Chapter I
The Return Onboard

The first few moments back on board the Duncan were devoted to the happiness of being reunited with their friends and loved ones. Lord Glenarvan did not want the failure of their search to take away everyone’s joy, so his first words were “Trust me, my friends! Captain Grant is not with us, but we are sure to find him!”

Only such an assurance as this could have restored hope to those on board the Duncan. Lady Helena and Mary Grant had been sorely tried by the suspense as they stood on the poop waiting for the return of the boat, trying to count the number of its passengers. Sometimes the girl was desperate; at others she imagined seeing her father. Her heart throbbed and she could not speak, and indeed could scarcely stand. Lady Helena put her arm around her waist to support her, but John Mangles, who stood close beside them spoke no encouraging word, for his practiced eye plainly saw that Captain Grant was not there.

“He is there! He is coming! Oh, Father!” murmured the young girl. The travellers were not a hundred fathoms from the yacht, when not only Lady Helena and John Mangles, but Mary herself, her eyes bathed in tears, had lost all hope, but for the reassuring voice of Glenarvan.

After the first embraces, Lady Helena, Mary Grant, and John Mangles were informed of the main events of the expedition, and especially of the new interpretation of the document, due to the sagacity of Jacques Paganel. Glenarvan also praised Robert, of whom Mary might well be proud. His courage and devotion, and the dangers he had run, were all emphasized, until the modest boy did not know where to hide, if his sister’s arms hadn’t offered him a refuge.

“No need to blush, Robert,” said John Mangles. “Your conduct has been worthy of your name.” And he leaned over the boy and pressed his lips on his cheek, still wet with Mary’s tears.

The Major and Paganel, it need hardly be said, came in for their due share of welcome, and Lady Helena only regretted she could not shake hands with the brave and generous Thalcave. MacNabbs, after the first outbursts, slipped away to his cabin, and began to shave himself as coolly and composedly as possible. Paganel fluttered about here and there, like a bee sipping the sweets of compliments and smiles. He wanted to embrace everyone on board the yacht, beginning with Lady Helena and Mary Grant, and finishing with Mr. Olbinett, the steward, who could only acknowledge so polite an attention by announcing that breakfast was ready.

“Breakfast?” exclaimed Paganel.

“Yes, Monsieur Paganel.”

“A real breakfast, on a real table, with a cloth and napkins?”

“Certainly, Monsieur Paganel.”

“And we shall neither have charqui, nor hard eggs, nor fillets of rhea?”

“Oh, Monsieur,” said Olbinett, in an aggrieved tone.

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, my friend,” said the smiling geographer. “But for a month that has been our usual bill of fare, and when we dined we stretched ourselves full length on the ground, unless we sat astride on the trees. Consequently, the meal you have just announced seemed to me like a dream, or fiction, or chimera.”

“Well, Monsieur Paganel, come along and let us prove its reality,” said Lady Helena, who could not help laughing.

“Here is my arm,” said the gallant geographer.

“Has Your Honour any orders to give me for the Duncan?” asked John Mangles.

“After breakfast, John,” replied Glenarvan, “we’ll discuss the program of our new expedition en famille.”

Mr. Olbinett’s breakfast seemed quite a fête to the hungry guests. It was pronounced excellent, and even superior to the feasts of the Pampas. Paganel helped himself twice to each dish, “by distraction,” he said.

This unfortunate word reminded Lady Helena of the amiable Frenchman’s propensity, and made her ask if he had ever fallen into his old habits while they were away. The Major and Glenarvan looked at each other with a smile, and Paganel burst out laughing, and pledged “on his honour” that he would never be caught distracted again during the whole voyage. After this prelude, he gave an amusing recital of his disastrous mistake in learning Spanish, and his profound study of Camões.

“After all,” he added, “it’s an ill wind that blows no good, and I don’t regret the mistake.”

“Why not, my worthy friend?” asked the Major.

“Because not only do I now speak Spanish, but also Portuguese. I have gained two languages instead of one.”

“Upon my word, I never thought of that,” said MacNabbs. “My compliments, Paganel! My sincere compliments.”

Everyone applauded Paganel, but he did not lose a single bite. He ate and talked, at the same time. He was so much taken up with his plate that one little fact quite escaped his observation, though Glenarvan noticed it at once. This was that John Mangles had grown particularly attentive to Mary Grant. A slight sign of Lady Helena to her husband told him that it was “like that!” Glenarvan looked at the two youngsters with affectionate sympathy, but when he spoke to John Mangles it was on a different subject.

“And your journey, John?” he asked. “How did it go?”

“We had excellent conditions; but I must apprise your Lordship that I did not go through the Straits of Magellan again.”

“What? You doubled Cape Horn, and I wasn’t there!” exclaimed Paganel.

“Oh, hang yourself!” said the Major.

“You only say that because you want the rope!” said the geographer.¹

“Come, my dear Paganel,” said Glenarvan. “Unless you have the gift of ubiquity you can’t be everywhere. While you were crossing the plains of the Pampas you could not be doubling Cape Horn.”

“That doesn’t prevent my regretting it,” said Paganel.

They dropped that subject, and John Mangles continued his account of his voyage. He had hugged the American coast, and observed all the western archipelagos without finding any trace of the Britannia. On arriving at Cape Pilares he had found the winds dead against him, and therefore continued south. The Duncan had followed the coast of Desolation Island, and after reaching the 57th² degree of southern latitude, had doubled Cape Horn, passed by Terra del Fuego and through the Straits of Lemaire. Then they followed the Patagonian coast northward again. At Cape Corrientes they encountered the terrible storm which had assaulted the travellers so violently, but the yacht had handled it well, and for the last three days they had cruised off the coast, until the welcome signal-gun of the expedition was heard announcing the arrival of the anxiously-looked-for party. As for Lady Glenarvan and Miss Grant, the captain of the Duncan would be unjust in disregarding their rare fearlessness. The storm did not frighten them, and if they manifested any fears, it was for their friends, wandering the plains of the Argentine Republic.

After John Mangles had finished his narrative, and received the compliments of Lord Glenarvan, he turned to Mary. “My dear Miss Mary, the captain has been doing homage to your noble qualities, and I am happy to think that you do not dislike being aboard his ship!”

“How could it be otherwise?” said Mary, looking at Lady Helena, and perhaps at the young captain too.

“Oh, my sister likes you, Mr. John!” said Robert. “And so do I.”

“And I like you too, my dear boy,” said the captain, a little disconcerted by Robert’s words, which had brought a faint blush to Mary’s cheek.

He shifted the conversation to less fraught ground. “Since I have finished telling of the Duncan’s journey, will Your Honour give us some more details of your crossing of America, and the exploits of our young hero?”

No story could be more agreeable to Lady Helena and Mary Grant; Lord Glenarvan hastened to satisfy their curiosity. He related, incident by incident, the entire march from one ocean to another: the passage over the Andes, the earthquake, the disappearance of Robert, his capture by the condor, Thalcave’s gunshot, the episode of the red wolves, the dedication of the young boy, Sergeant Manuel, the flood, the refuge on the ombú, the lightning, the fire, the caimans, the waterspout, the night on the Atlantic shore. All these details, happy or terrible, excited laughter and terror in turns in his listeners. Many circumstances were reported that earned Robert hugs from his sister and Lady Helena. Never before was a boy so much embraced, or by such enthusiastic friends.

“And now, friends, we must think of the present.” said Lord Glenarvan, when he had finished his story. “The past is gone, but the future is ours. Let us come back to Captain Harry Grant.”

Breakfast was over; the guests returned to Lady Glenarvan’s private cabin and seated themselves around a table covered with charts and plans, and the conversation began immediately.

“My dear Helena,” said Lord Glenarvan, “I told you, when we came on board a little while ago, that though we had not brought back the castaways of the Britannia, our hope of finding them was stronger than ever. Our passage through America has resulted in the conviction, or I should say the certainty, that the catastrophe did not take place on the Pacific or on the Atlantic coasts. The natural inference is that, as far as regards Patagonia, our interpretation of the document was erroneous. Fortunately, our friend Paganel, enlightened by a sudden inspiration, discovered the error. He has demonstrated that we have been on the wrong track, and interpreted the document in such a way as to leave no hesitation in our minds. I will ask Paganel to go over it for your benefit.”

The learned geographer, thus called upon, began to speak in the most convincing manner. He declaimed on the syllables ‘gonie’ and ‘indi’, and extracting ‘Australia’ out of ‘austral’. He pointed out that Captain Grant, on leaving the coast of Peru to return to Europe, might have been carried away with his disabled ship by the southern currents of the Pacific right to the shores of Australia. His hypotheses were so ingenious and his deductions so subtle that even the matter-of-fact John Mangles, a difficult judge, and most unlikely to be led away by any flights of imagination, was completely satisfied.

At the conclusion of Paganel’s dissertation, Glenarvan announced that the Duncan would sail immediately for Australia.

But before the order was given to head east, Major MacNabbs asked to make a simple observation.

“Say away, MacNabbs,” replied Glenarvan.

“My aim,” said the Major, “is not to weaken the arguments of my friend Paganel, still less to refute them. I find them serious, sagacious, worthy of all our attention, and they must rightly form the basis of our future search. But I want them to undergo a final review so that their value is indisputable and undisputed.”

No one knew where the prudent MacNabbs was going, and they all listened with some anxiety.

“Go on, Major,” said Paganel. “I am ready to answer all your questions.”

“They are simple enough, as you will see. Five months ago, when we left the Firth of Clyde, we had studied these same documents, and their interpretation seemed obvious to us. No other coast but the western coast of Patagonia could possibly, we thought, have been the scene of the shipwreck. We had not even the shadow of a doubt on the subject.”

“That’s true,” said Glenarvan.

“A little later,” continued the Major, “when Paganel, in a moment of providential distraction, came on board the Duncan, the documents were submitted to him and he approved our plan of to search the American coast without reservation.”

“I do not deny it,” said Paganel.

“And yet we were mistaken,” said the Major.

“Yes, we were mistaken,” said Paganel. “It is only human to make a mistake, but to persist in a mistake, a man must be a fool.”

“Wait, Paganel, don’t excite yourself; I don’t mean to say that we should prolong our search in America.”

“What is it, then, that you want?” asked Glenarvan.

“An admission, nothing more. The admission that Australia now seems to be the scene of the sinking of the Britannia as evidently as America did before.”

“I willingly admit it,” said Paganel.

“I take note of it,” said the major, “and I take advantage of it to engage your imagination in challenging these successive and contradictory interpretations. Who knows if, after Australia, another country will not offer us the same certainties, and if this new search is made in vain, it will not seem ‘obvious’ that they must be recommenced elsewhere?”

Glenarvan and Paganel looked at each other silently, struck by the justice of these remarks.

“I should like you, before we actually start for Australia, to make one more examination of the documents.” said the Major. “Here they are, and here are the charts. Let us take up each point in succession through which the 37^th parallel passes, and see if we come across any other country which would agree with the precise indications of the document.”

“Nothing is easier and less time-consuming,” said Paganel, “for happily, land does not abound in this latitude.”

“Come,” said the major, unfolding an English Mercator projection map of the entire globe.

He placed it before Lady Helena, and they all stood around, so as to be able to follow Paganel’s demonstration.

“As I have said already,” said the learned geographer, “after having crossed South America, the 37^th degree of latitude meets the islands of Tristan da Cunha. Now I maintain that none of the words of the document could relate to these islands.”

The documents were scrupulously examined, they all agreed that Paganel was correct. There was nothing in the documents that indicated Tristan da Cunha.

“Let us continue,” said Paganel. “After leaving the Atlantic, we pass two degrees below the Cape of Good Hope, and into the Indian Ocean. Only one group of islands is found on this route, the Amsterdam Islands. Now, then, we must examine these as we did Tristan da Cunha.”

After a close survey, the Amsterdam Islands were ousted in their turn. Not a single word, or part of a word, French, English or German, applied to this group in the Indian Ocean.

“Now we come to Australia,” said Paganel. “The 37^th parallel meets this continent at Cape Bernouilli, and leaves it at Twofold Bay. You will agree with me that, without straining the text, the English fragment ‘stra’ and the French one ‘austral’ may relate to Australia. I trust that this is obvious enough.” Everyone agreed with Paganel’s conclusion. This interpretation seemed quite reasonable.

“Let us keep going,” said MacNabbs.

“After leaving Twofold Bay, we cross this stretch of sea eastward to New Zealand. Here I must call your attention to the fact that the word ‘contin’ from the French document irrefutably indicates a continent. So Captain Grant can not have found refuge on New Zealand, which is only an island. Be that as it may, examine and compare, and turn over each word, and see if, by any possibility, they can be made to fit this new country.”

“In no way whatever,” said John Mangles, after a careful observation of the documents and the map.

“No,” agreed all the rest, including the Major, “it cannot be New Zealand.”

“Now,” continued Paganel, “in all this immense space between New Zealand and the American coast, there is only one solitary barren little island crossed by the 37^th parallel.”

“And what is its name,” asked the Major.

“Here it is, marked in the map. It is Maria Theresa, a name of which I can find no trace in any of the three documents.”

“None,” said Glenarvan.

“I leave you, then, my friends, to decide whether all these probabilities, not to say certainties, are not in favour of the Australian continent?”

“Of course,” said the passengers and the captain of the Duncan.

“Well, then, John,” said Glenarvan, “the next question is, have you provisions and coal enough?”

“Yes, Your Honour, I took in an ample store at Talcahuano, and besides, we can easily replenish our stock of coal at Cape Town.”

“Well, then, give the—”

“Let me make one more observation,” interrupted MacNabbs.

“Go on then.”

“Whatever likelihood of success Australia may offer us, wouldn’t it be advisable to stop a day or two at the Tristan da Cunha and Amsterdam Islands? They lie in our route, and would not take us the least out of the way. Then we should be able to ascertain if the Britannia had left any traces of her shipwreck there?”

“The incredulous Major!” exclaimed Paganel. “He sticks to his idea.”

“I especially don’t want to retrace our steps, if by chance, Australia should disappoint our hopes.”

“It seems to me a reasonable precaution,” said Glenarvan.

“And I’m not the one to dissuade you from it,” said Paganel. “Quite the contrary.”

“Then, John,” said Glenarvan, “set your course for Tristan da Cunha.”

“Immediately, Your Honour,” replied the captain, and he returned to the deck, while Robert and Mary Grant gave Lord Glenarvan their most sincere thanks.

Soon, the Duncan had left the American coast, and was running eastward, her swift bow splitting the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

1. It was a common nineteenth century superstition that possessing a bit of noose from a hanged man was good luck — DAS

2. Verne has them reaching the 67^th degree, which would put them inside the Antarctic Circle, and run them into the Antarctic Peninsula. 57° S still clears Cape Horn by a respectable margin.