CHAPTER FIFTEEN

NEW ZEALAND

The scientist required no less than six hours of patient and continuous work to forge the metal axle that would render the power of movement to the paralyzed Éclair. At the end of that time, however, Trinitus, delighted at having succeeded, was able to show his work proudly to his companions.

The others, seeing in that simple metal rod the key to the prison of ice into which the tempest had cast them, wanted nothing more than to quit the Jenny in order to depart with the Éclair in search of the castaways of the Richmond.

Marcel carried Alice’s casket preciously. Trinitus took a few tools and the axle he had fabricated with his own hands. Nicaise loaded himself with a few earthenware jars found in the medicine cabinet and a large glass plate intended to replace the window of the Éclair that Trinitus has broken after the descent of the whirlwind.

Thus equipped, the three men abandoned the unfortunate ship of which cold and deprivation had made a floating cemetery, and over which the icy winds of the pole were gradually depositing a thick shroud of snow.

The repairs to the Éclair did not take long. The axle forged by Trinitus fitted marvelously into the place of the one that had been broken, and a few thrusts with a file made the adaptation perfect. The piles were refilled with copper sulfate and the powerful coils that multiplied the force of the electric current were reinstalled in the keel of the submarine boat. The apparatus for the manufacture of the artificial atmosphere was reestablished by Trinitus, and Marcel took charge of its supervision again.

The ropes supporting the swings suspended beneath the boat, the diving-suits and the rubber tubes designed to draw air from the cabin, the valves of the cylindrical corridor by means of which they descended on to the swings without water penetrating the ship, and, in sum, all the delicate components of the Éclair were successively subjected to Trinitus’ minute inspection.

After a frugal meal, the three men harnessed themselves to their moving house once again and dragged it to the edge of the sea in order to set it afloat. Intoxicated by joy, Nicaise and Marcel went aboard first, and Trinitus, leaving the Antarctic land after them, sent a last salute to the flamboyant summit of Erebus, which was standing out majestically on the misty horizon.

In order not to run the risk of colliding with an ice-floe during his passage, and to avoid the Éclair being crushed between the icebergs, the scientist immersed the boat immediately, and it was swallowed up by the waves of the glacial sea.

The temperature of the circumpolar waters being much higher than that of the austral regions themselves, Trinitus and his two friends enjoyed a sense of wellbeing aboard that was all the more agreeable because they had not anticipated it. The relief that they felt in fleeing that desolate country, where they would soon have perished of hunger and cold, was inexpressible. Marcel and Trinitus built a mountain of charming projects, and Nicaise hummed the refrains of old songs while gesticulating—which, in him, characterized the highest degree of contentment.

In order to reach the archipelago of the New Hebrides—where, according to the letter found in Alice’s casket, the castaways of the Richmond must have landed—more rapidly, the scientist had mapped out a route through the Antipodes Islands, the Cook Strait between the two islands of New Zealand, the small Norfolk Island and the eastern tip of New Caledonia.

The Cook Strait was the central point of that long journey, but making a landfall there was not without danger, because of the ferocity of the natives of New Zealand, who would gladly devour all the voyagers if they were able to capture them. After having passed the inhospitable rocks of the Antipodes Islands, however, Trinitus was soon obliged to take the Éclair up to the surface, because of the perpetual threat of collision with the sea-bed and the madreporic reefs neighboring the southern entrance of the Cook Strait.

Scarcely had that maneuver been executed than the three navigators were able to see the high mountains of Ika Na-Mawi, the northern island of New Zealand, including the snowy peak of Mount Egmont, more than three thousand feet above sea level.

As they approached, more of the land was gradually revealed, displaying magnificent locations and delightful landscapes to their eyes. Streams descending from the mountains ran through valleys and plains planted with clumps of breadfruit trees and gigantic banana-trees. Forests of cedars and coconut palms covered the hillsides. The coast was shaded by extraordinary vegetation, and among the reeds, bamboo and papyrus that flourished in the dense grasslands, flocks of red flamingos appeared, fishing on the edges of the streams.

At the sight of that Eden, so different from the icy regions of the Antarctic continent, the three friends were gripped by admiration. Nicaise would have liked to land briefly in order to take a siesta beneath a clump of palm tress, but Trinitus and Marcel, no longer thinking about anything but the New Hebrides, persuaded their comrade that he would inevitably be devoured by cannibals, so effectively that the old mariner, terrified, no longer wanted anything except to get through the Cook Strait as rapidly as possible.