Chapter 10 chapter Ten

A safe night, and the two shipwrecks, from overexcitement and extreme fatigue, slept as peacefully as they had in the most comfortable rooms of the mansion in Montgomery Street. The next day, June 27, at dawn they were awakened by the crowing of the rooster. Godfrey felt the situation almost immediately, but Tatley had to rub his eyes and stretch his limbs for a long time before returning to reality. "Is the breakfast this morning the same as yesterday's dinner?" he asked in the first sentence. "I'm afraid so," replied Godfrey, "but I hope to have a better dinner to-night!"

The professor couldn't help curling his lips meaningfully.Where was the tea and sandwiches that were brought to him in the dream just now!Why, if it wasn't for this snack, he would still be able to wait for breakfast... maybe this breakfast would never be there! But an idea had to be made, and Godfrey now felt clearly the responsibility that lay upon him, on his shoulders alone, for nothing could be expected of him as a companion.In this empty box that served as the professor's head, no real thought could arise: Godfrey had to think, imagine, and decide for two people. He remembered first Fina, his fiancée, whom he had so rashly refused to marry, and the second he remembered was his Uncle Will, who he had so rashly left him, and he turned to Tate Lai:

"For a change from our routine," he said, "here's some shellfish and half a dozen eggs!" "Nothing to cook them!" "No!" said Godfrey, "but if what we lack is the food itself, what do you say, Tartley?" "I'll say no doesn't mean enough!" said the professor stiffly. However, had to settle for a simpler meal and just ate it. At this time, Godfrey naturally had an idea, that is to take the survey that started yesterday one step further.First of all, it is important to ascertain as far as possible in which part of the Pacific Ocean the Phantasm sank, in order to try to reach some inhabited point along the coast, where it could be, or be planned for repatriation. way, or waiting for passing ships.

Godfrey observed that perhaps he would be able to make up his mind on this point if they could get across the second line of hills, whose scenic flanks jutted out over the forest.However, he did not consider that it would take him more than an hour or two to get there: he decided to spend the first few hours of the day on this urgent prospecting. He looked around him, where roosters and hens were feeding in the tall grass.Agouti, goats, and wethers walked up and down the edge of the wood. Godfrey, however, did not want to drag the flock of fowl and four-legged animals in his wake.But to keep them here more safely, leave Tatley watching over them.

The latter agreed to be left alone and to be the shepherd of the herd for a few hours. He only accuses one point: "What if you disappeared, Godfrey?" "There is nothing to worry about at this point," answered the young man; "it is this forest that I am going through, and as you will not leave the edge of the forest, I will surely find you here again." "Don't forget to wire your Uncle Will and ask him for a few hundred dollars!" "Telegram . . . or letter! No problem!" replied Godfrey, willing to let Tattley keep his fantasies until he found out where the land lay.

Then, shaking the professor's hand, he went into the depths of the woods, where the thick leaves almost blocked the sunlight.But it is the direction of the sun that will lead our young explorers towards the high hills whose screen hides the eastern horizon. There are no trails, but the land is not entirely unmarked.Godfrey noticed that animals passed by in certain places.Two or three times he even thought he saw some fast ruminant running away, moose or yellow deer or caribou.But he saw no track of any beast of prey, tiger or leopard, and he had no reason to regret their absence. The high mezzanine of the forest, that is to say the whole part of the forest between the first fork and the tip of the branches, is home to a large flock of birds: there are several hundred wild pigeons, and then, in the great tree Below the flock were white-tailed sea eagles, great grouse, long-billed birds with crayfish-like claws, and higher up, two or three bearded vultures soaring over the glade, their eyes like a cap badge.Nevertheless, none of these birds belonged to a particular species from which the latitude of the continent could be deduced.

The same is true for the trees in this forest, which are not far behind in species in this part of the United States, which includes Baja California, Monterey Bay, and New Mexico.There grows the poisonous weeds, the large-flowered Eurasian dogwoods, maples, birches, oaks, four or five species of magnolias, and coastal pine, as can be found in South Carolina; In the center of the clearing there were olive trees, chestnut trees, and, on the shrub side, clusters of tamarind, myrtle, and mastic, as they grow in the temperate south.In general, there is a fairly wide space between these trees to pass without the help of fire and axes.Sea breezes flowed easily through the tall branches, and, here and there, chunks of light shone on the ground.

So Godfrey walked obliquely under the tall woods.It didn't even occur to him to pay attention.All he wanted was to reach the heights that fringed the forest to the east.He looked for the direction of the sunlight through the leaves so that he could walk more directly to his goal.He didn't even see the bird guides—so called because they flew ahead of the traveler—and they stopped, turned, and flew up again, as if they wanted to show him the way.Nothing can distract him. This concentration of thought can be understood.Within an hour, his fate will be decided!Within an hour he would know whether he was in some inhabited part of the continent.

Based on the route he knew and the route the "Dream" traveled in those 17 days, Godfrey thought that the only places where the ship could sink were the coasts of Japan or the coast of China.Moreover, the position of the sun was always to the south of him, clearly showing that the Phantasm had not crossed the limits of the southern hemisphere. Two hours after setting off, Godfrey estimated that he had traveled about five miles, considering that the trees were sometimes so dense that he had to take several turns.The second plane of the hill couldn't be farther away.The trees had thinned out into solitary clusters, and the sunlight filtered through the taller branches more easily.The ground also showed an incline, which quickly became a rather steep uphill.

As tired as he was, Godfrey was reluctant to slow down.Undoubtedly, what he was walking on was not the steepest slope ahead. Soon he was high enough to overlook the approximate whole of the green vault stretching behind him, here and there showing the tops of some of its trees. But Godfrey was not about to look back, never to take his eyes off the bare ridgeline that outlined the sky four or five hundred feet ahead of him.This is the obstacle that always blocks the horizon to the east. A small oblique truncated cone extends beyond this uneven line, and connects with its gentler slope to the ridge outlined by the whole hill.

"There! . . . there! . . . " thought Godfrey, "to that point! . . . that's the top of this cone! . . . and from there, what shall I see? . . . A city ?... a village?... desolate?" Godfrey kept climbing in a fit of ecstasy, keeping his elbows close to his chest to control his heartbeat.His slightly wheezing breath was tiring him, but he didn't have the patience to stop to catch his breath.Even if he were about to collapse, nearly passed out, on top of the cone that jutted less than 100 feet above his head, he didn't want to delay for a minute. Finally, after a while, he reached his destination.The slope on this side appears to be fairly steep, at an angle of 30 to 35 degrees.He worked on both hands and feet; he clung to the slender tussocks of the slopes where slender bushes of mastic or myrtle trees lined the slope to the top of the hill. Made a last effort!At last, his head above the flat top of the cone, he lay prone, while his eyes swept greedily across the entire eastern horizon...   The horizon is made up of the sea, and at 20 miles away the sky and water make a circular line! he turned around... Still the sea, to the west, south, and north! ... The endless sea surrounded him from all directions! "An island!" As he uttered the word, he felt a tight grip on his heart.It never occurred to him that he might be on an island!But, it's an island!The land chain that might have connected it to the mainland was suddenly interrupted!He felt like a man who falls asleep in a drifting skiff and wakes up without oars or sails to get back to shore! But Godfrey quickly regained his composure and decided to accept the situation.As for the chance of rescue, since it cannot come from outside, it is up to him to create it. First, it involved probing as precisely as possible the layout of the island as his eyes saw it from the full range.He estimated the circumference to be about 60 miles, and estimated by eye that the length from south to north was 20 miles, and the breadth from east to west was 12 miles. As for the central part of the island, it is hidden under a thick verdant forest ending in a ridgeline beyond which the cones whose slopes gradually disappear towards the coast. The rest are meadows with groves, or sandy beaches, with overhangs jutting out their last layer in the form of promontory and arbitrarily tapering headlands.Several small bays cut off the coast, but there was no room for two or three fishing boats to take refuge there.Only the bay in which the Phantasm sank was within seven or eight miles.It was like an outer anchorage, two-thirds of the compass open; a ship could find no sure shelter there, at least not from the east. But what is the island like?What geographic group does it belong to?Does it belong to an archipelago, or is it just an isolated fault in this part of the Pacific Ocean? In any case, I looked around and saw not a single island, large or small, high or low. Godfrey stood up again to check the horizon.On this circular line where water and sky blend, there is nothing.If there were some island or the coast of a continent upwind or downwind, it could only be at a considerable distance. Godfrey summoned all his geographical memory to be able to determine what island in the Pacific it was.Through deduction, he concluded: "Dream", in 17 days, generally sailed towards the southwest.However, at 150 to 180 knots per 24 hours, it should have gone about 50 degrees.On the other hand, it is certain that it does not cross the equator line.The position of this island, or of the archipelago to which it may belong, must therefore be sought between 160° and 170° north latitude. In this part of the Pacific, it seemed to Godfrey that no other archipelago was mentioned to him on the map than the Sandwich Islands; yet, were there isolated islands beyond this archipelago whose names he could not remember? , all the way to the coastal areas of the Celestial Dynasty? Besides, it doesn't matter.There is no way to find a more hospitable piece of land at another point in the Pacific Ocean. "Well," thought Godfrey, "since I don't know the name of the island, I'll call it Fina Island in honor of her whom I should not leave in order to travel the world, and hope the name will bring us luck. !" Godfrey therefore busied himself to see whether those parts of the island which he had not yet visited were inhabited. From the top of the cone he saw no trace of the natives, no dwellings on the meadows, no houses on the edge of the woods, not even a fisherman's hut on the shore. But if the island is uninhabited, so is the sea that surrounds it, and not a single ship appears on the perimeter as far as it can be seen from the height of the cone. When Godfrey finished his survey, he only had to go down the hill and retrace the road back into the forest to rejoin Tatley there.But, before leaving the place, his eye was attracted by a kind of tall-branched arbor, which stood on the edge of the meadow to the north.It was a colossal bunch: beyond the top of everything Godfrey had seen up to that point. "Perhaps," he thought, "it will be necessary to try to settle in this direction, and if I am not mistaken, it is better, and I see a small river, which may arise from some source in the middle mountains and flow through that meadow." That will be checked tomorrow. Further south, the island looks slightly different.Forests and meadows give way more quickly to yellow sand and, in many places, chic rocky protrusions on coastal beaches. But Godfrey was astonished when he believed he saw, beyond the rock barrier, a wisp of smoke rising in the air. "Could any of our companions be there!" he exclaimed. "Oh no! That's impossible! Why have they been out of the bay since yesterday, and miles from the reef? Could it therefore be a fishing village? , or a temporary lodging for some indigenous tribe?" Godfrey watched intently. Is this thin cloud of steam, pressed gently by the wind to the west, really a plume of smoke?Probably a mistake.In any case, they disappeared shortly after: after a few minutes, nothing was to be seen. It was a lost hope. Godfrey looked in this direction for the last time; then, seeing nothing, he let himself slide down the slope, down the slope of the hill again, and re-enter the depths under the woods. An hour later, he walked through the whole forest and came to the edge of the forest. There, Tutley was waiting among his pack of two-legged and four-legged animals.Also, what is the stubborn professor up to?Still that thing.He held a piece of wood in his right hand and another in his left, still trying exhaustingly to set them ablaze.He rubbed, rubbing with a patience that deserved better luck. "So," he asked, seeing Godfrey from a distance, "the telegraph office?" "No door," replied Godfrey, still daring to speak of their situation. "What about the post office?" "Closed! Let's eat! . . . I'm starving! . . . We'll talk after dinner." Godfrey and his companions still had to make do with this simple meal of raw eggs and shellfish that morning! "A very wholesome and specific recipe!" Godfrey said again to Tatley, who ate reluctantly with some disagreement.