The Mysterious Island

Introduction

As a young boy in the seaside town of Nantes, Jules Verne was very bright and very curious. When he was eleven years old, he tried to run away to sea on a merchant ship. Luckily for us readers, his dad caught him so he couldn’t get away with it. Jules’ younger brother did become a sailor, and he never wrote any novels.

Jules mostly daydreamed his way through his school studies. He left Nantes for glamorous Paris and labored his way through law school, but he never practiced law. Instead, he became a stockbroker. He hated it and he never made a lot of money at it. He wrote plays and he tried to manage a theater, but the theater lost money and Jules never wrote a hit. Until the age of thirty-five, he was basically aimless and unsettled in life. He was a bright man with many interests and a playful mind, but he seemed to lack a goal.

Then he married and became the stepfather of two young daughters. Seriously low on cash, Jules finally turned to writing adventure stories. Things quickly improved for him then, because Jules Verne could write a kind of fiction that nobody had ever read before. It was exciting, fantastic and romantic, yet it was also educational and scientifically accurate. Jules quickly won a reputation inside France as a popular writer who knew more about the wonders of the world than most authors ever bothered to learn.

In 1873, his novel Around the World in Eighty Days was a major success. That book was popular almost everywhere. The works of Jules Verne were quickly published in many languages, and by 1874, when he started writing The Mysterious Island, Jules Verne was a world-famous author. While Jules was cheerfully plugging along on this book, Around the World in Eighty Days became a hugely successful stage play. The play featured top-notch special effects, including tame snakes and an elephant. The theater finally earned Jules a fortune.

So, as he developed and explored The Mysterious Island, Jules Verne triumphed over his years of struggle. His family was amazed and pleased to see him truly rich and famous. He had a grand new house in Amiens—a town that he liked and that liked him in return, a nice place where everyone looked up to him as a prestigious author, the most famous guy in town. He owned a handsome steam yacht that he could sail anywhere he pleased. He was a member of the French Legion of Honor. Things were really going his way, and anything seemed possible. After all those moody years of effort and setbacks, Jules Verne was able to catch his breath and let his belt out a couple of notches. Finally he could write just the kind of book that he himself most enjoyed.

This book is it. The Mysterious Island is a book all about world-building. It’s about a bunch of bright, lonely guys who seem to have all the odds in the world stacked against them. And yet, thanks to their knowledge, hard work, and imagination, they can create a new world of their own, a world that suits them right down to the ground.

This book was part of a long series by Jules, the Extraordinary Voyages. It is closely linked to two of his other books, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which was much respected and is still read, and The Children of Captain Grant, which was a nice sentimental success at the time. Jules knew that The Mysterious Island was bound to win a big audience. Here was his chance to show the world how much he had learned and what he could do with that knowledge.

Most of these Extraordinary Voyage books are about trips to real-world countries—exotic but actual places like, say, Australia and Venezuela. Jules Verne was a very globally minded writer. During his long career he was able to write fiction about almost every country on Earth. He was never sloppy about this, either; he was always tight and disciplined. Whenever Jules was writing about an exotic new country, he would personally interview scientists, read explorers’ reports, and go far out of his way to get the facts right. Very few fiction writers have ever been able to beat Jules Verne at factual research. Jules Verne was perfectly capable of writing encyclopedias. In fact, he did once write an encyclopedia, with a complete geographical description of every province in France.

However, the real world always cramped his imaginative style. The Verne books we like best today are the ones with the wildest, most fantastic, out-of-this-world settings: the bottom of the sea, the dark side of the moon, the center of the Earth.

The Mysterious Island is made of pure fantasy, and it is indeed a profoundly mysterious place. This island is a small world that Jules Verne built from nothing but his imagination, words, and a blank white page. Jules Verne’s true subject in this book is not an island but the whole world, the forces that make the world, the attitudes that shape it, and the structures that hold it together. The mysterious island is a microcosm, a miniature version of the universe. _ The mysterious island may seem barren, unstable, and threatening to the castaways who arrive there. As the book shows, the island is unstable and profoundly scary. However, the island proves to have most everything that the real world supplies to mankind. It generously provides all the water, fuel, minerals, and timber that inventive people would ever need. This beautiful wild island features not just some wildlife, but all the coolest, weirdest kinds of wildlife in the word: kangaroos, capybaras, agoutis, jaguars, cockatoos, penguins, and porcupines. It has terrific weather, a live volcano, marshes, cliffs, forests, bays, and beaches.

No human being (or so it seems) has ever seen or touched this wondrous, deserted little world. It is romantically perfect, and it’s completely unexploited. But that’s not the best part of this narrative. The best part is that the five guys (and their dog) who master this island arrive there with nothing at all.

These five adventurers are probably the poorest people ever to be the stars of a classic book. They had to ditch all of their possessions as their hot-air balloon was crashing on the island, so they arrive there totally destitute. Their tough situation makes Robinson Crusoe’s island look like a Wal-Mart.

These men are very far from being lucky, pampered characters. Like Jules Verne himself, they have struggled and suffered. Even before this book begins, these men have put in some hard time. They are five escaped prisoners of war—the Civil War, the worst time that America ever had. Their leader is an engineer who has been through some of the war’s most savage battles, and has been wounded and captured. His de facto second-in-command is a war journalist who has witnessed and described all kinds of bloodshed. The third is a crazily daring soldier who thinks nothing of stealing a leaky balloon and escaping the Confederates by flying away in a hurricane. The fourth hero is an ex-slave. The last one, a teenage kid, is an orphan.

These five guys have plenty of good reasons to moan, wring their hands, and regret their hard lot in life. They are a bunch of shell-shocked POWs with nothing to their names, blown to a deserted island in a violent hurricane. They own nothing, and they might well die from thirst, hunger, pirates, or exploding volcanoes.

Yet they never complain. They never despair. They are confident because they have brains. They have vision, will, and imagination. They can think, plan, and hope. They also have ten hardworking hands and a very extensive understanding of exactly what it takes to build a world, starting from scratch.

And that is exactly what they proceed to do. They build themselves a world, chapter after chapter, in fascinating detail. They are Jules Verne characters in a Jules Verne book, so everything they do is thoroughly researched and very plausible. Their schemes, machines, and homemade gizmos might even work out in real life! These five men are literally rebuilding civilization, more or less out of beach sand and twigs. That sounds completely impossible, but nevertheless, up it goes, step by step. True to the nineteenth century, the first machine they build is a coal-burning smokestack. Once they can make bricks and steel, there is just no stopping them.

Jules Verne liked Robinson Crusoe situations, the lonely drama of a man confronting the universe. He wrote about this theme again and again, because it spoke so strongly to his own temperament and his own ambitions. To build a world from nothing is a mighty struggle of the imagination. Basically, it’s like proving that our own real world can fit inside the head of one person. The Mysterious Island proves that its author understands the world better than that world can understand him.

By his inquisitive nature, Jules Verne wanted to learn everything in the world that mattered. That is impossible, but the effort is exhilarating. You don’t have to be a grown-up to undertake that kind of work. On the contrary, comprehending the world is the kind of work that is best suited to teenagers. Teenagers are bright, energetic strangers who are trying to find out who they are and how things work, and to create a place for themselves in a mysterious universe. That is hard labor, but teenagers do it. Teenagers are energetic and imaginative and quick to learn, and just like the guys in The Mysterious Island, teenagers don’t have a lot of baggage.

In a later book rather like The Mysterious Island, a novel called Two Years’ Holiday, Jules got rid of all the adult characters. Instead, he wrecked a junior high school class on a desert island—a bunch of kids aged eight to thirteen. These young people turn out to be bright and flexible. They don’t have much to lose by this big change in their circumstances—from a civilized boarding school to permanent, savage summer vacation. They get along pretty well.

The people in The Mysterious Island also do rather nicely by their surprise visit to an untamed wilderness. If you read this book closely, you will see that all the characters have serious difficulties with the big, hostile world outside their island. They are not just refugees—they are escaping a bigger world that has rejected each of them, in one way or another. All the characters in this book—the good guys, the villains, the superstar from another Jules Verne book making a surprise cameo—they are all former slaves, escaped prisoners, or failed revolutionaries.

It’s no wonder that they find comfort in a smaller world where everything is their own invention. No small, invented world can ever be the same as the whole world. Every model is a simpler version of reality, so there are always missing parts. There are some notable parts of the world that are missing from the miniature world of The Mysterious Island. Remember that before he became a world-famous author, Jules Verne studied to be a lawyer and worked as a stockbroker. He knew plenty about law and commerce, but in this model world, there are no laws and also no commerce. There are no money, no banks, no markets, no laws, and no government.

There are no women in this small toy world. The men don’t miss them or worry about them; they never seem to have known any women. They never pine over their missing wives, sweethearts, sisters, or daughters. The sailor, who is the heart and soul of the small group, does mention his dear dead mother—once. He says that he loves the mysterious island just as he once loved his mother. Verne has arranged his book so that this invented world is their mother.

There is a whole lot of technology in this book, but it’s very romantic technology. It’s entirely homemade, and nothing ever gets bought or sold. When useful tools show up inside a floating box, these tools have no prices and no manufacturer. When books show up, the books have no publisher. Artifacts from the outside world often appear on the mysterious island, but they’re always salvaged, or stolen by pirates, or appear out of nothingness, floating in like messages in bottles.

Despite their ceaseless hard work and their scanty food and clothing, the men never quarrel. They’re not greedy; they’re not lazy; they’re not moody or whiny. Through building their little world, they are completely fulfilled.

Every hero on the mysterious island always agrees with Cyrus, the boss, and his ambitious plans and orders. Since Cyrus is an engineer and he knows more about technology than the rest of them, he is completely accepted as their natural leader. In a very savage world, these are very civilized men. Being civilized, and becoming even more civilized, means more to them than anything else. Even a captured ape quickly turns civilized, once he is in their company. Even a criminal madman can get reformed by them, and can rediscover his humanity and his conscience. Everything they touch gets better.

Unless they are praying on Sunday, these men work constantly. At first they work very hard just to survive, but once they have their feet under them, they really knuckle down. They never let up on improving their world, and even though their mysterious island might well blow up at any time, it never occurs to them that they might be wasting some effort. To build a new world is its own reward. Verne knows this, because he is in his snug writerly office in Amiens, surrounded by thousands of his careful notes and documents, pulling all the strings to build this world inside a novel. It’s just like building a ship inside a bottle, and as this book shows, nothing excites Jules Verne quite like building a ship.

These men feel honored and happy to labor and suffer for the sake of putting their world into order. Progress is both a spiritual quest and a kind of play. Their work is their play: it is their very being. There is a kind of naturalness and holiness to their effort that renders their lives pure and meaningful. They are limpid and sincere people, never balky, frustrated, or cynical. Their leader, Cyrus the engineer, has a motto that’s to the point: I have no need of hope in order to undertake, nor of success in order to persevere.

Cyrus has no need for any emotional fuss. He has an undisturbed face, calm and noble, like an image on a coin. Cyrus requires no excuses or encouragement. Cyrus needs no motive to transform the world—Cyrus is the transformation of the world. Cyrus is a serene spiritual master of science and technology. As Verne remarks, Cyrus is like a book always open to the right page. He understands, he undertakes, he perseveres, and he always performs.

Most of the time, the natives of the mysterious island stay cheerfully busy, changing their savage little world and righteously making it their own, industriously building elevators, windmills, and laundry soap. Every once in a while, though, they sit still and talk over deeper matters. Then they become philosophers.

In one particularly impressive passage, Cyrus the wise engineer soberly discusses the future fate of their island. Being a volcanic island, it might well blow up someday. But there is a bigger lesson here, a lesson that Jules Verne offers us, using his mysterious island as his experiment to explore the harsh laws of nature. Someday all the Earth’s dangerous volcanoes may grow cold and give out. Then all the world’s continents will get worn down by erosion and wash into the sea. There will be no more new mountains rising from the seas, and no more fresh, new continents. That means that the whole world will grow old, and all life will become extinct.

So life on the little mysterious island is vulnerable and mysterious—just as all life on Earth is vulnerable and mysterious. We don’t know why life exists in this dangerous world, why we are here, how long it is all to last, or what’s to become of us and what we love. That is a mystery.

The castaways of the mysterious island are intrigued by this puzzle, but it does not hurt them or paralyze their will to act. They look extinction in the eye, and they simply move on. The eventual death of every living thing might be a scientific theory—more likely (says the journalist) it’s a true prophecy. But even if all life must end someday, the men still have their work to keep them fulfilled. They are so fearless in their earnest achievements that death holds no terrors for them. They will build as best they can, just as if they are building for eternity.

Once they’ve invented exploding nitroglycerine—and they do—the men of the mysterious island have an even more remarkable discovery. They know that they themselves, mere mortal human beings, can blow up the entire island and kill everything on it. Their technology has given them mighty powers over life and death. But that’s not scary or depressing news to our heroes. That too is progress, at least progress of some sort. They joke about it, even. The idea of blowing up the world just cheers them up.

The heroes of this book will never stop scheming, planning, exploring, and building—not while there is one breath of life left to them. They arrived in their world with nothing, and their destination may well be nothingness, but in the meantime they will put their time to the best possible use.

There is something truly heroic about this decision. They are making a stark, elemental choice about the role of mankind in the universe. They are not one bit concerned with money, fame, law, power, commerce, or anything that is usually called worldly. Instead, they’ve found a kind of truth.

They are making the very same decision that Jules Verne himself was making as he wrote this book. Jules Verne had just enjoyed a big success as an author. For the first time in his life, his own little world was looking very good. As a stockbroker, he knew a lot about investing money. He could have easily put his feet up, stopped all his hard work and eager research, and had a quiet life of lazy ease for the rest of his natural days. He could have sailed the world in his beautiful yacht. He could have lived the kind of life that most people do tend to live on lazy tropical islands.

But Jules Verne decided otherwise. He had finally settled on what seemed to him the proper way of life. He never stopped inventing and building imaginary worlds. He went on writing for as long as his hand could hold a pen.

—BRUCE STERLING

PART 1

DROPPED FROM THE CLOUDS

Chapter 1

Are we rising again? No. On the contrary. Are we descending? Worse than that, captain! we are falling! For Heaven’s sake heave out the ballast! There! the last sack is empty! Does the balloon rise? No! I hear a noise like the dashing of waves! The sea is below the car! It cannot be more than 500 feet from us! Overboard with every weight! ... everything!

Such were the loud and startling words which resounded through the air, above the vast watery desert of the Pacific, about four o‘clock in the evening of the 23rd of March, 1865.

Few can possibly have forgotten the terrible storm from the northeast, in the middle of the equinox of that year. The tempest raged without intermission from the 18th to the 26th of March. Its ravages were terrible in America, Europe, and Asia, covering a distance of eighteen hundred miles, and extending obliquely to the equator from the thirty-fifth north parallel to the fortieth south parallel. Towns were overthrown, forests uprooted, coasts devastated by the mountains of water which were precipitated on them, vessels cast on the shore, which the published accounts numbered by hundreds, whole districts leveled by waterspouts which destroyed everything they passed over, several thousand people crushed on land or drowned at sea; such were the traces of its fury, left by this devastating tempest. It surpassed in disasters those which so frightfully ravaged Havana and Guada lupe, one on the 25th of October, 1810, the other on the 26th of July, 1825.

But while so many catastrophes were taking place on land and at sea, a drama not less exciting was being enacted, in the agitated air.

In fact, a balloon, as a ball might be carried on the summit of a waterspout, had been taken into the circling movement of a column of air and had traversed space at the rate of ninety miles an hour, turning round and round as if seized by some aerial maelstrom.

Beneath the lower point of the balloon swung a car, containing five passengers, scarcely visible in the midst of the thick vapor mingled with spray which hung over the surface of the ocean.

Whence, it may be asked, had come that plaything of the tempest? From what part of the world did it rise? It surely could not have started during the storm. But the storm had raged five days already, and the first symptoms were manifested on the 18th. It cannot be doubted that the balloon came from a great distance, for it could not have traveled less than two thousand miles in twenty-four hours.

At any rate the passengers, destitute of all marks for their guidance, could not have possessed the means of reckoning the route traversed since their departure. It was a remarkable fact that, although in the very midst of the furious tempest, they did not suffer from it. They were thrown about and whirled round and round without feeling the rotation in the slightest degree, or being sensible that they were removed from a horizontal position.

Their eyes could not pierce through the thick mist which had gathered beneath the car. Dark vapor was all around them. Such was the density of the atmosphere that they could not be certain whether it was day or night. No reflection of light, no sound from inhabited land, no roaring of the ocean could have reached them, through the obscurity, while suspended in those elevated zones. Their rapid descent alone had informed them of the dangers which they ran from the waves. However, the balloon, lightened of heavy articles, such as ammunition, arms, and provisions, had risen into the higher layers of the atmosphere, to a height of 4,500 feet. The voyagers, after having discovered that the sea extended beneath them, and thinking the dangers above less dreadful than those below, did not hesitate to throw overboard even their most useful articles, while they endeavored to lose no more of that fluid, the life of their enterprise, which sustained them above the abyss.

The night passed in the midst of alarms which would have been death to less energetic souls. Again the day appeared and with it the tempest began to moderate. From the beginning of that day, the 24th of March, it showed symptoms of abating. At dawn, some of the lighter clouds had risen into the more lofty regions of the air. In a few hours the wind had changed from a hurricane to a fresh breeze, that is to say, the rate of the transit of the atmospheric layers was diminished by half. It was still what sailors call a close-reefed topsail breeze, but the commotion in the elements had none the less considerably diminished.

Towards eleven o‘clock, the lower region of the air was sensibly clearer. The atmosphere threw off that chilly dampness which is felt after the passage of a great meteor. The storm did not seem to have gone farther to the west. It appeared to have exhausted itself. Could it have passed away in electric sheets, as is sometimes the case with regard to the typhoons of the Indian Ocean?

But at the same time, it was also evident that the balloon was again slowly descending with a regular movement. It appeared as if it were, little by little, collapsing, and that its case was lengthening amd extending, passing from a spherical to an oval form. Towards midday the balloon was hovering above the sea at a height of only 2,000 feet. It contained 50,000 cubic feet of gas, and, thanks to its capacity, it could maintain itself a long time in the air, although it should reach a great altitude or might be thrown into a horizontal position.

Perceiving their danger, the passengers cast away the last articles which still weighed down the car, the few provisions they had kept, everything, even to their pocket-knives, and one of them, having hoisted himself on to the circles which united the cords of the net, tried to secure more firmly the lower point of the balloon.

It was, however, evident to the voyagers that the gas was failing, and that the balloon could no longer be sustained in the higher regions. They must infallibly perish!

There was not a continent, nor even an island, visible beneath them. The watery expanse did not present a single speck of land, not a solid surface upon which their anchor could hold.

It was the open sea, whose waves were still dashing with tremendous violence! It was the ocean, without any visible limits, even for those whose gaze, from their commanding position, extended over a radius of forty miles. The vast liquid plain, lashed without mercy by the storm, appeared as if covered with herds of furious chargers, whose white and disheveled crests were streaming in the wind. No land was in sight, not a solitary ship could be seen. It was necessary at any cost to arrest their downward course, and to prevent the balloon from being engulfed in the waves. The voyagers directed all their energies to this urgent work. But, notwithstanding their efforts, the balloon still fell, and at the same time shifted with the greatest rapidity, following the direction of the wind, that is to say, from the northeast to the southwest.

Frightful indeed was the situation of these unfortunate men. They were evidently no longer masters of the machine. All their attempts were useless. The case of the balloon collapsed more and more. The gas escaped without any possibility of retaining it. Their descent was visibly accelerated, and soon after midday the car hung within 600 feet of the ocean.

It was impossible to prevent the escape of gas, which rushed through a large rent in the silk. By lightening the car of all the articles which it contained, the passengers had been able to prolong their suspension in the air for a few hours. But the inevitable catastrophe could only be retarded, and if land did not appear before night, voyagers, car, and balloon must to a certainty vanish beneath the waves.

They now resorted to the only remaining expedient. They were truly dauntless men, who knew how to look death in the face. Not a single murmur escaped from their lips. They were determined to struggle to the last minute, to do anything to retard their fall. The car was only a sort of willow basket, unable to float, and there was not the slightest possibility of maintaining it on the surface of the sea.

Two more hours passed and the balloon was scarcely 400 feet above the water.

At that moment a loud voice, the voice of a man whose heart was inaccessible to fear, was heard. To this voice responded others not less determined. Is everything thrown out? No, here are still 2,000 dollars in gold. A heavy bag immediately plunged into the sea. Does the balloon rise? A little, but it will not be long before it falls again. What still remains to be thrown out? Nothing. Yes! the car! Let us catch hold of the net, and into the sea with the car.

This was, in fact, the last and only mode of lightening the balloon. The ropes which held the car were cut, and the balloon, after its fall, mounted 2,000 feet. The five voyagers had hoisted themselves into the net, and clung to the meshes, gazing at the abyss.

The delicate sensibility of balloons is well known. It is sufficient to throw out the lightest article to produce a difference in its vertical position. The apparatus in the air is like a balance of mathematical precision. It can be thus easily understood that when it is lightened of any considerable weight its movement will be impetuous and sudden. So it happened on this occasion. But after being suspended for an instant aloft, the balloon began to redescend, the gas escaping by the rent which it was impossible to repair.

The men had done all that men could do. No human efforts could save them now.

They must trust to the mercy of Him who rules the elements. At four o‘clock the balloon was only 500 feet above the surface of the water.

A loud barking was heard. A dog accompanied the voyagers, and was held pressed close to his master in the meshes of the net.

Top has seen something, cried one of the men. Then immediately a loud voice shouted,—

Land! land! The balloon, which the wind still drove towards the southwest, had since daybreak gone a considerable distance, which might be reckoned by hundreds of miles, and a tolerably high land had, in fact, appeared in that direction. But this land was still thirty miles off. It would not take less than an hour to get to it, and then there was the chance of falling to leeward.

An hour! Might not the balloon before that be emptied of all the fluid it yet retained?

Such was the terrible question! The voyagers could distinctly see that solid spot which they must reach at any cost. They were ignorant of what it was, whether an island or a continent, for they did not know to what part of the world the hurricane had driven them. But they must reach this land, whether inhabited or desolate, whether hospitable or not.

It was evident that the balloon could no longer support itself! Several times already had the crests of the enormous billows licked the bottom of the net, making it still heavier, and the balloon only half rose, like a bird with a wounded wing. Half an hour later the land was not more than a mile off, but the balloon, exhausted, flabby, hanging in great folds, had gas in its upper part alone. The voyagers, clinging to the net, were still too heavy for it, and soon, half plunged into the sea, they were beaten by the furious waves. The balloon-case bulged out again, and the wind, taking it, drove it along like a vessel. Might it not possibly thus reach the land?

But, when only two fathoms off, terrible cries resounded from four pairs of lungs at once. The balloon, which had appeared as if it would never again rise, suddenly made an unexpected bound, after having been struck by a tremendous sea. As if it had been at that instant relieved of a new part of its weight, it mounted to a height of 1,500 feet, and here it met a current of wind, which instead of taking it directly to the coast, carried it in a nearly parallel direction.

At last, two minutes later, it reapproached obliquely, and finally fell on a sandy beach, out of the reach of the waves.

The voyagers, aiding each other, managed to disengage themselves from the meshes of the net. The balloon, relieved of their weight, was taken by the wind, and like a wounded bird which revives for an instant, disappeared into space.

But the car had contained five passengers, with a dog, and the balloon only left four on the shore.

The missing person had evidently been swept off by the sea, which had just struck the net, and it was owing to this circumstance that the lightened balloon rose the last time, and then soon after reached the land. Scarcely had the four castaways set foot on firm ground, than they all, thinking of the absent one, simultaneously exclaimed, Perhaps he will try to swim to land! Let us save him! let us save him!

Chapter 2

Those whom the hurricane had just thrown on this coast were neither aeronauts by profession nor amateurs. They were prisoners of war whose boldness had induced them to escape in this extraordinary manner.

A hundred times they had almost perished! A hundred times had they almost fallen from their torn balloon into the depths of the ocean. But Heaven had reserved them for a strange destiny, and after having, on the 20th of March, escaped from Richmond, besieged by the troops of General Ulysses Grant, they found themselves seven thousand miles from the capital of Virginia, which was the principal stronghold of the South, during the terrible War of Secession. Their aerial voyage had lasted five days.

The curious circumstances which led to the escape of the prisoners were as follows:

That same year, in the month of February, 1865, in one of the coups de main by which General Grant attempted, though in vain, to possess himself of Richmond, several of his officers fell into the power of the enemy and were detained in the town. One of the most distinguished was Captain Cyrus Harding. He was a native of Massachusetts, a first-class engineer, to whom the government had confided, during the war, the direction of the railways, which were so important at that time. A true Northerner, thin, bony, lean, about forty-five years of age; his close-cut hair and his beard, of which he only kept a thick mustache, were already getting gray. He had one of those finely-developed heads which appear made to be struck on a medal, piercing eyes, a serious mouth, the physiognomy of a clever man of the military school. He was one of those engineers who began by handling the hammer and pickaxe, like generals who first act as common soldiers. Besides mental power, he also possessed great manual dexterity. His muscles exhibited remarkable proofs of tenacity. A man of action as well as a man of thought, all he did was without effort to one of his vigorous and sanguine temperament. Learned, clear-headed, and practical, he fulfilled in all emergencies those three conditions which united ought to insure human success—activity of mind and body, impetuous wishes, and powerful will. He might have taken for his motto that of William of Orange in the 17th century: I can undertake and persevere even without hope of success. Cyrus Harding was courage personified. He had been in all the battles of that war. After having begun as a volunteer at Illinois, under Ulysses Grant, he fought at Paducah, Belmont, Pittsburg Landing, at the siege of Corinth, Port Gibson, Black River, Chattanooga, the Wilderness, on the Potomac, everywhere and valiantly, a soldier worthy of the general who said, I never count my dead! And hundreds of times Captain Harding had almost been among those who were not counted by the terrible Grant; but in these combats where he never spared himself, fortune favored him till the moment when he was wounded and taken prisoner on the field of battle near Richmond. At the same time and on the same day another important personage fell into the hands of the Southerners. This was no other than Gideon Spilett, a reporter for the New York Herald, who had been ordered to follow the changes of the war in the midst of the Northern armies.

Gideon Spilett was one of that race of indomitable English or American chroniclers, like Stanley and others, who stop at nothing to obtain exact information, and transmit it to their journal in the shortest possible time. The newspapers of the Union, such as the New York Herald, are genuine powers, and their reporters are men to be reckoned with. Gideon Spilett ranked among the first of those reporters: a man of great merit, energetic, prompt and ready for anything, full of ideas, having traveled over the whole world, soldier and artist, enthusiastic in council, resolute in action, caring neither for trouble, fatigue, nor danger, when in pursuit of information, for himself first, and then for his journal, a perfect treasury of knowledge on all sorts of curious subjects, of the unpublished, of the unknown, and of the impossible. He was one of those intrepid observers who write under fire, reporting among bullets, and to whom every danger is welcome.

He also had been in all the battles, in the first rank, revolver in one hand, note-book in the other; grape-shot never made his pencil tremble. He did not fatigue the wires with incessant telegrams, like those who speak when they have nothing to say, but each of his notes, short, decisive, and clear, threw light on some important point. Besides, he was not wanting in humor. It was he who, after the affair of the Black River, determined at any cost to keep his place at the wicket of the telegraph office, and after having announced to his journal the result of the battle, telegraphed for two hours the first chapters of the Bible. It cost the New York Herald two thousand dollars, but the New York Herald published the first intelligence.

Gideon Spilett was tall. He was rather more than forty years of age. Light whiskers bordering on red surrounded his face. His eye was steady, lively, rapid in its changes. It was the eye of a man accustomed to take in at a glance all the details of a scene. Well built, he was inured to all climates, like a bar of steel hardened in cold water.

For ten years Gideon Spilett had been the reporter of the New York Herald, which he enriched by his letters and drawings, for he was as skilful in the use of the pencil as of the pen. When he was captured, he was in the act of making a description and sketch of the battle. The last words in his note-book were these: A Southern rifleman has just taken aim at me, but— The Southerner notwithstanding missed Gideon Spilett, who, with his usual fortune, came out of this affair without a scratch.

Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett, who did not know each other except by reputation, had both been carried to Richmond. The engineer’s wounds rapidly healed, and it was during his convalescence that he made acquaintance with the reporter. The two men then learned to appreciate each other. Soon their common aim had but one object, that of escaping, rejoining Grant’s army, and fighting together in the ranks of the Federals.

The two Americans had from the first determined to seize every chance; but although they were allowed to wander at liberty in the town, Richmond was so strictly guarded, that escape appeared impossible. In the meanwhile Captain Harding was rejoined by a servant who was devoted to him in life and in death. This intrepid fellow was a Negro born on the engineer’s estate, of a slave father and mother, but to whom Cyrus, who was an Abolitionist from conviction and heart, had long since given his freedom. The once slave, though free, would not leave his master. He would have died for him. He was a man of about thirty, vigorous, active, clever, intelligent, gentle, and calm, sometimes naive, always merry, obliging, and honest. His name was Nebuchadnezzar, but he only answered to the familiar abbreviation of Neb.

When Neb heard that his master had been made prisoner, he left Massachusetts without hesitating an instant, arrived before Richmond, and by dint of stratagem and shrewdness, after having risked his life twenty times over, managed to penetrate into the besieged town. The pleasure of Harding on seeing his servant, and the joy of Neb at finding his master, can scarcely be described.

But though Neb had been able to make his way into Richmond, it was quite another thing to get out again, for the Northern prisoners were very strictly watched. Some extraordinary opportunity was needed to make the attempt with any chance of success, and this opportunity not only did not present itself, but was very difficult to find.

Meanwhile Grant continued his energetic operations. The victory of Petersburg had been very dearly bought. His forces, united to those of Butler, had as yet been unsuccessful before Richmond, and nothing gave the prisoners any hope of a speedy deliverance.

The reporter, to whom his tedious captivity did not offer a single incident worthy of note, could stand it no longer. His usually active mind was occupied with one sole thought—how he might get out of Richmond at any cost. Several times had he even made the attempt, but was stopped by some insurmountable obstacle. However, the siege continued; and if the prisoners were anxious to escape and join Grant’s army, certain of the besieged were no less anxious to join the Southern forces. Among them was one Jonathan Forster, a determined Southerner. The truth was, that if the prisoners of the Secessionists could not leave the town, neither could the Secessionists themselves while the Northern army invested it. The Governor of Richmond for a long time had been unable to communicate with General Lee, and he very much wished to make known to him the situation of the town, so as to hasten the march of the army to their relief. Thus Jonathan Forster accordingly conceived the idea of rising in a balloon, so as to pass over the besieging lines, and in that way reach the Secessionist camp.

The Governor authorized the attempt. A balloon was manufactured and placed at the disposal of Forster, who was to be accompanied by five other persons. They were furnished with arms in case they might have to defend themselves when they alighted, and provisions in the event of their aerial voyage being prolonged.

The departure of the balloon was fixed for the 18th of March. It should be effected during the night, with a northwest wind of moderate force, and the aeronauts calculated that they would reach General Lee’s camp in a few hours.

But this northwest wind was not a simple breeze. From the 18th it was evident that it was changing to a hurricane. The tempest soon became such that Forster’s departure was deferred, for it was impossible to risk the balloon and those whom it carried in the midst of the furious elements.

The balloon, inflated on the great square of Richmond, was ready to depart on the first abatement of the wind, and, as may be supposed, the impatience among the besieged to see the storm moderate was very great.

The 18th, the 19th of March passed without any alteration in the weather. There was even great difficulty in keeping the balloon fastened to the ground, as the squalls dashed it furiously about.

The night of the 19th passed, but the next morning the storm blew with redoubled force. The departure of the balloon was impossible.

On that day the engineer, Cyrus Harding, was accosted in one of the streets of Richmond by a person whom he did not in the least know. This was a sailor named Pencroft, a man of about thirty-five or forty years of age, strongly built, very sunburnt, and possessed of a pair of bright sparkling eyes and a remarkably good physiognomy. Pencroft was an American from the North, who had sailed all the ocean over, and who had gone through every possible and almost impossible adventure that a being with two feet and no wings would encounter. It is needless to say that he was a bold, dashing fellow, ready to dare anything and was astonished at nothing. Pencroft at the beginning of the year had gone to Richmond on business, with a young boy of fifteen from New Jersey, son of a former captain, an orphan, whom he loved as if he had been his own child. Not having been able to leave the town before the first operations of the siege, he found himself shut up, to his great disgust; but, not accustomed to succumb to difficulties, he resolved to escape by some means or other. He knew the engineer-officer by reputation; he knew with what impatience that determined man chafed under his restraint. On this day he did not, therefore, hesitate to accost him, saying, without circumlocution, Have you had enough of Richmond, captain?

The engineer looked fixedly at the man who spoke, and who added, in a low voice,—

Captain Harding, will you try to escape?

When? asked the engineer quickly, and it was evident that this question was uttered without consideration, for he had not yet examined the stranger who addressed him. But after having with a penetrating eye observed the open face of the sailor, he was convinced that he had before him an honest man.

Who are you? he asked briefly.

Pencroft made himself known.

Well, replied Harding, and in what way do you propose to escape?

By that lazy balloon which is left there doing nothing, and which looks to me as if it was waiting on purpose for us—

There was no necessity for the sailor to finish his sentence. The engineer understood him at once. He seized Pencroft by the arm, and dragged him to his house. There the sailor developed his project, which was indeed extremely simple. They risked nothing but their lives in its execution. The hurricane was in all its violence, it is true, but so clever and daring an engineer as Cyrus Harding knew perfectly well how to manage a balloon. Had he himself been as well acquainted with the art of sailing in the air as he was with the navigation of a ship, Pencroft would not have hesitated to set out, of course taking his young friend Herbert with him; for, accustomed to brave the fiercest tempests of the ocean, he was not to be hindered on account of the hurricane.

Captain Harding had listened to the sailor without saying a word, but his eyes shone with satisfaction. Here was the long-sought-for opportunity—he was not a man to let it pass. The plan was feasible, though, it must be confessed, dangerous in the extreme. In the night, in spite of their guards, they might approach the balloon, slip into the car, and then cut the cords which held it. There was no doubt that they might be killed, but on the other hand they might succeed, and without this storm! —Without this storm the balloon would have started already and the looked-for opportunity would not have then presented itself.

I am not alone! said Harding at last.

How many people do you wish to bring with you? asked the sailor.

Two; my friend Spilett, and my servant Neb.

That will be three, replied Pencroft; and with Herbert and me five. But the balloon will hold six—

That will be enough, we will go, answered Harding in a firm voice.

This we included Spilett, for the reporter, as his friend well knew, was not a man to draw back, and when the project was communicated to him he approved of it unreservedly. What astonished him was, that so simple an idea had not occurred to him before. As to Neb, he followed his master wherever his master wished to go.

This evening, then, said Pencroft, we will all meet out there.

This evening, at ten o‘clock, replied Captain Harding; and Heaven grant that the storm does not abate before our departure.

Pencroft took leave of the two friends, and returned to his lodging, where young Herbert Brown had remained. The courageous boy knew of the sailor’s plan, and it was not without anxiety that he awaited the result of the proposal being made to the engineer. Thus five determined persons were about to abandon themselves to the mercy of the tempestuous elements!

No! the storm did not abate, and neither Jonathan Forster nor his companions dreamed of confronting it in that frail car.

It would be a terrible journey. The engineer only feared one thing; it was that the balloon, held to the ground and dashed about by the wind, would be torn into shreds. For several hours he roamed round the nearly-deserted square, surveying the apparatus. Pencroft did the same on his side, his hands in his pockets, yawning now and then like a man who did not know how to kill the time, but really dreading, like his friend, either the escape or destruction of the balloon. Evening arrived. The night was dark in the extreme. Thick mists passed like clouds close to the ground. Rain fell mingled with snow. It was very cold. A mist hung over Richmond. It seemed as if the violent storm had produced a truce between the besiegers and the besieged, and that the cannon were silenced by the louder detonations of the storm. The streets of the town were deserted. It had not even appeared necessary in that horrible weather to place a guard in the square, in the midst of which plunged the balloon. Everything favored the departure of the prisoners, but what might possibly be the termination of the hazardous voyage they contemplated in the midst of the furious elements?-

Dirty weather! exclaimed Pencroft, fixing his hat firmly on his head with a blow of his fist; but pshaw, we shall succeed all the same!

At half-past nine, Harding and his companions glided from different directions into the square, which the gas-lamps, extinguished by the wind, had left in total obscurity. Even the enormous balloon, almost beaten to the ground, could not be seen. Independently of the sacks of ballast, to which the cords of the net were fastened, the car was held by a strong cable passed through a ring in the pavement. The five prisoners met by the car. They had not been perceived, and such was the darkness that they could not even see each other.

Without speaking a word, Harding, Spilett, Neb, and Herbert took their places in the car, while Pencroft by the engineer’s order detached successively the bags of ballast. It was the work of a few minutes only, and the sailor rejoined his companions.

The balloon was then only held by the cable, and the engineer had nothing to do but to give the word.

At that moment a dog sprang with a bound into the car. It was Top, a favorite of the engineer. The faithful creature, having broken his chain, had followed his master. He, however, fearing that its additional weight might impede their ascent, wished to send away the animal.

One more will make but little difference, poor beast! exclaimed Pencroft, heaving out two bags of sand, and as he spoke letting go the cable; the balloon ascending in an oblique direction, disappeared, after having dashed the car against two chimneys, which it threw down as it swept by them.

Then, indeed, the full rage of the hurricane was exhibited to the voyagers. During the night the engineer could not dream of descending, and when day broke, even a glimpse of the earth below was intercepted by fog.

Five days had passed when a partial clearing allowed them to see the wide extending ocean beneath their feet, now lashed into the maddest fury by the gale.

Our readers will recollect what befell these five daring individuals who set out on their hazardous expedition in the balloon on the 20th of March. Five days afterwards four of them were thrown on a desert coast, seven thousand miles from their country! But one of their number was missing, the man who was to be their guide, their leading spirit, the engineer, Captain Harding! The instant they had recovered their feet, they all hurried to the beach in the hopes of rendering him assistance.

Chapter 3

The engineer, the meshes of the net having given way, had been carried off by a wave. His dog also had disappeared. The faithful animal had voluntarily leaped out to help his master. Forward, cried the reporter; and all four, Spilett, Herbert, Pencroft, and Neb, forgetting their fatigue, began their search. Poor Neb shed bitter tears, giving way to despair at the thought of having lost the only being he loved on earth.

Only two minutes had passed from the time when Cyrus Harding disappeared to the moment when his companions set foot on the ground. They had hopes therefore of arriving in time to save him. Let us look for him! let us look for him! cried Neb.

Yes, Neb, replied Gideon Spilett, and we will find him too!

Living, I trust!

Still living!

Can he swim? asked Pencroft.

Yes, replied Neb, and besides, Top is there.

The sailor, observing the heavy surf on the shore, shook his head.

The engineer had disappeared to the north of the shore, and nearly half a mile from the place where the castaways had landed. The nearest point of the beach he could reach was thus fully that distance off.

It was then nearly six o‘clock. A thick fog made the night very dark. The castaways proceeded toward the north of the land on which chance had thrown them, an unknown region, the geographical situation of which they could not even guess. They were walking upon a sandy soil, mingled with stones, which appeared destitute of any sort of vegetation. The ground, very unequal and rough, was in some places perfectly riddled with holes, making walking extremely painful. From these holes escaped every minute great birds of clumsy flight, which flew in all directions. Others, more active, rose in flocks and passed in clouds over their heads. The sailor thought he recognized gulls and cormorants, whose shrill cries rose above the roaring of the sea.

From time to time the castaways stopped and shouted, then listened for some response from the ocean, for they thought that if the engineer had landed, and they had been near to the place, they would have heard the barking of the dog Top, even should Harding himself have been unable to give any sign of existence. They stopped to listen, but no sound arose above the roaring of the waves and the dashing of the surf. The little band then continued their march forward, searching into every hollow of the shore.

After walking for twenty minutes, the four castaways were suddenly brought to a standstill by the sight of foaming billows close to their feet. The solid ground ended here. They found themselves at the extremity of a sharp point on which the sea broke furiously.

It is a promontory, said the sailor; we must retrace our steps, holding towards the right, and we shall thus gain the mainland.

But if he is there, said Neb, pointing to the ocean, whose waves shone of a snowy white in the darkness. Well, let us call again, and all uniting their voices, they gave a vigorous shout, but there came no reply. They waited for a lull, then began again; still no reply.

The castaways accordingly returned, following the opposite side of the promontory, over a soil equally sandy and rugged. However, Pencroft observed that the shore was more equal, that the ground rose, and he declared that it was joined by a long slope to a hill, whose massive front he thought that he could see looming indistinctly through the mist. The birds were less numerous on this part of the shore; the sea was also less tumultuous, and they observed that the agitation of the waves was diminished. The noise of the surf was scarcely heard. This side of the promontory evidently formed a semicircular bay, which the sharp point sheltered from the breakers of the open sea. But to follow this direction was to go south, exactly opposite to that part of the coast where Harding might have landed. After a walk of a mile and a half, the shore presented no curve which would permit them to return to the north. This promontory, of which they had turned the point, must be attached to the mainland. The castaways, although their strength was nearly exhausted, still marched courageously forward, hoping every moment to meet with a sudden angle which would set them in the first direction.

What was their disappointment, when, after trudging nearly two miles, having reached an elevated point composed of slippery rocks, they found themselves again stopped by the sea.

We are on an islet, said Pencroft, and we have surveyed it from one extremity to the other.

The sailor was right; they had been thrown, not on a continent, not even on an island, but on an islet which was not more than two miles in length, with even a less breadth.

Was this barren spot the desolate refuge of sea-birds, strewn with stones and destitute of vegetation, attached to a more important archipelago? It was impossible to say. When the voyagers from their car saw the land through the mist, they had not been able to reconnoiter it sufficiently. However, Pencroft, accustomed with his sailor eyes to piece through the gloom, was almost certain that he could clearly distinguish in the west confused masses which indicated an elevated coast. But they could not in the dark determine whether it was a single island, or connected with others. They could not leave it either, as the sea surrounded them; they must therefore put off till the next day their search for the engineer, from whom, alas! not a single cry had reached them to show that he was still in existence.

The silence of our friend proves nothing, said the reporter. Perhaps he has fainted or is wounded, and unable to reply directly, so we will not despair.

The reporter then proposed to light a fire on a point of the islet, which would serve as a signal to the engineer. But they searched in vain for wood or dry brambles; nothing but sand and stones were to be found. The grief of Neb and his companions, who were all strongly attached to the intrepid Harding, can be better pictured than described. It was too evident that they were powerless to help him. They must wait with what patience they could for daylight. Either the engineer had been able to save himself, and had already found a refuge on some point of the coast, or he was lost for ever! The long and painful hours passed by. The cold was intense. The castaways suffered cruelly, but they scarcely perceived it. They did not even think of taking a minute’s rest. Forgetting everything but their chief, hoping or wishing to hope on, they continued to walk up and down on this sterile spot, always returning to its northern point, where they could approach nearest to the scene of the catastrophe. They listened, they called, and then uniting their voices, they endeavored to raise even a louder shout than before, which would be transmitted to a great distance. The wind had now fallen almost to a calm, and the noise of the sea began also to subside. One of Neb’s shouts even appeared to produce an echo. Herbert directed Pencroft’s attention to it, adding, That proves that there is a coast to the west, at no great distance. The sailor nodded; besides, his eyes could not deceive him. If he had discovered land, however indistinct it might appear, land was sure to be there. But that