Willis the Pilot : A Sequel to the Swiss Family Robinson

by Adrien Paul

  CHAPTER III.

  WHEREIN WILLIS THE PILOT PROVES "IRREFRAGABLY" THAT EPHEMERIDES DIE OFCONSUMPTION AND HOME-SICKNESS--THE CANOE AND ITS YOUNG ONES--THESEARCH AFTER THE SLOOP--FOUND--THE SWORD-FISH--FLOATING ATOMS--ADMIRALSOCRATES.

  When they had come within a short distance of the bay, Jack thought hesaw a large black creature moving in the bushes that lined the shore.

  "A sea monster!" he cried, levelling his musket; "I discovered it, andhave the right to the first shot."

  "No, sir," said Fritz, whose keen eye was a sort of locomotivetelescope, "I object to that, for I do not want you to kill or woundmy canoe."

  "Nonsense, it moves."

  "Whether it moves or not, we shall all see by and by; but do you notobserve this monster's young ones gambolling by its side?"

  "Which proves I am right, unless you mean to say your canoe has beenhatching," and Jack again levelled his rifle.

  "Don't fire, it is the hat and jacket of Willis!"

  "What!" exclaimed Ernest, "is the Pilot a triton then, that he coulddispense with the canoe?"

  "Well, yes, unless the canoe has found its way back of its own accord,which would indeed make it an intelligent creature."

  "The Pilot has evidently reached Shark's Island by swimming, in spiteof surf and breakers--a feat almost without a parallel."

  "Bah!" said Ernest, parodying Jack's witticism about the oars, "whatdoes a pilot care about surf and breakers?"

  Strongly moored in a creek of the Jackal River, and protected by abluff, forming a screen between it and the sea, the pinnace had in noway suffered from the storm.

  The swell was so violent, that they had a world of trouble in makingthe island; as they approached, Willis, who had made a speaking-trumpetby joining his hands round his mouth, was roaring out alternately,"starboard," "larboard," "hard-a-port," just as if these terms hadnot been Hebrew to the impromptu mariners.

  At last, tired of holloaing, "Stop a bit," he said, "I shall find aquicker way;" with that he threw himself directly into the sea, andcut through the waves towards them as if his arms had been driven by asteam engine.

  Arrived on board, he gave a vigorous turn to the tiller, laid hold ofthe sheet, let out a reef here, took in another there; the pinnace wassoon completely at his command, and behaved admirably; true, shepitched furiously, and the gunwale was under water at every plunge. Heheaded along the coast till the point beyond which Fritz had firstobserved the _Nelson_ was fairly doubled; some days before this pointwas called Cape Deliverance, it was now, perhaps, about to acquire theterm of Cape Disappointment, but for the moment its future designationwas in embryo.

  Leaping on the poop, Willis carefully scanned the horizon as the boatrose upon the summit of the waves; but seeing nothing, he at lastleapt down again with an expression of rage that, under othercircumstances, would have been irresistibly comic. Abandoning thedirection of the pinnace, he went and sat down on a bulk-head, andcovered his face with his hands, in an attitude of profounddesolation.

  "Willis! Willis!" cried Jack, "I shall tell Sophia."

  But there was neither the soft voice there, the caressing hand, northe sweet fascination of the young girl's presence, and Williscontinued immovable.

  Becker saw that his was one of those minds that grew less calm themore they were urged, and the excitement of which must be permitted towear itself out; he therefore beckoned his sons to leave him to hisown reflections.

  The wind still blew a gale, and the pinnace pitched heavily; but thesun was now beginning to break through the masses of lurid cloud, andthe air was becoming less and less charged with vapor.

  "I can descry nothing either," said Becker; "and yet this is thedirection the storm must have driven the sloop."

  "The sea is very capricious," suggested Fritz.

  "True, but not to the extent of carrying a ship against the wind."

  "Unfortunately," said Jack, "it is not on sea as on land, where theslightest indications of an object lost may lead to its discovery; aword dropped in the ear of a passer-by might put you on the track, buthere it is no use saying, 'Sir, did you not see the _Nelson_ pass thisway?'"

  "Fire a shot," said Ernest; "it may perhaps be heard, now that the airis less humid."

  The two-pounder was ready charged; Fritz struck a light and set fireto a strip of mimosa bark, with which he touched the piece, and thereport boomed across the waters.

  Willis raised his head and listened anxiously, but soon dropped itagain, and resumed his former attitude of hopeless despair.

  "It may be," said Ernest, "that the _Nelson_ hears our signal, thoughwe do not hear hers."

  "How can that be?" inquired Jack.

  "Why, very easily. Sound increases or diminishes in intensityaccording as the wind carries it on or retards it."

  "What, then, is sound, that the wind can blow it about, most learnedbrother?"

  "It is a result of the compression of the air, that from itselasticity extends and expands, and which causes a sort of tremblingor undulation, similar to that which is observed in water when a stoneis thrown into it."

  "And you may add," said Becker, "that bodies striking the air excitesonorous vibrations in this fluid; thus it rings under the lash thatstrikes it with violence, and whistles under the rapid impulsion of aswitch: it likewise becomes sonorous when it strikes itself with forceagainst any solid body, as the wind when it blows against the cordageof ships, houses, trees, and generally every object with which itcomes in contact."

  "I can understand," replied Jack, "how this sonorous effect isproduced on the particles of air in immediate contact with the objectstruck; but how this sound is propagated, I do not see."

  "Very likely; but still it travels from particle to particle, in acircle, at the rate of three hundred and forty yards in a second."

  "Three hundred and forty yards in a second!" said Willis, who wasbeginning by degrees to recover his self-possession. "Well, that iswhat I should call going a-head."

  "And by what sort of compasses has this speed been measured, MasterErnest?"

  "The first accurate measurement, Master Jack, was made at Paris in1738. There are there two tolerably elevated points, namely,Montmartre and Montlhery--the distance between these, in a directline, is 14,636 _toises_. Cannons were fired during the night, and theengineers on one of the elevations observed that an interval ofeighty-six seconds and a half elapsed between the flash and the reportof a cannon fired on the other."

  "That half-second is very amusing," said Jack laughing; "if there hadbeen only eighty or eighty-six net, one might still be permitted toentertain some doubts; but eighty-six and a half admits nothing of thekind. But why not three-quarters or six-eighths, they would do aswell?"

  "What is more natural than to reckon the fraction, if we are desirousof obtaining absolute precision? Is six months of your time of novalue? Are thirty minutes more or less on the dial of your watch of nosignification to you?"

  "Your brother is perfectly right, Jack; you are not always successfulin your jokes."

  "Other experiments have been made since then," continued Ernest, "andthe results have always been the same, making allowances for the wind,and a slight variation that is ascribed to temperature."

  "To confirm the accuracy of this statement, the speed of light wouldhave to be taken into consideration."

  "True; but the velocity of light is so great, that the instant acannon is fired the flash is seen."

  "Whatever the distance?"

  "Yes, whatever the distance. Bear in mind that the rays of the sunonly require eight minutes to traverse the thirty-four millions ofleagues that extend between us and that body. Hence it follows thatthe time light takes to travel from one point to another on the earthmay be regarded as _nil_."

  "That is something like distance and speed," remarked Willis, "and maybe all right as regards the sun, but I should not be disposed to admitthat there are any other instances of the same kind."

  "Very good, Master Willis; and yet the sun is only
a step from us incomparison to the distance of some stars that we see very distinctly,but which are, nevertheless, so remote, that their rays, travelling atthe same rate as those of the sun, are several years in reaching us."

  Willis rose abruptly, whistling "the Mariner's March," and went tojoin Fritz, who was steering the pinnace.

  At this _naive_ mark of disapprobation on the part of the Pilot,Becker, Ernest, and Jack burst involuntarily into a violent peal oflaughter.

  "Laugh away, laugh away." said Willis; "I will not admit yourcalculations for all that."

  The sky had now assumed an opal or azure tint, the wind had graduallydied away into a gentle breeze, the waves were now swelling gently andregularly, like the movements of the infant's cradle that is beingrocked asleep. Never had a day, opening in the convulsions of atempest, more suddenly lapsed into sunshine and smiles: it was likethe fairies of Perrault's Tales, who, at first wrapped in sorry rags,begging and borne down with age, throw off their chrysalis and appearsparkling with youth, gaiety, and beauty, their wallet converted intoa basket of flowers, and their crutch to a magic wand.

  "Father" inquired Fritz, "shall we go any farther?"

  Since the weather had calmed down, and there was no longer anynecessity for exertion, the expedition had lost its charm for theyoung man.

  "I think it is useless; what say you, Willis?"

  "Ah," said the latter, taking Becker by the hand, "in consideration ofthe eight days' friendship that connects you even more intimately withCaptain Littlestone than my affection for him of twenty years'standing, keep still a few miles to the east."

  "If the sloop has been driven to a distance by the storm, and isreturning towards us, which is very likely, I do not see that we canbe of much use."

  "But if dismasted and leaky?"

  "That would alter the case, only I am afraid the ladies will be uneasyabout us."

  "But they were half prepared, father."

  "Jack is right," added Fritz, whose energies were again called intoplay by the thought of the _Nelson_ in distress; "let us go on."

  "Besides, on the word of a pilot, the sea will be very calm and gentlefor some time to come: there is not the slightest danger."

  "And what if there were?" replied Fritz.

  "Well, Willis, I shall give up the pinnace to you till dark," saidBecker, "and may God guide us; we shall return to-night, so as toarrive at Rockhouse early in the morning."

  "Hurrah for the captain!" cried Willis, throwing a cap into the air.

  The evolutions of a cap, thrown up towards the sky or down upon theground, were very usual modes with Willis of expressing his joy orsorrow.

  This homage rendered to Becker, he hastened to let a reef out of thesheet, and the pinnace, for a moment at rest, redoubled its speed,like post-horses starting from the inn-door under the combinedinfluence of a cheer from the postillion and a flourish of the whip.

  "There is a cockle-shell that skips along pretty fairly," said Willis;"but it wants two very important things."

  "What things?"

  "A caboose and a nigger."

  "A caboose and a nigger?"

  "Yes, I mean a pantry and a cook; a gale for breakfast is all verywell, one gets used to it, it is light and easily digested; but thesame for dinner is rather too much of a good thing in one day."

  "I observed your thoughtful mother hang a sack on one of yourshoulders, which appeared tolerably well filled--where is it?"

  "Here it is," said Jack, issuing from the hatchway; "here are ourstores: a ham, two Dutch cheeses, two callabashes full of Rockhousemalaga, and there is plenty of fresh water in the gourds; with these,we have wherewithal to defy hunger till to-morrow."

  "Capital!" said Willis.

  This time, however, a cap did not appear in the air, as the last onehad not been seen since the former ovation.

  "Let us lay the table," said Jack, arranging the coils of rope thatcrowded the deck. "Well, you see, Willis, we want for nothing on boardthe pinnace, not even a what-do-you-call-it?"

  "A caboose, Master Jack."

  "Well, not even a caboose."

  "Quite true; and if the _Nelson_ were in the offing, I would notexchange my pilot's badge for the epaulettes of a commodore; but,alas! she is not there."

  "Cheer up, Willis, cheer up; one is either a man or one is not. Whatis the good of useless regrets?"

  "Very little, but it is hard to be yard-armed while absent at my timeof life--and afterwards--your health, Mr. Becker."

  "That would be hard at any age, Willis; but I rather think it has notcome to that yet."

  "When it has come to it, there will be very little time left to talkit over."

  "Did you not say, brother, that the _Nelson_ might hear our signalswithout our hearing hers? If so, there is a chance for Willis yet."

  "Certainly, Jack, because she has the wind in her favor to act as aspeaking-trumpet, whilst we had it against us acting as a deafener."

  "Is there any other influence that affects sound besides the wind?"

  "Yes, I have already mentioned that temperature has something to dowith it. Sound varies in intensity according to the state of theatmosphere. If, for example, we ring a small bell in a closed vesselfilled with air, it has been observed that, as the air is withdrawn bythe pump, the sound gradually grows less and less distinct."

  "And if a vacuum be formed?"

  "Then the sound is totally extinguished."

  "So, then," objected Willis, "if two persons were to talk in what youcall a vacuum, they would not hear each other?"

  "Two persons could not talk in a vacuum," replied Ernest.

  "Why not?"

  "Because they would die as soon as they opened their mouths."

  "Ah, that alters the case."

  "If, on the contrary, a quantity of air or gas were compressed into aspace beyond what it habitually held, then the sound," continuedErnest, "would be more intense than if the air were free."

  "In that case a whisper would be equal to a howl!"

  "You think I am joking, Willis; but on the tops of high mountains,such as the Himalaya and Mont Blanc, where the air is much rarified,voices are not heard at the distance of two paces."

  "Awkward for deaf people!"

  "Whilst, on the icy plains of the frozen regions, where the air iscondensed by the severe cold, a conversation, held in the ordinarytone, may be easily carried on at the distance of half a league."

  "Awkward for secrets!"

  "And how does sound operate with regard to solid bodies?" inquiredJack.

  "According to the degree of elasticity possessed by their veins orfibres."

  "Explain yourself."

  "That is, solid bodies, whose structure is such that the vibrationcommunicated to some of their atoms circulates through the mass, aresusceptible of conveying sound."

  "Give us an instance."

  "Apply your ear to one end of a long beam, and you will heardistinctly the stroke of a pin's head on the other; whilst the samestroke will scarcely be heard through the breadth of the wood."

  "So that, in the first case, the sound runs along the longitudinalfibres where the contiguity of parts is closer, than when the body istaken transversely?"

  "Just so."

  "And across water?"

  "It is heard, but more feebly."

  For some time Fritz had been closely observing with the telescope aparticular part of the horizon, when all at once he cried, "This timeI see him distinctly; he is bearing down upon us."

  "Who? the sloop?" cried Willis, starting up and letting fall the glasshe had in his hand.

  "What an extraordinary pace! he bounds into the air, then plumps intothe water, then leaps up again, just like an India-rubber ball, thattouches the ground only to take a fresh spring!"

  "Impossible, Master Fritz; the _Nelson_ tops the waves honestly andgallantly; but as to leaping into the air, she is a little too bulkyfor that."

  "Ah, poor Willis, it is not the _Nelson_ that is under my glass atpresent,
but an enormous fish, ten or twelve feet in length."

  "Oh, how you startled me!"

  "Father! Ernest! prepare to fire! Jack, the harpoon! he is coming thisway."

  Fritz stood at the stern of the pinnace, his rifle levelled, followingwith his eyes the movements of the monster; when within reach, hefired with so much success and address that he hit the creature on thehead. It then changed its course, leaving behind a train of blood.

  "Let us after him, Willis; quick!"

  The Pilot turned the head of the pinnace, and Jack immediately threwhis harpoon.

  "Struck!" cried he joyfully.

  By the hissing of the line, and then the rapid impulsion of thepinnace, it was felt that the monster had more strength than the craftand its crew together.

  Ernest and his father fired at the same time; the ball of the formerwas lost in the animal's flesh, that of the latter rebounded off ahorny protuberance that armed the monster's upper lip.

  Fritz had time to recharge his rifle; he levelled it a second time,and the ball went to join the former; but, for all that, the pinnacecontinued to cleave the water at a furious rate.

  Becker seized an axe and cut the rope.

  "Oh, father, what a pity! such a splendid capture for our museum ofnatural history!"

  "It is a sword-fish, children; a monster of a dangerous species, andof extreme voracity. If, by way of reciprocity, the fish have a museumat the bottom of the sea, they will have some fine specimens of thehuman race that have become the prey of this creature; and it may bethat we were on the way to join the collection."

  "Did you observe the formidable dentilated horn?"

  "It is by means of this horn or sword, from which it takes its name,that it wages a continual war with the whale, whose only mode ofescape is by flourishing its enormous tail; but the sword-fish, beingvery agile, easily avoids this, bounds into the air as Fritz saw itdoing just now, then, falling down upon its huge adversary, pierceshim with its sword."

  "By the way, talking about the whale," said Jack, "all naturalistsseem agreed, and we ourselves are convinced from our own observation,that its throat is very narrow, and that it can only swallow molluscs,or very small fishes--what, in that case, becomes of the history ofJonah?"

  "It is rather unfortunate," replied Becker, "that the whale has beenassociated with this miracle. There is now no possibility ofseparating the whale from Jonah, or Jonah from the whale; yet, in theGreek translation of the Chaldean text, there is _Ketos_--in theLatin, there is _Cete_--and both these words were understood by theancients to signify a fish of enormous size, but not the whale inparticular. The shark, for example, can swallow a man, and even ahorse, without mangling it."

  "I have heard," said Jack, "of navigators who have landed on the backof a whale, and walked about on it, supposing it a small island."

  "There is nothing impossible about that," observed Willis.

  "One thing is certain, that we had just now within reach a sea monsterwho has carried off four leaden bullets in his body without seeming tobe in the least inconvenienced by them; on the contrary, he seemed tomove all the quicker for the dose."

  "Life is a very different thing with those fellows than with us. Thecarp is said to live two hundred years, and it is supposed that awhale might live for ten centuries if the harpoon did not come in theway to shorten the period."

  "Ah!" exclaimed Willis, with a sigh that might have moved a train ofwaggons, "these fellows have no cares."

  "And the ephemeride, that dies an instant after its birth, do yousuppose that it dies of grief?"

  "Who knows, Master Jack?"

  "The ephemeride does not die so quickly as you think," said Becker;"it commences by living three years under water in the form of amaggot. It afterwards becomes amphibious, when it has a hornycovering, on which the rudiments of wings may be observed. Then, fouror five months after this first metamorphosis, generally in the monthof August, it issues from its skin, almost as rapidly as we throw offa jacket; attached to the rejected skin are the teeth, lips, horns,and all the apparatus that the creature required as a water insect;then it is no sooner winged, gay, and beautiful, than, as you observe,it dies--hence it is called the day-fly, its existence beingterminated by the shades of night."

  "I was certain of it," said Willis.

  "Certain of what?"

  "That it died of grief at being on land. When one has been accustomedto the water, you see, under such circumstances life is not worth thehaving."

  "The day-fly," continued Becker, "is an epitome of those men whospend a life-time hunting after wealth and glory, and who perishthemselves at the moment they reach the pinnacle of their ambitiousdesires. Whence I conclude, my dear children, that there are nothingbut beginnings and endings of unhappiness in this world, and that truefelicity is only to be hoped for in another sphere."

  "What a curious series of transformations! First an aquatic insect,next amphibious, then throwing away the organs for which it has nofurther use, and becoming provided with those suited to its newstate!"

  "Yes, my dear Fritz; and yet those complicated and beautifuloperations of Nature have not prevented philosophers from assertingthat the world resulted from _floating atoms_, which, by force ofcombination, and after an infinity of blind movements, conglomerateinto plants, animals, men, heaven, and earth."

  "I am only a plain sailor," said Willis "yet the eye of a worm teachesme more than these philosophers seem to have imagined in theirphilosophy."

  "Such a system could only have originated in Bedlam or Charenton."

  "No, Ernest, it is the system of Epicurus and Lucretius. Without goingso far back, there are a thousand others quite as ridiculous, withwhich it is unnecessary to charge your young heads."

  "All madmen are not in confinement, and it may be that Epicurus andLucretius had arrived at those limits of human reason, where geniusbegins in some and folly in others."

  "It is not that, Fritz; but if men, says Malebranche somewhere,[A] areinterested in having the sides of an equilateral triangle unequal, andthat false geometry was as agreeable to them as false philosophy, theywould make the problems equally false in geometry as in morality, forthis simple reason, that their errors afford them gratification,whilst truth would only hurt and annoy them."

  "Very good," observed Willis; "this Malebranche, as you call him, musthave been an admiral?"

  "No, Willis, nothing more than a simple philosopher, but one of goodfaith, like Socrates, who admitted that what he knew best was, that heknew nothing."

  The sun had gradually disappeared in the midst of purple tingedclouds, leaving along the horizon at first a fringe of gold, then asimple thread, and finally nothing but the reflection of his rays,sent to the earth by the layers of atmosphere,[B] like the adieu wereceive at the turning of a road from a friend who is leaving us.

  There was a festival in the sky that night; the firmament brought out,one by one, her circlet of diamonds, till the whole were sparklinglike a blaze of light; the pinnace also left a fiery train in herwake, caused partly by electricity and partly by the phosphorescentanimalculae that people the ocean.

  "Willis," said Becker, "I leave it entirely to you to decide theinstant of our return."

  The Pilot changed at once the course of the boat, without attemptingto utter a word, so heavy was his heart at this unsuccessfultermination of the expedition.

  "It will be curious," observed Fritz, "if we find the _Nelson_, on ourreturn, snugly at anchor in Safety Bay."

  "I have a presentiment," said Jack; "and you will see that we havebeen playing at hide-and-seek with the _Nelson_."

  Willis shook his head.

  "Are there not a thousand accidents to cause a ship to deviate fromher route?"

  "Yes, Master Ernest, there are typhoons, and the waterspouts of whichI spoke to you before. In such cases, ships often deviate from theirroute, but generally by going to the bottom."

  Willis concluded this sentence with a gesture that defies description,implying annihilatio
n.

  "Remember Admiral Socrates, Willis," said Jack; "_what I know best is,that I know nothing_, and avow that God has other means ofaccomplishing his decrees besides typhoons and waterspouts."

  "My excellent young friends, I know you want to inspire me with hope,as they give a toy to a child to keep it from crying, and I thank youfor your good intentions. Now, for three days you have, so to speak,had no rest, and I insist on your profiting by this night to take somerepose; and you also, Mr. Becker; I am quite able to manage thepinnace alone."

  "Yes providing you do not play us some trick, like that of thismorning, for instance."

  "All stratagems are justifiable in war. Master Ernest had fair warningthat I had an idea to work out. Besides, a prisoner, when underhatches, has the right to escape if he can: under parole, the case isquite different."

  "Well, Willis, if you give me your simple promise to steer straightfor New Switzerland, and awake me in two hours to take the bearings--"

  "I give it, Mr. Becker."

  The three Greenlanders then descended into the hold, for tropicalnights are as chilly as the days are hot, and Becker, rolling himselfup in a sail, lay on deck.

  In less than five minutes they were all fast asleep, and Willis pacedthe deck, his arms crossed, and mechanically gazing upon a star thatwas mirrored in the water.

  "Several years to come to us, and that at the rate of seventy thousandleagues a second--that is _a little_ too much."

  Then he went to the rudder, his head leaning upon his breast, andglancing now and then with distracted eye at the course of the boat,buried in a world of thought, sad and confused, doubtless beholding insuccession visions of the _Nelson_, of Susan, and of Scotland.

  FOOTNOTES:

  [A] "Search after Truth," book ix.

  [B] The twilight is entirely owing to this.