Glenarvan at once lowered the boat, and, followed by Paganel, landed at the foot of the palisade. The learned geographer, profiting by the circumstance, would have made use of the language which he had studied so conscientiously; but, to his great astonishment, he could not make himself understood by the natives.
“The accent is what I need,” said he.
“Let us go to the Customhouse,” replied Glenarvan.
There they were informed by means of several English words, accompanied by expressive gestures, that the British consul resided at Concepcion. It was only an hour’s journey. Glenarvan easily found two good horses, and, a short time after, Paganel and he entered the walls of this great city, which was built by the enterprising genius of Valdivia, the valiant companion of Pizarro.
How greatly it had declined from its ancient splendor! Often pillaged by the natives, burnt in 1819, desolate, ruined, its walls still blackened with the flames of devastation, eclipsed by Talcahuana, it now scarcely numbered eight thousand souls. Under the feet of its idle inhabitants the streets had grown into prairies. There was no commerce, no activity, no business. The mandolin resounded from every balcony, languishing songs issued from the lattices of the windows, and Concepcion, the ancient city of men, had become a village of women and children.
Glenarvan appeared little desirous of seeking the causes of this decline—though Jacques Paganel attacked him on this subject—and, without losing an instant, betook himself to the house of J. R. Bentock, Esq., consul of Her Britannic Majesty. This individual received him very courteously, and when he learned the story of Captain Grant undertook to search along the entire coast.
The question whether the Britannia had been wrecked on the shores of Chile or Araucania was decided in the negative. No report of such an event had come either to the consul, or his colleagues in other parts of the country.
But Glenarvan was not discouraged. He returned to Talcahuana, and, sparing neither fatigue, trouble, or money, he sent men to the coast, but their search was in vain. The most minute inquiries among the people of the vicinity were of no avail. They were forced to conclude that the Britannia had left no trace of her shipwreck.
Glenarvan then informed his companions of the failure of his endeavors. Mary Grant and her brother could not restrain their grief. It was now six days since the arrival of the Duncan at Talcahuana. The passengers were together in the cabin. Lady Helena was consoling, not by her words—for what could she say?—but by her caresses, the two children of the captain. Jacques Paganel had taken up the document again, and was regarding it with earnest attention, as if he would have drawn from it new secrets. For an hour he had examined it thus, when Glenarvan, addressing him, said—
“Paganel, I appeal to your sagacity. Is the interpretation we have made of this document incorrect? Is the sense of these words illogical?”
Paganel did not answer. He was reflecting.
“Are we mistaken as to the supposed scene of the shipwreck?” continued Glenarvan. “Does not the name Patagonia suggest itself at once to the mind?”
Paganel was still silent.
“In short,” said Glenarvan, “does not the word Indian justify us still more?”
“Perfectly,” replied MacNabb.
“And therefore, is it not evident that these shipwrecked men, when they wrote these lines, expected to be prisoners of the Indians?”
“There you are wrong, my dear lord,” said Paganel, at last; “and if your other conclusions are just, the last at least does not seem to me rational.”
“What do you mean?” asked Lady Helena, while all eyes were turned towards the geographer.
“I mean,” answered Paganel, emphasizing his words, “that Captain Grant is now prisoner of the Indians: and I will add that the document leaves no doubt on this point.”
“Explain yourself, sir,” said Miss Grant.
“Nothing is easier, my dear Mary. Instead of reading they will be prisoners, read they are prisoners, and all will be clear.”
“But that is impossible,” replied Glenarvan.
“Impossible? And why, my noble friend?” asked Paganel, smiling.
“Because the bottle must have been thrown when the vessel was breaking on the rocks. Hence the degrees of longitude and latitude apply to the very place of shipwreck.”
“Nothing proves it,” said Paganel, earnestly; “and I do not see why the shipwrecked sailors, after being carried by the Indians into the interior of the country, could not have sought to make known by means of this bottle the place of their captivity.”
“Simply, my dear Paganel, because to throw a bottle into the sea it is necessary, at least, that the sea should be before you.”
“Or, in the absence of the sea,” added Paganel, “the rivers which flow into it.”
An astonished silence followed this unexpected, yet reasonable, answer. By the flash that brightened the eyes of his hearers Paganel knew that each of them had conceived a new hope. Lady Helena was the first to resume the conversation.
“What an idea!” she exclaimed.
“What a good idea!” added the geographer, simply.
“Your advice then?” asked Glenarvan.
“My advice is to find the thirty-seventh parallel, just where it meets the American coast, and follow it, without deviating half a degree, to the point where it strikes the Atlantic. Perhaps we shall find on its course the survivors of the Britannia.”
“A feeble chance,” replied the major.
“However feeble it may be,” continued Paganel, “we ought not to neglect it. If I am right that this bottle reached the sea by following the current of a river, we cannot fail to come upon the traces of the prisoners. Look, my friends, look at the map of this country, and I will convince you beyond a doubt.”
So saying, Paganel spread out before them upon the table a large map of Chile and the Argentine Provinces. “Look,” said he, “and follow me in this passage across the American continent. Let us pass over the narrow strip of Chile and the Cordilleras of the Andes, and descend
