A PROFOUND astonishment greeted these unexpected words. What did the geographer mean? Had he lost his senses? He spoke, however, with such conviction that all eyes were turned towards Glenarvan. This declaration of Paganel was a direct answer to the question the former had asked. But Glenarvan confined himself to a negative gesture, indicating disbelief in the geographer, who, as soon as he was master of his emotion, resumed.
“Yes,” said he, in a tone of conviction, “yes, we have gone astray in our search, and have read in the document what is not written there.”
“Explain yourself, Paganel,” said the major; “and more calmly.”
“That is very simple, major. Like you, I was in error; like you, I struck upon a false interpretation. When, but a moment ago, at the top of this tree, in answer to the question, at the word ‘Australia’ an idea flashed through my mind, and all was clear.”
“What!” cried Glenarvan, “do you pretend that Captain Grant——”
“I pretend,” replied Paganel, “that the word Austral. in the document is not complete, as we have hitherto supposed, but the root of the word Australia.”
“This is something singular,” said the major.
“Singular!” replied Glenarvan, shrugging his shoulders; “it is simply impossible!”
“Impossible,” continued Paganel, “is a word that we do not allow in France.”
“What!” added Glenarvan, in a tone of the greatest incredulity, “do you pretend, with that document in your possession, that the shipwreck of the Britannia took place on the shores of Australia?”
“I am sure of it!” replied Paganel.
“By my faith, Paganel,” said Glenarvan, “this is a pretension that astonishes me greatly, coming from the secretary of a geographical society.”
“Why?” inquired Paganel, touched in his sensitive point.
“Because, if you admit the word Australia, you admit at the same time that there are Indians in that country, a fact which has not yet been proved.”
Paganel was by no means surprised at this argument. He seemingly expected it, and began to smile.
“My dear Glenarvan,” said he, “do not be too hasty in your triumph. I am going to defeat you completely, as no Englishman has ever been defeated.”
“I ask nothing better. Defeat me, Paganel.”
“Listen, then. You say that the Indians mentioned in the document belong exclusively to Patagonia. The incomplete word indi. does not mean Indians, but natives (indigènes). Now do you admit that there are natives in Australia?”
It must be confessed that Glenarvan now gazed fixedly at Paganel.
“Bravo, Paganel!” said the major.
“Do you admit my interpretation, my dear lord?”
“Yes,” replied Glenarvan, “if you can prove to me that the imperfect word gonie. does not relate to the country of the Patagonians.”
“No,” cried Paganel, “it certainly does not mean Patagonia. Read anything you will but that.”
“But what?”
“Cosmogonie! théogonie! agonie!”
“Agonie!” cried the major.
“That is indifferent to me,” replied Paganel; “the word has no importance. I shall not even search for what it may signify. The principal point is that Austral. means Australia, and we must have been blindly following a false trail, not to have discovered before so evident a meaning. If I had found the document, if my judgment had not been set aside by your interpretation, I should never have understood it otherwise.”
This time cheers, congratulations, and compliments greeted Paganel’s words. Austin, the sailors, the major, and Robert especially, were delighted to revive their hopes, and applauded the worthy geographer. Glenarvan, who had gradually been undeceived, was, as he said, almost ready to surrender.
“One last remark, my dear Paganel, and I have only to bow before your sagacity.”
“Speak!”
“How do you arrange these newly-interpreted words, and in what way do you read the document?”
“Nothing is easier. Here is the document,” said Paganel, producing the precious paper that he had studied so conscientiously for several days. A profound silence ensued, while the geographer, collecting his thoughts, took his time to answer. His finger followed the incomplete lines on the document, while, in a confident tone, he expressed himself in the following terms:
“‘June 7th, 1862, the brig Britannia, of Glasgow, foundered after’—let us put, if you wish, ‘two days, three days,’ or, ‘a long struggle,’—it matters little, it is quite unimportant,—‘on the coast of Australia. Directing their course to shore, two sailors and Captain Grant endeavored to land,’ or ‘did land on the continent, where they will be,’ or ‘are prisoners of cruel natives. They cast this document,’ and so forth. Is it clear?”
“It is clear,” replied Glenarvan, “if the word continent can be applied to Australia, which is only an island.”
“Be assured, my dear Glenarvan, the best geographers are agreed in naming this island the Australian continent.”
“Then I have but one thing to say, my friends,” cried Glenarvan. “To Australia, and may Heaven assist us!”
“To Australia!” repeated his companions, with one accord.
“Do you know, Paganel,” added Glenarvan, “that your presence on board the Duncan is a providential circumstance?”
“Well,” replied Paganel, “let us suppose that I am an envoy of Providence, and say no more about it.”
Thus ended this conversation, that in the future led to such great results. It completely changed the moral condition of the travelers. They had caught again the thread of the labyrinth in which they had thought themselves forever lost. A new hope arose on the ruins of their fallen projects. They could fearlessly leave behind them this American continent, and already all their thoughts flew away to the Australian land. On reaching the Duncan, they would not bring despair on board, and Lady Helena and Mary Grant would not have to lament the irrevocable loss of the captain. Thus they forgot the dangers of their situation in their new-found joy, and their only regret was that they could not start at once.
It was now four o’clock in the afternoon, and they resolved to take supper at six. Paganel wished to celebrate this joyful day by a splendid banquet. As the bill of fare was very limited, he proposed to Robert that they should go hunting “in the neighboring forest,” at which idea the boy clapped his hands. They took Thalcave’s powder-flask, cleaned the revolvers, loaded them with fine shot, and started.
“Do not go far,” said the major, gravely, to the two huntsmen.
After their departure Glenarvan and MacNabb went to consult the notches on the tree, while Wilson and Mulready revived the smouldering embers.
Arriving at the surface of this immense lake, they saw no sign of abatement. The waters seemed to have attained their highest elevation; but the violence with which they rolled from south to north proved that the equilibrium of the Argentine rivers was not yet established. Before the liquid mass could lower, it must first become calm, like the sea when flood-tide ends and ebb begins. They could not, therefore, expect a subsidence of the waters so long as they flowed towards the north with such swiftness.
While Glenarvan and the major were making these observations, reports resounded in the tree, accompanied by cries of joy almost as noisy. The clear treble of Robert contrasted sharply with the deep bass of Paganel, and the strife was which should be the most boyish. The hunt promised well, and gave hopes of culinary wonders.
When the major and Glenarvan returned to the fire, they had to congratulate Wilson upon an excellent idea. The honest sailor had devoted himself to fishing with wonderful success, with the aid of a pin and a piece of string. Several dozen of little fish, delicate as smelts, called “mojarras,” wriggled in a fold of his poncho, and seemed likely to make an exquisite dish.
At this moment the hunters descended from the top of the tree. Paganel carefully carried some black swallows’ eggs and a string of sparrows, which he meant afterwards to serve up as larks. Robert had adroitly brought down several pairs of “hilgueros,”—little green-and-yellow birds, which are excellent eating, and very much in demand in the Montevideo market. The geographer, who knew many ways of preparing eggs, had to confine himself this time to cooking them in the hot ashes. However, the repast was as varied as it was delicate. The dried meat, the hard eggs, the broiled mojarras, and the roast sparrows and hilgueros, formed a repast which was long remembered.
The conversation was very animated. Paganel was greatly complimented in his twofold capacity of hunter and cook, and accepted these encomiums with the modesty that belongs to true merit. Then he gave himself up to singular observations on the magnificent tree that sheltered them with its foliage, and whose extent, as he declared, was immense.
“Robert and I,” said he jokingly, “imagined ourselves in the open forest during the hunt. One moment I thought we should be lost. I could not find my way. The sun was declining towards the horizon. I sought in vain to retrace my steps. Hunger made itself felt acutely. Already the gloomy coppices were resounding with the growls of ferocious beasts,—but no, there are no ferocious beasts, and I am sorry.”
“What!” cried Glenarvan, “you are sorry there are no ferocious beasts?”
“Certainly.”
“But, when you have everything to fear from their ferocity——”
“Ferocity does not exist,—scientifically speaking,” replied the geographer.
“Ha! this time, Paganel,” said the major, “you will not make me admit the utility of ferocious beasts. What are they good for?”
“Major,” cried Paganel, “they are good to form classifications, orders, families, genera, sub-genera, species——”
“Very fine!” said MacNabb. “I should not have thought of that! If I had been one of Noah’s companions at the time of the deluge, I should certainly have prevented that imprudent patriarch from putting into the ark pairs of tigers, lions, bears, panthers, and other animals as destructive as they were useless.”
“Should you have done so?” inquired Paganel.
“I should.”
“Well, you would have been wrong in a zoological point of view.”
“But not in a human one.”
“This is shocking,” continued Paganel; “for my part, I should have preserved all the animals before the deluge of which we are so unfortunately deprived.”
“I tell you,” replied MacNabb, “that Noah was right in abandoning them to their fate, admitting that they lived in his time.”
“I tell you that Noah was wrong,” retorted Paganel, “and deserves the malediction of scholars to the end of time.”
The listeners to this argument could not help laughing at seeing the two friends dispute about what Noah ought to have done or left undone. The major, who had never argued with any one in his life, contrary to all his principles, was every day at war with Paganel, who must have particularly excited him.
Glenarvan, according to his custom, interrupted the debate, and said,—
“However much it is to be regretted, in a scientific or human point of view, that we are deprived of ferocious animals, we must be resigned to-day to their absence. Paganel could not hope to encounter any in this aerial forest.”
“No,” replied the geographer, “although we beat the bush. It is a pity, for it would have been a glorious hunt. A ferocious man-eater like the jaguar! With one blow of his paw he can twist the neck of a horse. When he has tasted human flesh, however, he returns to it ravenously. What he likes best is the Indian, then the negro, then the mulatto, and then the white man.”
“However that may be, my good Paganel,” said Glenarvan, “so long as there are no Indians, mulattoes, or negroes among us, I rejoice in the absence of your dear jaguars. Our situation is not, of course, so agreeable——”
“What!” cried Paganel, “you complain of your lot?”
“Certainly,” replied Glenarvan. “Are you at your ease in these uncomfortable and uncushioned branches?”
“I have never been more so, even in my own study. We lead the life of birds; we sing and flutter about. I almost think that men were destined to live in the trees.”
“They only want wings,” said the major.
“They will make them some day.”
“In the meantime,” replied Glenarvan, “permit me, my dear friend, to prefer the sand of a park, the floor of a house, or the deck of a vessel to this aerial abode.”
“Glenarvan,” said Paganel, “we must take things as they come. If favorable, so much the better; if unfavorable, we must not mind it. I see you long for the comforts of Malcolm Castle.”
“No, but——”
“I am certain that Robert is perfectly happy,” interrupted Paganel, to secure one advocate, at least, of his theories.
“Yes, Monsieur Paganel!” cried the boy, in a joyful tone.
“It is natural at his age,” replied Glenarvan.
“And at mine,” added the geographer. “The less ease we have, the fewer wants; the fewer wants, the happier we are.”
“Well,” said the major, “here is Paganel going to make an attack upon riches and gilded splendor.”
“No, my dear major,” continued Paganel; “but, if you wish, I will tell you, in this connection, a little Arab story that occurs to me.”
“Yes, yes, Monsieur Paganel,” cried Robert.
“And what will your story prove?” asked the major.
“What all stories prove, my brave companion.”
“Not much, then,” replied MacNabb. “But go on, Scheherezade, and tell one of those stories that you relate so well.”
“There was once upon a time,” said Paganel, “a son of the great Haroun-al-Raschid who was not happy. He accordingly consulted an old dervish, who told him that happiness was a very difficult thing to find in this world. ‘However,’ added he, ‘I know an infallible way to procure you happiness.’ ‘What is it?’ inquired the young prince. ‘It is,’ replied the dervish, ‘to put on the shirt of a happy man.’ Thereupon the prince embraced the old man, and set out in search of his talisman. He visited all the capitals of the earth; he tried the shirts of kings, emperors, princes, and nobles; but it was a useless task, he was no happier. Then he put on the shirts of artists, warriors, and merchants, but with no more success. He had thus traveled far, without finding happiness. At last, desperate from having tried so many shirts, he was returning very sadly one beautiful day to the palace of his father, when he spied in the field an honest laborer, who was joyously singing as he ploughed. ‘Here is, at all events, a man who possesses happiness,’ said he to himself, ‘or happiness does not exist on earth.’ He approached him. ‘Good man,’ said he, ‘are you happy?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the other. ‘You wish for nothing?’ ‘No.’ ‘You would not change your lot for that of a king?’ ‘Never!’ ‘Well, sell me your shirt!’ ‘My shirt! I have none!’”