Jules Verne For Children: 16 Incredible Tales of Mystery, Courage & Adventure (Illustrated Edition). Jules VerneЧитать онлайн книгу.

      Meanwhile the most earnest care had been lavished on the shipwrecked men from the Waldeck. Mrs. Weldon, aided by Nan and Dick Sand, had administered to them a little of that good fresh water of which they must have been deprived for several days, and that, with some nourishment, sufficed to restore them to life.

      The eldest of these blacks—he might be about sixty years old—was soon able to speak, and he could answer in English the questions which were addressed to him.

      “The ship which carried you was run into?” asked Captain Hull, first of all.

      “Yes,” replied the old black. “Ten days ago our ship was struck, during a very dark night. We were asleep——”

      “But the men of the Waldeck—what has become of them?”

      “They were no longer there, sir, when my companions and I reached the deck.”

      “Then, was the crew able to jump on board the ship which struck the Waldeck?” demanded Captain Hull.

      “Perhaps, and we must indeed hope so for their sakes.”

      “And that ship, after the collision, did it not return to pick you up?”

      “No.”

      “Did she then go down herself?”

      “She did not founder,” replied the old black, shaking his head, “for we could see her running away in the night.”

      This fact, which was attested by all the survivors of the Waldeck, may appear incredible. It is only too true, however, that captains, after some terrible collision, due to their imprudence, have often taken flight without troubling themselves about the unfortunate ones whom they had put in danger, and without endeavoring to carry assistance to them.

      That drivers do as much and leave to others, on the public way, the trouble of repairing the misfortune which they have caused, that is indeed to be condemned. Still, their victims are assured of finding immediate help. But, that men to men, abandon each other thus at sea, it is not to be believed, it is a shame!

      Meanwhile, Captain Hull knew several examples of such inhumanity, and he was obliged to tell Mrs. Weldon that such facts, monstrous as they might be, were unhappily not rare.

      Then, continuing:

      “Whence came the Waldeck?” he asked.

      “From Melbourne.”

      “Then you are not slaves?”

      “No, sir!” the old black answered quickly, as he stood up straight. “We are subjects of the State of Pennsylvania, and citizens of free America!”

      “My friends,” replied Captain Hull, “believe me that you have not compromised your liberty in coming on board of the American brig, the Pilgrim.”

      In fact, the five blacks which the Waldeck carried belonged to the State of Pennsylvania. The oldest, sold in Africa as a slave at the age of six years, then brought to the United States, had been freed already many years ago by the Emancipation Proclamation. As to his companions, much younger than he, sons of slaves liberated before their birth, they were born free; no white had ever had the right of property over them. They did not even speak that “negro” language, which does not use the article, and only knows the infinitive of the verbs—a language which has disappeared little by little, indeed, since the anti-slavery war. These blacks had, then, freely left the United States, and they were returning to it freely.

      As they told Captain Hull, they were engaged as laborers at an Englishman’s who owned a vast mine near Melbourne, in Southern Australia. There they had passed three years, with great profit to themselves; their engagement ended, they had wished to return to America.

      They then had embarked on the Waldeck, paying their passage like ordinary passengers. On the 5th of December they left Melbourne, and seventeen days after, during a very black night, the Waldeck had been struck by a large steamer.

      The blacks were in bed. A few seconds after the collision, which was terrible, they rushed on the deck.

      Already the ship’s masts had fallen, and the Waldeck was lying on the side; but she would not sink, the water not having invaded the hold sufficiently to cause it.

      As to the captain and crew of the Waldeck, all had disappeared, whether some had been precipitated into the sea, whether others were caught on the rigging of the colliding ship, which, after the collision, had fled to return no more.

      The five blacks were left alone on board, on a half-capsized hull, twelve hundred miles from any land.

      Then oldest of the negroes was named Tom. His age, as well as his energetic character, and his experience, often put to the proof during a long life of labor, made him the natural head of the companions who were engaged with him.

      The other blacks were young men from twenty-five to thirty years old, whose names were Bat (abbreviation of Bartholomew), son of old Tom, Austin, Acteon, and Hercules, all four well made and vigorous, and who would bring a high price in the markets of Central Africa. Even though they had suffered terribly, one could easily recognize in them magnificent specimens of that strong race, on which a liberal education, drawn from the numerous schools of North America, had already impressed its seal.

      Tom and his companions then found themselves alone on the Waldeck after the collision, having no means of raising that inert hull, without even power to leave it, because the two boats on board had been shattered in the boarding. They were reduced to waiting for the passage of a ship, while the wreck drifted little by little under the action of the currents. This action explained why she had been encountered so far out of her course, for the Waldeck, having left Melbourne, ought to be found in much lower latitude.

      During the ten days which elapsed between the collision and the moment when the Pilgrim arrived in sight of the shipwrecked vessel the five blacks were sustained by some food which they had found in the office of the landing-place. But, not being able to penetrate into the steward’s room, which the water entirely covered, they had had no spirits to quench their thirst, and they had suffered cruelly, the water casks fastened to the deck having been stove in by the collision. Since the night before, Tom and his companions, tortured by thirst, had become unconscious.

      Such was the recital which Tom gave, in a few words, to Captain Hull. There was no reason to doubt the veracity of the old black. His companions confirmed all that he had said; besides, the facts pleaded for the poor men.

      Another living being, saved on the wreck, would doubtless have spoken with the same sincerity if it had been gifted with speech.

      It was that dog, that the sight of Negoro seemed to affect in such a disagreeable manner. There was in that some truly inexplicable antipathy.

      Dingo—that was the name of the dog—belonged to that race of mastiffs which is peculiar to New Holland. It was not in Australia, however, that the captain of the Waldeck had found it. Two years before Dingo, wandering half dead of hunger, had been met on the western coast of Africa, near the mouth of the Congo. The captain of the Waldeck had picked up this fine animal, who, being not very sociable, seemed to be always regretting some old master, from whom he had been violently separated, and whom it would be impossible to find again in that desert country. S. V.—those two letters engraved on his collar—were all that linked this animal to a past, whose mystery one would seek in vain to solve.

      Dingo, a magnificent and robust beast, larger than the dogs of the Pyrenees, was then a superb specimen of the New Holland variety of mastiffs. When it stood up, throwing