It was, in truth, a heart-rending spectacle.All the wooded part of the island was now completely bare.One single clump of green trees raised their heads at the extremity of Serpentine Peninsula.Here and there were a few grotesque blackened and branchless stumps.The side of the devastated forest was even more barren than Tadorn Marsh.The eruption of lava had been complete.Where formerly sprang up that charming verdure, the soil was now nothing but a savage mass of volcanic tufa.In the valleys of the Falls and Mercy rivers no drop of water now flowed towards the sea, and should Lake Grant be entirely dried up, the colonists would have no means of quenching their thirst.But, fortunately the lava had spared the southern corner of the lake, containing all that remained of the drinking water of the island.Towards the northwest stood out the rugged and well-defined outlines of the sides of the volcano, like a gigantic claw hovering over the island.What a sad and fearful sight, and how painful to the colonists, who, from a fertile domain covered with forests, irrigated by watercourses, and enriched by the produce of their toils, found themselves, as it were, transported to a desolate rock, upon which, but for their reserves of provisions, they could not even gather the means of subsistence!
"It is enough to break one's heart!" said Gideon Spilett, one day.
"Yes, Spilett," answered the engineer."May God grant us the time to complete this vessel, now our sole refuge!""Do not you think, Cyrus, that the violence of the eruption has somewhat lessened? The volcano still vomits forth lava, but somewhat less abundantly, if I mistake not.""It matters little," answered Cyrus Harding."The fire is still burning in the interior of the mountain, and the sea may break in at any moment.We are in the condition of passengers whose ship is devoured by a conflagration which they cannot extinguish, and who know that sooner or later the flames must reach the powder-magazine.To work, Spilett, to work, and let us not lose an hour!"During eight days more, that is to say until the 7th of February, the lava continued to flow, but the eruption was confined within the previous limits.Cyrus Harding feared above all lest the liquefied matter should overflow the shore, for in that event the dockyard could not escape.
Moreover, about this time the colonists felt in the frame of the island vibrations which alarmed them to the highest degree.
It was the 20th of February.Yet another month must elapse before the vessel would be ready for sea.Would the island hold together till then?
The intention of Pencroft and Cyrus Harding was to launch the vessel as soon as the hull should be complete.The deck, the upperworks, the interior woodwork and the rigging might be finished afterwards, but the essential point was that the colonists should have an assured refuge away from the island.Perhaps it might be even better to conduct the vessel to Port Balloon, that is to say, as far as possible from the center of eruption, for at the mouth of the Mercy, between the islet and the wall of granite, it would run the risk of being crushed in the event of any convulsion.All the exertions of the voyagers were therefore concentrated upon the completion of the hull.
Thus the 3rd of March arrived, and they might calculate upon launching the vessel in ten days.
Hope revived in the hearts of the colonists, who had, in this fourth year of their sojourn on Lincoln island, suffered so many trials.Even Pencroft lost in some measure the somber taciturnity occasioned by the devastation and ruin of his domain.His hopes, it is true, were concentrated upon his vessel.
"We shall finish it," he said to the engineer, "we shall finish it, captain, and it is time, for the season is advancing and the equinox will soon be here.Well, if necessary, we must put in to Tabor island to spend the winter.But think of Tabor island after Lincoln Island.Ah, how unfortunate! Who could have believed it possible?""Let us get on," was the engineer's invariable reply.
And they worked away without losing a moment.
"Master," asked Neb, a few days later, "do you think all this could have happened if Captain Nemo had been still alive?""Certainly, Neb," answered Cyrus Harding.
"I, for one, don't believe it!" whispered Pencroft to Neb.
"Nor I!" answered Neb seriously.
During the first week of March appearances again became menacing.
Thousands of threads like glass, formed of fluid lava, fell like rain upon the island.The crater was again boiling with lava which overflowed the back of the volcano.The torrent flowed along the surface of the hardened tufa, and destroyed the few meager skeletons of trees which had withstood the first eruption.The stream, flowing this time towards the southwest shore of Lake Grant, stretched beyond Creek Glycerine, and invaded the plateau of Prospect Heights.This last blow to the work of the colonists was terrible.The mill, the buildings of the inner court, the stables, were all destroyed.The affrighted poultry fled in all directions.Top and Jup showed signs of the greatest alarm, as if their instinct warned them of an impending catastrophe.A large number of the animals of the island had perished in the first eruption.Those which survived found no refuge but Tadorn Marsh, save a few to which the plateau of Prospect Heights afforded asylum.But even this last retreat was now closed to them, and the lava-torrent, flowing over the edge of the granite wall, began to pour down upon the beach its cataracts of fire.The sublime horror of this spectacle passed all description.During the night it could only be compared to a Niagara of molten fluid, with its incandescent vapors above and its boiling masses below.
The colonists were driven to their last entrenchment, and although the upper seams of the vessel were not yet calked, they decided to launch her at once.
Pencroft and Ayrton therefore set about the necessary preparations for the launching, which was to take place the morning of the next day, the 9th of March.
But during the night of the 8th an enormous column of vapor escaping from the crater rose with frightful explosions to a height of more than three thousand feet.The wall of Dakkar Grotto had evidently given way under the pressure of gases, and the sea, rushing through the central shalt into the igneous gulf, was at once converted into vapor.But the crater could not afford a sufficient outlet for this vapor.An explosion, which might have been heard at a distance of a hundred miles, shook the air.Fragments of mountains fell into the Pacific, and, in a few minutes, the ocean rolled over the spot where Lincoln island once stood.
