"Jules Verne. The Mysterious Island" - читать интересную книгу автора

if fuel was not wanting, the means of transporting it was not yet found.
The wood, being very dry, would burn rapidly; it was therefore necessary to
carry to the Chimneys a considerable quantity, and the loads of two men
would not be sufficient. Herbert remarked this.

"Well, my boy," replied the sailor, "there must be some way of carrying
this wood; there is always a way of doing everything. If we had a cart or a
boat, it would be easy enough."

"But we have the river," said Herbert.

"Right," replied Pencroft; "the river will be to us like a road which
carries of itself, and rafts have not been invented for nothing."

"Only," observed Herbert, "at this moment our road is going the wrong
way, for the tide is rising!"

"We shall be all right if we wait till it ebbs," replied the sailor, "and
then we will trust it to carry our fuel to the Chimneys. Let us get the
raft ready."

The sailor, followed by Herbert, directed his steps towards the river.
They both carried, each in proportion to his strength, a load of wood bound
in fagots. They found on the bank also a great quantity of dead branches in
the midst of grass, among which the foot of man had probably never before
trod. Pencroft began directly to make his raft. In a kind of little bay,
created by a point of the shore which broke the current, the sailor and the
lad placed some good-sized pieces of wood, which they had fastened together
with dry creepers. A raft was thus formed, on which they stacked all they
had collected, sufficient, indeed, to have loaded at least twenty men. In
an hour the work was finished, and the raft moored to the bank, awaited the
turning of the tide.

There were still several hours to be occupied, and with one consent
Pencroft and Herbert resolved to gain the upper plateau, so as to have a
more extended view of the surrounding country.

Exactly two hundred feet behind the angle formed by the river, the wall,
terminated by a fall of rocks, died away in a gentle slope to the edge of
the forest. It was a natural staircase. Herbert and the sailor began their
ascent; thanks to the vigor of their muscles they reached the summit in a
few minutes; and proceeded to the point above the mouth of the river.

On attaining it, their first look was cast upon the ocean which not long
before they had traversed in such a terrible condition. They observed, with
emotion, all that part to the north of the coast on which the catastrophe
had taken place. It was there that Cyrus Harding had disappeared. They
looked to see if some portion of their balloon, to which a man might
possibly cling, yet existed. Nothing! The sea was but one vast watery
desert. As to the coast, it was solitary also. Neither the reporter nor Neb