Part 14 (1/2)

The leaves were fragrant and elegantly shaped, and the roots were of a mottled brown and yellow. Eiulo carried in his hand an unripe bread-fruit--a splendid pea-green globe, nearly as big as his head.

They had discovered a n.o.ble grove of this most valuable tree, at no great distance from the hill, but the fruit was not yet perfectly ripe.

Johnny, who had awaked at the return of the absentees, was greatly delighted at these discoveries, and began to lament that he had not accompanied Arthur. He inquired very particularly as to the direction of the bread-fruit grove, as if cheris.h.i.+ng the design of setting out at once to visit it; but Browne letting some thing drop about the voice in the woods, Johnny changed the subject, and saying that it must be nearly dinner-time, proposed to make a fire, and bake the fern roots, so as to test their quality. Upon hearing this, Max, whose slumbers had also been disturbed, raised his head for a moment and exclaimed so vehemently against the very mention of a fire, when we were already dissolving with heat, that nothing further was said about it.

”And now,” said Arthur, after having given a full account of his discoveries, and answered all Johnny's questions, ”I believe it is just noon, and while I think of it, I will try to ascertain our longitude.”

”Ascertain our longitude!” exclaimed Browne, ”pray, how do you propose to do that without instruments?”

”I know the longitude of the Kingsmill islands,” answered Arthur, ”and if I can find our distance east or west of them, of course, I have the longitude of this island.”

”But there's the difficulty; how can you ascertain even whether we are to the east, or to the west of them?”

”In the first place, then, I have Kingsmill island time; my watch was last set, one day while we were there, just after Mr Frazer had taken an observation.”

”Do you mean to say,” inquired I with some interest, ”that you have regularly wound up your watch every day since then, without once forgetting or neglecting it during all that has since occurred?”

”I did regularly, every night before sleeping; and during all the time that we were at sea in the boat, hardly a day pa.s.sed that I did not note down some memoranda in my pocket-book.”

”That now, is positively diabolical!” exclaimed Max, from his covert among the creepers, where he was completely invisible, except his heels, which were kicking in the air; ”I wouldn't have believed, Arthur, that you were such a methodical, cold-blooded creature! I suppose now, that if I had tumbled overboard during that hideous time, and been gulped down by a shark, or if Shakespeare had starved to death, you would have made a regular memorandum of the event, in business-like style, and wound up your watch as usual. I think I see the entry in your pocket-book, thus: '1839, June 3rd--Mem. Max Adeler fell overboard this day, and was devoured by a shark--an amiable and interesting youth, though too much given to levity, and not prepared, I fear, for so unexpected a summons. June 5th--Mem. My worthy and estimable friend, John Browne, late of Glasgow, Scotland, died this day, from lack of necessary food. Threw him overboard. What startling monitions of the uncertainty of life!'”

”Peace, Kaiser Maximilien, peace!” cried Browne, ”and let the Professor proceed to fix our longitude.”

”The first thing,” resumed Arthur, ”is to plant a straight stick upright in the ground; when it casts no shadow east or west it is twelve o'clock _here_. My watch will then show what time it is at the Kingsmills: if it shows an earlier hour there, we must be east of them; if a later hour, then we are west of them.”

”I think I understand that,” said Johnny; ”the next thing is to tell how far east or west we are.”

”That is quite easy. There are, you know, three hundred and sixty degrees of longitude: the sun pa.s.ses through them all--that is, round the globe in twenty-four hours. Then, of course, in one hour, it pa.s.ses through fifteen degrees, and through one degree in four minutes; so that for every four minutes' difference of time, there will be a difference of longitude of one degree--that is, near the equator, about seventy miles.”

”It must be very near noon now,” said Johnny, running out into a patch of suns.h.i.+ne, where a small opening in the grove let in the light, ”see!

I have hardly any shadow at all.”

Arthur planted a stick in the ground, and as soon as the shadow marked the hour of noon, looked at his watch, by which it was eighteen minutes after twelve.

”It would seem from this,” said he, ”that we are four degrees and a half, or over three hundred miles, west of the Kingsmills: it also appears that we are very near the line, but a little south of it, for the shadow inclines a little southward.”

”It is all nonsense,” cried Max, sitting up in the gra.s.s, ”to pretend to ascertain where we are, in any such way as this. If your watch, (which you know is a miserable time-keeper), has lost or gained but twenty minutes since we left the Kingsmills, which is now nearly two months, then what becomes of your learned calculations about the difference of time, and of the longitude, and all that?”

Arthur laughed, and admitted that this grave impeachment of the character of his chronometer, was not entirely without foundation, and that in consequence, the strict accuracy of the results arrived at, could not be relied on.

”The only thing that we can be at all certain about in regard to our position,” said Max, ”is, that we are south of the line.”

”How can that be?” inquired Browne, ”the Pole-star is visible from here, or, at any rate, we saw it on the second or third night we were at sea in the boat.”

”A part of the Great Bear can be seen,” answered Arthur, ”but not the north star, I think. I looked for it last night, and though I could see all the stars of the Dipper, the pointers were near the horizon, and the Pole-star below it. But even if visible, it would be no evidence that we are north of the equator, for I believe it can be seen from the fourth or fifth degree of south lat.i.tude.”

”See now,” said Browne, ”what a pretty neighbourhood you are getting us into, with your wise calculations! If we are south of the line, and far west of the Kingsmills, we must be somewhere near the Bidera Sea, and the Mendana Archipelago, about which the young sailor Roby, who was always boasting of having sailed with the famous Captain Morell, used to tell us such wonderful stories.”

”It is good ground,” replied Arthur, ”for one who wants to exercise a traveller's privilege, and recount marvels and prodigies, without fear of contradiction. Those seas are full of large islands, with countless numbers of smaller ones, and remain to this day almost unexplored. In fact, little more is now ascertained in regard to them, than was known two hundred and fifty years ago, soon after their discovery by the Spanish navigator Mendana; so that a man who pretends, as Roby does, to have gone over the ground himself, may tell pretty much what stories he pleases, without danger of any one being able to convict him of inaccuracy.”

”What!” exclaimed Johnny, opening his eyes to their utmost extent, ”do you suppose we are near those islands Jack Roby tells about, where the natives chew betel and lime out of a carbo-gourd, and sacrifice men to their idols, and tear out and devour the hearts of their enemies?”

”And where King Rogerogee lived,” added Max, ”(you remember him Johnny), the giant seven feet and a half high, who wore a paradise plume on his head, and a girdle of the claws and beaks of birds around his waist?