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After their mutual embraces were over, Lady Helena, and Mary Grant, and John Mangles, were informed of the principal incidents of the expedition, and especially of the new interpretation of the document, due to the sagacity of Jacques Paganel.
“Cheer up, friends, cheer up! Captain Grant is not with us, but we have a certainty of finding him!” said Lord Glenarvan.
“Has his Lordship any orders to give me about the Duncan?” asked John Mangles.
“After breakfast, John,” replied Glenarvan, “we’ll discuss the program of our new expedition.”
As soon as breakfast was over they all went into Lord Glenarvan’s private cabin and seated themselves round a table covered with charts and plans, to talk over the matter fully.
“My dear Helena,” said Lord Glenarvan, “I told you, when we came on board a little while ago, that though we had not brought back Captain Grant, our hope of finding him was stronger than ever. The result of our journey across America is this: We have reached the conviction that the shipwreck never occurred on the shores of the Atlantic nor Pacific. Our interpretation of the document was erroneous. Most fortunately, our friend Paganel, in a happy moment of inspiration, discovered the mistake. However, as the document is in French, I will ask Paganel to go over it for your benefit.”
The learned geographer pointed out that Captain Grant, on leaving the coast of Peru to return to Europe, might have been carried away with his ship right to the shores of Australia. Glenarvan announced that the Duncan would sail immediately for Australia.
“After leaving the Atlantic,” said Paganel. “We pass two degrees below the Cape of Good Hope, and into the Indian Ocean.”
“And where is the next point?” asked McNabbs.
“That is easily answered. Steer straight for Tristan d’Acunha.”
“Immediately, your Honor,” replied the captain, going on deck.
The Duncan had left the American coast, and was running eastward, cutting its way through the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
The passengers had fallen back into their ordinary ship life, and it hardly seemed as if they really could have been absent a whole month. The sea was tranquil, and the wind kept in the right quarter.
Under such conditions, the voyage was safely and rapidly accomplished. Their confidence increased as they found themselves nearer the Australian coast.
At break of day, the man on the look-out was heard calling out, “Land ahead!”
This exciting cry brought everyone speedily on deck. Soon a telescope made its appearance, followed by Jacques Paganel. The learned geographer pointed the instrument in the direction indicated, but could see nothing that resembled land.
“Look in the clouds,” said John Mangles.
“Ah, now I do see a sort of peak, but very indistinctly.”
“It is Tristan d’Acunha,” replied John Mangles.
“Then, if my memory serves me right, we must be eighty miles from it, for the peak of Tristan, seven thousand feet high, is visible at that distance.”
“That’s it, precisely.”
Some hours later, the sharp, lofty crags of the group of islands stood out clearly on the horizon. The conical peak of Tristan looked black against the bright sky. Soon the principal island stood out from the rocky mass.
Tristan d’Acunha is situated in 37 degrees 8’ of southern latitude, and 10 degrees 44’ of longitude west of the meridian at Greenwich.
John Mangle’s first care was to find good anchorage, and then all the passengers, both ladies and gentlemen, got into the long boat and were rowed ashore. They stepped out on a beach covered with fine black sand.
Tristan d’Acunha is the capital of the group, and consists of a little village, lying in the heart of the bay, and watered by a noisy, rapid stream. It contained about fifty houses, tolerably clean. The population does not exceed 150 inhabitants, and consists of English and Americans.
The boats returned to the Duncan. They had made the circuit of the entire island in a few hours, but without coming across the least trace of the Britannia.
As John Mangles intended to put in at the Cape of Good Hope for coals, he was obliged to deviate a little from the 37th parallel, and go two degrees north. At eight o’clock they entered the bay, and cast anchor in the port of Cape Town. They sailed away next morning at daybreak.
Between the Cape and Amsterdam Island there is a distance of 2,900 miles, but with a good sea and favoring breeze, this was only a ten day’s voyage.
“Ah! The sea! The sea!” exclaimed Paganel. “It is the field for the exercise of human energies, and the ship is the true vehicle of civilization. Think, my friends, if the globe had been only an immense continent, the thousandth part of it would still be unknown to us, even in this nineteenth century. Twenty miles of desert separate men more than five hundred miles of ocean.”
Paganel spoke with such warmth that even the Major had nothing to say against this panegyric of the ocean. On the 6th of December, at the first streak of day, they saw a fresh mountain apparently emerging from the bosom of the waves.
This was Amsterdam Island, situated in 37 degrees 47” latitude and 77 degrees 24” longitude, the high cone of which in clear weather is visible fifty miles off.
“It resembles Tristan d’Acunha,” observed Glenarvan.
“A very wise conclusion,” said Paganel, “I will only add that, like Tristan d’Acunha, Amsterdam Island is equally rich in seals and Robinsons.”
“Monsieur Paganel,” said Mary, “may I ask you a question?”
“Two if you like, my dear young lady, and I promise to answer them.”
“Well, then, I want to know if you would be very much frightened at the idea of being cast away alone on a desert island.”
“I?” exclaimed Paganel. “Oh, after all, such an adventure would not be very unpleasant to me. I should begin a new life; I should hunt and fish; I should choose a grotto for my domicile in winter and a tree in summer. I should make storehouses for my harvests: in one word, I should colonize my island.”
“My dear Monsieur Paganel,” said Lady Helena, “you are letting your imagination run away with you, as usual. But the dream is very different from the reality. You are thinking of an imaginary Robinson’s life, you only see the sunny side.”
“What, madam! You don’t believe a man could be happy on a desert island?”
“I do not. Man is made for society and not for solitude. He will be like the last man on the last day of the world. Believe me, Monsieur Paganel, such a man is not to be envied.”
The very moment the Duncan dropped anchor about a mile off Amsterdam Island. This lonely group in the Indian Ocean consists of two distinct islands, thirty-three miles apart, and situated exactly on the meridian of the Indian peninsula. To the north is Amsterdam Island, and to the south St. Paul; but they have been often confounded by geographers and navigators.
At the time of the Duncan’s visit to the island, the population consisted of three people, a Frenchman and two mulattoes. Glenarvan was not surprised; indeed, his object was to establish the fact that Captain Grant had not been there. So they were ready to proceed on their voyage next day.
Toward evening, after a long promenade, Glenarvan and his party bade adieu to that Frenchman, and returned to the yacht, wishing him all the happiness possible on his desert island, and receiving in return the old man’s blessing on their expedition.
By eight o’clock, when the passengers came on deck, the Amsterdam Island had almost disappeared from view behind the mists of the horizon. This was the last halting-place on the route, and nothing now was between them and the Australian coast but three thousand miles’ distance.
Mary Grant and her brother could not gaze without emotion at the waves through which the Duncan was speeding its course. Here, perhaps, Captain Grant, with a disabled ship and diminished crew, had struggled against the tremendous hurricanes of the Indian Ocean.
It was one evening, about six days after their leaving Amsterdam Island, when they were all chatting together on the poop.
“All that remains to be done now,” said Glenarvan, “is to get to Australia, and look out for traces of the wreck on the western coast.”
“Or the eastern?” said John Mangles.
“Indeed, John, you may be right, for there is nothing in the document to indicate which shore was the scene of the catastrophe, and both points of the continent crossed by the 37th parallel, must, therefore, be explored.”
“Then, my Lord, it is doubtful, after all,” said Mary.
“Oh no, Miss Mary,” John Mangles hastened to reply. “His Lordship will consider that if Captain Grant had gained the shore on the east of Australia, he would almost immediately have found refuge and assistance. The whole of that coast is English, we might say, peopled with colonists.”
“I am quite of your opinion, Captain John,” said Paganel. “On the eastern coast Harry Grant would not only have found an English colony easily, but he would certainly have met with some means of transport back to Europe.”
“But what has become of my father there, then, all these two years?” asked Mary Grant.
“The suppositions we might make,” replied Paganel, “are not numerous. They are confined to three. Either Harry Grant and his companions have found their way to the English colonies, or they have fallen into the hands of the natives, or they are lost in the immense wilds of Australia. The first hypothesis I reject, then, for Harry Grant could not have reached the English colonies, or long ago he would have been back with his children. All that I affirm is that Captain Grant is in the hands of the natives.”
“But these natives,” said Lady Helena, hastily, “are they—”
“The aborigines of Australia are low enough in the scale of human intelligence, and most degraded and uncivilized, but they are mild and gentle, and not sanguinary like their New Zealand neighbors.”
“You hear what Monsieur Paganel tells us, Mary,” said Lady Helena turning to the young girl. “If your father is in the hands of the natives, which seems probable from the document, we shall find him.”
“And what if he is lost in that immense country?” asked Mary.
“Well, we’ll find him still,” exclaimed Paganel, in a confident tone. “Won’t we, friends?”
“Most certainly,” replied Glenarvan; and he added: “But I won’t admit the supposition of his being lost, not for an instant.”
“Neither will I,” said Paganel.
“Is Australia a big place?” inquired Robert.
“Australia, my boy, is about as large as four-fifths of Europe. It has somewhere about 775,000 hectares.”
“So much as that?” said the Major.
“Yes, McNabbs. Don’t you think now it has a right to be called a continent?”
“I do, certainly.”
“The whole of Australia, then, is not yet explored?” asked Lady Helena.
“No, madam, but very little of it. This continent is not much better known than the interior of Africa!”
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