Chapter XX
A Cry in the Night

The crew soon learned that the mystery of Captain Grant had not been cleared up by Ayrton’s revelations. This was discouraging to everyone on board, for they’d had high hopes, and it turned out that the quartermaster knew nothing that could put the Duncan on the trail of the Britannia!

The yacht maintained her course. It remained to choose an island on which Ayrton was to be abandoned.

Paganel and John Mangles consulted the charts. An isolated island known as Maria Theresa lay precisely on the 37^th parallel, a rock lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thirty-five hundred miles from the American coast, and fifteen hundred miles from New Zealand.¹ The nearest lands to the north were the Pomotou Archipelago², a French protectorate. There was nothing to the south, until you reached the eternally frozen ice pack around the southern pole. No ships came to this lonely island. No echo of the world reached her. Only the storm birds rested there during their long crossings, and many maps did not even show this rock beaten by the waves of the Pacific.³

If ever absolute isolation were to be found on the earth, it was on this island far from the rest of humanity. The choice was made known to Ayrton, who agreed to live there, far from his fellows, and the course was set for Maria Theresa. At this moment, a line drawn with a ruler on a Mercator map would have passed through the Duncan, the island, and Talcahuano Bay.

Two days later, at two o’clock, the lookout signalled sighting land on the horizon. It was Maria Theresa, low-lying, barely emerging from the waves, it looked like a huge cetacean. The yacht was still thirty miles off, and her bow sliced ​​through the waves with a speed of sixteen knots.

Little by little, the profile of the islet grew on the horizon. The sun, sinking toward the west, highlighted her sinuous silhouette. A few higher peaks stood out here and there, highlighted by the rays of the day star.

At five o’clock John Mangles thought he could see a light smoke rising into the sky.

“Is it a volcano?” he asked Paganel, who was watching this new land with his telescope.

“I do not know what to think,” said the geographer. “Maria Theresa is little known. However, it should not be surprising if its origin was due to some submarine uprising, and therefore volcanic.”

“But then,” said Glenarvan, “if an eruption has produced it, can we not fear that an eruption will destroy it?”

“It is unlikely,” said Paganel. “It has evidently existed for several centuries, it should continue to exist for several more. When Julia Island emerged from the Mediterranean, she did not stay out of the water for long and disappeared a few months after her birth.”

“Good,” said Glenarvan. “Do you think we can land before dark, John?”

“No, Your Honour. I must not risk the Duncan in the darkness on an unknown coast. I will keep her under low pressure, running short tacks, and tomorrow, at daybreak, we will send a boat ashore.”

At eight o’clock in the evening, Maria Theresa, though only five miles upwind, appeared as a barely visible shadow on the horizon. The Duncan drew still closer.

At nine o’clock, a bright glow, a fire, shone in the darkness. It was motionless and continuous.

“That would confirm a volcano,” said Paganel, watching attentively.

“However,” said John Mangles, “at this distance we should hear the noise that always accompanies an eruption, and the east wind brings no sound to our ears.”

“Indeed,” said Paganel, “this volcano shines, but does not speak. It seems, moreover, that it is intermittent, like a flashing lighthouse.”

“You are right,” said John Mangles, “and yet we are not on a lighted coast. Ah!” he cried. “Another fire! On the beach this time! See! It’s moving! It’s changing places!”

John was correct. A new fire had appeared, which sometimes seemed to go out, only to be revived in a different location.

“Is the island inhabited?” asked Glenarvan.

“By savages, no doubt,” said Paganel.

“If so, we can not abandon the quartermaster, here.”

“No,” said the Major. “That would be a bad gift, even to savages.”

“We’ll look for some other desert island,” said Glenarvan, who could not help but smile at MacNabbs’ jest. “I promised life to Ayrton, and I intend to keep my promise.”

“In any case, let’s be careful,” said Paganel. “The Māori have the barbaric custom of fooling ships with moving lights, as once did the inhabitants of Cornwall. Now the natives of Maria Theresa seem to learned the practice.”

“Bear away by a quarter!” John shouted to the sailor at the helm. “Tomorrow, at sunrise, we’ll know what to expect.”

At eleven o’clock, the passengers and John Mangles returned to their cabins. The man on watch was pacing on the foredeck of the yacht. At the stern, the helmsman was alone at his post.

Mary and Robert Grant climbed onto the poop.

The captain’s two children, leaning on the rail, looked sadly at the phosphorescent sea and the luminous wake of the Duncan. Mary was thinking of Robert’s future; Robert was thinking of his sister’s. Both thought of their father. Was there any hope left for their beloved father? Should they give up? But no, without him, what would life be? Without him what would become of them? What would have become of them without Lord Glenarvan, and Lady Helena?

The young boy, matured by misfortune, divined the thoughts that disturbed his sister. He took Mary’s hand in his.

“Mary,” he said, “we must never despair. Remember what our father taught us. ‘Courage replaces everything here below,’ he said. Let us have it: that stubborn courage which rises above all else. So far you have worked for me, my sister, I want to work for you in my turn.”

“Dear Robert!” said the girl.

“I need to tell you something,” said Robert. “Don’t be angry, Mary.”

“Why should I anger myself, my child?”

“And you will let me do it?”

“What do you mean?” asked Mary, worried.

“My sister! I will be a sailor—”

“Will you leave me?” cried the girl, grasping her brother’s hand.

“Yes, sister! I’ll be a sailor, like my father; a sailor like Captain John! Mary, my dear Mary, Captain John has not lost all hope! You can, like me, trust in his dedication! He has promised that he will make me a good, a great sailor. Until then, we will seek our father together! Say that you want it, sister! What our father would have done for us, our duty, mine at least, is to do it for him! I am dedicating my life to a single purpose: to seek, always to seek the one who never abandoned either of us! Dear Mary, how good he was, our father!”

“And so noble, so generous!” said Mary. “You know, Robert, that he was already a famous man in our country, and that he would have counted among its great men, if fate had not stopped him in his mission!”

“I know it!” said Robert.

Mary Grant squeezed Robert to her heart. The young child felt tears running down his forehead.

“Mary! Mary!” he exclaimed, “Our friends won’t say that they have given up, but they have become very quiet. I still hope, and I will always hope! A man like my father does not die before having accomplished his task!”

Mary Grant could not answer. Sobs choked her. A thousand feelings were throbbing in her soul at the thought that new attempts would be made to find Harry Grant, and that the young captain’s dedication was boundless.

“Mr. John still hopes?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Robert. “He is a brother who will never leave us. I’ll be a sailor, my sister, a sailor to look for my father with him! Do you want it?”

“I want it!” said Mary. “But we will be apart!” whispered the girl.

“You will not be alone, Mary. I know that! My friend John told me so. Mrs. Helena will not let you leave her. You are a woman, you can, you must accept her help. To refuse it would be ingratitude! But a man, my father told me a hundred times, a man must make his his own fate in the world!”

“But what will become of our dear house in Dundee, so full of memories?”

“We’ll keep it, little sister! It has been arranged by our friend John, and also by Lord Glenarvan. He’ll keep you at Malcolm Castle, like his daughter! The Lord told my friend John, and John told me! You’ll be at home there, gathering news about our father, waiting for John and me to bring him back one day! Ah! What a beautiful day it will be!” exclaimed Robert, whose face shone with enthusiasm.

“My brother, my child,” said Mary. “How proud our father would be, if he could hear you! You already look so much like him, dear Robert; like our dear father! When you become a man, you will be just like him!”

“God hear you, Mary,” said Robert, blushing with pious and filial pride.

“But how do we repay Lord and Lady Glenarvan?” said Mary Grant.

“Oh, it will not be difficult!” said Robert, with his youthful confidence. “We love them, we venerate them, we tell them so, we embrace them well, and one day, at the first opportunity, we get killed for them!”

“On the contrary! Live for them!” exclaimed the girl, kissing her brother’s forehead. “They will like that better — and me too!”

The captain’s two children lapsed into indefinite reveries, talking together in the darkness of the night. They talked together, sometimes asking and answering each other’s questions. The yacht gently rocked in the long swells of the calm sea, and the screw turned up a luminous trail in the dark water.

Then came a strange and seemingly supernatural incident. By one of those magnetic communications which mysteriously bind souls to each other, the brother and sister, at the same moment, seemed to experience the same hallucination. From the midst of these alternately dark and shining waves, Mary and Robert thought they heard a voice rise to them, whose deep and woeful sound made all the fibres of their hearts tremble.

“To me! To me!” called the voice.

“Mary,” said Robert, “Did you hear that? You heard it?”

And, leaning over the rail, both of them, peered into the dark of the night.

But they saw nothing, only the shadow that stretched endlessly before them.

“Robert,” said Mary, pale with emotion, “I thought … yes, I thought like you … We both have a fever, my Robert!”

But a new call came to them, and this time the illusion was such that the same cry came at once from both of their hearts “My father! My father!”

It was too much for Mary Grant. Overcome by emotion, she fell fainting into Robert’s arms.

“Help!” Robert shouted. “My sister! My father! Help!”

The helmsman rushed to lift the girl up. The sailors on watch came running, followed by John Mangles, Lady Helena, and Lord Glenarvan, who had been suddenly awakened.

“My sister is dying, and our father is there!” exclaimed Robert, pointing to the waves. They did not understand his words.

“Yes,” he repeated. “My father is here! I heard my father’s voice! Mary heard it too!”

And at this moment, Mary Grant, returning to her senses also exclaimed “My father! My father is here!”

The poor girl, getting up and leaning over the rail, wanted to jump into the sea.

“My Lord! Mrs. Helena!” she repeated, clasping her hands, “I tell you my father is here! I tell you that I heard his voice coming out of the waves like a lament, like a last goodbye!”

Then, fresh seizures convulsed the poor child. She struggled. She had to be transported to her cabin, and Lady Helena followed to take care of her, while Robert kept repeating “My father! My father is here! I am sure of it, My Lord!”

The witnesses to this painful scene finally understood that the two children of the captain had been the victims of a hallucination. But how to restore their senses, so violently abused?

Glenarvan tried, however. He took Robert by the hand and said to him “Did you hear your father’s voice, my dear child?”

“Yes, My Lord. There, in the middle of the waves! He cried out ‘To me! To me!’”

“And you recognized the voice?”

“I recognized his voice, My Lord! Oh, yes! I swear to you! My sister heard it; she recognized it, too! How could we both be wrong? My Lord, let us go to the aid of my father! A boat! A boat!”

Glenarvan saw that he could not calm the poor child. Nevertheless, he made one last attempt and called the helmsman.

“Hawkins,” he asked, “were you at the helm when Miss Mary was so singularly struck?”

“Yes, Your Honour,” answered Hawkins.

“And did you see anything? Did you hear anything?”

“Nothing.”

“You see it, Robert.”

“If it had been Hawkins’ father,” replied the young child with indomitable energy, “Hawkins would not say he heard nothing. It was my father, My Lord! My father! My father—!”

Robert’s voice died in a sob. Pale and mute, in his turn, he lost consciousness. Glenarvan carried Robert to his bed, and the child, shattered by emotion, fell into a deep slumber.

“Poor orphans!” says John Mangles, “God tests them in a terrible way!”

“Yes,” replied Glenarvan, “the surfeit of pain has produced the same hallucination in both of them, and at the same time.”

“In both of them?” muttered Paganel. “It’s strange! Pure science would not admit it.”

Paganel beckoned for everyone to be quiet. He leaned over the rail, and listened. He heard only the deep silence of the night. He loudly hailed the shore. He heard no answer.

“It’s strange!” said the geographer, returning to his cabin. “An intimate harmony of thought and pain is not enough to explain this phenomenon!”

At dawn the next day, March 8^th, at five o’clock in the morning, the passengers — Robert and Mary among them, for it had been impossible to restrain them — were assembled on the deck of the Duncan. Each of them wanted to examine that land which had scarcely been visible the day before.

The glasses eagerly wandered over the main points of the island. The yacht sailed one mile off the shore. The lookout could see its every detail. A shout suddenly arose from Robert. The child announced seeing two men running and gesticulating, while a third waved a flag.

“The English flag,” exclaimed John Mangles, who had seized his telescope.

“It’s true!” exclaimed Paganel, turning quickly to Robert.

“My Lord,” said Robert trembling with emotion. “My Lord, if you do not want me to swim to the island, you will have a boat put to sea. Oh, My Lord! I beg you on my knees to be the first to land!” No one dared to speak on board. What? On this islet crossed by the 37^th parallel, three men, shipwrecked, English! And each one, returning to the events of the day before, thought of that voice heard in the night by Robert and Mary! Perhaps the children had only been wrong on one point: a voice could have come to them, but could this voice be that of their father? No, a thousand times no. Alas! And each one, thinking of the horrible disappointment which awaited them, trembled that this new test did not exceed their strength! But how to stop them? Lord Glenarvan did not have the courage.

“Lower the boat!” he cried.

In a minute, the boat was put to sea. The two children of Captain Grant, Glenarvan, John Mangles, and Paganel, rushed into it, and it pushed off quickly under the impulse of six sailors who rowed with passion.

Ten yards from the shore, Mary uttered a heart-rending cry.

“My father!”

A man was standing on the shore between two other men. His tall and strong figure, his countenance — at once soft and bold — offered an expressive mixture of the features of Mary and Robert Grant. He was the man that the two children had so often described. Their hearts had not deceived them. It was their father. It was Captain Grant!

The captain heard Mary’s cry, opened his arms, and fell on the sand, as if struck by lightning.

1. 3,500 miles = 1,400 leagues = 5,600 kilometres; 1,500 miles = 600 leagues = 2,400 kilometres — DAS

2. Now known as the Tuamotu Archipelago — DAS

3. The maps that didn’t show the island were correct. Maria Theresa is (was?) a “phantom island” reported by Asaph P. Taber, (hence it’s other name) captain of the whaling ship Maria Theresa, in 1843, and remained on many maps up until the 1950s, when extensive surveys of that area of ocean failed to find it again — DAS