows and arrows they attacked

from below, it was not likely that they would have the best of it

against fire-arms aimed from above. If on the other hand they forced the

door of the dwelling and tried to reach the branches from the inside,

they would find it very difficult to get there, owing to the narrow

opening, which the besieged could easily defend.

Godfrey said nothing about this to Tartlet. The poor man had been almost

out of his mind with fright since he had seen the proa. The thought that

he might be obliged to take refuge in the upper part of a tree, as if in

an eagle's nest, would not have soothed him in the least. If it became

necessary, Godfrey decided to drag him up before he had time to think

about it.

The night passed amid these alternations of fear and hope. No attack

occurred. The savages had not yet come to the sequoia group. Perhaps

they would wait for the day before venturing to cross the island.

"That is probably what they will do," said Godfrey, "since our flag

shows that it is inhabited! But there are only a dozen of them, and they

will have to be cautious! How are they to know that they have only to

deal with a couple of shipwrecked men? No! They will risk nothing

except by daylight--at least, if they are going to stop."

"Supposing they go away when the daylight comes?" answered Tartlet.

"Go away? Why should they have come to Phina Island for one night?"

"I do not know," replied the professor, who in his terror could only

explain the arrival of the blacks by supposing that they had come to

feed on human flesh.

"Anyhow," continued Godfrey; "to-morrow morning, if they have not come

to Will Tree, we will go out and reconnoitre."

"We?"

"Yes! we! Nothing would be more imprudent than for us to separate! Who

knows whether we may not have to run to the forest in the centre of the

island and hide there for some days--until the departure of the proa!

No! We will keep together, Tartlet!"

"Hush!" said the professor in a low voice; "I think I hear something

outside."

Godfrey climbed up again to the window, and got down again almost

immediately.

"No!" he said. "Nothing suspicious! It is only our cattle coming back to

the wood."

"Hunted perhaps!" exclaimed Tartlet.

"They seem very quiet then," replied Godfrey; "I fancy they have only

come in search of shelter against the morning dew."

"Ah!" murmured Tartlet in so piteous a tone that Godfrey could hardly

help laughing, "these things could not happen at your uncle's place in

Montgomery Street!"

"Day will soon break," said Godfrey, after a pause. "In an hour's time,

if the savages have not appeared, we will leave Will Tree and

reconnoitre towards the north of the island. You are able to carry a

gun, Tartlet?"

"Carry? Yes!"

"And to fire it in a stated direction?"

"I do not know! I have never tried such a thing, and you may be sure,

Godfrey, that my bullet will not go--"

"Who knows if the report alone might not frighten the savages?"

An hour later, it was light enough to see beyond the sequoias.

Godfrey then cautiously reopened the shutters.

From that looking to the south he saw nothing extraordinary. The

domestic animals wandered peacefully under the trees, and did not appear

in the least alarmed. The survey completed, Godfrey carefully shut this

window. Through the opening to the north there was a view up to the

shore. Two miles off even the end of Flag Point could be seen; but the

mouth of the river at the place where the savages had landed the evening

before was not visible. Godfrey at first looked around without using his

glass, so as to examine the environs of Will Tree on this side of Phina

Island.

All was quite peaceful.

Godfrey then taking his glass swept round the coast to the promontory at

Flag Point. Perhaps, as Tartlet had said, though it was difficult to

find the reason, the savages had embarked, after a night spent on shore,

without attempting to see if the island were inhabited.

CHAPTER XVII.

IN WHICH PROFESSOR TARTLET'S GUN REALLY DOES MARVELS.

But Godfrey suddenly uttered an exclamation which made the professor

jump. There could be no doubt that the savages knew the island was

inhabited, for the flag hitherto hoisted at the extremity of the cape

had been carried away by them and no longer floated on the mast at Flag

Point. The moment had then come to put the project into execution, to

reconnoitre if the savages were still in the island, and to see what

they were doing.

"Let us go," said he to his companion.

"Go! But--" answered Tartlet.

"Would you rather stay here?"

"With you, Godfrey--yes!"

"No--alone!"

"Alone! Never!"

"Come along then!"

Tartlet, thoroughly understanding that Godfrey would not alter his

decision, resolved to accompany him. He had not courage enough to stay

behind at Will Tree.

Before starting, Godfrey assured himself that the fire-arms were ready

for action. The two guns were loaded, and one passed into the hands of

the professor, who seemed as much embarrassed with it as might have been

a savage of Pomotou. He also hung one of the hunting-knives to his belt,

to which he had already attached his cartridge-pouch. The thought had

occurred to him to also take his fiddle, imagining perhaps that they

would be sensible to the charm of its squeaking, of which all the talent

of a virtuoso could not conceal the harshness.

Godfrey had some trouble in getting him to abandon this idea, which was

as ridiculous as it was impracticable.

It was now six o'clock in the morning. The summits of the sequoias were

glowing in the first rays of the sun.

Godfrey opened the door; he stepped outside; he scanned the group of

trees.

Complete solitude.

The animals had returned to the prairie. There they were, tranquilly

browsing, about a quarter of a mile away. Nothing about them denoted the

least uneasiness.

Godfrey made a sign to Tartlet to join him. The professor, as clumsy as

could be in his fighting harness, followed--not without some hesitation.

Then Godfrey shut the door, and saw that it was well hidden in the bark

of the sequoia. Then, having thrown at the foot of the tree a bundle of

twigs, which he weighted with a few large stones, he set out towards the

river, whose banks he intended to descend, if necessary, to its mouth.

Tartlet followed him not without giving before each of his steps an

uneasy stare completely round him up to the very limits of the horizon;

but the fear of being left alone impelled him to advance.

Arrived at the edge of the group of trees, Godfrey stopped.

Taking his glasses from their case, he scanned with extreme attention

all that part of the coast between the Flag Point promontory and the

north-east angle of the island.

Not a living being showed itself, not a single smoke wreath was rising

in the air.

The end of the cape was equally deserted, but they would there doubtless

find numberless footprints freshly made. As for the mast, Godfrey had

not been deceived. If the staff still rose above the last rock on the

cape, it was bereft of its flag. Evidently the savages after coming to

the place had gone off with the red cloth which had excited their

covetousness, and had regained their boat at the mouth of the river.

Godfrey then turned off so as to examine the western shore.

It was nothing but a vast desert from Flag Point right away beyond the

curve of Dream Bay.

No boat of any kind appeared on the surface of the sea. If the savages

had taken to their proa, it only could be concluded that they were

hugging the coast sheltered by the rocks, and so closely that they could

not be seen.

However, Godfrey could not and would not remain in doubt. He was

determined to ascertain, yes or no, if the proa had definitely left the

island.

To do this it was necessary to visit the spot where the savages had

landed the night before, that is to say, the narrow creek at the mouth

of the river.

This he immediately attempted.

The borders of the small watercourse were shaded by occasional clumps of

trees encircled by shrubs, for a distance of about two miles. Beyond

that for some five or six hundred yards down to the sea the river ran

between naked banks. This state of affairs enabled him to approach close

to the landing-place without being perceived. It might be, however, that

the savages had ascended the stream, and to be prepared for this

eventuality the advance had to be made with extreme caution.

Godfrey, however thought, not without reason, that, at this early hour

the savages, fatigued by their long voyage, would not have quitted their

anchorage. Perhaps they were still sleeping either in their canoe or on

land; in which case it would be seen if they could not be surprised.

This idea was acted upon at once. It was important that they should get

on quickly. In such circumstances the advantage is generally gained at

the outset. The fire-arms were again examined, the revolvers were

carefully looked at, and then Godfrey and Tartlet commenced the descent

of the left bank of the river in Indian file. All around was quiet.

Flocks of birds flew from one bank to the other, pursuing each other

among the higher branches without showing any uneasiness.

Godfrey went first, but it can easily be believed that his companion

found the attempt to cover step rather tiring. Moving from one tree to

another they advanced towards the shore without risk of discovery. Here

the clumps of bushes hid them from the opposite bank, there even their

heads disappeared amid the luxurious vegetation. But no matter where

they were, an arrow from a bow or a stone from a sling might at any

moment reach them. And so they had to be constantly on their guard.

However, in spite of the recommendations which were addressed to him,

Tartlet, tripping against an occasional stump, had two or three falls

which might have complicated matters. Godfrey was beginning to regret

having brought such a clumsy assistant. Indeed, the poor man could not

be much help to him. Doubtless he would have been worth more left behind

at Will Tree; or, if he would not consent to that, hidden away in some

nook in the forest. But it was too late. An hour after he had left the

sequoia group, Godfrey and his companion had come a mile--only a

mile--for the path was not easy beneath the high vegetation and between

the luxuriant shrubs. Neither one nor the other of our friends had seen

anything suspicious.

Hereabouts the trees thinned out for about a hundred yards or less, the

river ran between naked banks, the country round was barer.

Godfrey stopped. He carefully observed the prairie to the right and left

of the stream.

Still there was nothing to disquiet him, nothing to indicate the

approach of savages. It is true that as they could not but believe the

island inhabited, they would not advance without precaution, in fact

they would be as careful in ascending the little river as Godfrey was in

descending it. It was to be supposed therefore that if they were

prowling about the neighbourhood, they would also profit by the shelter

of the trees or the high bushes of mastics and myrtles which formed such

an excellent screen.

It was a curious though very natural circumstance that, the farther they

advanced, Tartlet, perceiving no enemy, little by little lost his

terror, and began to speak with scorn of "those cannibal

laughing-stocks." Godfrey, on the contrary, became more anxious, and it

was with greater precaution than ever that he crossed the open space and

regained the shadow of the trees. Another hour led them to the place

where the banks, beginning to feel the effects of the sea's vicinity,

were only bordered with stunted shrubs, or sparse grasses.

Under these circumstances it was difficult to keep hidden or rather

impossible to proceed without crawling along the ground.

This is what Godfrey did, and also what he advised Tartlet to do.

"There are not any savages! There are not any cannibals! They have all

gone!" said the professor.

"There are!" answered Godfrey quickly, in a low voice, "They ought to be

here! Down Tartlet, get down! Be ready to fire, but don't do so till I

tell you."

Godfrey had said these words in such a tone of authority that the

professor, feeling his limbs give way under him, had no difficulty in at

once assuming the required position.

And he did well!

In fact, it was not without reason that Godfrey had spoken as he had.

From the spot which they then occupied, they could see neither the

shore, nor the place where the river entered the sea. A small spur of

hills shut out the view about a hundred yards ahead, but above this near

horizon a dense smoke was rising straight in the air.

Godfrey, stretched at full length in the grass, with his finger on the

trigger of his musket, kept looking towards the coast.

"This smoke," he said, "is it not of the same kind that I have already

seen twice before? Should I conclude that savages have previously landed

on the north and south of the island, and that the smoke came from fires

lighted by them? But no! That is not possible, for I found no cinders,

nor traces of a fireplace, nor embers! Ah! this time I'll know the

reason of it."

And by a clever reptilian movement, which Tartlet imitated as well as he

could, he managed, without showing his head above the grass, to reach

the bend of the river.

Thence he could command, at his ease, every part of the bank through

which the river ran.

An exclamation could not but escape him! His hand touched the

professor's shoulder to prevent any movement of his! Useless to go

further! Godfrey saw what he had come to see!

A large fire of wood was lighted on the beach, among the lower rocks,

and from it a canopy of smoke rose slowly to the sky. Around the fire,

feeding it with fresh armfuls of wood, of which they had made a heap,

went and came the savages who had landed the evening before. Their canoe

was moored to a large stone, and, lifted by the rising tide, oscillated

on the ripples of the shore.

Godfrey could distinguish all that was passing on the sands without

using his glasses. He was not more than two hundred yards from the fire,

and he could even hear it crackling. He immediately perceived that he

need fear no surprise from the rear, for all the blacks he had counted

in the proa were in the group.

Ten out of the twelve were occupied in looking after the fire and

sticking stakes in the ground with the evident intention of rigging up a

spit in the Polynesian manner. An eleventh, who appeared to be the

chief, was walking along the beach, and constantly turning his glances

towards the interior of the island, as if he were afraid of an attack.

Godfrey recognized as a piece of finery on his shoulders the red stuff

of his flag.

The twelfth savage was stretched on the ground, tied tightly to a post.

Godfrey recognized at once the fate in store for the wretched man. The

spit was for him! The fire was to roast him at! Tartlet had not been

mistaken, when, the previous evening, he had spoken of these folks as

cannibals!

It must be admitted that neither was he mistaken in saying that the

adventures of Crusoes, real or imaginary, were all copied one from the

other!

Most certainly Godfrey and he did then find themselves in the same

position as the hero of Daniel Defoe when the savages landed on his

island. They were to assist, without doubt, at the same scene of

cannibalism.

Godfrey decided to act as this hero did! He would not permit the

massacre of the prisoner for which the stomachs of the cannibals were

waiting! He was well armed. His two muskets--four shots--his two

revolvers--a dozen shots--could easily settle these eleven rascals, whom

the mere report of one of the fire-arms might perhaps be sufficient to

scatter. Having taken his decision he coolly waited for the moment to

interfere like a thunder-clap.

He had not long to wait!

Twenty minutes had barely elapsed, when the chief approached the fire.

Then by a gesture he pointed out the prisoner to the savages who were

expecting his orders.

Godfrey rose. Tartlet, without knowing why, followed the example. He did

not even comprehend where his companion was going, for he had said

nothing to him of his plans.

Godfrey imagined, evidently, that at sight of him the savages would

make some movement, perhaps to rush to their boat, perhaps to rush at

him.

They did nothing. It did not even seem as though they saw him; but at

this moment the chief made a significant gesture. Three of his

companions went towards the prisoner, unloosed him, and forced him near

the fire.

He was still a young man, who, feeling that his last hour had come,

resisted with all his might.

Assuredly, if he could, he would sell his life dearly. He began by

throwing off the savages who held him, but he was soon knocked down, and

the thief, seizing a sort of stone axe, jumped forward to beat in his

head.

Godfrey uttered a cry, followed by a report. A bullet whistled through

the air, and it seemed as though the chief were mortally wounded, for he

fell on the ground.

At the report, the savages, surprised as though they had never heard the

sound of fire-arms, stopped. At the sight of Godfrey those who held the

prisoner instantly released him.

Immediately the poor fellow arose, and ran towards the place where he

perceived his unexpected liberator.

At this moment a second report was heard.

It was Tartlet, who, without looking--for the excellent man kept his

eyes shut--had just fired, and the stock of the musket on his right

shoulder delivered the hardest knock which had ever been received by the

professor of dancing and deportment.

But--what a chance it was!--a second savage fell close to his chief.

The rout at once began. Perhaps the savages thought they had to do with

a numerous troop of natives whom they could not resist. Perhaps they

were simply terrified at the sight of the two white men who seemed to

keep the lightning in their pockets. There they were, seizing the two

who were wounded, carrying them off, rushing to the proa, driving it by

their paddles out of the little creek, hoisting their sail, steering

before the wind, making for the Flag Point promontory, and doubling it

in hot haste.

Godfrey had no thought of pursuing them. What was the good of killing

them? They had saved the victim. They had put them to flight, that was

the important point. This had been done in such a way that the cannibals

would never dare to return to Phina Island.

All was then for the best. They had only to rejoice in their victory, in

which Tartlet did not hesitate to claim the greatest share.

Meanwhile the prisoner had come to his rescuer. For an instant he

stopped, with the fear inspired in him by superior beings, but almost

immediately he resumed his course. When he arrived before the two

whites, he bowed to the ground; then catching hold of Godfrey's foot, he

placed it on his head in sign of servitude.

One would almost have thought that this Polynesian savage had also read

Robinson Crusoe!

CHAPTER XVIII.

WHICH TREATS OF THE MORAL AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION OF A SIMPLE NATIVE OF

THE PACIFIC.

Godfrey at once raised the poor fellow, who lay prostrate before him. He

looked in his face.

He was a man of thirty-five or more, wearing only a rag round his loins.

In his features, as in the shape of his head, there could be recognized

the type of the African negro. It was not possible to confound him with

the debased wretches of the Polynesian islands, who, with their

depressed crania and elongated arms, approach so strangely to the

monkey.

Now, as he was a negro from Soudan or Abyssinia who had fallen into the

hands of the natives of an archipelago of the Pacific, it might be that

he could speak English or one or two words of the European languages

which Godfrey understood. But it was soon apparent that the unhappy man

only used an idiom that was absolutely incomprehensible--probably the

language of the aborigines among whom he had doubtless arrived when very

young. In fact, Godfrey had immediately interrogated him in English,

and had obtained no reply. He then made him understand by signs, not

without difficulty, that he would like to know his name.

After many fruitless essays, the negro, who had a very intelligent and

even honest face, replied to the demand which was made of him in a

single word,--

"Carefinotu."

"Carefinotu!" exclaimed Tartlet. "Do you hear the name? I propose that

we call him 'Wednesday,' for to-day is Wednesday, and that is what they

always do in these Crusoe islands! Is he to be allowed to call himself

Carefinotu?"

"If that is his name," said Godfrey; "why should he not keep it?"

And at the moment he felt a hand placed on his chest, while all the

black's physiognomy seemed to ask him what his name was.

"Godfrey!" answered he.

The black endeavoured to say the word, but although Godfrey repeated it

several times, he could not succeed in pronouncing it in an intelligible

fashion. Then he turned towards the professor, as if to know his name.

"Tartlet," was the reply of that individual in a most amiable tone.

"Tartlet!" repeated Carefinotu.

And it seemed as though this assemblage of syllables was more agreeable

to his vocal chords, for he pronounced it distinctly.

The professor appeared to be extremely flattered. In truth he had reason

to be.

Then Godfrey, wishing to put the intelligence of the black to some

profit, tried to make him understand that he wished to know the name of

the island. He pointed with his hand to the woods and prairies and

hills, and then the shore which bound them, and then the horizon of the

sea, and he interrogated him with a look.

Carefinotu did not at first understand what was meant, and imitating the

gesture of Godfrey he also turned and ran his eyes over the space.

"Arneka," said he at length.

"Arneka?" replied Godfrey, striking the soil with his foot so as to

accentuate his demand.

"Arneka!" repeated the negro.

This told Godfrey nothing, neither the geographical name borne by the

island, nor its position in the Pacific. He could not remember such a

name; it was probably a native one, little known to geographers.

However, Carefinotu did not cease from looking at the two white men, not

without some stupor, going from one to the other as if he wished to fix

in his mind the differences which characterized them. The smile on his

mouth disclosed abundant teeth of magnificent whiteness which Tartlet

did not examine without a certain reserve.

"If those teeth," he said, "have never eaten human flesh may my fiddle

burst up in my hand."

"Anyhow, Tartlet," answered Godfrey; "our new companion no longer looks

like the poor beggar they were going to cook and feed on! That is the

main point!"

What particularly attracted the attention of Carefinotu were the weapons

carried by Godfrey and Tartlet--as much the musket in the hand as the

revolver in the belt.

Godfrey easily understood this sentiment of curiosity. It was evident

that the savage had never seen a fire-arm. He said to himself that this

was one of those iron tubes which had launched the thunder-bolt that had

delivered him? There could be no doubt of it.

Godfrey, wishing to give him, not without reason, a high idea of the

power of the whites, loaded his gun, and then, showing to Carefinotu a

red-legged partridge that was flying across the prairie about a hundred

yards away, he shouldered it quickly, and fired. The bird fell.

At the report the black gave a prodigious leap, which Tartlet could not

but admire from a choregraphic point of view. Then repressing his fear,

and seeing the bird with broken wing running through the grass, he

started off and swift as a greyhound ran towards it, and with many a

caper, half of joy, half of stupefaction, brought it back to his master.

Tartlet then thought of displaying to Carefinotu that the Great Spirit

had also favoured him with the power of the lightning; and perceiving a

kingfisher tranquilly seated on an old stump near the river was bringing

the stock up to his cheek, when Godfrey stopped him with,--

"No! Don't fire, Tartlet!"

"Why not?"

"Suppose that by some mishap you were not to hit the bird, think how we

would fall in the estimation of the nigger!"

"And why should I not hit him?" replied Tartlet with some acerbity. "Did

I not, during the battle, at more than a hundred paces, the very first

time I handled a gun, hit one of the cannibals full in the chest?"

"You touched him evidently," said Godfrey; "for he fell. But take my

advice, Tartlet, and in the common interest do not tempt fortune twice!"

The professor, slightly annoyed, allowed himself to be convinced; he

threw the gun on to his shoulder with a swagger, and both our heroes,

followed by Carefinotu, returned to Will Tree.

There the new guest of Phina Island met with quite a surprise in the

habitation so happily contrived in the lower part of the sequoia. First

he had to be shown, by using them while he looked on, the use of the

tools, instruments, and utensils. It was obvious that Carefinotu

belonged to, or had lived amongst savages in the lowest rank of the

human scale, for fire itself seemed to be unknown to him. He could not

understand why the pot did not take fire when they put it on the blazing

wood; he would have hurried away from it, to the great displeasure of

Tartlet, who was watching the different phases of the cooking of the

soup. At a mirror, which was held out to him, he betrayed consummate

astonishment; he turned round, and turned it round to see if he himself

were not behind it.

"The fellow is hardly a monkey!" exclaimed the professor with a

disdainful grimace.

"No, Tartlet," answered Godfrey; "he is more than a monkey, for his

looks behind the mirror show good reasoning power."

"Well, I will admit that he is not a monkey," said Tartlet, shaking his

head as if only half convinced; "but we shall see if such a being can be

of any good to us."

"I am sure he will be!" replied Godfrey.

In any case Carefinotu showed himself quite at home with the food placed

before him. He first tore it apart, and then tasted it; and then I

believe that the whole breakfast of which they partook the--agouti soup,

the partridge killed by Godfrey, and the shoulder of mutton with camas

and yamph roots--would hardly have sufficed to calm the hunger which

devoured him.

"The poor fellow has got a good appetite!" said Godfrey.

"Yes," responded Tartlet; "and we shall have to keep a watch on his

cannibal instinct."

"Well, Tartlet! We shall make him get over the taste of human flesh if

he ever had it!"

"I would not swear that," replied the professor. "It appears that once

they have acquired this taste--"

While they were talking, Carefinotu was listening with extreme

attention. His eyes sparkled with intelligence. One could see that he

understood what was being said in his presence. He then spoke with

extreme volubility, but it was only a succession of onomatopoeias

devoid of sense, of harsh interjections with a and ou predominant,

as in the majority of Polynesian idioms.

Whatever the negro was, he was a new companion; he might become a

devoted servant, which the most unexpected chance had sent to the hosts

of Will Tree.

He was powerful, adroit, active; no work came amiss to him. He showed a

real aptitude to imitate what he saw being done. It was in this way

that Godfrey proceeded with his education. The care of the domestic

animals, the collection of the roots and fruits, the cutting up of the

sheep or agouties, which were to serve for food for the day, the

fabrication of a sort of cider they extracted from the wild manzanilla

apples,--he acquitted himself well in all these tasks, after having seen

them done.

Whatever Tartlet thought, Godfrey felt no distrust in the savage, and

never seemed to regret having come across him. What disquieted him was

the possible return of the cannibals who now knew the situation of Phina

Island.

From the first, a bed had been reserved for Carefinotu in the room at

Will Tree, but generally, unless it was raining, he preferred to sleep

outside in some hole in the tree, as though he were on guard over the

house.

During the fortnight which followed his arrival on the island,

Carefinotu many times accompanied Godfrey on his shooting excursions.

His surprise was always extreme when he saw the game fall hit at such a

distance; but in his character of retriever, he showed a dash and daring

which no obstacles, hedge or bush, or stream, could stop.

Gradually, Godfrey became greatly attached to this negro. There was only

one part of his progress in which Carefinotu showed refractoriness; that

was in learning the English language. Do what he might he could not be

prevailed upon to pronounce the most ordinary words which Godfrey, and

particularly Professor Tartlet tried to teach him.

So the time passed. But if the present was fairly supportable, thanks to

a happy accident, if no immediate danger menaced them, Godfrey could not

help asking himself, if they were ever to leave this island, by what

means they were to rejoin their country! Not a day passed but he thought

of Uncle Will and his betrothed. It was not without secret apprehension

that he saw the bad season approaching, which would put between his

friends and him a barrier still more impassable.

On the 27th of September a circumstance occurred deserving of note.

If it gave more work to Godfrey and his two companions, it at least

assured them of an abundant reserve of food.

Godfrey and Carefinotu were busied in collecting the mollusks, at the

extreme end of Dream Bay, when they perceived out at sea an innumerable

quantity of small moving islets which the rising tide was bringing

gently to shore. It was a sort of floating archipelago, on the surface

of which there walked, or flew, a few of those sea-birds, with great

expanse of wing, known as sea-hawks.

What then were these masses which floated landwards, rising and falling

with the undulations of the waves?

Godfrey did not know what to think, when Carefinotu threw himself down

on his stomach, and then drawing his head back into his shoulders,

folded beneath him his arms and legs, and began to imitate the movements

of an animal crawling slowly along the ground.

Godfrey looked at him without understanding these extraordinary

gymnastics. Then suddenly--

"Turtles!" he exclaimed.

Carefinotu was right. There was quite a square mile of myriads of

turtles, swimming on the surface of the water.

About a hundred fathoms from the shore the greater part of them dived

and disappeared, and the sea-hawks, finding their footing gone, flew up

into the air in large spirals. But luckily about a hundred of the

amphibians came on to the beach.

Godfrey and the negro had quickly run down in front of these creatures,

each of which measured at the least from three to four feet in diameter.

Now the only way of preventing turtles from regaining the sea is to turn

them on their backs; and it was in this rough work that Godfrey and

Carefinotu employed themselves, not without great fatigue.

The following days were spent in collecting the booty. The flesh of the

turtle, which is excellent either fresh or preserved, could perhaps be

kept for a time in both forms. In preparation for the winter, Godfrey

had the greater part salted in such a way as to serve for the needs of

each day. But for some time the table was supplied with turtle soup, on

which Tartlet was not the only one to regale himself.

Barring this incident, the monotony of existence was in no way ruffled.

Every day the same hours were devoted to the same work. Would not the

life become still more depressing when the winter season would oblige

Godfrey and his companions to shut themselves up in Will Tree? Godfrey

could not think of it without anxiety. But what could he do?

Meanwhile, he continued the exploration of the island, and all the time

not occupied with more pressing tasks he spent in roaming about with his

gun. Generally Carefinotu accompanied him, Tartlet remaining behind at

the dwelling. Decidedly he was no hunter, although his first shot had

been a master-stroke!

Now on one of these occasions an unexpected incident happened, of a

nature to gravely compromise the future safety of the inmates of Will

Tree.

Godfrey and the black had gone out hunting in the central forest, at the

foot of the hill which formed the principal ridge of Phina Island. Since

the morning they had seen nothing pass but two or three antelopes

through the high underwood, but at too great a distance for them to fire

with any chance of hitting them.

As Godfrey was not in search of game for dinner, and did not seek to

destroy for destruction's sake, he resigned himself to return

empty-handed. If he regretted doing so it was not so much for the meat

of the antelope, as for the skin, of which he intended to make good use.

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon. He and his companion after

lunch were no more fortunate than before. They were preparing to return

to Will Tree for dinner, when, just as they cleared the edge of the

wood, Carefinotu made a bound; then precipitating himself on Godfrey, he

seized him by the shoulders, and dragged him along with such vigour that

resistance was impossible.

After going about twenty yards they stopped. Godfrey took breath, and,

turning towards Carefinotu, interrogated him with a look.

The black, exceedingly frightened, stretched out his hand towards an

animal which was standing motionless about fifty yards off.

It was a grizzly bear, whose paws held the trunk of a tree, and who was

swaying his big head up and down, as if he were going to rush at the two

hunters.

Immediately, without pausing to think, Godfrey loaded his gun, and fired

before Carefinotu could hinder him.

Was the enormous plantigrade hit by the bullet? Probably. Was he killed?

They could not be sure, but his paws unclasped, and he rolled at the

foot of the tree. Delay was dangerous. A struggle with so formidable an

animal might have the worst results. In the forests of California the

pursuit of the grizzly is fraught with the greatest danger, even to

professional hunters of the beast.

And so the black seized Godfrey by the arms to drag him away in the

direction of Will Tree, and Godfrey, understanding that he could not be

too cautious, made no resistance.

CHAPTER XIX.

IN WHICH THE SITUATION ALREADY GRAVELY COMPROMISED BECOMES MORE AND MORE

COMPLICATED.

The presence of a formidable wild beast in Phina Island was, it must be

confessed, calculated to make our friends think the worst of the

ill-fortune which had fallen on them.

Godfrey--perhaps he was wrong--did not consider that he ought to hide

from Tartlet what had passed.

"A bear!" screamed the professor, looking round him with a bewildered

glare as if the environs of Will Tree were being assailed by a herd of

wild beasts. "Why, a bear? Up to now we had not even got a bear in our

island! If there is one there may be many, and even numbers of other

ferocious beasts--jaguars, panthers, tigers, hyænas, lions!"

Tartlet already beheld Phina Island given over to quite a menagerie

escaped from their cages.

Godfrey answered that there was no need for him to exaggerate. He had

seen one bear, that was certain. Why one of these animals had never been

seen before in his wanderings on the island he could not explain, and it

was indeed inexplicable. But to conclude from this that wild animals of

all kinds were prowling in the woods and prairies was to go too far.

Nevertheless, they would have to be cautious and never go out unarmed.

Unhappy Tartlet! From this day there commenced for him an existence of

anxieties, emotions, alarms, and irrational terrors which gave him

nostalgia for his native land in a most acute form.

"No!" repeated he. "No! If there are animals--I have had enough of it,

and I want to get off!"

He had not the power.

Godfrey and his companions then had henceforth to be on their guard. An

attack might take place not only on the shore side or the prairie side,

but even in the group of sequoias. This is why serious measures were

taken to put the habitation in a state to repel a sudden attack. The

door was strengthened, so as to resist the clutches of a wild beast. As

for the domestic animals Godfrey would have built a stable to shut them

up in at least at night, but it was not easy to do so. He contented

himself at present with making a sort of enclosure of branches not far

from Will Tree, which would keep them as in a fold. But the enclosure

was not solid enough nor high enough to hinder a bear or hyæna from

upsetting it or getting over it.

Notwithstanding the remonstrances made to him, Carefinotu persisted in

watching outside during the night, and Godfrey hoped thus to receive

warning of a direct attack.

Decidedly Carefinotu endangered his life in thus constituting himself

the guardian of Will Tree; but he had understood that he could thus be

of service to his liberators, and he persisted, in spite of all Godfrey

said to him, in watching as usual over the general safety.

A week passed without any of these formidable visitors appearing in the

neighbourhood. Godfrey did not go very far from the dwelling, unless

there was a necessity for his doing so. While the sheep and goats grazed

on the neighbouring prairie, they were never allowed out of sight.

Generally Carefinotu acted as shepherd. He did not take a gun, for he

did not seem to understand the management of fire-arms, but one of the

hunting-knives hung from his belt, and he carried an axe in his right

hand. Thus armed the active negro would not have hesitated to throw

himself before a tiger or any animal of the worst description.

However, as neither a bear nor any of his congeners had appeared since

the last encounter Godfrey began to gather confidence. He gradually

resumed his hunting expeditions, but without pushing far into the

interior of the island. Frequently the black accompanied him; Tartlet,

safe in Will Tree, would not risk himself in the open, not even if he

had the chance of giving a dancing lesson. Sometimes Godfrey would go

alone, and then the professor had a companion to whose instruction he

obstinately devoted himself.

Yes! Tartlet had at first thought of teaching Carefinotu the most

ordinary words in the English language, but he had to give this up, as

the negro seemed to lack the necessary phonetic apparatus for that kind

of pronunciation. "Then," had Tartlet said, "if I cannot be his

professor, I will be his pupil!"

And he it was who attempted to learn the idiom spoken by Carefinotu.

Godfrey had warned him that the accomplishment would be of little use.

Tartlet was not dissuaded. He tried to get Carefinotu to name the

objects he pointed at with his hand. In truth Tartlet must have got on

excellently, for at the end of fifteen days he actually knew fifteen

words! He knew that Carefinotu said "birsi" for fire, "aradore" for the

sky, "mervira" for the sea, "doura" for a tree, &c. He was as proud of

this as if he had taken the first prize for Polynesian at some

examination!

It was then with a feeling of gratitude that he wished to make some

recognition of what had been done for him, and instead of torturing the

negro with English words, he resolved on teaching him deportment and the

true principles of European choregraphy.

At this Godfrey could not restrain his peals of laughter. After all it

would pass the time away, and on Sunday, when there was nothing else to

do, he willingly assisted at the course of lectures delivered by the

celebrated Professor Tartlet of San Francisco. Indeed, we ought to have

seen them! The unhappy Carefinotu perspired profusely as he went through

the elementary exercises. He was docile and willing, nevertheless; but

like all his fellows, his shoulders did not set back, nor did his chest

throw out, nor did his knees or his feet point apart! To make a Vestris

or a Saint Leon of a savage of this sort!

The professor pursued his task in quite a fury. Carefinotu, tortured as

he was, showed no lack of zeal. What he suffered, even to get his feet

into the first position can be imagined! And when he passed to the

second and then to the third, it was still more agonizing.

"But look at me, you blockhead!" exclaimed Tartlet, who added example to

precept. "Put your feet out! Further out! The heel of one to the heel of

the other! Open your knees, you duffer! Put back your shoulders, you

idiot! Stick up your head! Round your elbows!"

"But you ask what is impossible!" said Godfrey.

"Nothing is impossible to an intelligent man!" was Tartlet's invariable

response.

"But his build won't allow of it."

"Well, his build must allow of it! He will have to do it sooner or

later, for the savage must at least know how to present himself properly

in a drawing-room!"

"But, Tartlet, he will never have the opportunity of appearing in a

drawing-room!"

"Eh! How do you know that, Godfrey?" replied the professor, drawing

himself up. "Do you know what the future may bring forth?"

This was the last word in all discussions with Tartlet. And then the

professor taking his kit would with the bow extract from it some squeaky

little air to the delight of Carefinotu. It required but this to excite

him. Oblivious of choregraphic rules, what leaps, what contortions, what

capers!

And Tartlet, in a reverie, as he saw this child of Polynesia so demean

himself, inquired if these steps, perhaps a little too characteristic,

were not natural to the human being, although outside all the principles

of his art.

But we must leave the professor of dancing and deportment to his

philosophical meditations, and return to questions at once more

practical and pressing.

During his last excursions into the plain, either by himself or with

Carefinotu, Godfrey had seen no wild animal. He had even come upon no

traces of such. The river to which they would come to drink bore no

footprint on its banks. During the night there were no howlings nor

suspicious noises. Besides the domestic animals continued to give no

signs of uneasiness.

"This is singular," said Godfrey several times; "but I was not mistaken!

Carefinotu certainly was not! It was really a bear that he showed me! It

was really a bear that I shot! Supposing I killed him, was he the last

representative of the plantigrades on the island?"

It was quite inexplicable! Besides, if Godfrey had killed this bear, he

would have found the body where he had shot it. Now they searched for it

in vain! Were they to believe then that the animal mortally wounded had

died far off in some den. It was possible after all, but then at this

place, at the foot of this tree, there would have been traces of blood,

and there were none.

"Whatever it is," thought Godfrey, "it does not much matter; and we must

keep on our guard."

With the first days of November it could be said that the wet season had

commenced in this unknown latitude. Cold rains fell for many hours.

Later on probably they would experience those interminable showers which

do not cease for weeks at a time, and are characteristic of the rainy

period of winter in these latitudes.

Godfrey had then to contrive a fireplace in the interior of Will

Tree--an indispensable fireplace that would serve as well to warm the

dwelling during the winter months as to cook their food in shelter from

the rain and tempest.

The hearth could at any time be placed in a corner of the chamber

between big stones, some placed on the ground and others built up round

them; but the question was how to get the smoke out, for to leave it to

escape by the long chimney, which ran down the centre of the sequoia,

proved impracticable.

Godfrey thought of using as a pipe some of those long stout bamboos

which grew on certain parts of the river banks. It should be said that

on this occasion he was greatly assisted by Carefinotu. The negro, not

without effort, understood what Godfrey required. He it was who

accompanied him for a couple of miles from Will Tree to select the

larger bamboos, he it was who helped him build his hearth. The stones

were placed on the ground opposite to the door; the bamboos, emptied of

their pith and bored through at the knots, afforded, when joined one to

another, a tube of sufficient length, which ran out through an aperture

made for it in the sequoia bark, and would serve every purpose, provided

it did not catch fire. Godfrey soon had the satisfaction of seeing a

good fire burning without filling the interior of Will Tree with smoke.

He was quite right in hastening on these preparations, for from the 3rd

to the 10th of November the rain never ceased pouring down. It would

have been impossible to keep a fire going in the open air. During these

miserable days they had to keep indoors and did got venture out except

when the flocks and poultry urgently required them to do so. Under these

circumstances the reserve of camas roots began to fail; and these were

what took the place of bread, and of which the want would be immediately

felt.

Godfrey then one day, the 10th of November, informed Tartlet that as

soon as the weather began to mend a little he and Carefinotu would go

out and collect some. Tartlet, who was never in a hurry to run a couple

of miles across a soaking prairie, decided to remain at home during

Godfrey's absence.

In the evening the sky began to clear of the heavy clouds which the west

wind had been accumulating since the commencement of the month, the rain

gradually ceased, the sun gave forth a few crepuscular rays. It was to

be hoped that the morning would yield a lull in the storm, of which it

was advisable to make the most.

"To-morrow," said Godfrey, "I will go out, and Carefinotu will go with

me."

"Agreed!" answered Tartlet.

The evening came, and when supper was finished and the sky, cleared of

clouds, permitted a few brilliant stars to appear, the black wished to

take up his accustomed place outside, which he had had to abandon during

the preceding rainy nights. Godfrey tried to make him understand that he

had better remain indoors, that there was no necessity to keep a watch

as no wild animal had been noticed; but Carefinotu was obstinate. He

therefore had to have his way.

The morning was as Godfrey had foreseen, no rain had fallen since the

previous evening, and when he stepped forth from Will Tree, the first

rays of the sun were lightly gilding the thick dome of the sequoias.

Carefinotu was at his post, where he had passed the night. He was

waiting. Immediately, well armed and provided with large sacks, the two

bid farewell to Tartlet, and started for the river, which they intended

ascending along the left bank up to the camas bushes.

An hour afterwards they arrived there without meeting with any

unpleasant adventure.

The roots were rapidly torn up and a large quantity obtained, so as to

fill the sacks. This took three hours, so that it was about eleven

o'clock in the morning when Godfrey and his companion set out on their

return to Will Tree.

Walking close together, keeping a sharp look-out, for they could not

talk to each other, they had reached a bend in the small river where

there were a few large trees, grown like a natural cradle across the

stream, when Godfrey suddenly stopped.

This time it was he who showed to Carefinotu a motionless animal at the

foot of a tree whose eyes were gleaming with a singular light.

"A tiger!" he exclaimed.

He was not mistaken. It was really a tiger of large stature resting on

its hind legs with its forepaws on the trunk of a tree, and ready to

spring.

In a moment Godfrey had dropped his sack of roots. The loaded gun passed

into his right hand; he cocked it, presented it, aimed it, and fired.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" he exclaimed.

This time there was no room for doubt; the tiger, struck by the bullet,

had bounded backwards. But perhaps he was not mortally wounded, perhaps

rendered still more furious by his wound he would spring on to them!

Godfrey held his gun pointed, and threatened the animal with his second

barrel.

But before Godfrey could stop him, Carefinotu had rushed at the place

where the tiger disappeared, his hunting-knife in his hand.

Godfrey shouted for him to stop, to come back! It was in vain. The

black, resolved even at the risk of his life to finish the animal which

perhaps was only wounded, did not or would not hear.

Godfrey rushed after him.

When he reached the bank, he saw Carefinotu struggling with the tiger,

holding him by the throat, and at last stabbing him to the heart with a

powerful blow.

The tiger then rolled into the river, of which the waters, swollen by

the rains, carried it away with the quickness of a torrent. The corpse,

which floated only for an instant, was swiftly borne off towards the

sea.

A bear! A tiger! There could be no doubt that the island did contain

formidable beasts of prey!

Godfrey, after rejoining Carefinotu, found that in the struggle the

black had only received a few scratches. Then, deeply anxious about the

future, he retook the road to Will Tree.

CHAPTER XX.

IN WHICH TARTLET REITERATES IN EVERY KEY THAT HE WOULD RATHER BE OFF.

When Tartlet learnt that there were not only bears in the island, but

tigers too, his lamentations again arose. Now he would never dare to go

out! The wild beasts would end by discovering the road to Will Tree!

There was no longer any safety anywhere! In his alarm the professor

wanted for his protection quite a fortification! Yes! Stone walls with

scarps and counterscarps, curtains and bastions, and ramparts, for what

was the use of a shelter under a group of sequoias? Above all things, he

would at all risks, like to be off.

"So would I," answered Godfrey quietly.

In fact, the conditions under which the castaways on Phina Island had

lived up to now were no longer the same. To struggle to the end, to

struggle for the necessaries of life, they had been able, thanks to

fortunate circumstances. Against the bad season, against winter and its

menaces, they knew how to act, but to have to defend themselves against

wild animals, whose attack was possible every minute, was another thing

altogether; and in fact they could not do it.

The situation, already complicated, had become very serious, for it had

become intolerable.

"But," repeated Godfrey to himself, without cessation, "how is it that

for four months we did not see a single beast of prey in the island, and

why during the last fortnight have we had to encounter a bear and a

tiger? What shall we say to that?"

The fact might be inexplicable, but it was none the less real.

Godfrey, whose coolness and courage increased, as difficulties grew, was

not cast down. If dangerous animals menaced their little colony, it was

better to put themselves on guard against their attacks, and that

without delay.

But what was to be done?

It was at the outset decided that excursions into the woods or to the

sea-shore should be rarer, and that they should never go out unless well

armed, and only when it was absolutely necessary for their wants.

"We have been lucky enough in our two encounters!" said Godfrey

frequently; "but there may come a time when we may not shoot so

straight! So there is no necessity for us to run into danger!"

At the same time they had not only to settle about the excursions, but

to protect Will Tree--not only the dwelling, but the annexes, the

poultry roost, and the fold for the animals, where the wild beasts could

easily cause irreparable disaster.

Godfrey thought then, if not of fortifying Will Tree according to the

famous plans of Tartlet, at least of connecting the four or five large

sequoias which surrounded it.

If he could devise a high and strong palisade from one tree to another,

they would be in comparative security at any rate from a surprise.

It was practicable--Godfrey concluded so after an examination of the

ground--but it would cost a good deal of labour. To reduce this as much

as possible, he thought of erecting the palisade around a perimeter of

only some three hundred feet. We can judge from this the number of trees

he had to select, cut down, carry, and trim until the enclosure was

complete.

Godfrey did not quail before his task. He imparted his projects to

Tartlet, who approved them, and promised his active co-operation; but

what was more important, he made his plans understood to Carefinotu, who

was always ready to come to his assistance.

They set to work without delay.

There was at a bend in the stream, about a mile from Will Tree, a small

wood of stone pines of medium height, whose trunks, in default of beams

and planks, without wanting to be squared, would, by being placed close

together, form a solid palisade.

It was to this wood that, at dawn on the 12th of November, Godfrey and

his two companions repaired. Though well armed they advanced with great

care.

"You can have too much of this sort of thing," murmured Tartlet, whom

these new difficulties had rendered still more discontented, "I would

rather be off!"

But Godfrey did not take the trouble to reply to him.

On this occasion his tastes were not being consulted, his intelligence

even was not being appealed to. It was the assistance of his arms that

the common interest demanded. In short, he had to resign himself to his

vocation of beast of burden.

No unpleasant accident happened in the mile which separated the wood

from Will Tree. In vain they had carefully beaten the underwood, and

swept the horizon all around them. The domestic animals they had left

out at pasture gave no sign of alarm. The birds continued their frolics

with no more anxiety than usual.

Work immediately began. Godfrey, very properly did not want to begin

carrying until all the trees he wanted had been felled. They could work

at them in greater safety on the spot.

Carefinotu was of great service during this toilsome task. He had become

very clever in the use of the axe and saw. His strength even allowed him

to continue at work when Godfrey was obliged to rest for a minute or so,

and when Tartlet, with bruised hands and aching limbs, had not even

strength left to lift his fiddle.

However, although the unfortunate professor of dancing and deportment

had been transformed into a wood-cutter, Godfrey had reserved for him

the least fatiguing part, that is, the clearing off of the smaller

branches. In spite of this, if Tartlet had only been paid half a dollar

a day, he would have stolen four-fifths of his salary!

For six days, from the 12th to the 17th of November, these labours

continued. Our friends went off in the morning at dawn, they took their

food with them, and they did not return to Will Tree until evening. The

sky was not very clear. Heavy clouds frequently accumulated over it. It

was harvest weather, with alternating showers and sunshine; and during

the showers the wood-cutters would take shelter under the trees, and

resume their task when the rain had ceased.

On the 18th all the trees, topped and cleared of branches, were lying

on the ground, ready for transport to Will Tree.

During this time no wild beast had appeared in the neighbourhood of the

river. The question was, were there any more in the island, or had the

bear and the tiger been--a most improbable event--the last of their

species?

Whatever it was, Godfrey had no intention of abandoning his project of

the solid palisade so as to be prepared against a surprise from savages,

or bears, or tigers. Besides, the worst was over, and there only

remained to take the wood where it was wanted.

We say "the worst was over," though the carriage promised to be somewhat

laborious. If it were not so, it was because Godfrey had had a very

practical idea, which materially lightened the task; this was to make

use of the current of the river, which the flood occasioned by the

recent rains had rendered very rapid, to transport the wood. Small rafts

could be formed, and they would quietly float down to the sequoias,

where a bar, formed by the small bridge, would stop them. From thence to

Will Tree was only about fifty-five paces.

If any of them showed particular satisfaction at this mode of procedure,

it was Tartlet.

On the 18th the first rafts were formed, and they arrived at the barrier

without accident. In less than three days on the evening of the 25th,

the palisade had been all sent down to its destination.

On the morrow, the first trunks, sunk two feet in the soil, began to

rise in such a manner as to connect the principal sequoias which

surrounded Will Tree. A capping of strong flexible branches, pointed by

the axe, assured the solidity of the wall.

Godfrey saw the work progress with extreme satisfaction, and delayed not

until it was finished.

"Once the palisade is done," he said to Tartlet, "we shall be really at

home."

"We shall not be really at home," replied the professor drily, "until we

are in Montgomery Street, with your Uncle Kolderup."

There was no disputing this opinion.

On the 26th of November the palisade was three parts done. It comprised

among the sequoias attached one to another that in which the poultry had

established themselves, and Godfrey's intention was to build a stable

inside it.

In three or four days the fence was finished. There only remained to fit

in a solid door, which would assure the closure of Will Tree.

But on the morning of the 27th of November the work was interrupted by

an event which we had better explain with some detail, for it was one

of those unaccountable things peculiar to Phina Island.

About eight o'clock, Carefinotu had climbed up to the fork of the

sequoia, so as to more carefully close the hole by which the cold and

rain penetrated, when he uttered a singular cry.

Godfrey, who was at work at the palisade, raised his head and saw the

black, with expressive gestures, motioning to him to join him without

delay.

Godfrey, thinking Carefinotu would not have disturbed him unless he had

serious reason, took his glasses with him and climbed up the interior

passage, and passing through the hole, seated himself astride of one of

the main branches.

Carefinotu, pointing with his arm towards the rounded angle which Phina

Island made to the north-east, showed a column of smoke rising in the

air like a long plume.

"Again!" exclaimed Godfrey.

And putting his glasses in the direction, he assured himself that this

time there was no possible error, that it must escape from some

important fire, which he could distinctly see must be about five miles

off.

Godfrey turned towards the black.

Carefinotu expressed his surprise, by his looks, his exclamations, in

fact by his whole attitude.

Assuredly he was no less astounded than Godfrey at this apparition.

Besides, in the offing, there was no ship, not a vessel native or other,

nothing which showed that a landing had recently been made on the shore.

"Ah! This time I will find out the fire which produces that smoke!"

exclaimed Godfrey.

And pointing to the north-east angle of the island, and then to the foot

of the tree, he gesticulated to Carefinotu that he wished to reach the

place without losing an instant.

Carefinotu understood him. He even gave him to understand that he

approved of the idea.

"Yes," said Godfrey to himself, "if there is a human being there, we

must know who he is and whence he comes! We must know why he hides

himself! It will be for the safety of all!"

A moment afterwards Carefinotu and he descended to the foot of Will

Tree. Then Godfrey, informing Tartlet of what had passed and what he was

going to do, proposed for him to accompany them to the north coast.

A dozen miles to traverse in one day was not a very tempting suggestion

to a man who regarded his legs as the most precious part of his body,

and only designed for noble exercises. And so he replied that he would

prefer to remain at Will Tree.

"Very well, we will go alone," answered Godfrey, "but do not expect us

until the evening."

So saying, and Carefinotu and he carrying some provisions for lunch on

the road, they set out, after taking leave of the professor, whose

private opinion it was that they would find nothing, and that all their

fatigue would be useless.

Godfrey took his musket and revolver; the black the axe and the

hunting-knife which had become his favourite weapon. They crossed the

plank bridge to the right bank of the river, and then struck off across

the prairie to the point on the shore where the smoke had been seen

rising amongst the rocks.

It was rather more easterly than the place which Godfrey had uselessly

visited on his second exploration.

They progressed rapidly, not without a sharp look-out that the wood was

clear and that the bushes and underwood did not hide some animal whose

attack might be formidable.

Nothing disquieting occurred.

At noon, after having had some food, without, however, stopping for an

instant, they reached the first line of rocks which bordered the beach.

The smoke, still visible, was rising about a quarter of a mile ahead.

They had only to keep straight on to reach their goal.

They hastened their steps, but took precautions so as to surprise, and

not be surprised.

Two minutes afterwards the smoke disappeared, as if the fire had been

suddenly extinguished.

But Godfrey had noted with exactness the spot whence it arose. It was at

the point of a strangely formed rock, a sort of truncated pyramid,

easily recognizable. Showing this to his companion, he kept straight on.

The quarter of a mile was soon traversed, then the last line was

climbed, and Godfrey and Carefinotu gained the beach about fifty paces

from the rock.

They ran up to it. Nobody! But this time half-smouldering embers and

half-burnt wood proved clearly that the fire had been alight on the

spot.

"There has been some one here!" exclaimed Godfrey. "Some one not a

moment ago! We must find out who!"

He shouted. No response! Carefinotu gave a terrible yell. No one

appeared!

Behold them then hunting amongst the neighbouring rocks, searching a

cavern, a grotto, which might serve as a refuge for a shipwrecked man,

an aboriginal, a savage--

It was in vain that they ransacked the slightest recesses of the shore.

There was neither ancient nor recent camp in existence, not even the

traces of the passage of a man.

"But," repeated Godfrey, "it was not smoke from a warm spring this

time! It was from a fire of wood and grass, and that fire could not

light itself."

Vain was their search. Then about two o'clock Godfrey and Carefinotu, as

weary as they were disconcerted at their fruitless endeavours, retook

their road to Will Tree.

There was nothing astonishing in Godfrey being deep in thought. It

seemed to him that the island was now under the empire of some occult

power. The reappearance of this fire, the presence of wild animals, did

not all this denote some extraordinary complication?

And was there not cause for his being confirmed in this idea when an

hour after he had regained the prairie, he heard a singular noise, a

sort of hard jingling.

Carefinotu pushed him aside at the same instant as a serpent glided

beneath the herbage, and was about to strike at him.

"Snakes, now. Snakes in the island, after the bears and the tigers!" he

exclaimed.

Yes! It was one of those reptiles well-known by the noise they make, a

rattlesnake of the most venomous species: a giant of the Crotalus

family!

Carefinotu threw himself between Godfrey and the reptile, which hurried

off under a thick bush.

But the negro pursued it and smashed in its head with a blow of the axe.

When Godfrey rejoined him, the two halves of the reptile were writhing

on the blood-stained soil.

Then other serpents, not less dangerous, appeared in great abundance on

this part of the prairie which was separated by the stream from Will

Tree.

Was it then a sudden invasion of reptiles? Was Phina Island going to

become the rival of ancient Tenos, whose formidable ophidians rendered

it famous in antiquity, and which gave its name to the viper?

"Come on! come on!" exclaimed Godfrey, motioning to Carefinotu to

quicken the pace.

He was uneasy. Strange presentiments agitated him without his being able

to control them.

Under their influence, fearing some approaching misfortune, he had

hastened his return to Will Tree.

But matters became serious when he reached the planks across the river.

Screams of terror resounded from beneath the sequoias--cries for help in

a tone of agony which it was impossible to mistake!

"It is Tartlet!" exclaimed Godfrey. "The unfortunate man has been

attacked! Quick! quick!"

Once over the bridge, about twenty paces further on, Tartlet was

perceived running as fast as his legs could carry him.

An enormous crocodile had come out of the river and was pursuing him

with its jaws wide open. The poor man, distracted, mad with fright,

instead of turning to the right or the left, was keeping in a straight

line, and so running the risk of being caught. Suddenly he stumbled. He

fell. He was lost.

Godfrey halted. In the presence of this imminent danger his coolness

never forsook him for an instant. He brought his gun to his shoulder,

and aimed at the crocodile. The well-aimed bullet struck the monster,

and it made a bound to one side and fell motionless on the ground.

Carefinotu rushed towards Tartlet and lifted him up. Tartlet had escaped

with a fright! But what a fright!

It was six o'clock in the evening.

A moment afterwards Godfrey and his two companions had reached Will

Tree.

How bitter were their reflections during their evening repast! What long

sleepless hours were in store for the inhabitants of Phina Island, on

whom misfortunes were now crowding.

As for the professor, in his anguish he could only repeat the words

which expressed the whole of his thoughts, "I had much rather be off!"

CHAPTER XXI.

WHICH ENDS WITH QUITE A SURPRISING REFLECTION BY THE NEGRO CAREFINOTU.

The winter season, so severe in these latitudes, had come at last. The

first frosts had already been felt, and there was every promise of

rigorous weather. Godfrey was to be congratulated on having established

his fireplace in the tree. It need scarcely be said that the work at the

palisade had been completed, and that a sufficiently solid door now

assured the closure of the fence.

During the six weeks which followed, that is to say, until the middle of

December, there had been a good many wretched days on which it was

impossible to venture forth. At the outset there came terrible squalls.

They shook the group of sequoias to their very roots. They strewed the

ground with broken branches, and so furnished an ample reserve for the

fire.

Then it was that the inhabitants of Will Tree clothed themselves as

warmly as they could. The woollen stuffs found in the box were used

during the few excursions necessary for revictualling, until the weather

became so bad that even these were forbidden. All hunting was at an end,

and the snow fell in such quantity that Godfrey could have believed

himself in the inhospitable latitudes of the Arctic Ocean.

It is well known that Northern America, swept by the Polar winds, with

no obstacle to check them, is one of the coldest countries on the globe.

The winter there lasts until the month of April. Exceptional precautions

have to be taken against it. It was the coming of the winter as it did

which gave rise to the thought that Phina Island was situated in a

higher latitude than Godfrey had supposed.

Hence the necessity of making the interior of Will Tree as comfortable

as possible. But the suffering from rain and cold was cruel. The

reserves of provisions were unfortunately insufficient, the preserved

turtle flesh gradually disappeared. Frequently there had to be

sacrificed some of the sheep or goats or agouties, whose numbers had but

slightly increased since their arrival in the island.

With these new trials, what sad thoughts haunted Godfrey!

It happened also that for a fortnight he fell into a violent fever.

Without the tiny medicine-chest which afforded the necessary drugs for

his treatment, he might never have recovered. Tartlet was ill-suited to

attend to the petty cares that were necessary during the continuance of

the malady. It was to Carefinotu that he mainly owed his return to

health.

But what remembrances and what regrets! Who but himself could he blame

for having got into a situation of which he could not even see the end?

How many times in his delirium did he call Phina, whom he never should

see again, and his Uncle Will, from whom he beheld himself separated for

ever! Ah! he had to alter his opinion of this Crusoe life which his

boyish imagination had made his ideal! Now he was contending with

reality! He could no longer even hope to return to the domestic hearth.

So passed this miserable December, at the end of which Godfrey began to

recover his strength.

As for Tartlet, by special grace, doubtless, he was always well. But

what incessant lamentations! What endless jeremiads! As the grotto of

Calypso after the departure of Ulysses, Will Tree "resounded no more to

his song"--that of his fiddle--for the cold had frozen the strings!

It should be said too that one of the gravest anxieties of Godfrey was

not only the re-appearance of dangerous animals, but the fear of the

savages returning in great numbers to Phina Island, the situation of

which was known to them. Against such an invasion the palisade was but

an insufficient barrier. All things considered, the refuge offered by

the high branches of the sequoia appeared much safer, and the rendering

the access less difficult was taken in hand. It would always be easy to

defend the narrow orifice by which the top of the trunk was reached.

With the aid of Carefinotu Godfrey began to cut regular ledges on each

side, like the steps of a staircase, and these, connected by a long cord

of vegetable fibre, permitted of rapid ascent up the interior.

"Well," said Godfrey, when the work was done, "that gives us a town

house below and a country house above!"

"I had rather have a cellar, if it was in Montgomery Street!" answered

Tartlet.

Christmas arrived. Christmas kept in such style throughout the United

States of America! The New Year's Day, full of memories of childhood,

rainy, snowy, cold, and gloomy, began the new year under the most

melancholy auspices.

It was six months since the survivors of the Dream had remained

without communication with the rest of the world.

The commencement of the year was not very cheering. It made Godfrey and

his companions anticipate that they would still have many trials to

encounter.

The snow never ceased falling until January 18th. The flocks had to be

let out to pasture to get what feed they could. At the close of the day,

a very cold damp night enveloped the island, and the space shaded by the

sequoias was plunged in profound obscurity.

Tartlet and Carefinotu, stretched on their beds inside Will Tree, were

trying in vain to sleep. Godfrey, by the struggling light of a torch,

was turning over the pages of his Bible.

About ten o'clock a distant noise, which came nearer and nearer, was

heard outside away towards the north. There could be no mistake. It was

the wild beasts prowling in the neighbourhood, and, alarming to relate,

the howling of the tiger and of the hyæna, and the roaring of the

panther and the lion were this time blended in one formidable concert.

Godfrey, Tartlet, and the negro sat up, each a prey to indescribable

anguish. If at this unaccountable invasion of ferocious animals

Carefinotu shared the alarm of his companions, his astonishment was

quite equal to his fright.

During two mortal hours all three kept on the alert. The howlings

sounded at times close by; then they suddenly ceased, as if the beasts,

not knowing the country, were roaming about all over it. Perhaps then

Will Tree would escape an attack!

"It doesn't matter if it does," thought Godfrey. "If we do not destroy

these animals to the very last one, there will be no safety for us in

the island!"

A little after midnight the roaring began again in full strength at a

moderate distance away. Impossible now to doubt but that the howling

army was approaching Will Tree!

Yes! It was only too certain! But whence came these wild animals? They

could not have recently landed on Phina Island! They must have been

there then before Godfrey's arrival! But how was it that all of them had

remained hidden during his walks and hunting excursions, as well across

the centre as in the most out-of-the-way parts to the south? For Godfrey

had never found a trace of them. Where was the mysterious den which

vomited forth lions, hyænas, panthers, tigers? Amongst all the

unaccountable things up to now this was indeed the most unaccountable.

Carefinotu could not believe what he heard. We have said that his

astonishment was extreme. By the light of the fire which illuminated the

interior of Will Tree there could be seen on his black face the

strangest of grimaces.

Tartlet in the corner, groaned and lamented, and moaned again. He would

have asked Godfrey all about it, but Godfrey was not in the humour to

reply. He had a presentiment of a very great danger, he was seeking for

a way to retreat from it.

Once or twice Carefinotu and he went out to the centre of the palisade.

They wished to see that the door was firmly and strongly shut.

Suddenly an avalanche of animals appeared with a huge tumult along the

front of Will Tree.

It was only the goats and sheep and agouties. Terrified at the howling

of the wild beasts, and scenting their approach, they had fled from

their pasturage to take shelter behind the palisade.

"We must open the door!" exclaimed Godfrey.

Carefinotu nodded his head. He did not want to know the language to

understand what Godfrey meant.

The door was opened, and the frightened flock rushed into the enclosure.

But at that instant there appeared through the opening a gleaming of

eyes in the depths of the darkness which the shadow of the sequoias

rendered still more profound.

There was no time to close the enclosure!

To jump at Godfrey, seize him in spite of himself, push him into the

dwelling and slam the door, was done by Carefinotu like a flash of

lightning.

New roarings indicated that three or four wild beasts had just cleared

the palisade.

Then these horrible roarings were mingled with quite a concert of

bleatings and groanings of terror. The domestic flock were taken as in a

trap and delivered over to the clutches of the assailants.

Godfrey and Carefinotu, who had climbed up to the two small windows in

the bark of the sequoia, endeavoured to see what was passing in the

gloom.

Evidently the wild animals--tigers or lions, panthers or hyænas, they

did not know which yet--had thrown themselves on the flock and begun

their slaughter.

At this moment, Tartlet, in a paroxysm of blind terror, seized one of

the muskets, and would have taken a chance shot out of one of the

windows.

Godfrey stopped him.

"No!" said he. "In this darkness our shots will be lost, and we must not

waste our ammunition! Wait for daylight!"

He was right. The bullets would just as likely have struck the domestic

as the wild animals--more likely in fact, for the former were the most

numerous. To save them was now impossible. Once they were sacrificed,

the wild beasts, thoroughly gorged, might quit the enclosure before

sunrise. They would then see how to act to guard against a fresh

invasion.

It was most important too, during the dark night, to avoid as much as

possible revealing to these animals the presence of human beings, whom

they might prefer to the flock. Perhaps they would thus avoid a direct

attack against Will Tree.

As Tartlet was incapable of understanding either this reasoning or any

other, Godfrey contented himself with depriving him of his weapon. The

professor then went and threw himself on his bed and freely

anathematized all travels and travellers and maniacs who could not

remain quietly at their own firesides.

Both his companions resumed their observations at the windows.

Thence they beheld, without the power of interference, the horrible

massacre which was taking place in the gloom. The cries of the sheep and

the goats gradually diminished as the slaughter of the animals was

consummated, although the greater part had escaped outside, where death,

none the less certain, awaited them. This loss was irreparable for the

little colony; but Godfrey was not then anxious about the future. The

present was disquieting enough to occupy all his thoughts.

There was nothing they could do, nothing they could try, to hinder this

work of destruction.

Godfrey and Carefinotu kept constant watch, and now they seemed to see

new shadows coming up and passing into the palisade, while a fresh

sound of footsteps struck on their ears.

Evidently certain belated beasts, attracted by the odour of the blood

which impregnated the air, had traced the scent up to Will Tree.

They ran to and fro, they rushed round and round the tree and gave forth

their hoarse and angry growls. Some of the shadows jumped on the ground

like enormous cats. The slaughtered flock had not been sufficient to

satisfy their rage.

Neither Godfrey nor his companions moved. In keeping completely

motionless they might avoid a direct attack.

An unlucky shot suddenly revealed their presence and exposed them to the

greatest danger.

Tartlet, a prey to a veritable hallucination, had risen. He had seized a

revolver; and this time, before Godfrey and Carefinotu could hinder him,

and not knowing himself what he did, but believing that he saw a tiger

standing before him, he had fired! The bullet passed through the door of

Will Tree.

"Fool!" exclaimed Godfrey, throwing himself on Tartlet, while the negro

seized the weapon.

It was too late. The alarm was given, and growlings still more violent

resounded without. Formidable talons were heard tearing the bark of the

sequoia. Terrible blows shook the door, which was too feeble to resist

such an assault.

"We must defend ourselves!" shouted Godfrey.

And, with his gun in his hand and his cartridge-pouch round his waist,

he took his post at one of the windows.

To his great surprise, Carefinotu had done the same! Yes! the black,

seizing the second musket--a weapon which he had never before

handled--had filled his pockets with cartridges and taken his place at

the second window.

Then the reports of the guns began to echo from the embrasures. By the

flashes, Godfrey on the one side, and Carefinotu on the other, beheld

the foes they had to deal with.

There, in the enclosure, roaring with rage, howling at the reports,

rolling beneath the bullets which struck many of them, leapt of lions

and tigers, and hyænas and panthers, at least a score. To their roarings

and growlings which reverberated from afar, there echoed back those of

other ferocious beasts running up to join them. Already the now distant

roaring could be heard as they approached the environs of Will Tree. It

was as though quite a menagerie of wild animals had been suddenly set

free on the island!

[Illustration: Of lions and tigers quite a score. page 252]

However, Godfrey and Carefinotu, without troubling themselves about

Tartlet, who could be of no use, were keeping as cool as they could, and

refraining from firing unless they were certain of their aim. Wishing to

waste not a shot, they waited till a shadow passed in front of them.

Then came the flash and the report, and then a growl of grief told them

that the animal had been hit.

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 sailors 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?"

"No!" answered Seng Vou.

"Where have you been, then?"

"On the island!"

"You!" exclaimed Godfrey.

"Yes."

"Then the smoke?"

"A man must have a fire!"

"And you did not attempt to come to us, to share our living?"

"A Chinaman likes to live alone," quietly replied Seng Vou. "He is

sufficient for himself, and he wants no one!"

And thereupon this eccentric individual bowed to William W. Kolderup,

landed, and disappeared.

"That is the stuff they make real Crusoes of!" observed Uncle Will.

"Look at him and see if you are like him! It does not matter, the

English race would do no good by absorbing fellows of that stamp!"

"Good!" said Godfrey, "the smoke is explained by the presence of Seng

Vou; but the beasts?"

"And my crocodile!" added Tartlet; "I should like some one to explain my

crocodile!"

William W. Kolderup seemed much embarrassed, and feeling in turn quite

mystified, passed his hand over his forehead as if to clear the clouds

away.

"We shall know later on," he said. "Everything is found by him who knows

how to seek!"

A few days afterwards there was celebrated with great pomp the wedding

of the nephew and pupil of William W. Kolderup. That the young couple

were made much of by all the friends of the wealthy merchant can easily

be imagined.

At the ceremony Tartlet was perfect in bearing, in everything, and the

pupil did honour to the celebrated professor of dancing and deportment.

Now Tartlet had an idea. Not being able to mount his crocodile on a

scarf-pin--and much he regretted it--he resolved to have it stuffed. The

animal prepared in this fashion--hung from the ceiling, with the jaws

half open, and the paws outspread--would make a fine ornament for his

room. The crocodile was consequently sent to a famous taxidermist, and

he brought it back to Tartlet a few days afterwards. Every one came to

admire the monster who had almost made a meal of Tartlet.

"You know, Mr. Kolderup, where the animal came from?" said the

celebrated taxidermist, presenting his bill.

"No, I do not," answered Uncle Will.

"But it had a label underneath its carapace."

"A label!" exclaimed Godfrey.

"Here it is," said the celebrated taxidermist.

And he held out a piece of leather on which, in indelible ink, were

written these words,--

"From Hagenbeck, Hamburg,

"To J. R. Taskinar, Stockton, U.S.A."

When William W. Kolderup had read these words he burst into a shout of

laughter. He understood all.

It was his enemy, J. R. Taskinar, his conquered competitor, who, to be

revenged, had bought a cargo of wild beasts, reptiles, and other

objectionable creatures from a well-known purveyor to the menageries of

both hemispheres, and had landed them at night in several voyages to

Spencer Island. It had cost him a good deal, no doubt, to do so; but he

had succeeded in infesting the property of his rival, as the English did

Martinique, if we are to believe the legend, before it was handed over

to France.

There was thus no more to explain of the remarkable occurrences on

Phina Island.

"Well done!" exclaimed William W. Kolderup. "I could not have done

better myself!"

"But with those terrible creatures," said Phina, "Spencer Island--"

"Phina Island--" interrupted Godfrey.

"Phina Island," continued the bride, with a smile, "is quite

uninhabitable."

"Bah!" answered Uncle Will; "we can wait till the last lion has eaten up

the last tiger!"

"And then, dearest Phina," said Godfrey, "you will not be afraid to pass

a season there with me?"

"With you, my dear husband, I fear nothing from anywhere," answered

Phina, "and as you have not had your voyage round the world--"

"We will have it together," said Godfrey, "and if an unlucky chance

should ever make me a real Crusoe--"

"You will ever have near you the most devoted of Crusoe-esses!"

THE END.