It was, indeed, the Duncan, Lord Glenarvan’s yacht, at this time commanded by Robert, the son of Captain Grant, who had been sent to Tabor Island to search for Ayrton and bring him home after twelve years of expatriation!
The colonists were saved, they were already on the homeward route!
“Captain Robert,” asked Smith, “what suggested to you the idea, after leaving Tabor Island, where you were unable to find Ayrton, to come in this direction?”
“It was to search, not only for Ayrton, Mr. Smith, but for you and your companions!”
“My companions and myself?”
“Doubtless! On Lincoln Island!”
“Lincoln Island!” cried the others, greatly astonished.
“How did you know of Lincoln Island?” asked Smith. “It is not on the maps.”
“I knew of it by the notice which you left on Tabor Island,” answered Grant.
“The notice?” cried Spilett.
“Certainly, and here it is,” replied the other, handing him a paper indicating the exact position of the Lincoln Island, “the actual residence of Ayrton and of five American colonists.”
“Captain Nemo!” said Smith, after having read the notice, and recognized that it was in the same handwriting as the paper found at the corral.
“Ah!” said Pencroff, “it was he who took our Good Luck, he who ventured alone to Tabor Island!”
“To place this notice there!” answered Herbert.
“Then I was right when I said,” cried the sailor, “that he would do us a last service even after his death!”
“My friends,” said Smith, in a voice moved by emotion, “may the God of sinners receive the soul of Captain Nemo; he was our savior!”
The colonists, uncovering as Smith spake thus, murmured the name of the captain.
Then Ayrton, approaching the engineer, said to him, simply:—
“What shall be done with the coffer?”
Ayrton had saved this coffer at the risk of his life, at the moment when the island was engulfed. He now faithfully returned it to the engineer.
“Ayrton! Ayrton!” exclaimed Smith, greatly affected.
Then addressing Grant:—
“Captain,” he said, “where you left a criminal, you have found a man whom expiation has made honest, and to whom I am proud to give my hand!”
Thereupon Grant was informed of all the strange history of Captain Nemo and the colonists of Lincoln Island. And then, the bearings of this remaining reef having been taken, Captain Grant gave the order to go about.
Fifteen days later the colonists landed in America, which they found at peace after the terrible war which had ended in the triumph of justice and right. Of the wealth contained in the coffer, the greater part was employed in the purchase of a vast tract of land in Iowa. One single pearl, the most beautiful of all, was taken from the treasure and sent to Lady Glenarvan in the name of the castaways, who had been rescued by the Duncan.
To this domain the colonists invited to labor—that is, to fortune and to happiness—all those whom they had counted on receiving at Lincoln Island. Here they founded a great colony, to which they gave the name of the island which had disappeared in the depths of the Pacific. They found here a river which they called the Mercy, a mountain to which they gave the name of Franklin, a little lake which they called Lake Grant, and forests which became the Forests of the Far West. It was like an island on terra firma.
Here, under the skillful hand of the engineer and his companions, everything prospered. Not one of the former colonists was missing, for they had agreed always to live together, Neb wherever his master was, Ayrton always ready to sacrifice himself, Pencroff a better farmer than he had been a sailor, Herbert who finished his studies under Smith’s direction, Spilett who founded the New Lincoln Herald, which was the best edited journal in the whole world.
Here Smith and his companions often received visits from Lord and Lady Glenarvan, from Captain John Mangles and his wife, sister to Robert Grant, from Robert Grant himself, from Major MacNabbs, from all those who had been mixed up in the double history of Captain Grant and Captain Nemo.
Here, finally, all were happy, united in the present as they had been in the past; but never did they forget that island upon which they had arrived poor and naked, that island which, for four years, had sufficed for all their needs, and of which all that remained was a morsel of granite, beaten by the waves of the Pacific, the tomb of him who was Captain Nemo!
Colophon
The Mysterious Island
was published in 1874 by
Jules Verne.
It was translated from French in 1876 by
Stephen W. White.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal and Alina Pyzowski,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2005 by
Norman M. Wolcott
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Distributed Proofreaders Open Library System.
The cover page is adapted from
The Rocks of Belle-Île,
a painting completed in 1886 by
Claude Monet.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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August 29, 2016, 10:51 p.m.
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