13. Level plateau, without trees.
14. Beach.
15. Penguins.
CHAPTER X.
After the second reading of the foregoing report, the first being in English, Percival requested his fellow explorers to verify the statements contained therein. This they did promptly. He then went on:
“I am delegated by Captain Trigger and the officers of this vessel, after a conference just concluded,—and of which you are all well aware,—to put before you as briefly and as clearly as possible the decision that has been reached. I may as well confess in the beginning that this decision is based on the recommendations of the party who went to the top of the mountain. It is out of the question for the people on board this vessel to go ashore until further investigations have been made. For the present, we are all safe here on board the ship. We don't know what perils exist in the absolutely unexplored country that surrounds us. Additional parties are to be sent out to explore the island, especially the eastern section of it. There is no use mincing matters. We are confronted by a very plain situation. It is possible, even probable, that we are the first human beings ever to set foot on this land. If that be true, we are now so far out of the path of the few ships and steamers sailing these southern seas that there is small hope or chance of a speedy rescue. As a matter of fact, it isn't likely that we will be discovered until the island itself is discovered, if you see what I mean.
“There isn't the slightest chance that the ship we're now standing on will ever float again. Even if the engines could be put in order,—and that is possible, I am told,—the vessel cannot be raised. If anybody has been nursing that sort of hope, he may as well get rid of it. It's no good. We are here to stay, unless help comes from the outside. There's the plain English of it. We may have to live here on this island, like poor old Robinson Crusoe, for years,—for a great many years. I'm going to stop just a few seconds to let that soak into your brains. We've got to face it. We've got to make the best of it. It is not for Captain Trigger or me or any one else to say that we will not be taken off this island some time—maybe sooner than we think. Whaling vessels must visit these parts. That's neither here nor there. We've got our work cut out for us, friends. We've got to think of the present and let the future take care of itself. Now, here are the facts. We cannot remain on board this wreck. We've got to go to work, every man, woman and child of us. I don't know what can be cultivated on this island, but we've got to find out, and when we find out we've got to begin raising it. If we don't, my friends, we'll starve to death in a very short time. And what's more, if we do not get out there and put up houses to live in, we'll freeze to death when winter comes along.
“According to calculations, winter is still five or six months away. We won't get it, I dare say, before next April or May. All you have to do is to take a look at all these trees around here to realize that we are a long way from the tropics. It gets as cold as blazes here in the dead of winter, I can tell you that. We've got to build homes. We've got to build a camp,—not a flimsy, half-way sort of camp, but a good, solid, substantial one, my friends. There is what you might call a minority report in regard to the situation. Captain Trigger asked me to speak for him and others who look at it as I do. Mr. Landover, who is, I understand, one of the leading bankers in the United States of America, contends that we are well enough off as we are, on board the Doraine, where we've got cabins and beds and shelter from the elements. He may be right. All I have to say to him is this,—I don't believe I mentioned it at this conference, Mr. Landover, simply because I'm one of those unhappy individuals who always think of the brilliant things I might have said when it's too late to say them,—all I have to say is this: if Mr. Landover and his supporters expect to sit snugly on this ship while the rest of us build houses and plant crops, and then conclude to come out and bone the rest of us for a square meal and a nice warm place to sleep, they are going to be badly fooled. We're all equal here. A couple of million dollars, more or less, doesn't cut any ice on this little island. What counts here is muscle and commonsense and a willingness to use both.
“A little while ago I asked Mr. Landover how much money he has with him. He informed me that while it wasn't any of my business, he has about five hundred dollars in American money and a couple of hundred pesos besides, but that his letter of credit is still good for fifteen thousand. Mr. Nicklestick has about five hundred dollars in money, and so has Mr. Block and one or two others. They've all got letters of credit, express checks, and so forth, and I suppose there is a wheelbarrow full of jewellery on board this ship. Now, if money is to talk down here, I wish to state that the men and women from the steerage have got more real dough than all the first and second cabins put together. They haven't any letters of credit or bank accounts in New York, but there are a dozen men in the steerage who have as much as two or three thousand pesos sewed up inside their clothes. So far as I can make out, the only people who can afford to hire anybody to build a hut for them, and pay for it in real money, are the plutocrats from the steerage.