The Floating Island (19 page)

To these testimonies of sympathy
the quartette responded by the execution of the finest works in their
repertory: the seventh quartette in F major, op. 59 of Beethoven; the fourth
quartette in E flat, op. 10 of Mozart; the fourth quartette in D minor, op. 17
of Haydn; the seventh quartette (andante, scherzo, capriccioso, and fugue), op.
18 of Mendelssohn. Yes, all these marvels of concerted music, and there was no
charge for hearing them! The crush at the doors was tremendous, and the room
was suffocating. The pieces were encored and encored again, and the Governor
presented to the executants a medal in gold encircled with diamonds respectable
in the number of their carats, having on one face the arms of Milliard City,
and on the other
—

Presented to the Quartette Party

By the Company, the Municipality, and the People

of Floating Island.

And if all these honours did not
reach to the very depths of the soul of the irreconcilable violoncellist, it
was decidedly because he was a deplorable character, as his comrades told him.

“Wait for the end!”  he was
content to reply, twisting his beard with a feverish hand.

It was at thirty-five minutes
past ten in the evening
—
the calculation was made by the astronomers of Floating Island
—
that the line would
be crossed. At that precise moment a salute would be fired from one of the
cannon in the Prow Battery. A wire connected this gun with an electric
apparatus arranged in the centre of the square of the observatory.
Extraordinary satisfaction of self-esteem for the notable on whom devolved the
honour of sending the current which would provoke the formidable detonation!

On this occasion the honour was
sought by two important personages. These were, as may be guessed, Jem
Tankerdon and Nat Coverley. Consequently, considerable embarrassment for Cyrus
Bikerstaff. Difficult negotiations had been taking place between the town hall
and the two sections of the city. No agreement had been arrived at. At the Governor’s
invitation, the services of Calistus Munbar had been called in. Despite his
well-known diplomatic adroitness, he had failed. Jem Tankerdon would not give
way to Nat Coverley, who would not give way to Jem Tankerdon. An explosion was
expected.

It did not promise to be long in
coming when the two chiefs met in the square. The apparatus was but five paces
away from them. They had but to touch the button.

Aware of the difficulty, the
crowd, much interested in this question of precedence, had invaded the garden.
After the concert, Sebastien Zorn, Yvernès, Frascolin, and Pinchinat had come
to the square, curious to observe the phases of this rivalry, which,
considering the dispositions of the Larboardites and Starboardites, was of
exceptional gravity for the future.

The two notables advanced towards
the apparatus, without the slightest inclination of the head.

“I think, sir,” said Jem
Tankerdon, “that you will not contest this honour.”

“That is exactly what I expect
from you, sir,” replied Nat Coverley.

“I shall not allow any one to
deprive me of it.”

“Nor shall I allow any one to
deprive me of it.”

“We shall see, then!” said Jem
Tankerdon, taking a step towards the instrument.

Nat Coverley also took a step.
The partisans of the two notables began to mingle. Ill-sounding provocations
broke out in the ranks. Doubtless Walter Tankerdon was ready to maintain the
rights of his father; but when he caught sight of Miss Coverley standing a
little way off, he was visibly embarrassed.

As to the Governor, although the
superintendent was at his side, ready to act as buffer, he was in intense
distress at not being able to unite in a single bouquet the white rose of York
and the red rose of Lancaster. And who knows if this deplorable competition
might not have consequences as regrettable as the roses had in the fifteenth
century for the English aristocracy?

But the moment was approaching
when the prow of Floating Island would cut the equinoctial line. Calculated
precisely to a quarter of a second of time, the error could not be greater than
eight metres. The signal would soon be sent from the observatory.

“I have an idea,” murmured
Pinchinat.

“What?” asked Yvernès.

“I will give a whack on the
instrument, and that will put matters right.”

“Don’t do that!” said Frascolin,
stopping his Highness with a vigorous grip.

No one knew how the matter would
have ended if a detonation had not suddenly taken place.

The report was certainly not from
the Prow Battery. It came from a gun out at sea, which had been heard
distinctly.

The crowd paused in suspense.
What could be the meaning of this discharge of a gun which did not belong to
the island’s artillery?

A telegram from Starboard Harbour
almost immediately gave the explanation.

Two or three miles off, a ship in
distress had signalled its presence and demanded assistance.

Fortunate and unexpected
diversion! There was no more thought of touching the button nor saluting the
crossing of the Equator. There was no time. The Equator was crossed, and the
charge remained in the cannon. All the better for the honour of the Tankerdons
and Coverleys.

The public evacuated the square,
and, as the trams were not working, proceeded rapidly on foot to Starboard
Harbour.

Immediately the signal had been
heard, the harbour master had taken measures for the rescue. One of the
electric launches moored in the wet dock had gone out. And at the moment the
crowd arrived, the launch had brought back the crew from the ship, which had
soon afterwards foundered in the Pacific.

The ship was the Malay ketch
which had followed Floating Island since its departure from the Sandwich
Archipelago,

In
the morning of the 29th of August, the Pearl of the Pacific reached the
Marquesas Islands, lying between 7
⁰
55’ and 10
⁰
30’ south
latitude, and 141
⁰
and 143
⁰
6’ longitude west of the
meridian of Paris. It had traversed a distance of three thousand four hundred
kilometres since leaving the Sandwich group.

If this group is called after
Mendana, it is because the Spaniard of that name discovered its southern
portion in 1595. If it is called Revolution Islands, it is because it was
visited by Captain Marchand in 1791, in its northwestern part. If it is called
the Nuka Hiva Archipelago, it is because that is the name of the largest island
in it. And yet, as a matter of justice, it ought to bear the name of Cook, for
that celebrated navigator surveyed it in 1774.

This was what Commodore Ethel
Simcoe remarked to Frascolin, who thought the observation very reasonable,
adding,
—

“We might also call it the French
Archipelago, for we are not without a few marquises in France.”

In fact, a Frenchman has the
right to regard this group of eleven islands or islets as one of his country’s
squadrons moored in the waters of the Pacific. The largest are vessels of the
first class, Nuka-Hiva and Hiva-Oa; the moderate ones are cruisers of different
ranks, Hiavu, Uapvu, Uahuka; the little ones are despatch boats, Motane,
Fatu-Hiva, Taou-Ata; while the islets and atolls will do for the launches and
boats. It is true, these islands could not move about like Floating Island.

It was on the 1st of May, 1842,
that the Commander of the naval station of the Pacific, Vice-Admiral
Dupetit-Thouars, took possession of this archipelago in the name of France. It
is separated by from a thousand to two thousand leagues from the coast of
America, New Zealand, Australia, China, the Moluccas, and the Philippines.
Under these conditions, was the act of the Vice-Admiral to be praised or blamed?
He was blamed by the Opposition and praised by the Government. It is none the
less true that France has there an insular domain where its whaling vessels can
shelter and re-victual, and to which the Panama Canal, if it is ever open, will
give very considerable commercial importance. This domain should be completed
by the taking possession or declaration of a protectorate over the Paumotu
Islands and the Society Islands, which form its natural prolongation. As
British influence extends over the north-western regions of this immense ocean,
it is good that French influence should counterbalance it in the regions of the
south-east.

“But,” asked Frascolin of his
complaisant cicerone, “have we military forces there of any strength?”

“Up to 1859,” replied the
Commodore, “there was a detachment at Nuka-Hiva. Since the detachment has been
withdrawn the care of the flag has been confided to the missionaries, and they
will not leave it undefended.”

“And now?”

“You will only find at Taio-Hae a
resident, a few gendarmes, and native soldiers, under the orders of an officer
who fulfils the functions of a justice of the peace.”

“In the native law-suits?”

“For the natives and the
colonists.”

“Then there are colonists at
Nuka-Hiva?”

“Yes; twenty-four.”

“Not enough to form an orchestra,
Commodore, nor even a harmony, and hardly a fanfare!”

The archipelago of the Marquesas
extends over a hundred and ninety-five miles in length and forty-eight miles in
width, covering an area of thirteen thousand superficial kilometres, and its
population consists of twenty-four thousand natives. That gives one colonist to
each thousand inhabitants.

Is this population destined to
increase when a new route of communication is made through the two Americas?
The future will show. But as far as concerns the population of Floating Island,
the number of it’s inhabitants had been increased several days before by the
rescue of the Malays of the ketch, which took place in the evening of the 5th
of August.

They were ten in number, in
addition to their captain, a man of energetic face and figure. This captain was
about forty years of age, and his name was Sarol. His sailors were
stoutly-built fellows of the Malay race, natives of the furthest islands of
Western Malaysia. Three months before Sarol had brought them to Honolulu with a
cargo of coprah. When Floating Island had come to stay there for ten days, its
appearance had excited their surprise, as it excited surprise in every
archipelago it visited. If they did not visit it, permission to do so being
very difficult to obtain, it will not be forgotten how their ketch was often at
sea observing it at close quarters, and coasting along it within half a cable’s
length of its perimeter.

The continual presence of this
vessel had excited no suspicion, and neither did its departure from Honolulu a
few hours after Commodore Simcoe. Besides, what was there to be uneasy about in
this vessel of a hundred tons with not a dozen men on board?

When the report of the gun
attracted the attention of the officer at Starboard Harbour, the ketch was
within two or three miles. The launch was fortunate enough to bring off the
captain and his crew.

These Malays spoke English
fluently, in which there was nothing astonishing on the part of natives of the
Western Pacific, where, as we have mentioned, British preponderance is
unquestioned. They could thus describe the circumstances of their being in
distress, and tell how they would have been lost in the depths of the ocean if
the launch had been a few minutes later.

According to these men,
twenty-four hours before, during the night of the 4th of August, the ketch had
been run into by a steamer at full speed. Although his lights were all showing,
Captain Sarol had not been noticed. The collision had been so slight for the
steamer that she seemed to feel nothing of it, and continued her voyage, unless
—
which is,
unfortunately, not too rare
—
she
had gone off at full speed “to avoid costly and disagreeable claims.”

But the blow, insignificant for a
vessel of heavy tonnage with her iron hull driven at considerable speed, was
terrible for the Malay vessel. Cut down just before the mizen mast, it was
hardly intelligible that she did not immediately sink. She remained, however,
at the water level, the men clinging on to the deck. If the weather had been
bad the wreck could not have resisted the waves. By good luck the current took
them towards the east, and they arrived within sight of Floating Island.

At the same time, when the
Commodore questioned Captain Sarol he could not help manifesting his
astonishment that the ketch, half submerged, had been able to drift within
sight of Starboard Harbour.

“Neither do I understand it,”
replied the Malay. “Your island cannot have moved very far during the last
twenty-four hours.”

“That is the only explanation
possible,” replied Commodore Simcoe. “It does not matter after all, we have
been able to rescue you, that is the main point.”

It was true. Before the launch
had got a quarter of a mile away the ketch had gone down head foremost.

Such was the story Captain Sarol
told to the officer who had rescued him, then to the Commodore, then to the
Governor, Cyrus Bickerstaff, after he had been given all the assistance that he
and his crew seemed to be in urgent need of.

Then arose the question as to
sending these men home. They were bound for the New Hebrides when the collision
occurred. Floating Island was going south-east, and could not change its route.
Cyrus Bikerstaff proposed to put the captain and his men ashore at Nuka-Hiva,
where they could wait for a merchant ship bound for the New Hebrides.

The captain and his men looked at
one another. They seemed greatly distressed. This proposal was hard on poor
fellows, without resources, despoiled of all they possessed with the ketch and
its cargo. To wait at the Marquesas was to chance having to wait an
interminable time, and how would they get a living?