Jules Verne series: The floating island PART 1

Part 1
CHAPTER I.

WHEN a journey begins badly it rarely ends well. At least that ought to have been the opinion of the four instrumentalists whose instruments lay on the ground, the carriage in which they were riding having suddenly upset against a mound by the side of the road.

“Anybody hurt?” asked the first, actively springing to his feet.

“I have got off with a scratch,” replied the second, wiping his cheek, striped by a piece of glass.

“And I with a graze,” replied the third, whose calf was bleeding.

There was nothing serious as yet.

“And my violoncello?” said the fourth. “It is to be hoped nothing has happened to my violoncello.”

Fortunately the cases were untouched.

Neither the violoncello, nor the two violins, nor the alto had suffered from the shock, and it was hardly necessary to put them in tune. They were high-class instruments, of course.

“Confound that railway which left us in distress when we had only gone half-way,” said one.

“Confound that carriage which has thrown us out in the open country,” retorted another.

“Just at the moment night was beginning,” added a third.

“Fortunately our concert is announced for the day after to-morrow,” observed the fourth.

Then a few ridiculous repartees were exchanged between the artistes who took their adventure so gaily. One of them, according to his inveterate habit, gave his nonsense a musical twist.

“There is our carriage with the mi on the do.” “Pinchinat!” exclaimed one of his companions. “And my opinion is,” continued Pinchinat, “that there are rather too many accidents in this key.” “Will you be quiet?”

“And that we shall have to transpose our pieces in another carriage!” added Pinchinat.

Yes! rather too many accidents, as the reader will not be slow to learn.

The driver had suffered most, having been pitched off his seat as the front axle broke. The damage was restricted to a few contusions more painful than serious; but he could not walk on account of a sprain. Hence the necessity of finding some means of transport to the nearest village.

It was a miracle, indeed, that somebody had not been killed. The road winds across a mountainous country, skirting high precipices, bordered in many places with deep tumultuous torrents and crossed by fords only passable with difficulty. If the axle had broken a moment sooner the vehicle would have rolled deep down the rocks, and no one could have survived the catastrophe. Anyhow, the carriage was useless. One of the two horses, whose head had struck against a sharp stone, was gasping on the ground. The other was severely wounded on the quarter; so that there were no horses and no carriage.

In short, ill-fortune had not spared these four artistes, in these regions of Lower California. At this period San Francisco, the capital of the State, was in direct railway communication with San Diego, situated almost on the frontier of the old Californian province. The four travellers were on their way to this important town, where on the next day but one they were to give a concert much advertised and long expected. The night before they had left San Francisco, but when they were within fifty miles of San Francisco the first contretemps had occurred. Yes, contretemps, as the most jovial of the troupe remarked, and the expression might be tolerated on the part of an old master of solfeggio.

The train was stopped at Paschal owing to the line having been swept away by a flood for three or four miles. The accident had occurred but a few hours before, and the communication with the other end had not been organized. The passengers must either wait until the road was repaired, or obtain in the nearest village a vehicle of some sort for San Diego.

And this it was that the quartette decided to do. In a neighbouring village they discovered an old landau, rickety, noisy, and moth-eaten, but not uncomfortable. They hired it from the owner, promised the driver a handsome present, and started with their instruments, but without their luggage, about two o’clock in the afternoon; and up to seven o’clock in the evening the journey was accomplished without much difficulty or fatigue. But here a second contretemps occurred, the upsetting of the carriage, and that with such damage that it was impossible for the said carriage to continue the journey.

And the quartette were a good twenty miles from San Diego.

But why had four musicians, French by nationality, and Parisians by birth, ventured across these out-of-the-way regions of Lower California?

Why? We will tell you in twenty lines, with a few explanatory notes regarding the four virtuosos which chance, that fantastic distributor of parts, was about to introduce among the personages of this extraordinary story.

At this same time a feeling for art had developed among the Americans; and if their productions were of limited number in the domain of the beautiful—if their national genius was still somewhat refractory in painting, sculpture, and music—the taste for good work was, at least, widely spread among them. By purchasing, for their weight in gold, the pictures of old and modern masters for public or private galleries; by engaging, at enormous prices, lyrical and dramatic artistes of renown, instrumentalists of the highest talent, they had infused among themselves that sense of beautiful and noble things which they had been in want of so long.

As regards music, it was by listening to Meyerbeer, Halévy, Gounod, Berlioz, Wagner, Verdi, Masse, Saint-Saëns, Reyer, Massenet, Delibes, the famous composers of the second half of the nineteenth century, that the dilettanti of the New Continent first awoke to enthusiasm. Then gradually they advanced to the comprehension of the profounder work of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven; mounting back to the sources of the sublime art which expanded to full flood in the course of the eighteenth century. After the operas, the lyric dramas; after the lyric dramas, the symphonies, sonatas, and orchestral pieces. And, just at the moment we speak of, the sonata was the rage among the different States of the Union. The people would willingly have paid so much a note— twenty dollars a minim, ten dollars a crotchet, five dollars a quaver.

When this infatuation was at its height, four instrumentalists of ability conceived the idea of tempting success and fortune in the United States of America. Four excellent fellows, old pupils of the Conservatoire, well known in Paris, much appreciated by the audiences of what is known as “chamber music,” which was then little known in North America. With what rare perfection, what marvellous time, what profound feeling, they interpreted the works of Mozart, of Beethoven, of Mendelssohn, of Haydn, of Chopin, written for four-stringed instruments, a first and second violin, alto, and violoncello. Nothing noisy, nothing showy, but what consummate execution, what incomparable virtuosity! The success of the quartette was all the more intelligible, as at the time people were beginning to tire of formidable harmonic and symphonic orchestras. That music is only an artistic combination of sonorous waves may be true, but there is no reason why these waves should be let loose in deafening tempests.

In short, our four instrumentalists had decided to introduce the Americans to the gentle and ineffable delights of chamber music. They set out together for the New World, and for two years the dilettanti Yankees had spared them neither cheers nor dollars. Their matinees and soirees were well attended. The Quartette Party, as they called themselves, were hardly able to accept their invitations from the wealthy. Without them there was no festival, no meeting, no rout, no five o’clock teas, no garden parties worth talking about. This infatuation had put a good deal of money in the pockets of the fortunate four, and if they had placed it in the Bank of New York it must have constituted a fairly large capital. But why should we not confess it? They had spent their money freely, had these Americanized Parisians! They never thought of saving, did these princes of the bow, these kings of the four strings! They enjoyed to the full this life of adventure, sure of meeting everywhere and always with a good welcome and a profitable engagement. They had travelled from New York to San Francisco, from Quebec to New Orleans, from Nova Scotia to Texas, living rather a Bohemian life—that Bohemia of the young which is the most ancient, the most charming, the most enviable, the most loved province of our old France! We are much mistaken if the moment has not come to introduce them individually to those of our readers who never had, and never will have, the pleasure of listening to them.

Yvernès—first violin—thirty-two years old, above the medium height, slight in build, fair, curly hair, smooth face, large black eyes, long hands, made to stretch to any extent over his Guarnerius, of elegant bearing, wearing a flowing cloak of some dark colour, and a high silk hat, somewhat of an attitudinizer perhaps, the most careless of the four, the least troubled about matters of interest, in all respects the artiste, an enthusiastic admirer of beautiful things, a virtuoso of great talent and great promise.

Frascolin—second violin—thirty years old, short, with a tendency to stoutness—which he by no means liked— brown in hair and brown in beard, big in the head, black eyes, and a long nose, marked at the side with red by the pinch of his gold eyeglasses—which he could not do without—a good fellow, good natured in every way, acting as the banker of the quartette, preaching economy, and never listened to, not at all envious of the success of his comrade, having no ambition of being promoted as solo violin, excellent musician nevertheless—and then wearing but a simple dust coat over his travelling suit.

Pinchinat—alto, commonly addressed as “his highness”—twenty-seven years of age, the youngest of the troupe, the most frolicsome too, one of those incorrigibles who are boys all their life, a fine head, intelligent eyes, always wideawake, hair approaching to red, pointed moustache, teeth white and sharp, tongue never still, never tired of puns and nonsense, and alert for repartee, invariably good-humoured, for ever making light of the discomforts that fell to his comrades, and therefore continually being reprimanded and taken up short by the chief of the Quartette Party.

For it had a chief, the violoncellist, Sebastien Zorn, chief by his talent, chief by his age, for he was fifty, short, rotund, hair abundant, and curled on the temples, moustache bristling, and losing itself in the whiskers which ended in points, complexion brick red, eyes gleaming through the glasses of his spectacles, which he doubled by means of an eyeglass when he read music, hands plump, the right accustomed to the undulatory movements of the bow, ornamented with large rings on the second and little finger.

This slight sketch is probably sufficient description for the man and the artiste, but one cannot with impunity for forty years hold a sonorous box between one’s knees. It affects one’s whole life, and the character is influenced. Most violoncellists are talkative and quick tempered, impetuous and domineering, and such was Sebastien Zorn, to whom Yvernès, Frascolin, and Pinchinat had willingly abandoned the management of their musical tour. They let him say what he liked, and do what he liked, for they understood him. Accustomed to his imperious manners, they laughed when he “outran the measure”—which is regrettable in the case of an executant, as was remarked by the irrepressible Pinchinat. The composition of the programmes, the direction of the routes, the correspondence with the managers, devolved on him, and permitted his aggressive temperament to manifest itself under a thousand circumstances. Where he did not interfere was with regard to the receipts and the management of the purse, which formed the particular duty of the second violin and chief accountant, the exact and careful Frascolin.

The quartette are now introduced as if they were before you on a platform. We know the types, if not very original, at least very distinct, of which it was composed. As the reader allows the incidents of this strange history to unroll themselves he will see to what adventures were destined these four Parisians, who, after receiving so many bravos throughout the States of the American Confederation, were to be transported.

But let us not anticipate, “not hurry the movement,” as “his highness” would exclaim, and let us have patience.

The four Parisians then, at eight o’clock this evening, were on a deserted road in Lower California, near the ruins of their overturned carriage. The chief of the quartette was violently angry. Why not? Yvernès pretended that he was descended from Ajax and Achilles, those two illustrious angry heroes of antiquity.

Let it not be forgotten that though Zorn might be bilious, Yvernès phlegmatic, Frascolin quiet, and Pinchinat of superabundant joviality, all were excellent comrades, and felt for each other like brothers. They were united by a bond which no dispute or self-love could break, by a community of taste originating from the same source. Their hearts, like well-made instruments, always kept in tune.

While Zorn fretted and fumed, and patted the case of his violoncello to make sure that it was safe and sound, Frascolin went up to the driver.

“Well, my friend,” he said; “what are we to do now, if you please?”

“What you can do when you have neither a carriage nor a horse, and that is to wait.”

“Wait for what comes,” said Pinchinat. “And if nothing comes?”

“We must look for it,” said Frascolin, whose practical mind never failed him. “Where?” roared Zorn, in a great state of agitation. “Where it is,” replied the driver.

“Is that the way you ought to answer?” said the ‘cellist, in a voice that gradually mounted towards the high notes. “What! A clumsy fellow who pitches us out, smashes his carriage, lames his horses, and then contents himself with saying, “Get out of it as you like!”

Carried away by his natural loquacity, Zorn began to launch forth into an interminable series of objurgations, all of them of no use, when Frascolin interrupted him, — “Allow me, my old Zorn.”

And then, addressing himself to the driver, he asked, —

“Where are we, my friend?”

“Five miles from Freschal.”

“A railway station?”

“No, a village near the coast.”

“Where can we find a carriage?”

“A carriage, nowhere—perhaps a cart.”

“A bullock cart, as in Merovingian times!” exclaimed Pinchinat.

“What does it matter?” said Frascolin.

“Eh!”  resumed Zorn. “Ask him if there is a hotel in this hole of a Freschal. I have had enough for tonight,”

“My friend,” asked Frascolin, “is there any hotel in Freschal?”

“Yes, the one where we were to change horses.”

“And to get there we have only to keep on the main road?”

“Straight on.”

“Let us be off!” said the ‘cellist.

“But,” said Pinchinat, “this poor fellow. It will be cruel to leave him here in distress. Look here, my friend, could you not come along if we were to help you?”

“Impossible!” replied the driver. “Besides, I prefer to remain here with my carriage. When daylight comes I shall see how to get out of this.”

“When we get to Freschal,” said Frascolin, “we can send you help.”

“Yes, the hotel-keeper knows me, and will not let me remain here in this state.”

“Shall we go?” asked the ‘cellist, picking up the case of his instrument.

“In a moment,” replied Pinchinat. “Just lend a hand to lift the driver to the side of the road.”

Pinchinat and Frascolin lifted him up, and placed him against the roots of a large tree, the lower branches of which formed a cradle of verdure as they fell.

“Shall we go?” roared Zorn for the third time, having hoisted his case on to his back by means of a double strap arranged for the purpose.

“We have done now,” said Frascolin, who then addressed the man, saying, —

“It is understood that the hotel-keeper at Freschal will send you help. Till then you want nothing, is that so?”

“Yes,” said the driver, “unless you happen to have a drink with you.”

Pinchinat’s flask happened to be full, and “his highness” willingly made the sacrifice.

“With that, my good man,” said he, “you will never catch cold to-night—inside you.”

A final objurgation from the ‘cellist decided his companions to make a start. Fortunately their luggage was in the train, instead of with them in the carriage. It might be delayed in getting to San Diego, but they would not have the trouble of carrying it to Freschal. They had enough to do to carry the violin cases, and perhaps rather too much with the ‘cello case. True, an instrumentalist worthy of the name never separates from his instrument any more than a soldier does from his arms, or a snail from its shell.
CHAPTER II.

To journey at night along an unknown road, amid an almost deserted country, where there are usually more malefactors than travellers, was enough to make them rather anxious. Such was the fate of the quartette. Frenchmen are brave, of course, and these were as brave as any. But between bravery and temerity there is a limit which no healthy mind will overstep. After all, if the railway had not run into a flooded plain, if the carriage had not upset five miles from Freschal, our instrumentalists would not have had to venture by night along this suspicious road. It was to be hoped that no harm would happen to them.

It was about eight o’clock when Sebastien Zorn and his companions started towards the coast, as directed by the driver. As they had only their leather violin cases, light and handy, the violinists had little reason to grumble. Neither the wise Frascolin, nor the cheery Pinchinat, nor the idealist Yvernès, had a word of complaint. But the ‘cellist with his case—a cupboard as it were on his back! Knowing his character, we can understand that he found every opportunity of working himself into a rage. Hence groans and grunts exhaling under the onomatopœic forms of “ahs,” and “ohs,” and “oufs.”

The darkness was already profound. Thick clouds chased each other across the sky, drifting apart into narrow rifts, from which occasionally peeped a fitful moon, almost in its first quarter. Somehow, why we know not, unless it were that he was peevish and irritable, the pale Phoebe did not please Sebastien Zorn. He pointed his finger at her, exclaiming, —

“What are you doing there with your stupid face? I know nothing more imbecile than that slice of unripe melon up there!”

“It would be better if the moon were to look us in the face,” said Frascolin.

“And for what reason?” asked Pinchinat.

“Because we could see it more clearly.”

“O chaste Diana!”  declaimed Yvernès. “O messenger of the peaceful night! O pale satellite of the earth! O adored idol of the adorable Endymion!—”

“Have you finished your ballad?” asked the ‘cellist. “When the first violins take to flourishing on the fourth string—”

“Take longer strides,” said Frascolin, “or we shall have to sleep under the stars.”

“If there are any,” observed Pinchinat. “And lose our concert at San Diego.”

“A fine idea, my word!”  exclaimed Zorn, shaking his box, which gave forth a plaintive sound.

“But this idea, my old friend, was yours,” said Pinchinat.

“Mine?”

“Undoubtedly! That we did not remain at San Francisco, when we had quite a collection of Californian ears to charm.”

“Once more,” asked the ‘cellist, “why did we start?”

“Because you wished it!”

“Well, I must admit that it was a deplorable inspiration, and if—”

“Ah, my friends!” said Yvernès, pointing towards a point in the sky where a narrow moon-ray fell on the whitish edges of a cloud.

“What is the matter, Yvernès?”

“Look at that cloud turning into the shape of a dragon, its wings open, a peacock’s tail eyed as with the hundred eyes of Argus.”

Perhaps Sebastien Zorn did not possess that power of hundredfold vision which distinguished the guardian of the son of Machus, for he did not notice a deep rut into which he trod. Consequently he fell on his face, with his box on his back, and looked like some huge beetle creeping over the ground.

Violent rage of the instrumentalist—and he had cause to be angry—and then objurgations on account of the first violin’s admiration of the aerial monster.

“It is the fault of Yvernès!” said Sebastien Zorn. “If I had not been looking at that confounded dragon—”

“It is no longer a dragon, it is an amphora! with the gift of imagination but feebly developed you can see it in the hands of Hebe who is pouring out the nectar—”

“Take care that there is not too much water in that nectar,” exclaimed Pinchinat, “and that your charming goddess of youth does not give us an overdose of it.”

Here was another trouble in store; rain was apparently coming. Prudence required that they should make haste so as to get into shelter at Freschal.

They picked up the ‘cellist, as angry as he could be. They put him on his legs, growling all the time. Frascolin good-naturedly offered to carry the case, but this Zorn refused. Separate himself from his instrument! one of Gand and Bernardel’s, almost a part of himself? But he had to give in, and this precious half passed on to the back of the useful Frascolin, who entrusted his light violin case to Zorn.

The route was resumed. They walked at a good pace for two miles. No incident worth mentioning; the night getting blacker and blacker with every promise of rain. A few drops fell, very large ones, a proof that they came from clouds high in the air and stormy. But Hebe’s amphora did not overflow, and our four travellers hoped to reach Freschal perfectly dry.

Careful precautions were constantly necessary against falls on the dark road, deeply cut into by ravines, turning suddenly, bordered by high crags, skirting gloomy precipices with the roar of the torrents beneath.

Yvernès thought the position was poetical; Frascolin that it was alarming. There was the fear of certain meetings which make the safety of travellers on the roads of Lower California rather problematical. The only weapons possessed by the quartette were the bows of the violins and the ‘cello, and these would appear to be insufficient in a country where Colt’s revolvers were invented. If Sebastien Zorn and his comrades had been Americans, they would have been furnished with one of those engines of warfare, kept in a special pocket of the trousers. Even for a trip from San Francisco to San Diego a real Yankee would never have started without carrying a six-shot viaticum. But Frenchmen had not thought it necessary. We may add that they had not thought about it, and perhaps would repent it. Pinchinat marched at the head, peering right and left as he walked. Practical joker as he was, “his highness” could not help playing off a few pleasantries on his comrades. Pulling up short, for instance, every now and then, and muttering in a voice tremulous with fear, —

“Ah! There! What is that I see before me? Be ready to fire.”

But when the road plunged through a thick forest, amid mammoth trees, sequoias a hundred and fifty feet high, vegetable giants of these Californian regions, his joking humour disappeared. Ten men might hide behind one of these enormous trunks. A bright flash, followed by a report, the swift whistling of a bullet, might they not see it, might they not hear it? In such places so suitable for a nocturnal attack, an ambush was plainly suggested. If luckily they did not meet with bandits, it was because these estimable people had totally disappeared from Western America, or were then engaged in financial operations on the borders of the old and new continent. What an end for the great great grand-children of the Karl Moors and Jean Sbogars. To whom could these reflections come but to Yvernès? Decidedly, he thought, the play is not worthy of the stage.

Suddenly Pinchinat stopped still. Frascolin, who was behind him, also stopped. Zorn and Yvernès were up with them immediately.

“What is it?” asked the second violin.

“I thought I saw something,” said the alto.

And this was no joke on his part. Really there was a form moving amid the trees.

“Human or animal?” asked Frascolin.

“I do not know.”

Which was the more formidable no one would have ventured to say. They crowded together, without retreating, without uttering a word.

Through a rift in the clouds the rays of the moon lighted the dome of this gloomy forest, and flittered to the ground through the branches of the sequoias. For a hundred yards or so the surroundings were visible.

Pinchinat had not been the dupe of an illusion. Too large for a man, the mass could only be a big quadruped. What quadruped? A wild beast? A wild beast certainly. But what wild beast?

“A plantigrade,” said Yvernès.

“Oh! bother the animal!” muttered Zorn, in a low impatient tone, “and by animal, I mean you, Yvernès. Why cannot you talk like other people? What do you mean by a plantigrade?”

“An animal that walks on its plants!” explained Pinchinat.

“A bear!” replied Frascolin.

It was a bear, and a large bear too. Lions, tigers, leopards are not met with in these forests of Lower California. Bears are, however, constantly found there, and encounters with them are generally disagreeable.

No surprise will be felt at the Parisians, with one accord, resolving to get out of the way of this plantigrade. Besides, was he not at home? And so the group closed up and retreated backwards, facing the bear, but moving slowly and deliberately, without seeming to be running away.

The bear followed at a slow pace, shaking his fore paws like the arms of a semaphore, and balancing himself on his haunches. Gradually he approached, and his demonstrations became hostile—gruff growls and a snapping of the jaws, which were rather alarming.

“Suppose we run each on his own account?” proposed “his highness.”

“Do nothing of the sort,” replied Frascolin. “One of us would be sure to be caught, and who would pay for the others?”

The imprudence was not committed; it was evident that its consequences might be disastrous.

The quartette thus arrived huddled together on the edge of the clearing where the darkness was not so great. The bear had approached within a dozen yards. Did the spot appear to him convenient for an attack? Probably, for his growls redoubled, and he hastened his advance.

Precipitate retreat of the group, and earnest appeals from the second violin, “Be cool! be cool, my friends!”

The clearing was crossed and they found the shelter of the trees. But there the peril was as great. By running from one tree to another, the animal could leap on them without its being possible to foresee his attack, and he was about to act in this way, when his terrible growlings ceased, he began to halt—

The deep gloom was filled with a penetrating musical sound, an expressive largo, in which the soul of an artiste was fully revealed.

It was Yvernès, who had drawn his violin from its case and made it vibrate under the powerful caress of the bow. An idea of genius! Why should not the musicians owe their safety to music? Had not the stones moved by the strains of Amphion ranged themselves round Thebes? Had not the wild beasts, thrilled by his lyrical inspirations, run to the knees of Orpheus? It seemed as though this Californian bear, under atavistic influence, was as artistically gifted as his congeners in the fable, for his fierceness disappeared, his instincts of melomania took possession of him, and as the quartette retreated in good order, he followed them uttering little cries of approval. It would not have taken much to make him say “Bravo!”

A quarter of an hour later Zorn and his companions were at the edge of the wood. They crossed it, Yvernès fiddling all the time.

The animal stopped. It looked as though he had no intention of going further. He patted his big paws against each other.

And then Pinchinat also seized his instrument, and shouted, —

“The dancing bear. Come on!”

And while the first violin ploughed away steadily at the well-known tune in the major, the alto assisted with a base shrill and false in the mediant minor.

The bear began to dance, lifting the right foot, lifting the left foot, turning and twisting, while the four men went further and further away.

“Well,” said Pinchinat,” he is only a circus bear.”

“It does not matter,” replied Frascolin, “Yvernès had a capital idea.”

“Let us run for it, allegretto” said the ‘cellist, “and don’t look behind.”

It was about nine o’clock when the four disciples of Apollo arrived at Freschal. They had come along splendidly during the latter half of their journey, although the plantigrade was not on their traces.

Some forty wooden houses around a square planted with beeches, that was Freschal, a village isolated in the country and about two miles from the coast.

Our artistes glided between a few houses shaded with large trees, came out on the square, looked up at the humble spire of a little church, stopped, formed in a circle as if they were about to give an appropriate performance, and began to talk.

“Is this a village? asked Pinchinat.

“Did you expect to find a city like Philadelphia or New York?” asked Frascolin.

“But your village is asleep!” replied Sebastien Zorn.

“Awake not a village that sleeps,” sighed Yvernès, melodiously.

“On the contrary,” said Pinchinat, “wake it up well.”

And unless they were to spend the night in the open air they would have to do so.

Yet the place was quite deserted, the silence complete. Not a shutter was open, not a light was at a window.

“And where is the hotel?” asked Frascolin.

Yes, the hotel which the driver had mentioned, where travellers in distress would receive good welcome and treatment. And the hotel-keeper who would send help to the unfortunate coachman. Had the poor man dreamt of these things? Or—another suggestion—had Zorn and his companions gone astray? Was this really Freschal?

These questions required an immediate reply. The villagers must be applied to for information, and the door of one of the houses must be knocked at; that of the hotel if possible, if by a lucky chance they could find which it was.

The four musicians began to reconnoitre round the place, prowling along the front of the houses, trying to find a sign hanging overhead. But there was nothing to show them which was the hotel.

As they could not find the hotel, perhaps there was some private house that would give them shelter. What native of Freschal would refuse a couple of dollars for a supper and a bed?

“Let us knock,” said Frascolin.

“And in time,” said Pinchinat, “in six-eight time.”

They knocked three or four times with the same result. Not a door, not a window opened.

“We are deceived,” said Yvernès, “it is not a village, it is a cemetery, where if they sleep their sleep is eternal. Vox clamantis in deserto.”

“Amen!” replied “his highness” in a deep voice, as if chanting in a cathedral.

What was to be done as the silence remained unbroken? Continue the journey towards San Diego? They were dying—that is the word—of hunger and fatigue. And then what road were they to follow without a guide through this dark night? Try to reach another village? Which one? According to the coachman there was no other village on this part of the coast. The best thing they could do was to wait for daylight. But to spend six hours without shelter beneath a sky overcast with heavy clouds threatening rain every instant— that was not to be thought of, even by artistes.

Pinchinat had an idea. His ideas were not always excellent, but they abounded in his brain. This one, however, obtained the approval of the wise Frascolin.

“My friends,” said he, “why should not what succeeded with a bear succeed with a Californian village? We tamed the plantigrade with a little music; let us wake up these rustics with a vigorous concert, in which we will not spare either the forte or the allegro.”

“We might try that,” replied Frascolin.

Zorn did not wait for Pinchinat to finish. His case was opened, his ‘cello upright on its steel point, for he had no seat, his bow in hand, ready to extract all the human voices stored up in the sonorous carcase.

Almost immediately his comrades were ready to follow him to the utmost limits of their art.

“Onslow’s quartette, in B flat,” said he. “Come.”

Onslow’s Quartette they knew by heart, and good instrumentalists did not want to see clearly to use their skilful fingers on the ‘cello, the violins, and the alto.

Behold them given up to their inspiration. Never perhaps have they played with more talent and more soul in the concert halls and theatres of the American Union. Space is filled with sublime harmony, and unless they were deaf how could human beings resist it? Had it been a cemetery, as Yvernès pretended, the tombs would have opened at the music’s charm, the dead would have risen, and the skeletons clapped hands.

But none of the houses opened; the sleepers did not awake. The piece ended in its powerful finale, yet Freschal gave no sign of life.

“Ah!” exclaimed Zorn, in a fury. “Is it like that? They want a serenade like their bears for their savage ears? Be it so! Let us have it over again; but you, Yvernès; play in D; you, Frascolin, in E; you, Pinchinat, in G. I will keep to B flat! and now then, with all your might.”

What cacophony! What ear-torture! It was as bad as the improvised orchestra directed by the Prince de Joinville in an unknown village in Brazil. It seemed as though they were playing Wagner backwards on “vinai-griuses.”

Pinchinat’s idea was excellent. What admirable execution could not obtain this absurdity did. Freschal began to awake. Lights appeared. Windows opened here and there. The natives of the village were not dead, for they gave signs of life. They were not deaf, for they heard and listened.

“They are. going to throw apples at us,” said Pinchinat, during a pause, for the time throughout had been scrupulously kept.

“So much the better,” said the practical Frascolin, “we will eat them.”

And at Zorn’s command the players suddenly shifted into their proper key, and ended with a perfect chord of four different notes.

No! They were not apples that came from the twenty or thirty open windows, but plaudits and cheers. Never had the Freschalian ears been filled with such musical delights! And there could be no doubt that every house was ready to receive with hospitality such incomparable virtuosos.

But while they were engaged in their performance, a spectator had approached them within a few yards without being seen. This personage had descended from a sort of electrical tram-car at one angle of the square. He was a man of tall stature, and somewhat corpulent, so far as could be judged in the darkness.

While our Parisians were asking if, after the windows the doors of the houses were going to open to receive them—which appeared at least to be rather uncertain— the new arrival approached, and said, in an amiable tone, —

“I am a dilettante, gentlemen, and I have the very great pleasure of applauding you.”

“For our last piece?” replied Pinchinat, ironically.

“No, gentlemen, for the first. I have seldom heard Onslow’s Quartette given with more talent.”

The personage was evidently a connoisseur.

“Sir,” said Sebastien Zorn, in the name of his companions, “we are much pleased by your compliments. If our second piece tortured your ears, it is—”

“Sir,” replied the unknown, interrupting a phrase that might have been a long one, “I have never heard a thing played out of tune with so much precision. But I understand why you did it. It was to wake up the natives of Freschal, who have already gone to sleep again. Well, gentlemen, what you endeavoured to obtain from them by this desperate means permit me to offer you.”

“Hospitality?” demanded Frascolin.

“Yes, hospitality. Unless I am mistaken I have before me the Quartette Party renowned throughout our superb America, which is never stingy in its enthusiasm.”

“Sir,” said Frascolin, “we are indeed flattered. And —this hospitality, where can we find it, thanks to you?”

“Two miles from here.”

“In another village?”

“No, in a town.”

“A town of importance?”

“Certainly.”

“Allow me,” observed Pinchinat. “We were told that there were no towns until we got to San Diego.”

“It is a mistake—which I cannot explain.”

“A mistake?” repeated Frascolin.

“Yes, gentlemen, and if you will accompany me I promise you a welcome such as artistes of your class are entitled to.”

“I am of opinion that we should accept it,” said Yvernès.

“And I share that opinion,” said Pinchinat.

“One moment!” said Zorn, “do not go faster than the leader of the orchestra.”

“Which means?” asked the American.

“That we are expected at San Diego,” replied Frascolin.

“At San Diego,” added the ‘cellist, “where the city has engaged us for a series of musical matinees, the first of which is to take place on Sunday afternoon.”

“Ah!” replied the personage, in a tone that betrayed extreme annoyance.

Then he continued, —

“That does not matter. In a day you will have time to visit a city which is well worth the trouble, and I will see that you are taken to the nearest station, so that you can be at San Diego at the appointed time.”

The offer was attractive and welcome. The quartette were assured of finding a good room in a good hotel—to say nothing of the attention promised by this obliging personage.

“Gentlemen, do you accept?”

“We accept,” replied Zorn, whom hunger and fatigue disposed to welcome such an invitation.

“Agreed,” replied the American. “We start at once. In twenty minutes we shall be there, and you will thank me, I am sure.”

We need scarcely say that after the cheers provoked by the burlesque serenade the windows of the houses were shut. With its lights extinguished, the village of Freschal was again plunged in sleep.

The American and the four artistes went to the car, put down their instruments, and placed themselves behind them, while the American installed himself forward next to the engineer. A lever was touched, the electric accumulators worked, the vehicle trembled, and began to get up a rapid rate of speed, travelling westward.

A quarter of an hour afterwards an immense whitish light appeared, as if it were a dazzling diffusion of lunar rays. This was the town, the existence of which none of the Parisians had suspected.

The car stopped, and Frascolin said, —

“Here we are on the shore.”

“The shore—no,” replied the American, “but a watercourse we have to cross.”

“And how?” asked Pinchinat.

“By means of this boat in which the car is carried.”

It was one of the ferry boats, so numerous in the United States, and on it the car was placed with its passengers. Probably the ferry boat was worked by electricity, for there was no steam, and in two minutes they were on the other side of the watercourse, alongside a quay. The car resumed its course along some country roads, and entered a park over which aerial appliances poured an intense light. The gate of the park gave access to a wide and long road paved with sonorous flags. Five minutes later the artistes descended at the steps of a comfortable hotel, where they were received with a welcome that augured well, thanks to a word from the American. They were immediately placed before a well-served table, and supped with good appetite, as may be believed.

The repast over, the major-domo led them to a spacious chamber lighted by incandescent lamps, to which shades were fitted, so as to shut out nearly all the light at will. Then, postponing to the morrow the explanation of all these marvels, they slept in the four beds placed in the four angles of the room, and snored with that extraordinary simultaneity which had given the Quartette Party its renown.
CHAPTER III.

Next morning at seven o’clock, these words, or rather these cries, resounded in the room after a startling imitation of a trumpet-call—something like the reveilée.

“Now then! Whoop! On your feet; and in two-time!” vociferated Pinchinat.

Yvernès, the most careless of the four, would have preferred three-time, and even four-time, to disengage himself from the warm coverings of his bed. But he had to follow the example of his comrades, and leave the horizontal for the vertical.

“We have not a minute to lose—not one!” observed “his highness.”

“Yes,” replied Zorn, “for to-morrow we must be at San Diego.”

“Good,” replied Yvernès; “half-a-day will suffice for us to visit the town of this amiable American.”

“What astonishes me,” added Frascolin, “is that there is an important city in the neighbourhood of Freschal. How could our driver have forgotten to tell us about it?”

“The point is that we should be here, my old G key,” said Pinchinat. “And here we are.”

Through the large windows the light was pouring into the room, and the view extended for a mile down a superb road planted with trees.

The four friends proceeded to their toilette in a comfortable cabinet—a quick and easy task, for it was fitted with all the latest inventions, taps graduated thermometrically for hot water and cold water, basins emptying automatically, hot baths, hot irons, sprays of perfumes, ventilators worked by voltaic currents, brushes moved mechanically, some for the head, some for the clothes, some for the boots, either to clean the dust off them, or to black them. And then there were the buttons of the bells and telephones communicating with every part of the establishment. And not only could Sebastien Zorn and his companions obtain communication with every part of the. hotel, but with the different quarters of the town, and perhaps—such was Pinchinat’s opinion—with every town in the United States of America.

“Or even in the two worlds,” added Yvernès. But before they had an opportunity of trying the experiment, a message was telephoned to them at forty-seven minutes past seven, as follows: —

“Calistus Munbar presents his morning civilities to each of the honourable members of the Quartette Party, and begs them to descend as soon as they are ready to the dining-room of the Excelsior Hotel, where their first breakfast awaits them.”

“Excelsior Hotel!” said Yvernès. “The name of this caravanserai is superb.”

“Calistus Munbar, that is our obliging American,” remarked Pinchinat. “And the name is splendid.”

“My friends,” said the ‘cellist, whose stomach was as imperious as its proprietor; “as breakfast is on the table, let us breakfast, and then—”

“And then take a run through the town,” added Frascolin. “But what is this town?”

Our Parisians were dressed or nearly so. Pinchinat replied telephonically that in less than five minutes they would do honour to the invitation of Mr. Calistus Munbar. And when their toilette was finished, they walked to a lift which deposited them in the large hall of the hotel, at the end of which was the door of the dining-room, an immense saloon gleaming with gilding.

“I am yours, gentlemen, always yours.”

It was the man of the night before who had just uttered this phrase of six words. He belonged to that type of personages who may be said to introduce themselves. It seems as though we had known them always.

Calistus Munbar was between fifty and sixty years of age, but he did not look more than forty-five. He was above the usual height, rather stout, his limbs long and strong, and every movement vigorous and healthy.

Zorn and his friends had many times met with people of this type, which is not rare in the United States. Calistus Munbar’s head was enormous, round, with hair still fair and curly, shaking like leaves in a breeze; his features were highly coloured, his beard long, yellow, divided into points; moustache shaven; mouth, with the corners raised, smiling, satirical perhaps; teeth white as ivory; nose rather large at the end, with quivering nostrils, marked at the base of the forehead with two vertical folds supporting an eyeglass fastened to a thread of silver as fine and supple as a thread of silk. Behind the glasses gleamed an eye always in movement, with a greenish iris and a pupil glowing like fire.

Calistus Munbar wore a very ample loose jacket of brown diagonal stuff. From the side pocket peeped a handkerchief with a pattern on it. His waistcoat was white, very open, and fastened with three gold buttons. From one pocket to the other a massive chain was festooned, with a chronometer at one end of it and a pedometer at the other, to say nothing of the charms which jingled in the centre. His jewellery was completed by a series of rings which ornamented his fat, pink hands. His shirt was of immaculate whiteness, stiff with starch, dotted with three diamonds, surmounted by a wide, open collar, beneath the fold of which lay an almost imperceptible cravat of reddish brown cord. The trousers were striped and very full, and at the feet showed the laced boots with aluminium fastenings.

The Yankee’s physiognomy was in the highest degree expressive—the face of a man who suspected nobody, and could only see good in others. This was a man who could get out of difficulties, certainly, and he was also energetic, as was shown by the tonacity of his muscles, the apparent contraction of his superciliary and his masseter. He laughed noisily, but his laugh was nasal rather than oral, a sort of giggle, the hennitus of the physiologists.

Such was Calistus Munbar. He raised his big hat at the entrance of the Quartette Party. He shook hands with the four artistes. He led them to a table where the tea-urn was steaming and the traditional toast was smoking. He spoke all the time, giving them no opportunity to ask a single question—perhaps with the object of avoiding having to reply—boasting of the splendours of his town, the extraordinary creation of this city, keeping up the monologue without interruption, and when the breakfast was over, ending his monologue with these words, —

“Come, gentlemen, and follow me. But one piece of advice.”

“What?” asked Frascolin.

“It is expressly forbidden to spit in the streets. “

“We are not accustomed to,” protested Yvernès.

“Good! That will save you a fine.”

“Not spit—in America!” murmured Pinchinat, in a tone in which surprise was mingled with incredulity.

It would have been difficult to have obtained a guide and cicerone more complete than Calistus Munbar. This town he knew thoroughly. There was not a hotel of which he did not know the owner’s name, not a house that he did not know who lived there, not a man in the street by whom he was not saluted with sympathetic familiarity.

The city was built on a regular plan. The avenues and roads, provided with verandahs above the footways, crossed each other at right angles, forming a sort of chessboard. There was no want of variety about the houses; in their style and interior arrangements they were according to no other rule than the fancy of their architects. Except along a few commercial streets, these houses had a look of the palace about them, with their courtyards flanked by elegant wings, the architectural arrangement of their front, the luxury of the furniture of their rooms, the gardens, not to say parks, in their rear. It was remarkable that the trees, o£ recent planting, no doubt, were none of them fully grown. So it was with the squares at the intersection of the chief arteries of the city, carpeted with lawns of a freshness quite English, in which the clumps of trees of both temperate and torrid species had not drawn from the soil its full vegetative power. This peculiarity presented a striking contrast with the portion of Western America, where forest giants abound in the vicinity of the great Californian cities.

The quartette walked in front of him, observing this part of the town, each according to his manner—Yvernès attracted by what did not attract Frascolin; Zorn interested in what did not interest Pinchinat—all of them curious as to the mystery which enveloped this unknown city. From this diversity of views arose a fairly complete assemblage of remarks. But Calistus Munbar was there, and he had an answer for everything. An answer? He did not wait to be asked; he talked and talked, and never left off talking. His windmill of words turned and turned at the slightest wind.

Twenty minutes after leaving the Excelsior Hotel, Calistus Munbar said, —

“Here we are in Third Avenue, and there are thirty in the town. This is the most business one, it is our Broadway, our Regent Street, our Boulevard des Italiens. In this stores and bazaars you find the superfluous and the necessary, all that can be asked for by the requirements of modern comfort.”

“I see the shops,” observed Pinchinat, “but I don’t see the customers.”

“Perhaps it is too early in the morning?” added Yvernès.

“It is due,” said Calistus Munbar, “to most of the orders being given telephonically, or rather telautographically.”

“What does that mean?” asked Frascolin.

“It means that we commonly use the telautograph, an instrument which sends the written as the telephone sends the spoken word, without forgetting the kinetograph, which registers the movements; being for the eye what the phonograph is for the ear, and the telephote, which reproduces the images. The telautograph gives a better guarantee than the mere message, which the first to come is free to make bad use of. We sign our orders and deeds by electricity.”

“Even the marriage registers?” asked Pinchinat, ironically.

“Doubtless, Mr. Alto. Why should you not marry by the telegraphic wire?”

“And divorce?”

“And divorce; that is the very thing that keeps the wires busiest.”

And he laughed a long laugh that made all the jewellery on his waistcoat jingle.

“You are merry, Mr. Munbar,” said Pinchinat, joining in the American’s hilarity.

“Yes, as a flock of finches on a sunshiny day.”

At this point a transverse artery was reached. This was Nineteenth Avenue, from which all trade was banished. Tram lines ran down it as down the others, swift cars passed along without raising a grain of dust, for the roadway, laid with an imputrescible pavement of Australian karry or jarrah, was as clean as if it had been polished. Frascolin, always observant of physical phenomena, noticed that the footway sounded under his feet like a plate of metal.

“These are splendid workers in iron,” he said, “they make their footways of sheet iron.”

And he stepped up to Calistus Munbar to hear what he had to say.

“Gentlemen,” said Munbar, “look at that mansion.”

And he pointed to a vast construction of monumental aspect, the courtyard of which had along its front a railing of aluminium.

“This mansion—I might say this palace—is inhabited by the family of one of the principal notables of the town, that is Jem Tankerdon, the owner of inexhaustible mines of petroleum in Illinois, the richest, perhaps, and consequently the most honourable and most honoured of our citizens.”

“Millions?” asked Zorn.

“Phew!” said Calistus Munbar. “The million is for us but the current dollar, and here we count them by hundreds! Only the richest men are in this city. That explains why the shopkeepers make fortunes in a few years. I mean retail shopkeepers, for wholesale traders there are none in this unique microcosm of the world.”

“And manufacturers?” asked Pinchinat.

“There are no manufacturers.”

“And shipowners?” asked Frascolin.

“There are none.”

“People living on their investments?” asked Zorn.

“Only those and merchants on the way to be like them.”

“What about the workmen?” observed Yvernès.

“When we want workmen we get them from somewhere else, and when their work is over we return them—with a good sum in wages.”

“Look here, Mr. Munbar,” said Frascolin, “you have a few poor in the town, just to keep the race from becoming extinct?”

“Poor! Mr. Second Violin! We have not got a single poor man in the town.”

“Then mendicity is forbidden?”

“There is no necessity to forbid it, as the town is not accessible to beggars. That is all very well for the cities of the Union, with their depots, their asylums, their workhouses, and the houses of correction.”

“Do you mean to say you have no prisons?”

“No more than we have prisoners.”

“But criminals?”

“They remain in the old and new Continent, where they can exercise their vocation under more advantageous conditions.”

“Really, Mr. Munbar,” said Sebastien Zorn; “one would think to listen to you that we were no longer in America.”

“You were yesterday,” replied this astonishing cicerone.

“Yesterday!”  exclaimed Frascolin? wondering what could be the meaning of this strange expression.

“Doubtless. To-day you are in an independent city, over which the Union has no claim, which belongs only to itself.”

“And its name?” asked Sebastien Zorn, whose natural irritability began to peep out.

“Its name?” replied Calistus Munbar. “Allow me to be silent a little longer.”

“And when shall we know?”

“When you have finished the visit by which it is so much honoured.”

This reserve was at least peculiar. But it was of no consequence. Before noon the Quartette would have finished their curious walk, and to learn the city’s name as they were leaving it would be quite enough. The only puzzle about it was this: How could so considerable a city occupy one of the points on the Californian coast without belonging to the United States, and how was it that the driver of the carriage had never mentioned it? The main thing after all was that in twenty-four hours the Quartette would be at San Diego, where they would learn the word of this enigma if Calistus Munbar decided not to reveal it to them.

This strange personage had again given himself over to the indulgence of his descriptive faculty, not without letting it be seen that he did not wish to explain himself more categorically.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “we are at the beginning of Thirty-Seventh Avenue. Behold the admirable perspective. In this quarter there are no shops, no bazaars, none of that movement in the streets which denotes a business existence. Nothing but hotels and private houses, but the fortunes are inferior to those of Nineteenth Avenue. Incomes of from ten to twelve millions.”

“Mere beggars!”  observed Pinchinat, with a significant grimace.

“Eh, Mr. Alto!”  replied Calistus Munbar, “it is always possible to be a beggar in comparison with someone else! A millionaire is rich in comparison with a man who possesses only a hundred thousand, but not in comparison with him who has a hundred millions.”

Many times already our artistes had noticed that of all the words used by their cicerone it was “million” which recurred most frequently. And a fascinating word it was, pronounced as he pronounced it with metallic sonorousness.

The quartette continued their walk through the extraordinary town, the name of which was unknown to them. The people in the streets were all comfortably dressed; nowhere could the rags of a beggar be seen. Everywhere were trams, drays, trucks, moved by electricity. A few of the larger streets were provided with moving pavements, worked by an endless chain, and on which people walked as if on a travelling train sharing in its own motion. Electric carriages rolled along the roads with the smoothness of a ball on a billiard-table. Equipages in the true sense of the word, that is to say, vehicles drawn by horses, were only met with in the wealthy quarters.

“Ah! there is a church,” said Frascolin, and he pointed to an edifice of heavy design, without architectural style, rising from the green lawns of a square.

“That is the Protestant temple,” said Calistus Munbar, stopping in front of the building.

“Are there any Catholic churches in your town?” asked Yvernès.

“Yes, sir, and I would like you to observe that although there are about a thousand different religions on our globe, we here confine ourselves to Catholicism and Protestantism. It is not here as in the United States disunited by religion, if not by politics, in which there are as many sects as families—Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Wesleyans, &c. Here there are only Protestants faithful to the Calvinistic doctrine or Roman Catholics.”

“And what language do they speak?”

“English and French are both used.”

“We congratulate you,” said Pinchinat.

“The town,” continued Calistus Munbar, “is divided into two sections, which are almost equal. Here we are in the section—”

“West, I think?” said Frascolin, looking up at the sun. “West, if you like.”

“What, if I like?replied the Second Violin, much surprised at the reply. “Do the cardinal points of this city vary as somebody pleases?”

“Yes and no,” said Calistus Munbar, “I will explain that later on. Let us return to this section, west if you please, which is only inhabited by Protestants; it is here that the practical people live, while the Catholics, who are more intellectual and refined, occupy the east section. That tells you that this temple is the Protestant temple.”

“It looks like it,” observed Yvernès. “With its heavy architecture, prayer would not be an elevating towards the sky, but a crushing towards the ground.”

“Well expressed!” said Pinchinat. “Mr. Munbar, in a town so up-to-date in its inventions I suppose you listen to the sermon or the mass by telephone?”

“Quite so.”

“And confession?”

“Just as you can get married by telautograph; you must admit that it is practicable enough—”

“Not to be believed,” replied Pinchinat, “not to be believed.”
CHAPTER IV.

At eleven o’clock, after so long a walk, it was permissible to be hungry. And our artistes took advantage of this permission; and they agreed that at any price they must have some luncheon. This was also the opinion of Calistus Munbar.

Should they return to the Excelsior Hotel? Yes, for there did not seem to be many restaurants in this town, where the people probably preferred to have their meals at home, and tourists were apparently rather rare.

In a few minutes a tramcar took the hungry men to their hotel, where they took their places before a well-served table. It afforded a striking contrast with the ordinary American style, in which the multiplicity of the dishes is not at all in proportion to the quantity they contain. Excellent was the beef and mutton; tender and tasty was the poultry; of tempting freshness was the fish. And instead of the iced water of the restaurants of the Union, there were several kinds of beer and wines which the sun of France had distilled ten years before on the hill sides of Medoc and Burgundy.

Pinchinat and Frascolin did honour to this repast, as did also Zorn and Yvernès. Calistus Munbar had invited them, and it would have been bad taste not to have accepted his hospitality.

Besides, this Yankee, whose conversational powers were inexhaustible, displayed quite a charming humour. He told them all about the town except the one thing his guests wished to know, namely, what was this independent city, the name of which he hesitated to reveal?”A little patience,” he would say; “wait till the exploration is finished.” Was his idea to make the quartette tipsy, with the object of letting them miss the train to San Diego? No, but they drank well after having eaten well, and the dessert was being finished with tea, coffee and liqueurs, when an explosion shook the glasses in the hotel.

“What is that?” asked Yvernès, with a start.

“Do not be uneasy, gentlemen,” replied Calistus Munbar, “that is the gun at the observatory.”

“If it only means noon,” said Frascolin, looking at his watch, “I beg to state that it is late.”

“No, Mr. Alto, no! The sun is no later here than elsewhere.”

A singular smile played on the American’s lips, his eyes sparkled behind his spectacles, and he rubbed his hands. He seemed to be congratulating himself on having perpetrated some excellent joke.

Frascolin, less excited than the others by the good cheer, looked at him suspiciously without knowing what to make of it.

“Come, my friends,” added the American, in his most amiable manner, “allow me to remind you that there is the second part of the town for us to visit, and I shall die of despair if a single detail escapes you. We have no time to lose.”

“At what time does the train start for San Diego?” asked Zorn, always anxious not to fail in his engagements by arriving late.

“Yes, at what time?” repeated Frascolin.

“Oh, in the evening,” replied Calistus Munbar, with a wink of his left eye. “Come, my guests, come. You will not repent of having had me as a guide.”

How could they disobey such an obliging personage? The four artistes left the Excelsior Hotel and strolled along the road. It really seemed as though they had drunk rather freely of the wine, for a kind of thrill seemed to run through their legs, although they had not taken their places on one of the moving footways.

“Eh! eh! Support us, Chatillon!” exclaimed “his highness.”

“I think we have had a little to drink,” said Yvernès, wiping his forehead.

“All right,” observed the American, “once is not always! We had to water your welcome.”

“And we have emptied the watering-pot,” replied Pinchinat, who had never felt in a better humour.

Calistus Munbar took them down one of the roads leading to the second half of the town. In this district there was more animation than in the other. It was as though they had been suddenly transported from the northern to the southern States of the Union; from Chicago to New Orleans, from Illinois to Louisiana. The shops were better filled, the houses of more elegant architecture, the family mansions more comfortable, the hotels as magnificent as those in the Protestant section but of more cheerful aspect. The people were different in bearing and character. The city was apparently double, like certain stars, only the sections did not revolve round one another.

When they had nearly reached the centre of the district, the group stopped about the middle of Fifteenth Avenue, and Yvernès exclaimed, —

“Upon my word, that is a palace!”

“The palace of the Coverley family,” replied Calistus Munbar, “Nat Coverley, the equal of Jem Tankerdon.”

“Richer than he is?” asked Pinchinat.

“Quite as rich,” said the American. “An ex-banker of New Orleans, who has more hundreds of millions than he has fingers on both hands.”

“A nice pair of gloves, Mr. Munbar!”

“Just so.”

“And these two notables, Jem Tankerdon and Nat Coverley, are enemies, naturally?”

“Rivals, at least! each striving for preponderance in the city’s affairs, jealous of one another.”

“Will they end by eating one another?” asked Zorn.

“Perhaps, and if one devours the other—” “What an attack of indigestion will follow!” And Calistus Munbar absolutely shook with laughter, so much was he amused at the reply.

The Catholic church rises in a vast open space so as to give a good view of its fine proportions. It is in the Gothic style, the style that can be admired close to, for the vertical lines which constitute its beauty lose their character when seen from a distance. St. Mary’s Church merits admiration for the slenderness of its pinnacles, the delicacy of its rose work, the elegance of its flamboyant pointed arches, the gracefulness of its windows.

“A fine specimen of Anglo-Saxon Gothic,” said Yvernès, who was a good judge of architecture. “You are right, Mr. Munbar, the two sections of your town have no more resemblance between them than the temple of the one and the cathedral of the other!”

“And yet, Monsieur Yvernès, these two sections are born of the same mother—”

“But not of the same father, probably?” said Pinchinat. “Yes, of the same father, my excellent friends. Only they have been built in a different way. They were designed for the convenience of those in search of an existence, tranquil, happy, free from all care, an existence offered by no other city of the old or new world.”

“By Apollo, Mr. Munbar,” replied Yvernès, “take care not to excite our curiosity too much. It is as if you were singing one of those musical phrases which make you long for the key-note.”

“And the result is that they tire your ear,” added Zorn. “Has the moment come when you will consent to tell us the name of this extraordinary town?”

“Not yet, my dear guests,” replied the American, adjusting his gold eyeglasses on his nasal appendage. “Wait until we have finished our walk—let us go on now.”

“Before going on,” said Frascolin, who felt a sort of vague uneasiness mingling with his curiosity, “I have a proposition to make.”

“And what is that?”

“Why not ascend the spire of St. Mary’s church? From there we could see—”

“Oh, no,” said Munbar, shaking his bushy head, “not now, later on.”

“And when?” asked the violoncellist, getting provoked at so many evasions.

“At the end of our excursion, Monsieur Zorn.”

“Then we shall return to this church?”

“No, my friends, our walk will end with a visit to the observatory, the tower of which is a third higher than the spire of St. Mary’s church.”

“But why not take advantage of this opportunity?” asked Frascolin.

“Because it would spoil the effect I have in view.”

And there was no means of extracting any further reply from this enigmatic personage.

The best thing being to submit, the various avenues of this part of the town were conscientiously explored. A visit was paid to the commercial quarters, those of the tailors, boot-makers, hatters, butchers, grocers, bakers, fruiterers, &c. Calistus Munbar, saluted by most of the people he met, returned the salutes with vainglorious satisfaction. He talked incessantly, this exhibitor of wonders, and the rattle of his tongue was like the ringing of a bell on a feast day.

In about two hours the quartette had arrived at the boundary of the town, which was marked by a superb iron railing, adorned with flowers and climbing plants. Beyond was the country, the circular line of which blended with the horizon of the sky.

And here Frascolin noticed something which he did not think it his duty to communicate to his comrades. Everything would doubtless be explained from the summit of the observatory tower. What he noticed was that the sun, instead of being in the south-west at two o’clock, was in the south-east.

This was something to astonish a mind as reflective as that of Frascolin, and he had begun to rack his brains when Calistus Munbar changed the course of his ideas by exclaiming, —

“Gentlemen, the tram starts in a few minutes. Let us be off to the harbour.”

“The harbour?” asked Zorn.

“Yes, it is only about a mile—and that will enable you to admire our park?”

The harbour, if it existed, ought to be a little below or a little above this town on the coast of Lower California. In truth, where could it be if it were not on some point of the coast?

The artistes, rather perplexed, sat down on the seats of an elegant car, in which were several other passengers, all of whom shook hands with Munbar, who seemed to know everybody, and then the dynamos of the train began to drive them along. That which Munbar called a park was the country extending round the city. There were paths running out of sight, and verdant lawns, and painted barriers, straight and zigzagged, known as fences, around preserves, and clumps of trees—oaks, maples, ashes, chestnuts, nettle-trees, elms, cedars—all of them young, but the haunts of a world of birds of a thousand species. It was a regular English garden, with leaping fountains, baskets of flowers then in all the abundance of spring, masses of shrubs of the most diversified species, giant geraniums like those of Monte Carlo, orange trees, lemon trees, olive trees, oleanders, lentisks, aloes, camellias, dahlias, roses of Alexandria with their white flowers, hortensias, white and pink lotuses, South American passion-flowers, rich collections of fuchsias, salvias, begonias, hyacinths, tulips, crocuses, narcissi, anemones, Persian ranunculi, bearded irises, cyclamens, orchids, calceolarias, tree ferns, and also species characteristic of the tropics, such as cannas, palms, date trees, fig trees, eucalypti, mimosas, banana trees, guava trees, calabash trees, cocoanut trees; in a word, all that a connoisseur could ask for in the richest botanic garden.

With his propensity for evoking the memories of ancient poetry, Yvernès thought he was transported to the bucolic landscapes of the romance of Astrea. It is true if sheep were not wanting in these fresh pastures, if ruddy cows grazed between the fences, if deer and other elegant quadrupeds of the forest fauna bounded among the trees, it was the absence of the shepherds of D’Urfé and their charming shepherdesses which they had to regret. As to the Lignon, it was represented by a serpentine river, whose vivifying waters followed the valleys of the landscape.

But at the same time it all seemed artificial.

This provoked the ironical Pinchinat to exclaim, —

“Ah! is that all you have in the shape of a river?”

And Calistus Munbar to reply, —

“Rivers? What is the good of them?”

“To have water, of course.”

“Water! That is to say, a substance generally unhealthy, microbian, and typhoic?”

“Yes, but it can be purified.”

“And why give yourself that trouble when it is easy to make a water pure, hygienic, free from all impurity, and even gaseous or ferruginous, if. you please.”

“You manufacture this water?” asked Frascolin.

“Certainly, and we distribute it hot or cold to the houses as we distribute light, sound, the time, heat, cold, power, the antiseptic agents, electrization by auto-conduction.”

“Allow me,” said Yvernès, “to believe that you also make the rain for watering your lawns and flowers.”

“And so we do, sir,” said the American, making the jewels on his fingers sparkle across the flowing masses of his hand.

“Do you have your rain on tap?” exclaimed Sebastien Zorn.

“Yes, my dear friends, rain which the conduits arranged underground distribute in a way that is regular, controllable, opportune, and practical. Is not that better than waiting for nature’s good pleasure, and submitting to the climate’s caprices, better than complaining against excesses without the power of remedying them, sometimes a too persistent humidity, sometimes too long a drought?”

“I have you there, Mr. Munbar,” declared Frascolin. “That you can produce your rain at will may be all very well, but how do you prevent it falling from the sky?”

“The sky? What has that got to do with it?”

“The sky, or, if you prefer it, the clouds which break, the atmospheric currents with their accompaniment of cyclones, tornadoes, storms, squalls, hurricanes. During the bad season, for example.”

“The bad season?” repeated Calistus Munbar.

“Yes; the winter.”

“The winter? What do you mean by that?”

“We said winter—hail, snow, ice!”  exclaimed Zorn, enraged at the Yankee’s ironical replies.

“We know them not!” was Munbar’s tranquil reply.

The four Parisians looked at one another. Were they in the presence of a madman or a mystificator? In the first case he ought to be shut up; in the second he ought to be taken down.

Meanwhile the tramcar continued its somewhat leisurely journey through these enchanting gardens. To Zorn and his companions it seemed as though beyond the limits of this immense park were pieces of ground, methodically cultivated, displaying their different colours like the patterns of cloth formerly shown at tailors’ doors. These were, no doubt, fields of vegetables, potatoes, cabbages, carrots, turnips, leeks, in fact, everything required for the composition of a perfect pot-au-feu. At the same time, they would have been glad to get out into the open country to discover what this singular region produced in corn, oats, maize, barley, rye, buckwheat, and other cereals.

But here a factory appeared, its iron chimneys rising from its low, rough glass roofs. These chimneys, strengthened by iron stays, resembled those of a steamer under way, of a Great Eastern whose hundred thousand horses were driving her powerful screws, with this difference, that instead of black smoke they were only emitting mere threads which in no way injured the atmosphere.

This factory covered about ten thousand square yards. It was the first industrial establishment the quartette had seen since they had started on their excursion, under the American’s guidance.

“And what is that establishment?” asked Pinchinat.

“It is a factory worked with petroleum,” replied Munbar, looking as though his eyes would perforate his glasses.

“And what does this factory manufacture?”

“Electrical energy, which is distributed through the town, the park, the country, in producing motive force and light. At the same time, it keeps going our telegraphs, telautographs, telephones, telephotes, bells, cooking stoves, machinery, arc lights, incandescent lights, aluminium moons, and submarine cables.”

“Your submarine cables?” observed Frascolin, sharply.

“Yes, those that connect the town with the different points of the American coast.”

“And is it necessary to have a factory of such size for that purpose?”

“I think so, considering what we do with our electrical energy, and also our mental energy!” replied Munbar. “Believe me, gentlemen, it required a pretty strong dose to found this incomparable city without a rival in the world!”

They could hear the dull rumbling of the huge factory, the vigorous belchings of the steam, the clanking of the machines, the thuds on the ground, bearing witness to a mechanical effort greater than any in modern industry. Who could have imagined that such power was necessary to move dynamos or charge accumulators?

The tram passed, and a quarter of a mile further on stopped at the harbour.

The travellers alighted, and their guide, still profuse in his praises of everything, took them along the quays by the warehouses and docks. The harbour was oval in form, and large enough to hold some twenty ships. It was more of a wet dock than a harbour terminated by jetties; two piers, supported on iron piles, and lighted by two lamps, facilitating the entry of vessels from the sea.

On that day the wet dock contained only half a dozen steamers, some destined for the transport of petroleum, others for the transport of the goods needed for daily consumption, and a few barques fitted with electrical apparatus employed in sea fishing.

Frascolin noticed that the entrance of the harbour faced the north, and concluded that it must be on the north shore of one of those points which jut out from Lower California into the Pacific. He also noticed that there was a current in the sea running eastward at an appreciable speed, as it ran against the pierheads like the water along the side of a ship when under way—an effect due doubtless to the action of the rising tide, although the tide does not run very strong on the western coast of America.

“Where is the river we crossed yesterday in the ferry boat?” asked Frascolin.

“That is at the back of us,” the Yankee was content to reply.

But it would not do to delay if they wished to return to the town in time to take the evening train to San Diego.

Zorn mentioned this to Munbar, who answered, —

“Never fear, my dear friends. We have plenty of time. A tram will take us back to the town after we have followed the shore, a little. You wished to have a bird’s-eye view of the place, and in less than an hour you will get that from the top of the observatory.”

“You guarantee that?” said Zorn.

“I guarantee that at sunrise to-morrow you will no longer be where you are now.”

This enigmatic reply had to be accepted; although Frascolin’s curiosity, which was much greater than that of his comrades, was excited to the utmost. He was impatient to find himself at the summit of this tower, from which the American affirmed that the view extended to a horizon of at least a hundred miles in circumference. After that, if he could not fix the geographical position of this extraordinary city, he would have to give up the problem for ever.

At the head of the dock was a second tram line running along the coast. There was a train of cars, six in number, in which a number of passengers had already taken their seats. These cars were drawn by an electric locomotive, with a capacity of two hundred ampères-ohms, and their speed was from nine to twelve miles an hour.

Calistus Munbar invited the quartette to take their places in the tram, and it seemed as though it had only been waiting for our Parisians. The country appeared to differ very little from the park which lay between the town and the harbour. The same flat soil, and as carefully looked after. Green fields and meadows instead of lawns, that was all, fields of vegetables, not of cereals. At this moment artificial rain, projected from subterranean conduits, was falling in a beneficent shower on the long rectangles traced by line and square. The sky could not have distributed it more mathematically or more opportunely.

The tram road skirted the coast, with the sea on one side, the fields on the other. The cars ran along in this way for about four miles. Then they stopped before a battery of twelve guns of heavy calibre, the entrance to which bore the inscription “Prow Battery.”

“Cannons which load but do not discharge by the breech, like so many of those in Old Europe,” said Calistus Munbar.

Hereabouts the coast was deeply indented. A sort of cape ran out, very long and narrow, like the prow of a ship, or the ram of a man-of-war, on which the waves divided, sprinkling it with their white foam. The effect of the current probably, for the sea in the offing was reduced to long undulations, which were getting smaller and smaller with the setting of the sun.

From this point another line of rails went off towards the centre, while the other continued to follow the curve of the coast; and Calistus Munbar made his friends change cars, announcing that they would return direct towards the city.

The excursion had lasted long enough.

Calistus Munbar drew out his watch, a masterpiece of Sivan, of Geneva—a talking watch, a phonographic watch —of which he pressed the button, and which distinctly spoke, “Thirteen minutes past four.”

“You will not forget the ascent of the observatory?” Frascolin reminded him.

“Forget it, my dear, and I may say my old, friends! I would sooner forget my own name, which enjoys a certain celebrity, I believe. In another four miles we shall be in front of the magnificent edifice, built at the end of First Avenue, that which divides the two sections of our town.”

The tram started. Beyond were the fields, on which fell the afternoon rain, as the American called it; here again was the enclosed park with its fences, its lawns, its beds and its shrubberies.

Half-past four then chimed. Two hands indicated the hour on a gigantic dial, like that of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster, on the face of a quadrangular tower.

At the foot of this tower were the buildings of the observatory, devoted to different duties, some of which, with round metal roofs and glass windows, allowed the astronomers to follow the circuit of the stars. There were arranged round a central court, from the midst of which rose the tower for a hundred and fifty feet. From its upper gallery the view around would extend over a radius of sixteen miles, if the horizon were not bounded by any high ground or mountains.

Calistus Munbar, preceding his guests, entered a door which was opened to him by a porter in superb livery.

At the end of the hall the lift cage was waiting, which was worked by electricity. The quartette took their places in it with their guide. The cage ascended slowly and quietly. Forty-five seconds after they stopped at the level of the upper platform of the tower. From this platform rose the staff of a gigantic flag, of which the bunting floated out in the northerly breeze.

Of what nationality was this flag? None of our Parisians could recognize it. It was like the American ensign, with its lateral stripes of white and red, but the upper canton, instead of the sixty-seven stars which twinkled in the Confederation at this epoch, bore only one, a star or rather a sun of gold on a blue ground, which seemed to rival in brilliancy the star of day.

“Our flag, gentlemen,” said Calistus Munbar, taking off his hat as a mark of respect.

Sebastien Zorn and his comrades could not do otherwise than follow his example. Then they advanced to the parapet and looked over.

What a shriek—at first of surprise and then of anger— escaped them!

The country lay extended beneath them. The country was a perfect oval, surrounded by a horizon of sea, and as far as the eye could carry no land was in sight. And yet the night before, after leaving the village of Freschal in the American’s company, Zorn, Frascolin, Yvernès, Pinchinat had travelled for two miles on the land. They had then crossed the river in the ferry boat and again reached land. In fact, if they had left the Californian shore for any sea voyage they would certainly have noticed it.

Frascolin turned towards Calistus Munbar.

“We are on an island?” he asked.

“As you see!”  said the Yankee, with the most amiable of smiles.

“And what is this island?”

“Floating Island.”

“And this town?”

“Milliard City.”
CHAPTER V.

At this period the world was still waiting for the audacious statistical geographer who could give the exact number of the islands scattered over the face of the globe. The number, we may make bold to say, would amount to many thousands. Among all these islands was there not one that answered the requirements of the founders of Floating Island, and the wants of its future inhabitants? No, not one. Hence this peculiarly American notion of making an island which would be the latest and greatest thing in modern construction.

Floating Island was an island worked by screws. Milliard City was its capital. Why this name? Evidently because the capital was the town of the millionaires, a Gouldian, Vanderbiltian, Rothschildian City.

An artificial island; there was nothing extraordinary in the idea. With a sufficient mass of materials submerged in a river, a lake, a sea, it was not beyond the power of men to make it. But that was not sufficient. Having regard to its destination, to the requirements it had to satisfy, it was necessary that this island could be moved from place to place, and consequently that it should float. There was the difficulty, which was not too great for ironworkers and engineers to overcome.

Already, at the end of the nineteenth century, with their instinct for the “big,” their admiration for the “enormous,” the Americans had conceived the project of forming a large raft some miles out at sea, and their mooring it with anchors. If this was not a city, it was at least a station in the Atlantic with restaurants, hotels, clubs, theatres, &c., where tourists could find all the conveniences of the watering places then most in vogue. This project was realized and completed. And then, instead of a stationary raft, they made a movable island.

Six years before the opening of this story an American company, under the title of Floating Island Company, Limited, had been formed with a capital of five hundred million dollars, divided into five hundred shares, for the construction of an artificial island, affording the nabobs of the United States the various advantages of which the stationary regions of the globe are deprived. The shares were quickly taken up, for immense fortunes were then plentiful in America, gained either by manipulating railways, or banking operations, or oil transactions, or speculations in pickled pork.

Four years were occupied in the construction of this island, of which we may conveniently give the chief dimensions, the internal arrangements, the means of locomotion which enabled it to cruise amongst the most beautiful regions of the immense Pacific Ocean.

There are floating villages in China on the River Yang-tse-Kiang, in Brazil on the Amazon, in Europe on the Danube. But these are only ephemeral constructions, a few small houses built on the top of long rafts of wood. When it reaches its destination the raft is broken up, the houses taken off—the village has lived and died.

But it was quite another affair with regard to this island; it was to be launched on the sea, it was to last as long as any of the works issued from the hands of man.

And besides, who knows if the earth will not some day be too small for its inhabitants, whose numbers will almost reach six milliards in 2072—as the statisticians following Ravenstein affirm with astonishing precision. And will it not be necessary to build on the sea when the continents are overcrowded?

Floating Island was an island in steel, and the strength of its hull had been calculated for the weight it had to bear. It was composed of 270,000 caissons, each of them eighteen yards high, by ten long and ten wide. Their horizontal surface represented a square of ten yards on the side, that is to say, of a hundred square yards. When the caissons were all bolted and riveted together, they gave the island an area of about twenty-seven million square yards. In the oval form which the constructors had given it, it measured about four and a half miles long and three broad, and its circuit in round numbers was about eleven miles.

Floating Island drew thirty feet of water, and had a freeboard of twenty feet. In volume it was about 430,000,000 cubic yards, and its displacement, being three-fifths of its volume, amounted to 258,000,000 cubic yards.

The whole of the caissons below the water line had been covered with a preparation up to then undiscoverable —which had made a millionaire of its inventor—which prevented barnacles and other growths from attaching themselves to the parts in contact with the sea.

The subsoil of the new island was made safe from distortion and breakage by cross girders, riveting and bolting.

Special workshops had had to be erected for the construction of this huge example of naval construction. These were built by the Floating Island Company, who had acquired Madeleine Bay and its coast, at the extremity of the long peninsula of Old California, which is just on the Tropic of Cancer. It was in this bay that the work was executed under the direction of the engineers of the Floating Island Company, the chief being the celebrated William Tersen, who died a few months after the completion of the work, as Brunei did after the unfortunate launch of the Great Eastern. And Floating Island was but a Great Eastern modernized—only several thousand times larger.

It will be understood that there could be no question of launching the island as a ship is launched. It was built in sections, in compartments alongside one another on the waters of Madeleine Bay. This portion of the American coast became the station of the moving island, to which it could return when repairs were necessary.

The carcase of the island, its hull, if you will, was formed of two hundred and seventy thousand compartments, and filled in with vegetable soil, all except the site of the city, where the hull was of extraordinary strength. The depth of mould was ample for a vegetation restricted to lawns, flower beds, shrubberies, clumps of trees and fields of vegetables. It had seemed impracticable to require this artificial soil to produce cereals and feed for cattle, which could be regularly imported. But the necessary arrangements had been made, so as not to be dependent on importation for milk and poultry.

The three quarters of the soil of Floating Island devoted to vegetation amounted to about thirteen square miles, in which the park lawns afforded permanent verdure, and the carefully tilled fields abounded in vegetables and fruits, and the artificial prairies served as grazing ground for the flocks and herds. Electro-culture was largely employed, that is to say, the influence of continuous currents, the result being an extraordinary acceleration of growth and the production of vegetables of remarkable dimensions, such as radishes eighteen inches long and carrots weighing seven pounds apiece. The flower gardens, vegetable gardens, and orchards could hold their own with the best in Virginia or Louisiana. In this there was nothing astonishing; expense was no object in this island so justly called the” Pearl of the Pacific.”

Its capital, Milliard City, occupied about a fifth of the seventeen square miles reserved for it, and was about six miles in circumference. Our readers who are willing to accompany Sebastien Zorn and his comrades on their excursion will soon know it well enough in every part. They will find it unlike the American towns which have the happiness and misfortune to be modern—happiness on account of the facilities for communication, misfortune on account of the artistic side, which is absolutely wanting. Milliard City, as we know, is oval in form, and divided into two sections divided by a central artery, First Avenue, which is about two miles long. The observatory is at one end, and the town hall at the other. Here are centralized all the public departments, the water supply and highways, the plantations and pleasure grounds, the municipal police, custom-house, markets, cemeteries, hospitals, schools, and science and art.

And now what was the population contained within this circuit of eleven miles?

The earth, it appears, has only twelve towns—of which four are in China—which have more than a million inhabitants. Well, Floating Island had but ten thousand, all of them natives of the United States. It was never intended that international discussions should arise among the citizens, who might repose in tranquility on this most modern of constructions.

It was enough, or rather more than enough, that they could not be mustered under the same banner with regard to religion. But it would have been difficult to reserve the exclusive right of residence on the island to the Yankees of the North, who were the port watch of Floating Island, or the Americans of the South, who formed its starboard watch. The interests of the Floating Island Company would not have admitted of this. When the frame of the hull was finished, when the part reserved for the town was ready for building on, when the plan of the streets and avenues had been adopted, the buildings began. to rise—superb hotels, less ornate mansions, houses destined for shops, public edifices, churches and temples, but none of those monstrosities of twenty-seven floors, those “sky-scrapers” one sees at Chicago. The materials used were light and strong. The inoxydisable metal that prevailed was aluminium, seven times as light as iron, the metal of the future, as it was called by Sainte-Claire-Deville, and which is suitable for all the requirements of solid construction. This was used in conjunction with artificial stones, cubes of cement which can be worked with so much ease. Use was also made of glass bricks—hollow, blown, and moulded like bottles—set with mortar, transparent bricks with which if desired the ideal glass house could be realized. But it was really metal framework which was most employed, as in the different kinds of naval architecture. And what was Floating Island but an immense ship?

These various properties all belonged to the Floating Island Company. Those who lived in them were only tenants whatever the amount of their fortune might be. Care had been taken to provide for all the requirements of comfort demanded by these extraordinarily rich Americans, by the side of whom the sovereigns of Europe and the nabobs of India cut but a sorry figure.

If the statistics are correct which give the stock of gold accumulated in the world at eighteen millions and that of silver at twenty millions, it must be admitted that the inhabitants of the Pearl of the Pacific had their fair share.

From the outset the financial side of the enterprise had been kept well in view. The hotels and houses had been let at fabulous prices. The rents amounted to millions, and many of the families could without inconvenience afford this payment for annual lodging. Hence, under this head alone the Company secured a good revenue. Evidently the capital of Floating Island justified the name it bore in geographical nomenclature.

Setting aside these opulent families, there were several hundreds paying a rental of from four to eight thousand a year. The surplus of the population comprised the professors, tradesmen, shopmen, and servants, and the foreigners, who were not very numerous, and were not allowed to settle in Milliard City or in the island. Lawyers were very few, and lawsuits consequently rare; doctors were fewer, and the death rate was consequently absurdly low. Every inhabitant knew his constitution exactly, his muscular force measured by the dynamometer, his pulmonary capacity measured by the spirometer, his power of cardial contraction measured by the sphygmometer, his degree of vital force measured by the magnetometer. In the town there were neither bars nor cafés, nor drinking saloons, nothing to encourage alcoholism. Never was there a case of dipsomania—let us say drunkenness, to be understood by those who do not know Greek. The municipal departments distributed electric energy, light, power, warmth, compressed air, rarefied air, cold air, water under pressure, as well as pneumatic telegrams and telephonic messages. If you died on this Floating Island, regularly withdrawn from intemperate climates and sheltered from every microbic influence, it was because you had to die after the springs of life had been worked to a centenarian old age.

Were there any soldiers in Floating Island? Yes, a body of five hundred men under the orders of Colonel Stewart, for it had to be remembered that some parts of the Pacific are not always safe. In approaching certain groups of islands it is prudent to be prepared against any attack by pirates. That this militia was highly paid, that every man received a salary superior to that of a full general in old Europe, need not occasion surprise. The recruiting of these soldiers, lodged, boarded, and clothed at the expense of the administration, took place under excellent conditions, controlled by chiefs who were as rich as Crœsus; the candidates were numerous enough to be embarrassing.

Were there any police on Floating Island? Yes, a few companies, and they sufficed to keep the peace of a town which had no reason to be troubled. To reside there, permission was necessary from the municipal administration. The shores of the island were watched day and night by custom-house officers. You could only land at the ports. How could rascals get in there? And as to those who went wrong on the island, they were arrested at once, sentenced, and put ashore in the west or east of the Pacific, on any corner of the old or new continent, without the possibility of ever returning to Floating Island.

We said the ports of Floating Island. Were there many of them, then? There were two, situated at the extremity of the smaller diameter of the oval. One of these was called Starboard Harbour, the other Larboard Harbour. In this way there was no danger of regular communications being interrupted. If, owing to bad weather, one of these harbours was unavailable, the other was open to ships, which could thus reach the island in all winds. It was through these harbours that the island was supplied with goods, with petroleum brought by special steamers, with flour and cereals, wines, beers and other drinks, tea, coffee, cocoa, groceries, preserves, etc. At these were landed the cattle, sheep, and pigs from the best markets of America. Thus was assured a full supply of fresh meat and everything required by the most exacting gourmet. There were also landed the dress materials, linen, and fashions required by the most refined dandy or the most elegant lady. These things were bought from the tradesmen in the island at prices we dare not name, for fear of exciting the incredulity of the reader.

It may be asked how a regular service of steamers could be established between the American coast and an island which constantly changed its position—one day in one position, next day twenty miles away. The reply is very simple. Floating Island did not cruise about at a venture. Its position was in accordance with a programme drawn up by the adminstration, at the advice of the meteorologists of the observatory. It was a voyage— open to modifications, however—across that part of the Pacific containing the most beautiful archipelagoes, avoiding as much as possible sudden bursts of cold or heat, which are the causes of so many pulmonary affections. ~ It was this which enabled Calistus Munbar to say, with regard to winter, “we know it not!” Floating Island only manœuvred between the thirty-fifth parallels of north and south latitude. Seventy degrees to traverse, over four thousand sea miles. What a magnificent field of navigation! Ships always knew where to find the Pearl of the Pacific, for its movements were arranged in advance among the various groups of these delightful islands, which form the oases in the desert of this mighty ocean.

But, in any case, vessels were not reduced to having to find Floating Island by chance. The company did not care to avail themselves of the twenty-five cables, six thousand miles long, belonging to the Eastern Extension, Australia and China Company. No! Floating Island must not be dependent on anybody! Scattered about the surface of the sea were a few hundred buoys, supporting the ends of electric cables connected with Madeleine Bay. One of these buoys would be picked up, the cable attached to the instruments in the observatory, and the agents in the Bay informed of the present latitude and longitude of Floating Island, the shipping service being consequently conducted with railway regularity.

There is, however, an important question which is worth dealing with at length.

How was enough fresh water procured for the wants of the island?

It was made by distillation in two special establishments, and was brought in pipes to the inhabitants of Milliard City, or led under the fields and country around. In this way it was provided for house and street service, and fell in beneficent rain on the fields and lawns, which were thus independent of the caprices of the sky. And not only was this water fresh, it was distilled, electrolyzed, more hygienic than the purest springs of both continents, of which a drop the size of a pin’s head may contain fifteen milliards of microbes.

But we have still to describe how the island was moved. Great speed was unnecessary, as for six months it was not intended to leave the region comprised between the tropics and the hundred and thirtieth and hundred and eightieth meridians. From fifteen to twenty miles a day was all that Floating Island required. This speed it would have been possible to obtain by towage, by having a cable made of the Indian plant known as bastin, which is very strong and light, and would float just below the surface so as not to be damaged by shoals. This cable could be passed over pulleys at the extremities of the island, which could be towed backwards and forwards as barges are towed up and down certain rivers. And this cable would have had to be of enormous size for such a mass, and it would have been subject to many injuries. And the freedom would be that of an island in chains, obliged to follow a definite line; and such freedom the citizens of free America revolted at.

At this period electricians had fortunately so far advanced that they could obtain almost anything from electricity. And it was to it they entrusted the locomotion of their island. Two establishments were enough to drive dynamos of enormous power, furnishing electrical energy by continuous current under a moderate voltage of two thousand volts. These dynamos drove a powerful system by screws, placed near the two ports. They each developed five millions of horse-power, by means of their hundreds of boilers fed with petroleum briquettes, which are less cumbersome, less dirty than oil, and richer in caloric. These works were under the direction of the two chief engineers, Watson and Somwah, assisted by a numerous staff of engineers and stokers under the supreme command of Commodore Ethel Simcoe. From his residence in the observatory, the commodore was in telephonic communication with the works. From him came the orders for advance or retreat, according to the programme. It was owing to him that, during the night of the 25th, the order to start had been given just as Floating Island was in the vicinity of the Californian coast, at the commencement of its annual campaign.

The maximum speed to which the island could attain, when the engines were developing their ten million horse-power, was eight knots an hour. The most powerful waves, when raised by a storm, could have no influence on it. Its size rendered it unaffected by the undulations of the surge. Fear of sea-sickness there could be none. For the first few days just a slight thrill could be perceived, which the rotation of the screws communicated to its subsoil. Terminated by rams extending at each end for some sixty yards, dividing the waters without effort, it passed without shock or jolt over the immense liquid field open to its excursions.

The electrical energy produced at the works was employed for other purposes than the locomotion of Floating Island. It lighted the country, the park, and the city. It gave the luminant for the lighthouse, whose beams signalled from afar the presence of the island and prevented all chance of collision. It furnished the various currents required by the telegraphs, telephotes, telautographs, telephones used in the private houses and business establishments. It fed the artificial moons, of five thousand candle-power, which lighted an area of five hundred square yards.

This extraordinary construction was now on its second voyage across the Pacific. A month before it had left Madeleine Bay and coasted up to the thirty-fifth parallel, so as to be in the latitude of the Sandwich Islands. It was off the coast of Lower California when Calistus Munbar, learning by telephone that the Concert Quartette had left San Francisco, had started for San Diego to secure those eminent artistes. We know the way he effected this, how he brought them on to Floating Island, then moored a few cable lengths off the coast, and how, thanks to this peculiarly smart proceeding, the dilettanti of Floating Island were to be charmed with chamber music.

Such was this new wonder of the world, this masterpiece of human genius, worthy of the twentieth century, of which two violins, an alto, and a ‘cello were the guests, and which was bearing them to the west across the Pacific.
CHAPTER VI.

Even supposing that Sebastien Zorn, Frascolin, Yvernès, and Pinchinat were men who could be astonished at nothing, it would have been difficult for them to resist a legitimate outburst of anger, and a desire to spring at Calistus Munbar’s throat. To have every reason to think that they were in North America, and yet to be really in mid ocean! To believe that they were within twenty miles of San Diego, where they were expected to give a concert next day, and to suddenly learn that they were moving away from it on an artificial island! Really their anger was excusable.

Fortunately for himself, the American had taken care to get out of the way. Profiting by the surprise, or rather the amazement of the quartette, he had left the platform and gone down in the lift, where he was for the moment out of range of the recriminations and exuberances of the four Parisians.

“Rascal!” exclaimed the ‘cellist.

“Animal!” exclaimed the alto.

“Suppose that, thanks to him, we are to see wonders!”  remarked the solo violin.

“Are you going to make excuses for him, then?” asked the second violin.

“No excuses!” said Pinchinat. “If there is a magistrate on Floating Island, we will have this Yankee hoaxer sent to prison.”

“And if there is an executioner,’ said Zorn, “we will have him hanged.”

But to obtain their different results it was first necessary to descend to the level of the inhabitants of Milliard City, the police not acting at a hundred and fifty feet in the air. And that they would have done in a few moments, if descent had been possible. But the cage of the lift had not come up again, and there was nothing like a staircase. At the summit of this tower the quartette found themselves cut off from communication with the rest of humanity.

After their first outburst of vexation and anger, Sebastien Zorn, Pinchinat, and Frascolin left Yvernès to his admirations and remained silent, and finally motionless. Above them rose the flagstaff on which the flag floated.

Zorn experienced a furious desire to cut the halliards, and bring down the flag, as a ship lowers its colours. But as this might lead to trouble, his comrades restrained him at the moment when his hand was brandishing a bowie-knife.

“Do not put us in the wrong,” said the wise Frascolin.

“Then—you accept the situation?” asked Pinchinat.

“No, but do not complicate it.”

“And our luggage on the road to San Diego!” remarked his highness, crossing his arms.

“And our concert to-morrow!” exclaimed Zorn.

“We will give it by telephone,” said the first violin, but the joke had anything but a soothing effect on the excited ‘cellist.

The observatory, it will be remembered, occupied the middle of a vast square, on which abutted the First Avenue. At the other end of this principal artery, some two miles long, which separated the two sections of Milliard City, the artistes could perceive a sort of monumental palace, surmounted by a belfry of very light and elegant construction. They said to themselves that this must be the seat of government of the island, the residence of the municipality, supposing that Milliard City had a mayor and etceteras. They were not mistaken. And just then the clock in the belfry gave forth a joyous carillon, the notes of which reached the tower with the last undulations of the breeze.

“Listen!” said Yvernès. “That is in D major.”

“And in two-four time,” said Pinchinat.

The clock was striking five.

“And dinner,” exclaimed Sebastien Zorn, “and bed! Are we, owing to this miserable Munbar, to spend the night on this platform a hundred and fifty feet in the air?”

It was to be feared so, if the lift did not afford the prisoners the means of quitting their prison.

In fact the twilight is short in these low latitudes, and the sun falls like a projectile below the horizon. The four looked away to the furthest limits of the sky, over a deserted sea, without a sail, without even a trace of smoke. Across the country ran the trams away to the shore of the island, and between the two harbours. At this time the park was crowded. From the tower it looked like an immense basket of flowers—azaleas, clematis, jasmine, glycenas, passion-flowers, begonias, salvias, hyacinths, dahlias, camellias, roses of a hundred varieties. The people were crowding in, grown men and young folks, none of those little fops which are the shame of the great cities of Europe, but strong, well-built adults. Women and girls, most of them in pale straw-coloured dresses, the hue preferred in the torrid zone, leading little lap-dogs in silk coats with chains laced with gold. Here and there these people were following the sandy paths, capriciously winding among the lawns. Some were reclining on the cushions of electric cars, others were seated on benches sheltered by the trees. Farther off young gentlemen were playing tennis, and cricket, and golf, and also polo, mounted on spirited ponies. Groups of children—American children of astonishing exuberance, among whom originality is so precocious, particularly in the case of the girls—were playing on the grass.

The commercial quarters of the town were still busy at this time of day.

The moving footways still ran on with their burden of passengers down the principal streets. At the foot of the tower, in the square of the observatory, there was a passing crowd whose attention the four prisoners endeavoured to attract.

Pinchinat and Frascolin yelled again and again to them. They were heard, evidently, for arms were stretched out towards them, and even words reached their ears. But there was no sign of surprise. Nobody seemed astonished at the group on the tower.

The words that came aloft were “good-bye” and “how do you do,” and “good-evening,” and other formulas of polite greeting. It seemed as though the people had been informed of the arrival of the four Parisians on Floating Island.

“Ah!”  said Pinchinat, “they are laughing at us.”

“I think they are,” remarked Yvernès.

An hour went by—an hour during which their appeals were in vain. The pressing invitations of Frascolin met with no more success than the furious invectives of Zorn. And the dinner-hour was approaching, the park was beginning to empty, the idlers in the streets were clearing off. It was maddening.

“Certainly,” said Yvernès, “we resemble the people whom some evil genius attracted within a sacred enclosure, and who were condemned to perish for having seen what their eyes should not have seen.”

“And we are to be left to the tortures of hunger,” said Pinchinat.

“That shall not be until we have exhausted every means of prolonging our existence,” said Zorn.

“If we have to eat each other, we will let Yvernès be number one!” said Pinchinat.

“When you please!” sighed the first violin in a subdued voice, bowing his head to receive the fatal blow.

At this moment a noise was heard in the depths of the tower. The cage of the lift came up and stopped at the platform. The prisoners, expecting to sec Calistus Munbar, prepared to give him the welcome he deserved.

The cage was empty.

Be it so. There was plenty of time for that. The hoaxed would not fail to find the hoaxer. The thing to do at once was to descend to his level, and the way to do that was to enter the cage.

That is what they did; and as soon as they were in it began to descend, and in less than a minute they were at the ground level of the tower.

The door opened. The four went out. The interior court was deserted. They crossed it and took one of the paths along the square.

A few people were moving about who appeared to take no notice of the strangers. At a remark from Frascolin, advising him to be cautious, Zorn restrained his tempestuous recriminations. It was of the authorities that they must demand justice. There was no danger in doing that. It was decided to return to the Excelsior Hotel and wait until the morning to claim their rights as free men; and the quartette began to walk along First Avenue.

Did they attract much attention? Yes and no. People looked at them, but not to any great extent—as though, perhaps, they were some of the few tourists occasionally visiting Milliard City. The quartette, under the influence of such extraordinary circumstances, did not feel very comfortable, and thought they were gazed at much more than they really were. On the other hand, it was not astonishing that the people appeared strange to them, these islanders of a moving island, these men voluntarily separated from their kind wandering over the face of the largest ocean of the globe. With a little imagination they might fancy these Floating Islanders belonged to another planet of the solar system. This was the opinion of Yvernès, whose excitable brain was rather attracted by imaginary worlds. As to Pinchinat, he was content to say, —

“These people we are meeting have quite a millionaire look about them, and seem to be fitted with screws behind, like their island.”

But they got more and more hungry, and began to hurry towards the hotel. In the morning they would see about getting back to San Diego on one of the Floating Island steamers, after receiving an indemnity which Calistus Munbar would have to pay, as was only just.

But as they were going along First Avenue, Frascolin stopped before a sumptuous edifice, on the front of which, in gold letters, was the inscription “Casino.” To the right of the superb arcade which surmounted the principal door a restaurant was visible, and through the arabesqued glass could be seen a series of tables, of which some were occupied by diners, while a numerous staff was busy about them.

“Here people eat!” said the second violin, consulting his famished comrades with a look.

Pinchinat’s laconic reply was, “Let us go in.”

And they entered the restaurant in single file. No particular notice seemed to be taken of their presence in this establishment, usually patronized by strangers. Five minutes afterwards they were attacking the first course of an excellent dinner, of which Pinchinat had chosen the bill of fare. Fortunately, the quartette’s purse was well filled, and if it ran low on Floating Island it would soon be replenished by the takings at San Diego.

The cookery was excellent, being much superior to that of the New York and San Francisco hotels; the apparatus used was the electric stove, admirably adapted for either a fierce or gentle fire. The preserved oyster soup, fricasseed corn, stewed celery, and rhubarb cakes, which are traditional, were followed by fish of extreme freshness, rump-steaks of incomparable tenderness, game doubtless from the forests and prairies of California, and vegetables grown on the island. As drinks, there was no iced water in American fashion, but various beers and wines which the growers of Burgundy, the Bordelais, and the Rhine had placed in the cellars of Milliard City—at a high price we may be sure.

This bill of fare cheered up the Parisians. Their ideas took another turn. Perhaps they took a less gloomy view of the day’s adventures. It is well known that orchestral musicians know how to drink, as is only natural with those who expend their breath in chasing sonorous waves through wind instruments, though less excusable with those who have only to manipulate the strings. It is of no consequence, however. Yvernès, Pinchinat, and Frascolin began to see life in rose colour, and even in the colours of gold, in this city of millionaires. Sebastien Zorn alone refused to follow his comrades’ lead, and did not let his anger drown in the vintages of France.

In short, the quartette had become very well satisfied with themselves on the whole, when the time came to ask for their bill. It was handed to Frascolin by the superintendent in a black coat. The second violin cast his eyes on the total, rose from his seat, sat down again, rose again, rubbed his eyes, and looked at the ceiling.

“What is the matter with you?” asked Yvernès.

“A shudder from head to foot,” replied Frascolin.

“Is it dear?”

“More than dear. We have to pay two hundred francs.”

“The four?”

“No—each.”

In fact, the amount was a hundred and sixty dollars. The game cost fifteen dollars, the fish twenty dollars, the rump-steaks twenty-five dollars, the Medoc and Burgundy thirty dollars a bottle, the rest at the same rate.

“Confound it!” exclaimed his Highness.

“The thieves!”  exclaimed Sebastien Zorn.

These remarks being in French were not understood by the restaurant manager. Nevertheless this personage was quite aware of what was passing. But if a slight smile appeared on his lips, it was a smile of surprise not of disdain. It seemed to him quite natural that a dinner should cost a hundred and sixty dollars. That was the price in Floating Island.

“No scandal!” said Pinchinat. “France is looking at us. Let us pay.”

“And no matter how,” replied Frascolin. “On the road to San Diego, after to-morrow, we shall not have enough to buy a sandwich with!”

So saying, he took out his purse and extracted from it a respectable number of paper dollars, which, fortunately, were current at Milliard City, and he was about to hand them over when a voice was heard, —

“These gentlemen have not to pay anything.”

It was the voice of Calistus Munbar. The Yankee had just entered the room, expansive and smiling as usual.

“At last!” shouted Zorn, feeling inclined to take him by the throat and clutch him as he clutched the fingerboard of his ‘cello in the forte passages.

“Be calm, my dear Zorn,” said the American. “Let us go into the room where coffee is waiting for us. There we can talk at our ease, and when our conversation is over—”

“I will strangle you!”  replied Sebastien Zorn.

“No, you will kiss my hands.”

“I shall not kiss you at all,” said the ‘cellist, by turns red and white with anger.

A minute afterwards, Calistus Munbar’s guests were lounging on soft couches while he was balancing himself in a rocking-chair.

And this is what he said by way of introduction: —

“Calistus Munbar, of New York, fifty years of age, great-grand-nephew of the celebrated Barnum, at the moment Superintendent of the Fine Arts of Floating Island, entrusted with all that concerns painting, sculpture, music, and the pleasures generally of Milliard City. And now that you know me, gentlemen—”

“Is it by chance,” said Zorn, “that you are not also an agent of the police, entrusted with the enticing of people into traps and keeping them prisoners, whether they like it or not?”

“Do not be too hasty, irritable ‘cellist,” replied the American, “and wait for the end.”

“We will wait,” said Frascolin, gravely, “and we are listening.”

“Gentlemen,” continued Calistus Munbar, graciously, “all I wish to touch on in this interview is the question of music as it exists in our island. Lyrical theatres, Milliard City does not as yet possess any, but if you wish it, they will rise from the soil as by enchantment. Up to the present our fellow-citizens have satisfied their musical tendencies by keeping themselves acquainted with the masterpieces of lyric art by means of the most approved apparatus. The ancient and modern masters, the great artistes of the day, the most sought after of instrumentalists, have been heard by us by means of the phonograph—”

“A mere bird-organ” your phonograph!” exclaimed Yvernès, disdainfully.

“Not quite so much as you may think,” said the superintendent. “We are the possessors of instruments which have enabled us to listen to you when you were at Boston or Philadelphia; and if you please, you can applaud yourself with your own hands.”

At this period the inventions of the illustrious Edison had attained their final degree of perfection. The phonograph was no longer the mere musical-box which it resembled so closely to begin with. Thanks to its admirable inventor, the ephemeral talent of singers or instrumentalists had been preserved for the admiration of future races with as much precision as the works of statuaries and painters. An echo, if you will, but an echo faithful as a photograph reproduction, the shades and delicacies of singing or playing in all their unalterable purity.

Calistus Munbar said this so warmly that his hearers were impressed. He spoke of Saint-Saëns, Reyer, Ambroise Thomas, Gounod, Massenet, Verdi, of the imperishable masterpieces of Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Halévy, Rossini, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, like one who knew them thoroughly, who appreciated them, who, to make them better known, had devoted his already long life as an impresario, and it was pleasant to listen to him. At the same time he did not seem to have been attacked by the Wagnerian epidemic which, at this period, was subsiding.

When he stopped to take breath, Pinchinat, profiting by the calm, remarked, —

“All that is very well, but your Milliard City, I see, has only heard music in a box, melodic preserves sent to it like tinned sardines or salt beef.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Alto.”

“I will pardon you, but I insist on this point, that your phonographs only preserve the past, and that you have probably never heard an artiste in Milliard City when he is playing.”

“You must pardon me once more.”

“Our friend, Pinchinat, will pardon you as much as you like, Mr. Munbar,” said Frascolin. “His pockets are full of pardons, but his remark is just. Still, if you could put yourselves in communication with the theatres of America or Europe—”

“And do you think that would be impossible, my dear Frascolin?” exclaimed the superintendent, stopping in his see-saw.

“What do you mean?”

“I say that it is only a question of price, and our city is rich enough to satisfy all its fancies, all its aspirations as regards lyric art, and it has done so.”

“And how?”

“By means of the theatrophones installed in the concert room of this casino. The company possesses a number of submarine cables immersed in the waters of the Pacific, one end of which is at Madeleine Bay, and the other held in suspension by powerful buoys. When our fellow-citizens wish to hear one of the singers of the Old or New World, we fix on to one of these cables, and send a telephonic order to our agents at Madeleine Bay. These agents put us in communication with America or with Europe. The cables are connected with such and such a theatre, such and such a concert-room, and our dilettanti seated in this casino really assist at these distant performances and applaud.”

“But the people over there cannot hear their applause!” exclaimed Yvernès.

“I beg your pardon, they do—by return wire!”

And then Calistus Munbar launched forth into transcendental considerations on music, considered not only as one of the manifestations of art, but as a therapeutic agent. According to the system of J. Harford, of Westminster Abbey, the good folks of Milliard City had experienced extraordinary results regarding this utilization of the lyric art. The system kept them in perfect health. Music exercising a reflex action on the nervous centres, the harmonic vibrations had the effect of dilating the arterial vessels, influencing the circulation and increasing or diminishing it as required. It provoked an acceleration of the heart’s pulsations and respiratory movements by reason of the tonality and intensity of the sounds, and aided the nutrition of the tissues. Consequently, musical energy stations were working at Milliard City, and transmitting sound waves to the houses by means of the telephones, etc., etc.

The quartette listened with open mouths. Never had they heard their art discussed from a medical point of view, and probably they were not particularly pleased. Nevertheless, Yvernès the whimsical, ready to adopt these theories, which are as old as King Saul, according to the practice of the celebrated harpist, David, excitedly exclaimed, —

“Yes, yes. It is clear enough. You must choose your tune according to the diagnosis. Take Wagner or Berlioz, for instance, for the anæmic.”

“And Mendelssohn and Mozart for the sanguine instead of bromide of strontium!” replied Calistus Munbar.

Sebastien Zorn here interposed, and hurled his discordant note into this high-flighted conversation.

“We have nothing to do with all this,” he said; “why have you brought us here?”

“Because stringed instruments have the most powerful effect.”

“Indeed, sir; and was it to soothe your neurotics that you interrupted our journey, and hindered our reaching San Diego, where we are engaged to give a concert tomorrow?”

“That was the reason, my excellent friends.”

“And all you saw in us was a kind of musical sawbones, or lyrical apothecaries?” asked Pinchinat.

“No, gentlemen,” answered Calistus Munbar rising, “I saw in you only artistes of great talent and great reputation. The cheers which greeted the Quartette Party on its American tour have reached our island. The Floating Island Company thought that the time had come to replace their phonographs and theatrophones by living artistes in flesh and blood, and give the inhabitants of Milliard City the inexpressible pleasure of a direct execution of the masterpieces of art. It wished to begin with chamber music before organizing operatic orchestras. It thought of you, the accredited representatives of that music. It gave me instructions to secure you at any price, to carry you off if need be. You are the first artistes that have had access to Floating Island, and I leave you to imagine the welcome that awaits you!”

Yvernès and Pinchinat were much affected by these enthusiastic periods of the superintendent. That it might be a hoax did not occur to them. Frascolin, a man of reflection, asked himself if he were to take this adventure seriously. After all, in such an extraordinary island would not things appear under an extraordinary aspect! As to Sebastien Zorn, he had resolved not to give in.

“No, sir,” he said, “men are not to be carried off without their consent! We will begin an action against you.”

“An action! When you ought to overwhelm me with thanks, ungrateful that you are!”  replied the superintendent.

“And we will obtain damages, sir.”

“Damages! When I offer you a hundred times more than you could hope to get.”

“How much?” said the practical Frascolin.

Calistus Munbar took out his pocket-book and produced a sheet of paper bearing the arms of Floating Island. Presenting it to the four artistes, he said, —

“Your four signatures at the end of this agreement, and the matter is done.”

“Sign it before we have read it?” said the second violin. “That we will never do.”

“You will never have cause to regret it,” said Calistus Munbar, indulging in an outburst of hilarity that shook his whole body. “But let us proceed in proper form. It is an engagement which the company proposes to you, an engagement for twelve months from this date, for the execution of chamber music such as you have been giving in your programmes in America. In twelve months Floating Island will have returned to Madeleine Bay, where you will arrive in time—”

“For our concert at San Diego, I suppose?” exclaimed Sebastien Zorn, “San Diego, where we shall be greeted with hisses.’

“No, gentlemen, with cheers. Artistes such as you, the dilettanti are always too honoured and too happy to hear, even if a year behind time.”

How could they be angry with such a man?

Frascolin took the paper and read it attentively.

“What guarantee have we?”

“The guarantee of the Floating Island Company under the signature of Mr. Cyrus Bikerstaff, our governor.”

“And the terms are these I see set forth in this agreement?”

“Exactly. One million francs—”

“For the four?” asked Pinchinat.

“For each,” said Calistus Munbar with a smile, “and yet that amount is not in accordance with your merit, which no one can reward at its proper value.”

It would, it must be admitted, have been difficult to have been more pleasant. And yet Sebastien Zorn protested. He would not accept at any price. He would go to San Diego, and it was not without difficulty that Frascolin succeeded in calming his indignation.

Yet there could not help being some mistrust regarding the superintendent’s proposition. An engagement for a year at the rate of a million francs apiece, could it be serious? Quite serious, as Frascolin discovered when he asked, —

“When is the money payable?”

“Quarterly,” replied the superintendent, “and here is the first payment, in advance.”

Of the roll of notes which bulged his pocket-book Calistus Munbar made four bundles of fifty thousand dollars, that is two hundred and fifty thousand francs, which he handed to Frascolin and his comrades.

That is the way to manage matters in American fashion.

Sebastien Zorn could not help being shaken. But his ill-humour never lost its rights, and he could not help remarking, —

“After all, at the prices that prevail in your island, if you pay twenty-five francs for a partridge, you probably pay a hundred francs for a pair of gloves, and five hundred francs for a pair of boots?”

“Oh, Monsieur Zorn,” exclaimed Calistus Munbar, “the company does not stand at such trifles, and it desires that the Quartette Party will have all their expenses paid for them during their sojourn on the island.”

To these generous offers what other response could there be but to sign the engagement?

This was what Frascolin, Pinchinat, and Yvernès did. Zorn muttered that it was all absurd. To embark on a Floating Island was ridiculous. They would see how it would end. At last he decided to sign.

And this formality accomplished, if Frascolin, Pinchinat, and Yvernès did not kiss Calistus Munbar’s hand, they at least shook it warmly. Four shakes of the hand at a million each!

And that is how the Quartette Party were launched on this extraordinary adventure, and it was under such circumstances that its members became the guests of Floating Island.
CHAPTER VII.

Floating Island glided gently over the waters of this Pacific Ocean, which justifies its name at this season of the year. Accustomed for twenty-four hours now to this tranquil motion, Sebastien Zorn and his comrades no longer noticed that they were being carried over the sea. So powerful were its hundreds of screws, driven by their ten million horse-power, that the thrill of the steel hull was barely perceptible. There was no sign of the oscillations of the waves, to which even the most powerful ironclads have to yield. In the houses there were no rolling tables or swing lamps. Why should there be? The houses of Paris, London, and New York were not more securely fixed on their foundations.

After a few weeks’ stay at Madeleine Bay, the assembly of notables of Floating Island, called together by the president of the administrative council of the company, had determined on the programme of their annual tour. The island would visit the chief archipelagoes of the Eastern Pacific, voyaging through that hygienic atmosphere, so rich in ozone, in condensed electrized oxygen, gifted with active peculiarities not possessed by oxygen in its ordinary state. As the apparatus was free to move anywhere, advantage was taken of this power to go either east or west, to the American or Asiatic shore, as might be desired. Floating Island went where it pleased, so as to experience the distractions of a varied voyage. And even if it were desired to abandon the Pacific for the Indian Ocean or the Atlantic, to round Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, it could proceed in the direction wished for, and rest assured that neither currents nor tempests would prevent its attaining its object.

But there was no question of its visiting these distant seas, in which it would not find what the Pacific offers among its innumerable archipelagoes. That ocean was a theatre quite large enough for its many voyages. Floating Island could move about from one archipelago to another if it was not endowed with that special instinct of animals —that sixth sense of orientation which guides them where their wants call them—it was directed in safety according to a programme discussed at length and unanimously approved. Up to then there had never been any disagreement between the Starboardites and Larboardites. And the present intention was a westerly voyage to the Sandwich Islands. The distance of about twelve hundred leagues which separates this group from the place where the quartette came on board would take about a month to accomplish at moderate speed, and Floating Island could remain in the archipelago until it was found convenient to start again for another group in the southern hemisphere.

On the morrow of this memorable day the quartette left the Excelsior Hotel and took up their quarters in some rooms in the casino which were put at their disposal—a comfortable suite, richly furnished as may be supposed. First Avenue lay displayed in front of its windows. Sebastien Zorn, Frascolin, Pinchinat, Yvernès, had each his own room communicating with a sitting-room common to all. The central court of the establishment yielded them the shade of its trees in full foliage, and the freshness of its fountains. On one side of this court was the museum of Milliard City; on the other the concert-room where the Parisian artistes were so happily to replace the echoes of the phonographs and the transmissions of the theatrophones. Twice a day, three times a day, as many times a day as they wished, their table was laid in the restaurant, where the manager favoured them with no more of his remarkable efforts in addition.

This morning, when they had all met in the sitting-room before descending for breakfast, —

“Well!” said Pinchinat, “what do you say to what has happened to us?”

“A dream,” replied Yvernès, “a dream in which we are engaged at a million a year.”

“It is unmistakable reality,” replied Frascolin. “Search in your pockets, and you can pull out the first quarter of the said million.”

“It remains to see how it is going to end! Very badly, I imagine,” said Zorn, bent on discovering a folded rose-leaf in the bed on which he had been laid in spite of himself. “Besides, where is our luggage?”

In fact, the luggage was probably at San Diego, to which they could not go in search of it. Oh! Very rudimentary luggage; a few portmanteaus, linen, toilet utensils, a change of clothes, and also, it is true, the costume of the executants when they appeared before the public.

There was nothing to be uneasy about on this point. In forty-eight hours this rather faded wardrobe would be replaced by another presented to the four artistes without their having to pay fifteen hundred francs for a coat or five hundred francs for a pair of boots.

Besides, Calistus Munbar, enchanted at having so ably conducted this delicate affair, took care that the quartette had nothing to wish for. It was impossible to imagine a more inexhaustibly obliging superintendent. He occupied a suite of rooms in the casino of which he had the chief management, and the company had taken care that the fittings and appointments were worthy of his magnificence and munificence. We would rather not say how much they cost.

The casino included lecture-rooms and recreation-rooms, but baccarat, trente et quarante, roulette, poker, and all other games of chance were strictly prohibited. Here was the smoke room from which was delivered direct to the houses the tobacco smoke prepared by a company recently established. The smoke of the tobacco burnt in the furnaces of this central establishment was purified and cleared of nicotine and distributed by pipes with amber mouthpieces to each subscriber. The subscribers had only to apply their lips and a meter registered the daily expense.

In this casino, where the dilettanti came to listen to the music from afar, to which the concerts of the quartette were now to be added, there were also the public collections of Milliard City. To the lovers of paintings, the gallery, rich in ancient and modern pictures, offered a number of masterpieces bought at extravagant prices, canvases of the Italian, Dutch, German and French schools which would make envious the collections of Paris, London, Munich, Rome and Florence. It had examples of Raffaelle, Da Vinci, Giorgione, Correggio, Domenichino, Ribeira, Murillo, Ruysdael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Cuyp, Frans Hals, Hobbema, Van Dyck, Holbein, etc., and also among the moderns, Fragonard, Ingres, Delacroix, Scheffer, Cabat, Delaroche, Regnaut, Couture, Meissonier, Millet, Rousseaux, Jules Dupré, Brascassat, Mackart, Turner, Troyon, Corot, Daubigny, Baudry, Bonnat, Carolus Duran, Jules Lefebvre, Vollon, Breton, Binet, You, Cabanel, etc. In order to make these pictures last for ever, they were placed in glass cases, from which the air was exhausted. It is worth mentioning that the impressionists, the intensists, the futurists had not yet encumbered this gallery, but doubtless that would occur in time, and Floating Island would not escape an invasion of this decadent pest. The museum also possessed statues of real value, marbles of the great sculptors ancient and modern, placed in the courts of the casino. Thanks to this climate being without rain or fog, groups, statues and busts could resist the attacks of the weather without injury.

That these marvels were often visited, that the nabobs of Milliard City had a very pronounced taste for the productions of art, that the artistic sense was very strongly developed amongst them, it would be hazardous to pretend. But it was noteworthy that the Starboardists included more amateurs than the Larboardists. All were, however, agreed when it was proposed to buy any masterpiece, and when their astonishing offers invariably obtained them from all the Dukes of Aumale, and all the Chauchards of the old and new continents.

The most frequented rooms in the casino were the reading-rooms devoted to the newspapers, and the European and American reviews brought by the regular service of steamers to Floating Island from Madeleine Bay. After being turned over, read and re-read, these reviews were placed on the shelves of the library with many thousand other works, the classification of which required the presence of a librarian at a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars, who had probably less to do than any of the other functionaries of the island. This library also contained a number of phonographic books which gave no trouble to read; all you had to do was to press a button and you heard the voice of some excellent reader aloud. For instance, there was the Phèdre of Racine read by M. Legouvé.  As to the local journals, they were edited, composed and printed in the workshops of the casino under the direction of two editors-in-chief. One was the Starboard Chronicle for the Starboard section; the other the New Herald for the Larboard Section. The news consisted of the different events on the island, the arrival of the steamers, marine intelligence, ships sighted, the price lists of interest to the commercial quarters, the daily position of the island, the decision of the council of notables, the orders of the governor, the decrees of the civil power; births, marriages, deaths—the last very seldom; besides, there were never any robberies or murders, the courts only dealing with civil matters, actions between private persons. Never were there any articles on centenarians, longevity being no longer the privilege of the few.

For foreign intelligence the papers were indebted to the daily telephonic communication with Madeleine Bay, whence started the cables submerged in the depths of the Pacific. The people of Milliard City were thus informed of all that passed all over the world, if there were sufficient interest in it. Let it be added that the Starboard Chronicle and the New Herald were on excellent terms with each other. Up till then they had existed in harmony, but there was no saying that their exchange of courteous discussions would last for ever. Tolerant and conciliatory in all religious matters, Protestantism and Catholicism worked very well together in Floating Island. It is true that if in the future some odious political matter became mixed up with religion, if questions of private interest and selfishness intervened—

Besides these daily high-priced journals, there were weekly and monthly reviews, reprinting the articles from foreign magazines, the articles of Sarcey, Lemaitre, Fouquier, and other critics of eminence; then there were magazines, illustrated or not, without counting half-a-dozen society papers devoted to current fashionable gossip. Their only object was to afford a little enjoyment to the mind—and to the stomach. Yes, some of these society pages were printed on edible pastry with chocolate ink. After they were read they were inwardly digested at the next breakfast. Some of them were astringent, some of them were gently purgative, and all proved very excellent eating. And we may here say that the quartette found this invention as agreeable as it was practical.

“These are lectures of easy digestion,” observed Yvernès judiciously.

“Quite a nourishing literature,” replied Pinchinat; “pastry and literature combined, that agrees perfectly with hygienic music!”

Now it is natural to ask what resources the island possessed for maintaining its population in such conditions of welfare as no other city in the world approached. Its revenues must have amounted to a considerable sum, considering the expenditure under the different headings and the handsome salaries paid to its employed.

The quartette inquired of the superintendent concerning this.

“Here,” he replied, “we do not bother about business. We have no Board of Trade, no Exchange, no export trade. The only commerce is that needed by the wants of the island, and we shall never offer strangers the equivalent of the World’s Fair at Chicago in 1893, or the Paris Exposition of 1900. No! The mighty religion of business does not exist, and we never raise the cry of ‘Go ahead!’ unless it is for the Pearl of the Pacific to keep in front. It is not to trade we look for the needful revenue of Floating Island, but to the custom-house. Yes! our customs dues yield all we require for the exigencies of our budget.”

“And this budget?” asked Frascolin.

“Its total is twenty million dollars, my excellent friends!”

“A hundred millions of francs!”  exclaimed the second violin, “and for a town of ten thousand souls.”

“That is it, my dear Frascolin; and the amount is entirely provided by the customs dues. We have no octroi, the products of the island being almost insignificant. We have nothing but the dues levied at Starboard Harbour and Larboard Harbour. That explains the dearness of our articles of consumption—dearness which is relative, mind you, for the prices, high as they may appear to you, are in accordance with the means of those who pay them.”

And hereupon Calistus Munbar started off again, boasting of his town, boasting of his island—in his eyes a fragment of a superior planet fallen into the Pacific, a floating Eden, in which the wise men had taken refuge, and if true happiness could not be found there, it could be found nowhere. It was a showman’s speech! It seemed as though he said, “Walk up, gentlemen; walk up, ladies! take your tickets, there are only a few places left. Who will take a ticket?” etc., etc.

It is true that the places were few and the tickets dear. Bah! The superintendent threw the millions about as if they were but units in this city of millionaires.

It was in the course of this tirade, in which the phrases poured forth in cascades, in which the gestures became accelerated with semaphoric frenzy, that the quartette were informed regarding the different branches of the administration. And first, the schools, in which the instruction was gratuitous and obligatory, and of which the professors were paid as if they were ministers. Here were taught the dead and living languages, history, geography, the physical and mathematical sciences, and the accomplishments more thoroughly than in any university or academy in the Old World—according to Calistus Munbar. The truth was that there was no great rush of pupils to these public schools, and if the present generation retained some traces of study in the colleges of the United States, the succeeding generation would have less learning than they had dividends.

Did not the inhabitants of this moving island travel in foreign parts? Did they never visit the great capitals of Europe? Did they not see the countries that had given them so many masterpieces of all kinds? Yes! There were a few whom a certain feeling of curiosity drove to these distant regions. But they found it fatiguing; they grew weary of it for the most part; they found there nothing of the uniformity of existence on Floating Island; they suffered from heat, they suffered from cold; in short they caught cold, and people never caught cold in Milliard City. Consequently they, the imprudent adventurers, who had had the unhappy idea to leave it, were only too glad and impatient to return to it. What good did they get from these travels? None.

As to the foreigners who might be attracted by the fame of Floating Island, this ninth wonder of the world, the Eiffel Tower being at least the eighth, Calistus Munbar thought that they never would be very numerous. Of those who had come during the last year the majority had been Americans; of other nations there were few or none. There had been a few English, recognizable by their turning their trousers up on the pretext that it was raining in London. Besides, Great Britain had looked with no friendly eye on the building of this artificial island, which provided another obstacle to navigation, and would have rejoiced at its disappearance. The Germans obtained but a very cool welcome, as if they would quickly have made Milliard City a new Chicago, once they had set foot in it. The French were of all foreigners those whom the Company would greet with most sympathy and attention, owing to their not belonging to the invading races of Europe. But had a Frenchman ever appeared on Floating Island?

“That is not likely,” said Pinchinat.

“We are not rich enough,” added Frascolin.

“To live here, yes,” replied the superintendent, “but not to be an official.”

“Is there, then, one of our compatriots in Milliard City?” asked Yvernès.

“There is one.”

“And who is this privileged person?”

“Monsieur Athanase Dorémus.”

“And what is he doing here, this Athanase Dorémus?” exclaimed Pinchinat.

“He is professor of dancing and deportment, with a handsome salary from the government, to say nothing of his income from private finishing lessons.”

“Which a Frenchman is alone capable of giving!” replied his Highness.

The quartette had thus become fairly well acquainted with the organization of the administrative life of Floating Island. They had now only to abandon themselves to the charm of this voyage which was taking them to the west of the Pacific. If it had not been for the sun rising sometimes over one part of the island and sometimes over another, according to the direction in which the island was moving, Sebastien Zorn and his comrades could have believed they were on firm ground. On two occasions during the fortnight that followed there had been a violent storm and gale, for there are always a few on the Pacific notwithstanding its name. The waves dashed up against the metal hull, and covered it with spray as if it was an ordinary shore. But Floating Island did not even groan under the assaults of the raging sea. The fury of the ocean was impotent against it. The genius of man had conquered nature.

On the 11th of June, a fortnight after their arrival, the quartette gave their first concert, the announcement, in electric letters, being exhibited along the larger avenues. It need hardly be said that the instrumentalists had been previously presented to the governor and the municipal council. Cyrus Bikerstaff had given them a most cordial welcome. The newspapers had referred to the success of the tours of the Quartette Party in the United States of America, and warmly congratulated the superintendent on having secured their services—in rather an arbitrary manner, as we know. What pleasure there would be in seeing as well as hearing these artistes executing the works of the masters! What a treat for connoisseurs!

Although the four Parisians had been engaged for the casino at Milliard City at fabulous expense, do not let it be supposed that the concerts were to be free to the public. Far from that. The administration intended to make a large profit out of the affair, like the American impresarios whose singers cost them a dollar a bar, and even a dollar a note. It was customary to pay for the theatrophonic and phonographic concerts at the casino, and now the people must pay considerably more. The seats were all at the same price, two hundred dollars each—that is a thousand francs in French money—and the superintendent flattered himself that the room would be full.

He was not deceived. Every seat was taken. The comfortable and elegant room of the casino could only contain a hundred, it is true; and if the seats had been put up to auction, there is no knowing what amount the receipts would have reached. But that would have been contrary to the usages of Floating Island. Everything with a market value appeared in the price lists the superfluous as well as the necessary. Without this precaution, owing to the enormous fortunes of some of the inhabitants, the whole supply might be bought up by one man, and this it was desirable to avoid. The rich Starboardites might, it is true, go to the concert for the love of the art, while the rich Larboardites might possibly go there because it was the fashion.

When Sebastien Zorn, Pinchinat, Yvernès, and Frascolin appeared before the spectators of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, it was no exaggeration on their part to say, “there is an audience worth millions.” This evening they would have been within the truth in saying that their audience was worth hundreds of millions. Only think of it! Jem Tankerdon, Nat Coverley, and their families were conspicuous in the front row of seats. In other parts of the room, passim, were a number of amateurs, who, though only minor millionaires, had none the less “a heavy bag,”as Pinchinat very justly remarked.

“Now then!”  said the chief of the quartette when the time came for them to appear on the platform.

And they took their places, not more excited than usual, nor even so much as if they were appearing before a Parisian public, which might have less money in their pockets but more of the artistic sense in their minds.

It is necessary to say that they had not yet taken lessons of their countryman, the professor of deportment. Sebastien Zorn, Yvernès, Frascolin, and Pinchinat were perfect as to their attire—white cravat at twenty-five francs, pearl-grey gloves at fifty francs, shirt at seventy francs, boots at a hundred and eighty francs, waistcoat at two hundred francs, black trousers at five hundred francs, black coats at fifteen hundred francs—all at the expense of the administration, be it understood. They were welcomed with applause or very warmly by the Starboardite hands, more discreetly by the Larboardite hands—a matter of temperament.

The programme of the concert comprised four items which they had obtained from the casino library, which was well supplied with works by the superintendent’s care:

First quartette in E flat; Op. 12, Mendelssohn.

Second quartette in F major; Op. 16, Haydn.

Tenth quartette in E flat; Op. 74, Beethoven.

Fifth quartette in A major; Op. 10, Mozart.

The executants played marvellously in this millionized room of the floating island, on the surface of an abyss more than five thousand metres deep in this portion of the Pacific. They obtained a success that was considerable and deserved, more especially among the dilettanti of the Starboardite section. You should have seen the superintendent during this memorable evening. He exulted. It looked as though it was he who had just been playing on both violins, the alto, and the ‘cello. What a fortunate first appearance for the champions of chamber music—and for their impresario!

It should be stated that if the room was full, the vicinity of the casino was crowded. What a number there were who had not been able to obtain a bracket-seat or a stall, to say nothing of those whom the high prices kept away. This outside audience heard the music from afar, as if it came from the box of a phonograph or the mouth of a telephone. But their applause was none the less hearty.

And they applauded uproariously when the concert ended, and Sebastien Zorn, Yvernès, Frascolin, and Pinchinat appeared on the terrace of the left-hand pavilion.

First Avenue was inundated with luminous rays. From the heights of space, the electric moons shed rays of which the pale Selene might well be jealous.

In front of the casino, on the footpath, a little apart from the others, a couple attracted the attention of Yvernès. A man was there, with a woman on his arm.

The man was above the middle height, of distinguished physiognomy, severe, sad even, and perhaps fifty years old. The woman was a few years younger, tall, proud-looking, with grey hair peeping from under her hat.

Yvernès, struck with their reserved attitude, pointed them out to Calistus Munbar.

“Who are those people?” he asked.

“Those people?” replied the superintendent, with a disdainful pout. “Oh! they are raving melomaniacs.”

“And why did they not have a seat in the casino room?”

“Probably because it cost too much.”

“Their fortune?”

“Hardly two hundred thousand francs a year.”

“Pooh!” said Pinchinat. “And who are these poor beggars?”

“The King and Queen of Malecarlie.”



CHAPTER VIII.

after the construction of this extraordinary concern, the Floating Island Company had to provide for the requirements of a double organisation, maritime on the one hand and administrative on the other.

The former, as we know, had as director, or rather captain, Commodore Ethel Simcoe, of the United States navy. He was a man of about fifty, an experienced navigator, thoroughly acquainted with every part of the Pacific, its currents, its storms, its reefs, its coralline shoals. Consequently he was fully qualified for the safe guidance of the floating island confided to his care, and the valuable lives for whom he was responsible to God and the shareholders of the company.

The second organization, that which comprised the various administrative services, was in the hands of the governor of the island. Mr. Cyrus Bikerstaff was a Yankee of Maine, one of the Federal States which took the least part in the fratricidal strife of the American confederation during the War of Secession. Cyrus Bikerstaff had been happily chosen to maintain a golden mean between the two sections of the island.

The governor, who was on the verge of sixty, was a bachelor, He was a man of much coolness and self-control, very strict, very energetic, notwithstanding his phlegmatic appearance, very English in his reserved attitude, his gentlemanly manners, the diplomatic discretion with which he spoke and acted. In any other country than Floating Island, he would have been a considerable man and consequently made much of. But here he was only the chief servant of the company, and though his salary exceeded the civil list of many a petty sovereign of Europe, he was not rich, and could not make much of a figure in the presence of the nabobs of Milliard City.

Cyrus Bikerstaff was not only governor of the island but mayor of the capital. As such he occupied the mansion at the end of First Avenue, facing the observatory where Commodore Simcoe had his residence. There were the public offices, there were received all the civil registrations, the births, with a mean rate assuring the future, the deaths—the dead were taken to the cemetery at Madeleine Bay—the marriages, which had to be celebrated by the civil authorities before the religious ceremonial, according to the code of Floating Island. There the different branches of the administration had their headquarters, and were worked without any complaint from the administered, a fact that did honour to the mayor and his staff. When Sebastien Zorn, Pinchinat, Yvernès and Frascolin were introduced to him by the superintendent, he made a very favourable impression on them, such as is produced by the individuality of a good and just man, of a practical turn of mind, who did not abandon himself to prejudices or chimeras.

“Gentlemen,” he said to them, “it is very fortunate for us that we have got you. Perhaps the proceedings of our superintendent were not quite as they should have been. But you have forgiven him, I suppose. Besides, you will not have to complain of the way our municipality treats you. All it asks is two concerts a month, and you are free to accept any private engagements that may be offered you. We welcome you as musicians of great merit, and will never forget that you are the first artistes we have had the honour to welcome.’’

The quartette were delighted at this reception, and made no attempt to hide their satisfaction from Calistus Munbar.

“Yes! He is a nice man, Mr. Cyrus Bikerstaff,” replied the superintendent, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “It is a pity that he does not possess a million or two.”

“We cannot be perfect.”‘ replied Pinchinat.

The governor-mayor of Milliard City had two assistants, who helped him in the very simple administration of Floating Island. Under their orders, a small number of employed, at suitable wages, were engaged in the different branches. There was no municipal council. What would be the use of it? In its place was a council of notables— thirty of the men best qualified by their intelligence and their fortune. It met when any important measure was in contemplation—among others the choice of the itinerary which was to be followed in the interests of the general health. As far as our Parisians could see, there was frequently, in this respect, matter for discussion and difficulties to be settled. But thanks to his clever and judicious intervention, Cyrus Bikerstaff had always been able to conciliate opposing interests, and gratify the self-respect of those under his control.

One of his assistants, Barthélemy Ruge, was a Protestant, the other, Hubley Harcourt, was a Catholic, both of them chosen from among the high functionaries of the Floating Island Company, and both seconding Cyrus Bikerstaff with zeal and intelligence.

Thus had existed for eighteen months already, in the plenitude of its independence, free from all diplomatic connections, at liberty on this vast sea of the Pacific, sheltered from all unpleasant weather, beneath the skies of its choice, the island on which the quartette were to reside for a whole year. That they would be exposed to any adventures, that the future had in reserve for them anything unforeseen, it was not possible to imagine or to fear, for, as the ‘cellist observed, everything on board was done with order and regularity. And yet, in creating this artificial domain, launched on the surface of the ocean, had not human genius exceeded the limits assigned to man by the Creator?

The voyage continued towards the West. Every day when the sun passed the meridian the position was fixed by the officers of the observatory under the orders of Commodore Ethel Simcoe. Four dials on the lateral faces of the belfry of the town hall gave the exact position of the island in longitude and latitude, and these indications were reproduced telegraphically at the street corners, in the hotels, in the public buildings, in the private houses, in the same way as the time which changed every day as the island moved from west to east. The inhabitants of Milliard City were thus enabled to know at any moment what place on its itinerary Floating Island occupied.

With the exception of this insensible movement on the surface of the ocean, Milliard City differed in no respect from the capitals of the old and new Continents. The existence was the same. The same routine of public and private life. As they were not very busy, our instrumentalists employed their first leisure in visiting all that was curious in the Pearl of the Pacific. The trams took them towards all points of the island. The two factories of electrical energy evoked their sincere admiration by the simplicity of their machinery, the power of their engines driving a double series of screws, and the admirable discipline of their staff, the one directed by Engineer Watson, the other by Engineer Somwah. At regular intervals Larboard Harbour and Starboard Harbour received in their basins the steamers running to and from Floating Island, according as their position offered the easier access.

If the obstinate Sebastien Zorn refused to admire these marvels, if Frascolin was more reserved in his sentiments, in what a constant state of rapture was the enthusiastic Yvernès! In his opinion the twentieth century would not end before the seas were ploughed by floating towns. This would be the last word of progress and comfort in the future. What a superb spectacle was this moving island going to visit its sisters of Oceania. As to Pinchinat, amid these opulent surroundings, he was almost intoxicated at hearing the people talk of nothing but millions, as they talk elsewhere of pounds. The banknotes were of the usual values. It was the custom to carry two or three thousand dollars in the pocket. And more than once his highness had said to Frascolin, —

“Old boy, you don’t happen to have fifty thousand francs about you, do you?”

Meanwhile the quartette party made many acquaintances, being assured of an excellent welcome everywhere. Besides, on the recommendation of the deafening Munbar, who would not be eager to treat them well?

In the first place they went to visit their compatriot, Athanase Dorémus, professor of dancing and deportment.

This good fellow occupied in the Starboard Section a modest house in Twenty-Fifth Avenue, at three thousand dollars a year rent. His servant was an old negress, at a hundred dollars a month. He was enchanted to make the acquaintance of Frenchmen—Frenchmen who did honour to France.

He was an old man of seventy; thin, emaciated, short, with a bright look, and all his teeth still perfect, as was his abundant frizzly hair, which was white as his beard. He walked sedately, with a certain rhythmic cadence, his chest in advance, his stomach curved in, his arms rounded, his feet a little turned out, and with irreproachable boots. Our artistes took great pleasure in making him talk, and he was quite willing, for his graciousness was equal to his loquacity.

“I am delighted, my dear compatriots, I am delighted,” he repeated twenty times at their first visit. “I am delighted to see you! What an excellent idea it was of yours to come and settle in this town. You will not regret it, for now I have lived here, I do not know how it would be possible to live in any other way.”

“And how long have you been here, Monsieur Dorémus?” asked Yvernès.

“For eighteen months,” replied the professor, bringing his feet to the second position. “I am one of the first comers on Floating Island. Thanks to the excellent references I obtained at New Orleans, where I had established myself, my services were accepted by Mr. Cyrus Bikerstaff, our adored governor. From that blessed day the salary assigned me for managing a conservatoire of dancing and deportment has permitted me to live—”

“Like a millionaire!”  exclaimed Pinchinat.

“Oh! Millionaires here—”

“I know—I know—my dear compatriot. But from what we have heard from the superintendent, the courses of your conservatoire are not largely attended.”

“The only pupils I have are all young men, the young ladies thinking they are provided at birth with all the necessary graces. And the young men prefer to take their lessons in private, and it is in private that I teach them good French manners!” And he smiled as he spoke, simpering like an old coquette, and disposing himself in graceful attitudes.

Athanase Dorémus, a Picard of Santerre, had left France in his early youth, and settled in the United States at New Orleans. There among the French population of our regretted Louisiana, opportunities did not fail him for exercising the talents. Admitted into the principal families, he achieved success, and had begun to save money, when one of the most American of enterprises lifted him into smooth water. This was at the time that the Floating Island Company launched its project, scattering its prospectuses far and wide, advertising itself lavishly in the newspapers, appealing to all the ultra-rich who had made their incalculable fortunes out of railways, petroleum wells, and the pork trade, salt or otherwise. Athanase Dorémus conceived the idea of asking for employment of the governor of the new city in which professors of his kind were not likely to be found. Favourably known in the Coverley family, who were natives of New Orleans, he was recommended by its chief, who was about to become one of the most prominent notables of the Starboardites of Milliard City, and thereupon accepted. That is how a Frenchman, and even a Picard, became one of the functionaries of Floating Island.

It is true that his lessons were only given at his house, and the dancing-room at the casino saw nobody but the professor reflected in its mirrors. But what did that matter so long as the lack of pupils made no decrease in his salary?

In short, he was a good fellow, slightly ridiculous and crazy, perhaps, and infatuated with himself, persuaded that he possessed, with the heritage of the Vestrises and Saint Leons, the traditions of Brummel and Lord Seymour. In the eyes of the quartette he was a compatriot—a quality always appreciated when thousands of leagues from France.

He had to be told the later adventures of the four Parisians, under what circumstances they had arrived in the island, how Calistus Munbar had enticed them on board, and how the island had weighed anchor a few hours after they had embarked.

“I am not at all surprised at that, in our superintendent,” replied the old professor. “That is quite in his style. He has done it, and will do it again with others. He is a true son of Barnum, and will end by getting the company into trouble. He is a free-and-easy gentleman who would be all the better for a few lessons in deportment, I assure you; one of those Yankees who see-saw in a chair with their legs on the window-sill. Not bad at the bottom, but thinking they can do what they like. But do not bear him any ill-will. Except for the unpleasantness of having broken your engagement at San Diego, you will have only to congratulate yourselves on your sojourn at Milliard City. People will have a high opinion of you, as you will find.”

“Particularly at the end of each quarter!” replied Frascolin, whose functions as treasurer of the party began to be of exceptional importance.

To the question he was asked on the subject of the rivalry between the two sections of the island, Athanase Dorémus confirmed what Calistus Munbar had said. In his opinion there was a cloud on the horizon, and even the menace of an approaching storm. Between the Starboardites and Larboardites a conflict of interests and self-esteem was to be feared. The families of Tankerdon and Coverley, the richest in the place, were betraying increasing jealousy towards each other, and this would probably produce an explosion, if some means of conciliation could not be found. Yes. An explosion!

“Providing it does not explode in the island, we have nothing to be anxious about them,” observed Pinchinat.

“At least, so long as we are on board!”  added the ‘cellist.

“Oh! It is firm enough, my dear compatriots,” replied Athanase Dorémus. “For the eighteen months it has been afloat, no accident of any importance has happened to it. Nothing but a few insignificant repairs, which did not even require it to return to Madeleine Bay. Just think, it is made of plates of steel!”

That answered everything, and if plates of steel did not give an absolute guarantee in this world, to what metal could you trust?

Pinchinat was then led to ask what the professor thought of Governor Cyrus Bikerstaff.

“Is he of steel also?”

“Yes, Monsieur Pinchinat,” replied Athanase Dorémus, “he is gifted with great energy, and is a most able administrator. Unfortunately, in Milliard City it is not enough to be made of steel.”

“You must be made of gold,” retorted Yvernès.

“Just so; or if you are not, you are of no account!”

That was the case exactly. Cyrus Bikerstaff, notwith standing his high position, was only a servant of the company. He presided at the proceedings of the municipality, he had to receive the customs, to watch over the public health, to keep the roads clean, to superintend the plantations, to receive the revenue—in a word, to make enemies on all sides. In Floating Island it was necessary to be wealthy; Cyrus Bikerstaff was not wealthy.



In addition to this, his duties obliged him to maintain a conciliatory attitude between both parties, to risk nothing that might be agreeable to one that was not agreeable to the other. A policy that was not easy.

Already ideas were evidently getting about that might bring the two sections into conflict. If the Starboardites had settled on Floating Island solely with a view to peaceably enjoy their riches, the Larboardites began to hanker after business. They were asking why Floating Island should not be used as an immense merchant vessel and carry cargo to every part of Oceania, why all industries were forbidden in the island? In short, although they had been here less than two years, these Yankees, with Tankerdon at the head, were beginning to long to do a trade again. Although they had not stated this in so many words, Cyrus Bikerstaff could not help being anxious about it. He hoped, however, that the future would not grow worse, and that intestine dissension would not trouble an island made expressly for the tranquillity of its inhabitants.

In taking leave of Athanase Dorémus, the quartette promised to visit him again. As a rule, the professor went in the afternoon to the casino to which nobody came. There, not wishing to be accused of unpunctuality, he waited preparing his lessons before the looking-glasses in the room.

The island gradually moved to the westward, and a little towards the north-west, so as to touch at the Sandwich Islands. In the latitudes bordering on the torrid zone the temperature is already high, and the inhabitants of Milliard City would have found it almost unbearable had it not been for the cooling sea breeze. Fortunately, the nights are fresh, and even in the dog-days the trees and lawns watered with artificial rain retained their attractive verdure. Every day, at noon, the position shown on the dials of the town hall was telegraphed to the different quarters. On the 17th of June, Floating Island was in 1550 longitude west and 27° latitude north, and approaching the tropics.

“You might say it was the sun which towed us” remarked Yvernès, “or if you like it more elegantly, that we have for our team the horses of the divine Apollo!”

The observation was as appropriate as it was poetical, but Sebastien Zorn received it with a shrug of his shoulders. It did not suit him to be towed—against his will.

“Well,” he would never cease repeating, “we shall see how this adventure will end.”

The quartette generally went into the park every day at the fashionable hour. On horse, on foot, in their carriages, all the notables of Milliard City were to be met with around the lawns. The ladies of fashion here showed their third daily toilette, of one colour throughout, from the hat to the boots, and usually of Indian silk, which was very fashionable this year. Often, too, they wore artificial silk made of cellulose, in which there is such a play of colour; or even imitation cotton, made of pine or larch-wood defibrized and disintegrated.

This provoked Pinchinat to remark, “You will see that one day they will make fabrics of ivy-wood for faithful friends, and weeping willow for inconsolable widows.”

In any case, the wealthy Milliardites would not have worn these fabrics if they had not come from Paris, nor these dresses if they had not borne the name of the king of dressmakers—of him who haughtily proclaimed the axiom: “Woman is only a question of dress.”

Sometimes the King and Queen of Malecarlie would pass among these smart gentry. The royal couple, deprived of their sovereignty, inspired our artistes with real sympathy. What reflections occurred to them at seeing these august personages arm-in-arm. They were relatively poor amid this wealthy crowd, but they were evidently proud and honourable, like philosophers withdrawn from the cares of this world. It is true that the Americans of Floating Island were at heart much flattered at having a king for one of their citizens, and treated him with the respect due to his former position. The quartette respectfully saluted their Majesties when they met them in the avenues of the town or the footpath of the park. The King and Queen showed that they much appreciated these marks of deference that were so French. But their Majesties were of no more account than Cyrus Bikerstaff —perhaps less.

In truth, travellers who were frightened at a sea-voyage might well adopt this kind of navigation on a moving island. Under such circumstances, there could not be any anxiety as to the accidents of the sea. There was nothing to fear from storms. With ten million horse-power on its flanks, a Floating Island could never be detained by calms, and would be powerful enough to make headway against contrary winds. If there were any danger from collisions, the danger was not to the island. So much the worse for the vessels that hurled themselves at full speed or under full sail against its sides of steel. But there was not much fear of such encounters, owing to the electric light of its aluminium moons with which the atmosphere was filled during the night. As to storms, they were not worth talking about. The island was large enough to put a bridle on the fury of the waves.

And when their walks brought Pinchinat and Frascolin to the bow or stern of the island, either to the Prow or Stern Battery, they were both of opinion that there was a want of capes, promontories, points, creeks, and beaches. The shore was but a breastwork of steel kept in place by millions of bolts and rivets. And how a painter would have regretted the absence of those old rocks, rough as an elephant’s skin, which the surf caresses with seaweeds as the tide comes in. Decidedly, you do not replace the beauties of nature by the marvels of industry. In spite of his permanent admiration, Yvernès was forced to admit that the imprint of the Creator was wanting on this artificial island.

During the evening of the 25th of June Floating Island crossed the tropic of Cancer and entered the Torrid Zone of the Pacific. At this hour, the quartette were giving their second performance in the casino. Kindly note that owing to the success of their first appearance, the price of stalls was now increased by a third.

No matter! The room was still too small. The dilettanti struggled for places. Evidently this chamber music should be excellent for health, and no one could entertain a doubt as to its therapeutic qualities. Again examples of Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, as before. Immense success for the performers to whom Parisian bravos would certainly have given greater pleasure. But in their absence, Yvernès, Frascolin, and Pinchinat knew how to be contented with Milliardite hurrahs, for which Sebastien Zorn continued to profess the most complete disdain.

“What more can we wish for?” said Yvernès, when they crossed the tropic of Cancer.

“The tropic of Concert!” replied Pinchinat, taking safety in flight.

And when they came out of the casino, whom should they see among the poor beggars who could not afford three hundred and sixty dollars for a stall? The King and Queen of Malecarlie standing humbly at the door.
CHAPTER IX.

There exists in this portion of the Pacific a submarine mountain range extending from the west-north-west to the east-south-east for nine hundred leagues, if the abysses of two thousand fathoms which separate it from the other ocean lands were emptied away. Of this chain but seven summits appear above the waters: Nirhau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai, Kahulaui, and Hawaii. These seven islands, of unequal size, constitute the Hawaiian Archipelago, otherwise known as the Sandwich Islands.

Leaving Sebastien Zorn to grumble in his corner, and shut himself up in his complete indifference to all natural curiosities as if he were a violoncello in its box, Pinchinat, Yvernès and Frascolin reasoned in this way, and they were not wrong in doing so.

“I shall not be sorry to visit these Sandwich Islands! If we have to cruise about the Pacific, we may as well have a few souvenirs to take away with us.”

“The natives will be a change to us after the Pawnees, Sioux and other too civilized Indians of the Far West, and I shall not be sorry to meet a few real savages— cannibals.”

“Are they cannibals still?”

“Let us hope so,” replied Pinchinat. “Their grandfathers ate Captain Cook, and if the grandfathers enjoyed the illustrious navigator, it is not likely that the grandchildren have lost the taste for human flesh!”

It must be confessed that his highness spoke rather irreverently of the celebrated English sailor who discovered this archipelago in 1778.

The result of this conversation was that our artistes hoped that the chances of the voyage would bring them into the presence of natives more authentic than the specimens exhibited in the Jardin d’Acclimatation, and in any case in their native country, instead of that of their production. They experienced a certain impatience to get there, expecting every day that the look-outs at the observatory would signal the first heights of the Hawaiian Group.

This they did in the morning of the 6th of July. The news immediately spread, and the placard at the casino bore this notice telautographically inscribed, “Sandwich Islands now in sight.”

It is true that the islands were still fifty leagues away; but the highest summits of the group, those of the island of Hawaii, are over 4200 metres high, and in fine weather are visible at this distance.

Coming from the north-east, Commodore Ethel Simcoe steered for Oahu, having for its capital Honolulu, which is also the capital of the archipelago. This island is the third of the group in latitude. Nuhau, which is a vast cattle park, and Kauai being both to the north-west of it. Oahu is not the largest of the Sandwich Islands; it measures only 1680 square kilometres, while Hawaii has an area of nearly 17, 000. As to the other islands, their area is more than 3812 all together.

As a matter of course, our Parisian artistes had formed agreeable acquaintanceships with the chief functionaries of Floating Island. All of them, as well as the Governor, the Commodore, Colonel Stewart and Engineers Somwah and Watson, had done their best to make them welcome. They frequently visited the observatory, and remained for hours on the platform of the tower. One need not be astonished therefore that on this occasion Yvernès and Pinchinat, the most enterprising of the quartette, had come here, and that about ten o’clock in the morning, the lift hoisted them to the masthead, as his highness called it.

Commodore Ethel Simcoe was there already, and lending the two friends his telescope, told them to observe a point on the horizon to the south-west among the lower mists of the sky.

“That is Mauna Loa of Hawaii,” said he; “or it is Mauna Kea, two superb volcanoes which in 1852 and 1855 precipitated on to the island a flood of lava covering seven hundred square metres, and whose craters in 1880 hurled forth seven hundred million cubic metres of eruptive substances.”

“Famous!”  replied Yvernès. “Do you think, Commodore, that we shall have the good luck to see such a spectacle?”

“I do not know, Monsieur Yvernès,” replied Ethel Simcoe. “Volcanoes do not erupt to order.”

“Oh! on this occasion only, and under distinguished patronage!” added Pinchinat. “If I were rich like Messrs. Tankerdon and Coverley, I would pay for eruptions when I liked.”

“Well, we will talk to them about it,” said the Commodore, smiling, “and I have no doubt they will do even the impossible to make themselves agreeable to you.”

Thereupon Pinchinat asked what was the population of the Sandwich Islands. The Commodore told him that it had been two hundred thousand at the beginning of the century, and was then reduced to about half.

“Good! Mr. Simcoe, a hundred thousand savages, that is quite enough, and if only they have remained cannibals, and lost nothing of their appetite, they will make only a mouthful of all the Milliardites of Floating Island.”

It was not the first time that the island had visited this archipelago. The preceding year it had been in these waters attracted by the salubrity of the climate. And in fact invalids went there from America, sent by the doctors, as the doctors send Europeans to breathe the humid air of the Pacific? Why not? Honololu is not more than twenty-five days from Paris, and when you can there impregnate your lungs with an oxygen you can get nowhere else—

Floating Island arrived within sight of the group in the morning of the 9th of July. The island of Oahu lay about five miles off to the south-west. Above, pointing to the east, was Diamond Head, an ancient volcano dominating the roadstead behind, and another cone called the Punch Bowl by the English. As the Commodore observed, if this enormous cup were filled with brandy or gin, John Bull could have no difficulty in emptying it.

They passed between Oahu and Molokai. Floating Island, like a ship under the action of its rudder, was steered by its starboard and larboard screws. The floating island stopped after rounding the south-east cape of Oahu, at ten cables’ lengths from the shore, its draught of water being considerable. As it was necessary for the purpose of keeping a clear berth to remain at some distance from the land, it did not moor in the strict sense of the word, that is to say, it did not use anchors, which would have been impossible, owing to the depth of a hundred metres and more. By means of the engines, which were kept working during the stay, it lay as motionless as the eight principal islands of the Hawaiian Archipelago. The quartette contemplated the heights which developed before their eyes. In the distance they could see nothing but masses of trees—clumps of orange trees, and other magnificent specimens of the temperate flora. To the west, through a narrow break in the reef, appeared a little lake, the Lake of Pearls, a sort of lacustrine plain pierced with ancient craters.

The aspect of Oahu was smiling enough, and the anthropophagi so desired by Pinchinat had nothing to complain of the theatre of their exploits. If they still abandoned themselves to their cannibalistic instincts, his Highness could wish for nothing more.

But this is what he suddenly exclaimed, —

“Great Heaven! what is it I see?”

“What do you see?” asked Frascolin.

“There. Steeples—”

“Yes—and towers—and palace façades!” said Yvernès. “It cannot be possible that they ate Captain Cook, there!”

“We are not at the Sandwiches!”  said Sebastien Zorn, shrugging his shoulders. “The Commodore has made a mistake as to the route.”

“Assuredly,” replied Pinchinat. No! Commodore Simcoe had not gone astray. It was really Oahu, and the town extending over many square kilometres was Honolulu.

Evidently the quartette were mistaken. What changes there had been since the great English navigator discovered this group! Missionaries had excelled each other in devotion and zeal. Not only had the original language disappeared before the Anglo-Saxon tongue, but the archipelago contained Americans, Chinese—for the most part employed by the owners of the soil, from whom had arisen a race of semi-Chinese, the Hapa-Paké—and even Portuguese, owing to the line of vessels between the Sandwich Islands and the Azores. Aborigines were still to be found, however, and enough of them to satisfy our four artistes, although these natives had been decimated by leprosy, a malady of Chinese importation. But they were hardly of the type of eaters of human flesh.

“O local colour!” exclaimed the first violin, “what hand has wiped thee from the modern palette!”

Yes! Time, civilization, progress, which is a law of nature, had almost effaced this colour; and this had to be recognized, not without regret, when one of the electric launches of Floating Island passed the long line of reefs and put Sebastien Zorn and his comrades ashore.

Between two lines of piles meeting at an acute angle opened the harbour sheltered from the dangerous winds by an amphitheatre of mountains. Since 1794 the reefs which protect it from the ocean waves had risen more than a yard in height.

Nevertheless, there was sufficient water for vessels drawing from eighteen to twenty feet of water to come alongside the quays.

“What a deception!” murmured Pinchinat. “It is really deplorable that we should have to get rid of so many illusions when we travel.”

“And we would do much better to stay at home,” retorted the ‘cellist.

“No!” exclaimed Yvernès, always enthusiastic. “What spectacle can be compared to that of this artificial island coming to visit the oceanic archipelagoes?”

Nevertheless, if the moral condition of the Sandwich Islanders had regrettably changed to the lively displeasure of our artistes, it was not the same with the climate. It is one of the most salubrious in these parts of the Pacific, notwithstanding that the group is in a region known as the Hot Sea. If the thermometer does not stand at a high level when the north-east trade winds are not in force, if the northern trades cause violent storms known as kouas, the mean temperature of Honolulu does not exceed twenty-one degrees centigrade. It would be bad taste to complain of this on the borders of the torrid zone; and the inhabitants did not complain of it, and, as we have indicated, American invalids crowded into the archipelago.

But the more the quartette penetrated into the secrets of this archipelago, the more their illusions fell, fell like the leaves at the end of autumn. They pretended to have been mystified when they should have accused themselves of inviting this mystification.

“It is this Calistus Munbar who has again taken a rise out of us,” said Pinchinat, remembering what the superintendent had told them as to the Sandwich Islands being the last rampart of native savagery in the Pacific. And when they bitterly reproached him, —

“What would you have, my dear friends?” he replied, with a wink of his right eye. “The place has changed so since my last voyage that I no longer recognize it.”

“Joker!” retorted Pinchinat, amusing himself with a dig in the superintendent’s stomach.

There could be no doubt that if changes had taken place, they must have occurred with extraordinary rapidity. The Sandwich Islands had rejoiced in a constitutional monarchy, founded in 1837, with two chambers, that of the nobles and that of the deputies. The first was nominated by the proprietors of the land, the second elected by all the people who knew how to read and write, the nobles for six years, the deputies for two years.

Each chamber was composed of twenty-four members, who held their deliberations together in the presence of the royal ministry, formed of four of the King’s councillors.

“And then,” said Yvernès, “they had a King, a constitutional King, instead of a monkey in feathers, and to whom foreigners could offer their humble respects.”

“I am sure,” affirmed Pinchinat, “that his Majesty did not even wear rings in his nose, and that he was provided with false teeth by the best dentists in the New World.”

“Ah! civilization, civilization!” repeated the first violin, “These Kanakas had no need of false teeth when they ate their prisoners of war.”

Floating Island was prepared for a stay of ten days, and a number of its inhabitants took advantage of this to explore Honolulu and its environs. The Coverley and Tankerdon families, the chief notables of Milliard City, went ashore daily. On the other hand, although it was the second appearance of the island in these parts of Hawaii, the admiration of the Hawaiians was boundless, and they came in crowds to visit this marvel. It is true that the policy of Cyrus Bikerstaff made the admission of strangers difficult, and required that when evening came the visitors returned at the stated hour. Owing to these measures of security it would have been anything but pleasant for an intruder to remain on the Pearl of the Pacific without a permit, which was not easily obtained. There were thus nothing but good relations on both sides, but there were no official receptions between the two islands.

The quartette enjoyed several very interesting walks. The natives pleased our Parisians. Their character is well marked, their hue brown, their physiognomy gentle and proud. And although the Hawaiians were a republic, it is not unlikely that they regretted their former savage independence.

“The air of our country is free,” says one of their proverbs, and they are none the less so.

And in fact, after the conquest of the archipelago by Kamehameha, after the representative monarchy established in 1840, each island had been administered by its own governor. At this period, under the republican régime, they were divided into districts and sub-districts.

“Come,” said Pinchinat, “there is no want of prefects, sub-prefects, and counsellors of prefecture, with the constitution of the Year VIII.”

“All I want is to get away!” replied Sebastien Zorn.

He would have been mistaken to have done so without admiring the chief places of Oahu. They are superb, if the flora is not rich. Along the shore there is an abundance of cocoanut trees and other palms, breadfruit trees, trilobas which yield the oil, castor-oil plants, daturas, indigo plants. The valleys, watered by the mountain streams, are carpeted with such encroaching vegetation as menervia, shrubs becoming arborescent, chenopodium, and halapepe, a sort of gigantic asparigines. The forest zone, prolonged to an altitude of two thousand metres, is covered with ligneous species, myrtles of lofty growth, colossal docks, and band-creepers, which intermingle like a many-branched thicket of serpents. As to the products of the soil which furnish items of commerce and exportation, there are rice, cocoanuts, and sugar-cane. Hence an important coasting trade between one island and another, so as to concentrate at Honolulu the products which are despatched to America. In the fauna there is little variety. If there is a tendency for the Kanakas to become absorbed in the more intelligent races, the species of animals show no sign of change. There are only pigs, fowls, and goats as domestic animals; there are no wild animals beyond a few pigs. There are mosquitoes, which are not easy to get rid of, a number of scorpions, and a few species of inoffensive lizards; birds that never sing, among others the “Oo,” the Drepanis pacifica, of black plumage, with ornamental yellow feathers, of which was formed the famous mantle of Kamehameha, on which nine generations of natives had worked.

Man’s task—a considerable one in this archipelago— has been to become civilized in imitation of the United States with his learned societies, his schools of compulsory education, which gained a prize at the Exposition of 1878, his rich libraries, his newspapers published in English and Kanaka. Our Parisians could not well be surprised at this, for the notables of the archipelago are most of them Americans, and their language is as current as their money. Only these notables freely attract to their service the Chinese of the Celestial Empire, contrary to what is done in Western America, to combat the infliction to which has been given the significant name of the “Yellow Plague.”

After the arrival of Floating Island within sight of the capital of Oahu, many of the local boats often sailed round it. With this magnificent weather, this sea so calm, nothing could be pleasanter than an excursion of some twenty kilometres at a cable’s length from the steel shore, over which the custom-house officers exercised such strict surveillance.

Among these excursion boats one could not help noticing a small vessel which every day persisted in sailing in Floating Island waters. It was a kind of Malay ketch, with two masts and a square stern, manned by twelve men under the orders of a captain of energetic appearance. The Governor, however, took no objection to this, although the practice might have seemed suspicious. These people, in fact, kept a constant watch on the island all round it hanging about from one port to the other, examining through the glasses every part of the coast. After all, supposing that their intentions were unfriendly, what could such a crew undertake against a population of ten thousand inhabitants? So that there was nothing to be uneasy about in the proceedings of this ketch during the day and night, and the maritime administration of Honolulu was not appealed to in the matter.

The quartette bade farewell to the island of Oahu on the morning of the 10th of July. Floating Island got under way at the dawn, obediently to the impulsion of its powerful propellers. Turning quite round, it headed south-west, to come in sight of the other Hawaiian islands. Moving obliquely across the equatorial current running from east to west, it moved in an inverse direction to that in which the archipelago lies towards the north.

For the convenience of the inhabitants on the larboard side, Floating Island boldly entered between the islands Molokai and Kauai. Over the latter, one of the smallest of the group, rises a volcano of eighteen hundred metres, Nirhau, which is always giving forth a few fuliginous vapours. At the foot are rounded hills of coralline formation, dominated by a range of sand-hills, against which the echoes are reflected with metallic sonority when the surf beats fiercely on the shore. The night had come when the island entered the narrow channel; but there was nothing to fear under the command of Ethel Simcoe. When the sun disappeared behind the heights of Lanai, the look-outs could not have noticed the ketch, which left the harbour after Floating Island, and endeavoured to keep in its wake. Besides, as we may again remark, why should any one have been uneasy at the presence of this Malay vessel?

Next day, when the sun reappeared, the ketch was only a white speck on the horizon.

During the day the voyage was continued between Kahulaui and Maui. Owing to its extent, the latter, with Lahaina for its capital, a harbour renowned for its whalers, occupies the second place in the Sandwich Archipelago.

Haleahala, “the house of the sun,” rises three thousand metres towards the sky.

The two following days were spent in coasting along the shores of the Great Hawaii, whose mountains, as we have said, are the highest in the group. It was in the Bay of Kealakeacua that Captain Cook, after being received as a god by the natives, was massacred in 1779, a year after discovering the archipelago, to which he gave the name of Sandwich in honour of the celebrated Minister of Great Britain. Hilo, the chief place of the island, which is on the eastern coast, was not sighted; but a view was obtained of Kailu on the western shore. Hawaii possesses fifty-seven kilometres of railway, used principally in the transport of goods, and the quartette could perceive the white smoke of its locomotives.

“It only wanted that!” said Yvernès.

Next morning the Pearl of the Pacific had left these regions, and the ketch rounded the extreme point of Hawaii, dominated by Mauna Loa, the Great Mountain, whose summit is lost in the clouds at a height of twelve thousand feet.

“Come,” said Pinchinat, “we have been cheated—really cheated!”

“You are right, said Yvernès; “we ought to have been here a hundred years earlier. But then we should not have been brought here on this admirable Floating Island!”

“No matter. Having found natives in waistcoats and turn-down collars, instead of savages in feathers, as that rascal Calistus promised us, I regret the days of Captain Cook!”

“And if these cannibals had eaten your Highness?” said Frascolin.

“Well, I should have died with the consolation of having once in my life been loved for myself alone!”
CHAPTER X.

SINCE the 23rd of June the sun had been moving towards the southern hemisphere, and it had become necessary to leave these regions, wherein the bad season would soon exercise its ravages. As the star of day in its apparent course was nearing the equinoctial line, the island should cross the line in its track. Beyond were pleasant climates, where, in spite of the names of October, November, December, January, and February, the months were no less agreeable than those of the warm season. The distance which separates the Hawaiian Archipelago from the Marquesas Islands is about three thousand kilometres, and Floating Island, being in haste to accomplish it, was driven at maximum speed.

Polynesia properly so-called is comprised within that wide extent of ocean bounded on the north by the Equator, on the south by the tropic of Capricorn. In that five millions of square kilometres there are eleven groups, composed of two hundred and twenty islands, a land surface of ten thousand kilometres, of which the islets can be counted in thousands. These are the summits of submarine mountains, of which the chain runs from the northwest to the south-east, to the Marquesas and Pitcairn, throwing out almost parallel ramifications.

If, in imagination, this vast basin were suddenly emptied, what an extraordinary country would be displayed to view! What Switzerland, what Norway, what Tibet, could equal it in grandeur? Of these submarine mountains, volcanic for the most part, some of madreporic origin are formed of calcareous or corneous matter secreted in concentric beds by the polyps, those radiated animalcules of such simple organization, endowed with immense productive power. Of these islands, some—the youngest—have the mantle of vegetation only at their summit; the others, draped in vegetation from head to foot, are the most ancient, even where their origin is coralline. There exists then a wide mountainous region buried in the waters of the Pacific. Floating Island moved above the mountains as an aerostat over the peaks of the Alps or the Himalaya. Only it was not the air, but the water that bore her up.

And as large displacements of atmospheric waves exist across space, so there are liquid displacements on the surface of this ocean. The main current flows from east to west, and under its lower beds are two counter currents from June to October, when the sun moves towards the tropic of Cancer. Besides these, on the borders of Tahiti there are four tides, which neutralize each other in such a way as to be almost imperceptible. The climate of these different archipelagoes is essentially variable. The mountainous islands stop the clouds, which pour their showers down on to them; the lower islands are drier, owing to the mists being driven away by the prevailing winds.

It would have been strange if the casino library did not possess a few charts relative to the Pacific. It had a complete collection, and Frascolin, the most serious of the quartette, often consulted them. Yvernès preferred to abandon himself to the surprises of the voyage, to the admiration provoked in him by this moving island, and did not seek to bother his brain with geographical notions. Pinchinat only cared to take matters on their amusing or fantastic side. For Sebastien Zorn the itinerary mattered little, inasmuch as it was taking him where he had never intended to go.

Frascolin was the only one to work at this Polynesia, studying the principal groups that compose it, the Low Islands, the Marquesas, Paumotu, the Society Islands, the Cook Islands, the Friendly Islands, Samoa, the Austral Islands, Wallis Island, Fanning Island, the Tokelau Islands, the Phoenix Islands, the Penrhyn Islands, Easter Island, Sala y Gomez, etc., etc. He knew then that in most of this archipelago, even those under protectorates, the government is always in the hands of powerful chiefs, whose influence is never disputed, and that the poorer classes are entirely subject to the rich. He knew also that the natives are of all religions, Brahmin, Mahometan, Protestant, Catholic, Catholic being preponderant in the islands dependent on France owing to the pomp of its services. He knew that the native language, of which the alphabet is simple enough, owing to its being composed of from thirteen to seventeen characters, is much mixed with English, and will be finally absorbed by the Anglo-Saxon. He knew, in short, that in a general way from an ethnic point of view the Polynesian population tends to decrease, which is regrettable, for the Kanaka type—a word which signifies a man—is whiter under the Equator than in the groups distant from the equinoctial line, and is magnificent, Polynesia losing much by its absorption by the foreign races. Yes! He knew that and many other things which he learnt in the course of his conversations with Commodore Ethel Simcoe, and when his comrades asked him he was not at all embarrassed at having to reply to them.

And so Pinchinat nicknamed him the Larousse of the tropical zone.

Such were the principal groups amid which Floating Island was to bear its wealthy population. It justly deserved its name of the happy island, for in a certain way it offered all that could promote happiness. Why was it that this state of things was in danger of being troubled by the rivalries, the jealousies, the disagreements, by questions of influence and precedence which divided Milliard City into two camps, as it were into two sections— the camp of the Tankerdons and the camp of the Coverleys? In any case, for the artistes who were quite disinterested in the matter, the struggle promised to be interesting.

Jem Tankerdon was Yankee from his head to his feet, big in build, with a reddish goatee, lank hair, eyes bright in spite of his sixty years, the iris almost yellow like that of a dog’s eye, the pupil glowing. He was tall in stature, powerful in the body, strong in the limbs. He was the trapper of the prairies, although the only traps he had set were those into which he had precipitated the millions of pigs in his slaughter-houses at Chicago. He was a violent man, whose position ought to have made him more careful, had not his early education been defective. He liked to show off his fortune, and, as people say, he had noisy pockets. And it seemed that he did not find them full enough, for he and a few others on the island were thinking of returning to business.

Mrs. Tankerdon was an American, a fairly good wife, very submissive to her husband, an excellent mother, gentle to her children, predestined to bring up a numerous family, and having in no way failed to fulfil her functions. If there were several millions to be shared amongst the direct heirs, why should there not be a dozen in the world? And there were.

Of the whole family the attention of the quartette was directed only to the eldest son, who is destined to play a certain part in this history. Walter Tankerdon, most elegant in his person, of moderate intelligence, of pleasing manners and face, taking more after Mrs. Tankerdon than after the head of the family. Fairly well educated, having travelled in America and Europe, but recalled by his habits and tastes to the attractive life on Floating Island, he was familiar with every branch of sport, and the best player in the island at tennis, polo, golf and cricket. He was not too proud of the fortune which would be his some day, and he was a good-hearted fellow; but as there were no poor in the island, he had no opportunity of being charitable. In short, it was to be desired that his brothers and sisters would resemble him. If these were not yet old enough to marry, he, who was nearly thirty, might think of doing so. Did he? We will see.

There existed a striking contrast between the Tankerdon family, the most important of the Larboard Section, and the Coverley family, the most considerable in the Starboard Section. Nat Coverley was of a much finer nature than his rival. That was due to the French origin of his ancestors. His fortune had not come from the entrails of the soil in the form of petroleum lakes, nor from the smoking entrails of the porcine race. No! It was industrial enterprises, railways and banking, which had made him what he was. All he wanted was to enjoy his wealth in peace, and—he made no secret of it—he would oppose to the utmost every attempt to transform the Pearl of the Pacific into an enormous workshop or an immense house of business.

Tall, well set up, his fine head grey-haired, wearing all his beard, the chestnut of which was streaked with a few silver threads. Somewhat cold in character, of distinguished manners, he occupied the first rank among the notables who in Milliard City kept up the traditions of good society in the Southern States. He loved the arts, understood painting and music, spoke easily the French language, which was much in use among the Starboardites, kept himself abreast of American and European literature, and when opportunity offered applauded in bravos and bravas which the ruder types of New England and the Far West applauded in hurrahs and hips.

Mrs. Coverley was ten years younger than her husband, and had just turned forty. She was an elegant, distinguished woman, belonging to one of the old demi-Creole families of Louisiana, a good musician, a good pianist, and it is not to be believed that a Reyer of the twentieth century would have proscribed the piano in Milliard City. In her house in Fifteenth Avenue the quartette had many an occasion to perform with her assistance, and they could but congratulate her on her artistic talents.

Heaven had not blessed the Coverleys as it had blessed the Tankerdons. Three daughters were the heiresses of an immense fortune, which Coverley did not brag about as his rival did. They were good-looking enough, and would find suitors enough among the nobility or the wealthy when the time came for them to marry. In America these remarkable dowries are not rare. A few years ago did we not hear of little Miss Terry, who, at the age of two years, was being sought for her 30,000,000l.? Let us hope that each girl would marry to her taste, and that to the advantage of being among the richest women in the States they would add that of being among the happiest.

Diana, or rather Di, as she was familiarly called, the eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Coverley, was barely twenty. She was a very pretty girl, and possessed the physical and mental qualities of her father and mother. Beautiful blue eyes, magnificent hair, between chestnut and blonde, a colour fresh as the petals of the rose newly opened, an elegant and graceful figure, explained why Miss Coverley was the admired of the young men of Milliard City, who would probably not leave to strangers the task of winning this “inestimable treasure,” as she might well be called in terms of mathematical accuracy. There was reason for supposing that Mr. Coverley would not see in difference of religion an obstacle to a union which seemed to assure the happiness of his daughter.

In truth, it was regrettable that questions of social rivalry separated the two leading families of Floating Island. Walter Tankerdon seemed to have been specially created to become the husband of Di Coverley.

But that was a combination not to be thought of. Rather cut the island in two, and let the Larboardites float away on one half, and the Starboardites on the other, than sign such a marriage contract.

“Providing that love does not enter into the matter!” said the superintendent, winking his eye behind his gold eye-glasses.

But it did not seem that Walter Tankerdon had any fancy for Di Coverley, and inversely—or at least if it were so, they both maintained a reserve which deceived the curious of the select world of Milliard City.

The island continued to descend towards the Equator, along the hundred and sixtieth meridian. Ahead of it extended that portion of the Pacific which offers the widest expanses destitute of islands and islets, and the depth of which reaches two leagues. During the 25th of July they passed over the basin of Belknap, an abyss of six thousand metres, from which the sounding apparatus brought up those curious molluscs or zoophytes, constituted in such a way as to support with impunity the pressure of masses of water estimated at six hundred atmospheres.

Five days afterwards Floating Island traversed a group of islands belonging to England, although they are occasionally called the American Islands. Leaving Palmyra and Samarang to starboard, it approached within two miles of Fanning, one of the numerous guano islands in these parts, the most important of the archipelago. The others are but emerged peaks, more barren than verdant, of which the United Kingdom has not made much up to now. But she has put her foot down in this place, and we know that the large foot of England generally leaves ineffaceable impressions.

Every day, while his comrades walked in the park or in the surrounding country, Frascolin, much interested by the details of this curious voyage, went to the Prow Battery. There he often met the Commodore. Ethel Simcoe gladly talked to him about the phenomena peculiar to these seas, and when they were of interest, the second violin did not omit to communicate them to his companions.

For instance, they could not restrain their admiration in presence of a spectacle which Nature gratuitously offered them during the night of the 30th of July.

An immense shoal of jelly-fish, covering several square miles, had been signalled during the afternoon. Never before had the islanders met with such masses of these medusæ, to which certain naturalists have given the name of Oceanians. These animals, of very rudimentary organization, approach in their hemispherical form to the products of the vegetable Kingdom. The fish, greedy as they may be, treat them as flowers, for none, it seems, feed on them. The Oceanians peculiar to the torrid zone of the Pacific are of the shape of many-coloured umbrellas, transparent, and bordered with tentacles. They do not measure more than an inch or so; judge then of the milliards required to form a shoal of such extent.

And when these numbers were mentioned in presence of Pinchinat:

“They could not,” remarked his Highness, “surprise these notables of Floating Island, for the milliard is the current coin.”

At nightfall, many of the people went out to the forecastle, that is to say the terrace which looked down on Prow Battery. The trams were invaded; the electric cars were loaded with sight-seers. Elegant carriages conveyed the leading nabobs. The Coverleys and the Tankerdons elbowed each other at a distance. Mr. Jem did not salute Mr. Nat, who did not salute Mr. Jem. The families were fully represented. Yvernès and Pinchinat had the pleasure of talking with Mrs. Coverley and her daughter, who always gave them a hearty welcome. Perhaps Walter Tankerdon felt a little annoyance at not being able to join in the conversation, and perhaps also Miss Di would not have been averse to his doing so. But what a scandal that would have caused, and what allusions more or less indiscreet on the part of the Starboard Chronicle or the New Herald in their society article!

When the darkness is complete as far as it can be in these tropical starlight nights, the Pacific seems to sleep in its deepest depths. The immense mass of water is impregnated with phosphorescent lights, illuminated by rosy and blue reflections, not only in well marked luminous lines along the crests of the waves, but as if the light were shed from innumerable legions of gleaming worms. This phosphorescence becomes so intense that it is possible to read by it as by the radiation of a distant aurora. It seems as if the Pacific dissolved the sunshine during the day and emitted it at night in luminous waves.

When the prow of Floating Island cut into the mass of medusæ, it divided it into two branches along its metal shore. In a few hours the island was girt by a belt of phosphorescent light. It was as it were an aureole, one of those glories of the middle ages which surround the heads of the saints. The phenomenon lasted until the birth of the dawn, the first hues of which extinguished it.

Six days afterwards the Pearl of the Pacific touched the imaginary great circle of our spheroid which cuts the horizon into equal parts. From it the poles of the celestial sphere could be simultaneously seen, the one in the north illuminated by the scintillations of the Pole Star, the other in the south decorated like a soldier’s breast with the Southern Cross. From the different points on this equatorial line the stars appeared to describe circles perpendicular to the plane of the horizon. If you would enjoy nights and days of equal length, it is in these regions or in continents and islands traversed by the Equator that you should make your home.

It was the second time since its creation that Floating Island had passed from one hemisphere to another, crossing the equinoctial line, first in descending towards the south, then in ascending towards the north. The occasion of this passage was kept as a holiday. There would be public games in the park, religious ceremonies in the temple and cathedral, races of electric vehicles round the island. From the platform of the observatory there would be a magnificent display of fireworks, from which the rockets and serpents and Roman candles would rival the splendours of the stars of the firmament.

This, as you may have guessed, was in imitation of the fantastic scenes customary on ships when they cross the Equator, a pendant to the baptism of the line. And, as a fact, this day was always chosen for the baptism of the children born since the departure from Madeleine Bay, and there was a similar baptismal ceremony with regard to the strangers who had not before entered the southern hemisphere.

“It will be our turn then,” said Frascolin to his comrades, “and we are going to receive baptism.”

“Fancy!” replied Sebastien Zorn, with protesting gestures of indignation.

“Yes, my old bass scraper!” replied Pinchinat. “They will throw unblessed buckets of water on our head, seat us on planks that see-saw, pitch us into surprise depths, and Father Neptune will come on board with his company of buffoons to shave our faces with the black grease pot.”

“If they think,” said Zorn, “that I will submit to this masquerade—”

“We shall have to,” said Yvernès. “Every country has its customs, and the guests must submit.”

“Not when they are detained against their will!” said the intractable chief of the quartette party.

He need not have excited himself about this carnival with which many crews amuse themselves when crossing the line! He need have had no fear of Father Neptune! He and his comrades would not be sprinkled with sea water, but with champagne of the best brands. They would not be hoaxed by being shown the Equator previously drawn on the object glass of a telescope. That might do for sailors on board ship, but not for the serious people of Floating Island.

The festival took place in the afternoon of the 5th of August. With the exception of the custom-house officers, who were never allowed to leave their posts, the State servants all had a holiday. All work was suspended in the town and harbours. The screws did not work. The accumulators possessed a voltage sufficient for the lighting and communications. The island was not stationary, but drifted with the current towards the line which divides the two hemispheres of the globe. Chants and prayers were heard in the churches, in the temple as at St. Mary’s church, and the organs played cheerily. Great rejoicings took place in the park, where the sporting events were brought off with remarkable enthusiasm. The different classes associated together. The richest gentlemen, with Walter Tankerdon at their head, did wonders at golf and tennis. When the sun had dropped perpendicularly below the horizon, leaving a twilight of only forty-eight minutes, the rockets would take their flight across space, and a moonless night would give the best of conditions for the display of firework magnificence.

In the large room of the casino the quartette were baptized, as we have said, and by the hand of Cyrus Bikerstaff. The Governor offered them a foaming tankard, and the champagne flowed in torrents. The artistes had their full share of Cliquot and Roederer. Sebastien Zorn could not have the bad taste to complain of a baptism which in no way reminded him of the salt water he had imbibed to the earliest days of his life.

To these testimonies of sympathy the quartette responded by the execution of the finest works in their repertory: the seventh quartette in F major, op. 59 of Beethoven; the fourth quartette in E flat, op. 10 of Mozart; the fourth quartette in D minor, op. 17 of Haydn; the seventh quartette (andante, scherzo, capriccioso, and fugue), op. 18 of Mendelssohn. Yes, all these marvels of concerted music, and there was no charge for hearing them! The crush at the doors was tremendous, and the room was suffocating. The pieces were encored and encored again, and the Governor presented to the executants a medal in gold encircled with diamonds respectable in the number of their carats, having on one face the arms of Milliard City, and on the other—

Presented to the Quartette Party

By the Company, the Municipality, and the People

of Floating Island.

And if all these honours did not reach to the very depths of the soul of the irreconcilable violoncellist, it was decidedly because he was a deplorable character, as his comrades told him.

“Wait for the end!”  he was content to reply, twisting his beard with a feverish hand.

It was at thirty-five minutes past ten in the evening— the calculation was made by the astronomers of Floating Island—that the line would be crossed. At that precise moment a salute would be fired from one of the cannon in the Prow Battery. A wire connected this gun with an electric apparatus arranged in the centre of the square of the observatory. Extraordinary satisfaction of self-esteem for the notable on whom devolved the honour of sending the current which would provoke the formidable detonation!

On this occasion the honour was sought by two important personages. These were, as may be guessed, Jem Tankerdon and Nat Coverley. Consequently, considerable embarrassment for Cyrus Bikerstaff. Difficult negotiations had been taking place between the town hall and the two sections of the city. No agreement had been arrived at. At the Governor’s invitation, the services of Calistus Munbar had been called in. Despite his well-known diplomatic adroitness, he had failed. Jem Tankerdon would not give way to Nat Coverley, who would not give way to Jem Tankerdon. An explosion was expected.

It did not promise to be long in coming when the two chiefs met in the square. The apparatus was but five paces away from them. They had but to touch the button.

Aware of the difficulty, the crowd, much interested in this question of precedence, had invaded the garden. After the concert, Sebastien Zorn, Yvernès, Frascolin, and Pinchinat had come to the square, curious to observe the phases of this rivalry, which, considering the dispositions of the Larboardites and Starboardites, was of exceptional gravity for the future.

The two notables advanced towards the apparatus, without the slightest inclination of the head.

“I think, sir,” said Jem Tankerdon, “that you will not contest this honour.”

“That is exactly what I expect from you, sir,” replied Nat Coverley.

“I shall not allow any one to deprive me of it.”

“Nor shall I allow any one to deprive me of it.”

“We shall see, then!” said Jem Tankerdon, taking a step towards the instrument.

Nat Coverley also took a step. The partisans of the two notables began to mingle. Ill-sounding provocations broke out in the ranks. Doubtless Walter Tankerdon was ready to maintain the rights of his father; but when he caught sight of Miss Coverley standing a little way off, he was visibly embarrassed.

As to the Governor, although the superintendent was at his side, ready to act as buffer, he was in intense distress at not being able to unite in a single bouquet the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster. And who knows if this deplorable competition might not have consequences as regrettable as the roses had in the fifteenth century for the English aristocracy?

But the moment was approaching when the prow of Floating Island would cut the equinoctial line. Calculated precisely to a quarter of a second of time, the error could not be greater than eight metres. The signal would soon be sent from the observatory.

“I have an idea,” murmured Pinchinat.

“What?” asked Yvernès.

“I will give a whack on the instrument, and that will put matters right.”

“Don’t do that!” said Frascolin, stopping his Highness with a vigorous grip.

No one knew how the matter would have ended if a detonation had not suddenly taken place.

The report was certainly not from the Prow Battery. It came from a gun out at sea, which had been heard distinctly.

The crowd paused in suspense. What could be the meaning of this discharge of a gun which did not belong to the island’s artillery?

A telegram from Starboard Harbour almost immediately gave the explanation.

Two or three miles off, a ship in distress had signalled its presence and demanded assistance.

Fortunate and unexpected diversion! There was no more thought of touching the button nor saluting the crossing of the Equator. There was no time. The Equator was crossed, and the charge remained in the cannon. All the better for the honour of the Tankerdons and Coverleys.

The public evacuated the square, and, as the trams were not working, proceeded rapidly on foot to Starboard Harbour.

Immediately the signal had been heard, the harbour master had taken measures for the rescue. One of the electric launches moored in the wet dock had gone out. And at the moment the crowd arrived, the launch had brought back the crew from the ship, which had soon afterwards foundered in the Pacific.

The ship was the Malay ketch which had followed Floating Island since its departure from the Sandwich Archipelago,
CHAPTER XI.

In the morning of the 29th of August, the Pearl of the Pacific reached the Marquesas Islands, lying between 70 55’ and 100 30’ south latitude, and 1410 and 1430 6’ longitude west of the meridian of Paris. It had traversed a distance of three thousand four hundred kilometres since leaving the Sandwich group.

If this group is called after Mendana, it is because the Spaniard of that name discovered its southern portion in 1595. If it is called Revolution Islands, it is because it was visited by Captain Marchand in 1791, in its northwestern part. If it is called the Nuka Hiva Archipelago, it is because that is the name of the largest island in it. And yet, as a matter of justice, it ought to bear the name of Cook, for that celebrated navigator surveyed it in 1774.

This was what Commodore Ethel Simcoe remarked to Frascolin, who thought the observation very reasonable, adding, —

“We might also call it the French Archipelago, for we are not without a few marquises in France.”

In fact, a Frenchman has the right to regard this group of eleven islands or islets as one of his country’s squadrons moored in the waters of the Pacific. The largest are vessels of the first class, Nuka-Hiva and Hiva-Oa; the moderate ones are cruisers of different ranks, Hiavu, Uapvu, Uahuka; the little ones are despatch boats, Motane, Fatu-Hiva, Taou-Ata; while the islets and atolls will do for the launches and boats. It is true, these islands could not move about like Floating Island.

It was on the 1st of May, 1842, that the Commander of the naval station of the Pacific, Vice-Admiral Dupetit-Thouars, took possession of this archipelago in the name of France. It is separated by from a thousand to two thousand leagues from the coast of America, New Zealand, Australia, China, the Moluccas, and the Philippines. Under these conditions, was the act of the Vice-Admiral to be praised or blamed? He was blamed by the Opposition and praised by the Government. It is none the less true that France has there an insular domain where its whaling vessels can shelter and re-victual, and to which the Panama Canal, if it is ever open, will give very considerable commercial importance. This domain should be completed by the taking possession or declaration of a protectorate over the Paumotu Islands and the Society Islands, which form its natural prolongation. As British influence extends over the north-western regions of this immense ocean, it is good that French influence should counterbalance it in the regions of the south-east.

“But,” asked Frascolin of his complaisant cicerone, “have we military forces there of any strength?”

“Up to 1859,” replied the Commodore, “there was a detachment at Nuka-Hiva. Since the detachment has been withdrawn the care of the flag has been confided to the missionaries, and they will not leave it undefended.”

“And now?”

“You will only find at Taio-Hae a resident, a few gendarmes, and native soldiers, under the orders of an officer who fulfils the functions of a justice of the peace.”

“In the native law-suits?”

“For the natives and the colonists.”

“Then there are colonists at Nuka-Hiva?”

“Yes; twenty-four.”

“Not enough to form an orchestra, Commodore, nor even a harmony, and hardly a fanfare!”

The archipelago of the Marquesas extends over a hundred and ninety-five miles in length and forty-eight miles in width, covering an area of thirteen thousand superficial kilometres, and its population consists of twenty-four thousand natives. That gives one colonist to each thousand inhabitants.

Is this population destined to increase when a new route of communication is made through the two Americas? The future will show. But as far as concerns the population of Floating Island, the number of it’s inhabitants had been increased several days before by the rescue of the Malays of the ketch, which took place in the evening of the 5th of August.

They were ten in number, in addition to their captain, a man of energetic face and figure. This captain was about forty years of age, and his name was Sarol. His sailors were stoutly-built fellows of the Malay race, natives of the furthest islands of Western Malaysia. Three months before Sarol had brought them to Honolulu with a cargo of coprah. When Floating Island had come to stay there for ten days, its appearance had excited their surprise, as it excited surprise in every archipelago it visited. If they did not visit it, permission to do so being very difficult to obtain, it will not be forgotten how their ketch was often at sea observing it at close quarters, and coasting along it within half a cable’s length of its perimeter.

The continual presence of this vessel had excited no suspicion, and neither did its departure from Honolulu a few hours after Commodore Simcoe. Besides, what was there to be uneasy about in this vessel of a hundred tons with not a dozen men on board?

When the report of the gun attracted the attention of the officer at Starboard Harbour, the ketch was within two or three miles. The launch was fortunate enough to bring off the captain and his crew.

These Malays spoke English fluently, in which there was nothing astonishing on the part of natives of the Western Pacific, where, as we have mentioned, British preponderance is unquestioned. They could thus describe the circumstances of their being in distress, and tell how they would have been lost in the depths of the ocean if the launch had been a few minutes later.

According to these men, twenty-four hours before, during the night of the 4th of August, the ketch had been run into by a steamer at full speed. Although his lights were all showing, Captain Sarol had not been noticed. The collision had been so slight for the steamer that she seemed to feel nothing of it, and continued her voyage, unless—which is, unfortunately, not too rare—she had gone off at full speed “to avoid costly and disagreeable claims.”

But the blow, insignificant for a vessel of heavy tonnage with her iron hull driven at considerable speed, was terrible for the Malay vessel. Cut down just before the mizen mast, it was hardly intelligible that she did not immediately sink. She remained, however, at the water level, the men clinging on to the deck. If the weather had been bad the wreck could not have resisted the waves. By good luck the current took them towards the east, and they arrived within sight of Floating Island.

At the same time, when the Commodore questioned Captain Sarol he could not help manifesting his astonishment that the ketch, half submerged, had been able to drift within sight of Starboard Harbour.

“Neither do I understand it,” replied the Malay. “Your island cannot have moved very far during the last twenty-four hours.”

“That is the only explanation possible,” replied Commodore Simcoe. “It does not matter after all, we have been able to rescue you, that is the main point.”

It was true. Before the launch had got a quarter of a mile away the ketch had gone down head foremost.

Such was the story Captain Sarol told to the officer who had rescued him, then to the Commodore, then to the Governor, Cyrus Bickerstaff, after he had been given all the assistance that he and his crew seemed to be in urgent need of.

Then arose the question as to sending these men home. They were bound for the New Hebrides when the collision occurred. Floating Island was going south-east, and could not change its route. Cyrus Bikerstaff proposed to put the captain and his men ashore at Nuka-Hiva, where they could wait for a merchant ship bound for the New Hebrides.

The captain and his men looked at one another. They seemed greatly distressed. This proposal was hard on poor fellows, without resources, despoiled of all they possessed with the ketch and its cargo. To wait at the Marquesas was to chance having to wait an interminable time, and how would they get a living?

“Mr. Governor,” said the captain in a suppliant tone, “you have rescued us, and we don’t know how to show our gratitude. But yet we beg you will assure our return under better circumstances.”

“And in what manner?” asked Cyrus Bikerstaff.

“At Honolulu it was said that Floating Island after going south was to visit the Marquesas, Paumotu, the Society Islands, and then make for the west of the Pacific.”

“That is true,” said the Governor, “and very probably we shall get as far as the Fijis before returning to Madeleine Bay.”

“The Fijis,” continued the captain, “are an English archipelago, where we should easily find a ship to take us to the New Hebrides, which are not far off, and if you could keep us until then—”

“I cannot promise you anything with regard to that,” said the Governor. “We are forbidden to give passages to foreigners. You must wait till we reach Nuka-Hiva. I will consult the administration by cable, and if they consent we will take you on to Fiji, whence you could get home more easily.”

That is the reason why the Malays were on Floating Island when it came within sight of the Marquesas on the 29th of August.

This archipelago is situated in the belt of the trade winds, as are also the Paumotu and Society Islands, which owe to these winds a moderate temperature and a salubrious climate.

It was off the north-west of this group that Commodore Simcoe appeared in the early hours of the morning. He first sighted a sandy atoll which the maps called Coral Islet, and against which the sea, driven by the currents, beats with extreme violence.

This atoll being left to port, the look-outs now signalled the first island, Fetuhuhu, very steep, surrounded by perpendicular cliffs four hundred metres in height. Beyond is Hiau, six hundred metres high, of a barren aspect on this side, while on the other it is fresh and verdant, and has two creeks practicable for small vessels.

Frascolin, Yvernès, and Pinchinat, leaving Sebastien Zorn to his chronic ill-humour, took their places on the tower, in company with Ethel Simcoe and several of his officers.

One need not be astonished that this name of Hiau had excited his Highness to emit several strange onomatopes.

“Assuredly,” said he, “it is a colony of cats which inhabits that island with a tom for chief.”

Hiau was left to port. There was no intention of stopping there, and the course was continued towards the principal island of the group, to which it had given its name, and which was now to be temporarily increased by this extraordinary Floating Island.

Next morning, that of the 30th of August, at daybreak our Parisians returned to their port. The heights of Nuka-Hiva had been visible the evening before. In fine weather the mountain chains of this archipelago can be seen from a distance of eighteen or twenty leagues, for the altitude of certain summits exceeds twelve hundred metres, and they lie like a gigantic backbone along the length of the islands.

“You will notice,” said the Commodore to his guests, “a peculiarity common to all this archipelago. The summits are singularly bare, and the vegetation which begins about two-thirds up the mountain slopes penetrates to the very bottom of the ravines and gorges, and spreads magnificently down to the white beaches of the coast.”

“And yet,” said Frascolin, “it seems that Nuka-Hiva is an exception to the general rule, at least as regards the verdure of the intermediate zones. It appears barren!”

“Because we are approaching it from the north-west,” said the Commodore, “but when we turn at the south, you will be surprised at the contrast. Everywhere, verdant plains, forests, cascades of three hundred metres.”

“Eh!” exclaimed Pinchinat, “a mass of water falling from the top of the Eiffel Tower, that is worth considering! Niagara should be jealous.”

“Not at all,” said Frascolin, “it prides itself on its width, and its fall extends for nine hundred metres, from the American shore to the Canadian. You know that well, Pinchinat, for we have visited it.”

“That is so, and I beg to apologize to Niagara,” replied his Highness.

That day Floating Island coasted along about a mile away from the island. Always the barren slopes rising to the central plateau of Tovii, rocky cliffs which seemed to have no break in them. Nevertheless, according to the navigator Brown, there are good anchorages, which, in fact, have recently been discovered.

In short, the aspect of Nuka-Hiva, the name of which evokes such pleasant landscapes, is rather mournful. But, as has been justly observed by Dumoulin and Desgraz, the companions of Dumont d’Urville during his voyage to the South Pole and in Oceania, “all its natural beauties are confined to the interior of its bays, into the valleys formed by the ramifications of the chain of mountains which rise in the centre of the island.”

After following this desert shore beyond the acute angle projecting to the west, Floating Island gradually changed its direction by diminishing the speed of its starboard screws, and rounding Cape Tchitchagoff, so called by the Russian navigator Krusenstern. The coast then runs in, describing an elongated curve, in the course of which a narrow inlet gives access to the port of Taiva or Akaui, one of the creeks of which offers a shelter against the most terrible storms of the Pacific.

Commodore Simcoe did not stop there. To the south are two other bays, that of Anna Maria or Taio-Hae in the centre, and that of Comptroller or Taipis on the other side of Cape Martin, the extreme south-westerly point of the island. Is was off Taio-Hae that they were to make a stay of twelve days.

A little distance from the shore of Nuka-Hiva the sea is of great depth. Near the bays there is anchorage at a depth of forty or fifty fathoms. It was thus easy for the Commodore to bring up very close. to Taio-Hae Bay, which he did in the afternoon of the 31st of August.

As soon as they arrived in sight of the port, reports were heard on the right, and a circling smoke appeared above the cliffs to the east.

“Hallo!” said Pinchinat. “Are they firing the guns to welcome our arrival?”

“Not so,” said the Commodore. “Neither the Tais nor the Happas, the two principal tribes of the island, possess artillery capable of firing the simplest salutes. What you hear is the noise of the sea plunging into the depths of a cavern half-way up Cape Martin, and the smoke is the spray hurled aloft from it.”

The island of Nuka-Hiva has many names—we might say many baptismal names—given it by its successive godfathers: Federal Island by Ingraham, Beaux Island by Marchand, Sir Henry Martin Island by Hergert, Adam Island by Roberts, Madison Island by Porter. It measures seventeen miles from east to west and ten miles from north to south, its circumference being about fifty-four miles.

Its climate is healthy; its temperature that of the tropical zone moderated by the trade winds. At this anchorage Floating Island would not be subject to the formidable tempests and pluvial cataracts which occur during the winter, for it was not going to be there from April to October, when the easterly and south-easterly winds, known to the natives as tuatuka, prevail. It is in October that the heat is greatest, the months of November and December being the driest. At other times the prevailing winds range from east to north-east.

For the population of the Marquesas Islands, we must reject the exaggerations of their early discoverers, who estimated it at a hundred thousand. Elisée Reclus, relying on official documents, says that it does not exceed six thousand for the whole group, and that the great majority are in Nuka-Hiva. If at the time of Dumont d’Urville the Nuka-Hivans numbered eight thousand, divided into Tais, Happas, Taionas, and Taipis, the number must have continued to decrease. Whence results this depopulation? From the extermination of natives by wars, the carrying off of the males to the plantations of Peru, the abuse of strong liquors, and, it must also be confessed, to the evils which conquest brings, even when the conquerors belong to civilized races.

During their stay here the Milliardites made numerous visits to Nuka-Hiva, and the principal Europeans, by the Governor’s permission, had free access to Floating Island.

On their side, Sebastien Zorn and his comrades undertook several long excursions, the pleasure of which amply paid them for their fatigues.

The bay of Taio-Hae describes a circle, cut by the narrow inlet, in which Floating Island could not have found room, so much is this bay cut up by the two sandy beaches. These beaches are separated by a sort of hill with rugged escarpments, where still exist the remains of a fort, built here by Porter in 1812. It was at this period that this sailor made the conquest of the island, the American camp occupying the eastern beach—a capture which was not ratified by the Federal Government.

In place of a town, on the opposite beach, our Parisians found a small village; the Marquesan habitations being, for the most part, scattered under the trees. But what admirable valleys ran up from it, among others that of Taio-Hae, in which the Nuka-Hivans had placed most of their dwellings. It was a pleasure to explore beneath the clumps of cocoanut trees, bananas, casuarinas, guavas, breadfruit trees, hibiscus, and other species rich in overflowing sap. The tourists were hospitably received in the huts, where a century earlier they might have appreciated banana cakes and mei pastry and breadfruit, and the yellowish fecula of the taro, sweet when fresh and sour when stale, and the edible roots of the tacca. As to the hanu, a species of large ray which was eaten raw, and filets of shark, esteemed most highly the higher they are, our tourists declined to taste them.

Athanase Dorémus occasionally went with them on their walks. The year before this good man had visited this archipelago and was able to act as guide. Perhaps he was not very strong in natural history or botany, perhaps he confounded the superb Spondia cytherea, whose fruits resemble the apple, with the Pandanus odoratissimus, which justifies this superlative epithet; with the casuarina, whose bark is as hard as iron; with the hibiscus, whose bark yields the garments worn by the natives; with the papaw tree; with the Gardenia florida! It is true that the quartette had no necessity to have recourse to his somewhat suspicious knowledge, when the Marquesan flora displayed its magnificent ferns, its superb polypodies, its China roses, red and white, its grasses, its solanaceous plants, among others tobacco, its labiates in violet clusters, which form the cherished finery of the Nuka-Hivans, its castor-oil plants a dozen feet high, its dracænas, its sugar-canes, its oranges, its lemon trees of recent importation, which had succeeded marvellously in a soil impregnated by summer heat and watered by the many mountain streams.

One morning when the quartette had ascended beyond the village of Tais along the banks of a torrent to the summit of the chain, and beneath their feet and before their eyes lay spread the valleys of the Tais, the Taipis, and the Happas, a shout of admiration escaped them. If they had had their instruments with them they could not have resisted their desire to reply by the execution of some lyric masterpiece to this spectacle of one of the masterpieces of nature. Doubtless the executants would have had but a few birds for their audience! But how beautiful is the kurukuru pigeon which flies at these heights, how charming the little salangane, which beats the air with so capricious a wing, and the tropic-bird, the habitual visitor to these Nuka-Hivan gorges. Besides, no venomous reptile was to be feared in the depths of these forests. There was no fear of the boas, barely two feet long, as inoffensive as a common snake, nor of the simquas, whose blue tail is indistinguishable among the flowers.

The natives are of a remarkable type. There is a sort of Asiatic character about them, on account of which they are assigned a very different origin to that of the other races of Oceania. Their extremities are well shaped, their face oval, their forehead high, their black eyes with long lashes, their nose aquiline, their teeth white and regular, their colour neither black nor red, but brown like that of the Arabs, a physiognomy marked by cheerfulness and gentleness.

Tattooing had almost disappeared—tattooing obtained not by cutting into the flesh, but by prickings, dusted with carbon and the aleurite triloba, and now replaced by the cotton cloth of the missionaries.

“Very fine, these men,” said Yvernès, “but not so much so as when they were simply clothed in their skins, wore their own hair, and brandished bows and arrows!”

This remark was made during an excursion to Comptroller Bay in the Governor’s company. Cyrus Bikerstaff had expressed a wish to take his guests to this bay, divided into several harbours like Valetta, and doubtless in the hands of the English Nuka-Hiva would become a Malta of the Pacific Ocean. In this district the Happas are principally found, among the gorges of a fertile country, with a small river fed by a noisy cascade. This was the chief theatre of the struggle between Porter, the American, and the natives.

The remark of Yvernès required a reply, and the Governor made answer:

“Perhaps you are right, Monsieur Yvernès. The Marquesans must have looked well in their cotton drawers, with the maro and pareo of brilliant colours, the alm bun, a kind of flying scarf, and the tiputa, a sort of Mexican poncho. It is certain that the modern costume hardly becomes them. What would you have? Decency is the consequence of civilization! At the same time, as our missionaries endeavour to instruct the natives, they encourage them to clothe themselves in a more or less rudimentary fashion.”

“Are they not right?” asked Frascolin.

“From the point of view of the proprietors, yes! From the hygienic point of view, no! Since they have become more decently clothed, the Nuka-Hivans and other islanders have undoubtedly lost their native vigour, and also their natural cheerfulness. They get weary, and their health suffers. Formerly they knew nothing of bronchitis, pneumonia, phthisis—”

“And since they have not gone stark naked they have caught colds,” remarked Pinchinat.

“As you say! And that has been an important cause of the decay of the race.”

“From which I conclude,” said his Highness, “that Adam and Eve did not sneeze until the day they wore shirts and pants, after being chased from the terrestrial Paradise—and that has given us, their degenerate and responsible children, diseases of the chest.”

“It seems to us,” remarked Yvernès, “that the women are not as good-looking as the men in this archipelago.”

“As in the others,” replied Cyrus Bikerstaff, “and yet here perhaps you see the most perfect type of the Oceanians. But is not that a law of nature common to the races which approach the savage state? Is it not also so in the animal Kingdom, where the fauna, from the point of view of physical beauty, shows us almost invariably the males superior to the females?”

“Well,” exclaimed Pinchinat, “we must come to the Antipodes to make observations of that kind. Our lovely Parisians would never admit it.”

There are only two classes in the Nuka-Hiva population, and they are subject to the law of the taboo. This law was invented by the strong against the weak, by the rich against the poor, so as to protect their privileges and their goods. The taboo has white for its colour, and tabooed objects, sacred places, funereal monuments, the houses of the chiefs, the lower class are not allowed to touch. Hence a tabooed class, to which belong the priests, the sorcerers or touas, the akarkis or civil chiefs, and a non-tabooed class, to which are relegated the greater part of the women and the poorer people. Besides, not only is it not allowed to lift the hand against an object protected by the taboo, but it is even forbidden to look at it.

“And this rule,” said Cyrus Bikerstaff, “is so strict in the Marquesas, as in Paumotu and the Society Islands, that I would advise you never to infringe it.”

“You understand, my brave Zorn,” said Frascolin. “Keep a watch on your hands and a watch on your eyes.”

The violoncellist was content to shrug his shoulders like a man whom these things in no way interested.

On the 5th of September, Floating Island left its moorings at Tacoahe. It left to the east the island of Hua-Huna (Kahuga), the most easterly of the first group, of which they only perceived the distant verdant heights, and which has no beach, its circumference being formed of steep cliffs. It need hardly be mentioned that in passing along these islands Floating Island reduced its speed, for such a mass driven at a full rate would produce a sort of tide that would hurl small craft on to the shore and inundate the coast. A few miles further was Uapou, of remarkable aspect, for it bristles with basaltic peaks. Two creeks, one named Possession Bay and the other Bon Accueil Bay, indicate that their names had been given by Frenchmen. It was there in fact that Captain Marchand hoisted the flag of France.

Beyond Ethel Simcoe entered the regions of the second group, standing towards Hiva-Oa, Dominica, according to its Spanish designation. The longest of the archipelago, of volcanic origin, it measures fifty-six miles round. Its cliffs could be distinctly observed, cut in blackish rock, and the cascades which fall from the central hills covered with rich vegetation.

A strait three miles in width separates this island from Taou-Ata. As Floating Island could not find space enough to pass, it had to round Taou-Ata by the west, where the Bay of Madre de Dios—Resolution Bay of Cook—received the first European vessels. This island is less easy of access than its rival Hiva-Oa. Perhaps then, war being more difficult between them, the inhabitants could not come into touch with one another, and decimate themselves with their accustomed energy.

After sighting to the eastward Motane, a sterile island, without shelter, without inhabitants, the Commodore moved on towards Fatu-Hiva. This in truth is but an enormous rock, where the birds of the tropical zone swarm, a sort of sugar-loaf measuring three miles in circumference.

Such was the third islet in the south-east, of which the Milliardites lost sight in the afternoon of the 9th of September. In conformity with its itinerary, Floating Island then steered south-west for the Paumotu Archipelago, and passed through the centre of that group.

The weather continued favourable, this month of September corresponding to that of March in the northern hemisphere.

In the morning of the 11th of September the launch from Larboard Harbour picked up one of the floating buoys, to which was attached one of the cables from Madeleine Bay. The end of this copper wire, of which a sheath of gutta-percha assured the complete insulation, was connected with the instruments in the observatory, and telephonic communication established with the American coast.

The council of administration of the Floating Island Company was consulted concerning the shipwrecked crew of the Malay ketch. Would they authorize the governor to give them a passage to the Fijis, whither they could return to their country quickly and cheaply?

The reply was favourable. Floating Island even received permission to cruise to the New Hebrides, so as to land the crew there, if the notables of Milliard City considered that it would not be inconvenient to do so.

Cyrus Bikerstaff conveyed this reply to Captain Sarol, who in the name of his companions begged the Governor to transmit their thanks to the administrators at Madeleine Bay.
CHAPTER XII.

Really the quartette would have been guilty of revolting ingratitude to Calistus Munbar if they had not thanked him for having, somewhat treacherously perhaps, brought them on to Floating Island. What mattered the means employed by the superintendent to make them the welcome, petted, and handsomely paid guests of Milliard City! Sebastien Zorn never ceased from sulking, for you can never change a hedgehog with his prickly spines into a cat with soft fur. But Yvernès, Pinchinat, and Frascolin could not dream of a more delicious existence. An excursion with neither danger nor fatigue across these wonderful waters of the Pacific. Taking no part in the rivalry between the two camps, accepted as the island’s soul of song, welcomed always by the Tankerdons and the chiefs of the Larboard section, as they were by the Coverleys and most distinguished families of the Starboard section, treated with honour by the Governor and his assistants at the town hall, by Commodore Simcoe and his officers at the observatory, by Colonel Stewart and his militia, giving their services at the temple and at the ceremonies in the cathedral, finding good friends in both ports, in the workshops, among the functionaries and servants of the State, could our compatriots, we ask any reasonable person, regret the time when they were travelling from city to city of the Federal Republic, and who is the man who would be sufficiently his own enemy not to envy them?

“You will kiss my hands!” the superintendent had told them at their first interview.

And if they had not done it, if they would never do it, it was because it is never necessary to kiss a masculine hand.

One day Athanase Dorémus, most fortunate of mortals as he was, said to them, “I have been two years on Floating Island, and I am sorry it is not to be sixty, if I could be certain that in sixty years I shall still be here.”

“Won’t you have too much of it,” asked Pinchinat, “if you are to become a centenarian?”

“Ah! Monsieur Pinchinat, be sure that I shall attain the century! Why do you want people to die on Floating Island?”

“Because they die everywhere.”

“Not here, sir, no more than they do in the celestial paradise.”

What could be said to that? However, there were from time to time a few ill-advised people who took upon themselves to die even in this enchanted island. And then the steamers took away their remains to the distant cemetery at Madeleine Bay. Decidedly it is written that we cannot be completely happy in this world below.

But at the same time there were a few black spots on the horizon. It must even be admitted that these black spots were gradually taking the form of electrified clouds, which before long would bring storm and tempest. Disquieting was this regrettable rivalry between the Tankerdons and the Coverleys—a rivalry which was approaching an acute stage. Their partisans made common cause with them. Were the two sections to fight each other some day? Was Milliard City threatened with troubles, outbreaks, revolutions? Would the council of administration have an arm energetic enough, and Governor Cyrus Bikerstaff have a hand firm enough to keep the peace between these Capulets and Montagues of Floating Island? We can hardly say. Everything is possible with rivals whose self-esteem is apparently boundless.

Since the scene at the crossing of the line the two millionaires had been avowed enemies. Their friends supported them. All communication had ceased between the two sections. When they saw each other from afar they avoided each other, and if they met, what an exchange of menacing gestures and fierce looks! A rumour had spread that the old merchant of Chicago and a few of the Larboardites were going to found a trading business, that they were asking the company for permission to build a huge establishment, that they were going to import a hundred thousand pigs, and that they would slaughter them and salt them and sell them in the different archipelagoes of the Pacific.

After that it can easily be believed that the house of the Tankerdons and the house of the Coverleys were two powder magazines. It wanted but a spark to blow them up, and the island with them. Do not forget that the island was afloat above the deepest depths. It is true that this explosion would be only an explosion in a figurative sense, but the consequences would probably be that the notables would clear out. That proceeding would compromise the future and the financial position of the Floating Island Company.

All this was full of menacing complications, if not of actual catastrophes. And who knows if the latter were not to be feared?

In fact, if the authorities of the island had been less asleep in deceptive security, they might have done well to keep a watch on Captain Sarol and his Malays. Not that these people had said anything suspicious, being but slightly loquacious, living apart, keeping themselves clear of all connections, rejoicing in a state of happiness they would regret in their savage New Hebrides. Were there any grounds for suspecting them? Yes and no. But a more watchful observer would have noticed that they were exploring every part of Floating Island, that they were constantly making notes of Milliard City, the position of its avenues, the situation of its palaces and its houses, as if they were making an exact plan of it. They were met with in the park and the country. They were frequently either at Larboard Harbour or Starboard Harbour, observing the arrival and departure of the ships. They were seen to take long walks exploring the coast, where the custom-house officers were on duty day and night, and visiting the batteries at the bow and stern of the island. After all, what could be more natural? These out-of-work Malays could not employ their time better than in such walks, and what was there suspicious in that?

The Commodore gradually moved towards the southwest at reduced speed. Yvernès, as if he had been transformed since he had become a Floating Islander, abandoned himself to the charm of the voyage. So did Pinchinat and Frascolin. What delightful hours were passed at the casino during the fortnightly concerts and the evenings when the crowd struggled for admission at prices that could only be paid in gold. Every morning, thanks to the newspapers of Miliard City, provided with fresh news by the cables and with facts a few days old by the steamers, they were informed of everything of interest that was happening in both continents in society, science, arts, and politics. And from the last point of view it was noticeable that the English press of all parties never ceased to complain about the existence of this moving island which had chosen the Pacific as the theatre of its excursions. But such recriminations were treated with contempt at Floating Island as in Madeleine Bay.

Let us not forget to mention that for some weeks now Sebastien Zorn and his comrades had been reading under the heading of foreign intelligence that their disappearance had been mentioned by the American journals. The celebrated Quartette Party, so well received in the States of the Union, so expected by those who had not yet had the pleasure of listening to them, could not vanish without a good deal of fuss being made about their disappearance. San Diego had not seen them on the appointed date, and San Diego had raised a cry of alarm. Inquiries had been made, and it had been ascertained that the French artistes were on Floating Island after being carried off from the coast of Lower California. As they had not protested against their capture, there had been no exchange of diplomatic notes between the Company and the Federal Republic. When it pleased the quartette to reappear on the scene of their successes they would be welcome.

It goes without saying that the two violins and the alto had imposed silence on the violoncello, who would not have been sorry to be the cause of a declaration of war which would have brought about a contest between the new continent and the Pearl of the Pacific.

Besides, our instrumentalists had many times written to France since their departure from Madeleine Bay. Their families, relieved of all fears for their safety, frequently sent them letters, and the correspondence continued as regularly as the postal service between Paris and New York.

One morning—that of the 17th of September—Frascolin, installed in the library of the casino, felt a very natural desire to consult the map of this archipelago of Paumotu to which they were bound. As soon as he opened the atlas, as soon as his eye lighted on these regions of the Pacific, he exclaimed:

“A thousand treble strings! How can Ethel Simcoe get through this chaos? Never will he find a passage through this mass of islets and islands. There are hundreds of them! A regular heap of pebbles in the middle of a pond. He will touch, he will run aground, he will hook his machine on to this point, he will knock it in on this. We shall end by remaining fixed in this group, which is more numerous than our Morbihan in Brittany.”

The judicious Frascolin was right. Morbihan has only three hundred and sixty-five islands—as many as there are days in the year—and in this Paumotu Archipelago there are quite double as many. It is true that the sea which beats on them is circumscribed by a girdle of coral reefs, the circumference of which, according to Elisée Reclus, is not less than six hundred and fifty leagues.

Nevertheless, in looking at the map of this group, one would feel astonished that a ship, and more than all such a peculiar vessel as Floating Island, should dare to venture through this archipelago. Comprised between the seventeenth and twenty-eighth parallels of south latitude, and between the hundred and fortieth and hundred and forty-seventh meridians of west longitude, it is composed of hundreds of islands and islets—seven hundred at the least —ranging from Mata-Hiva to Pitcairn.

It is not surprising, then, that this group has received several names, among others that of the Dangerous Archipelago and the Evil Sea. Thanks to that geographical prodigality of which the Pacific Ocean has the privilege, it is also called the Low Islands, the Tuamotou Islands, which means the distant isles, the Southern Islands, the Isles of the Night, the Mysterious Islands. As to the name of Paumotu or Pamautou, which signifies the subject islands, a deputation from the archipelago assembled in 1850 at Papaete, the capital of Tahiti, protested against this designation. But although the French Government, deferring to this protest in 1852, chose among all these names that of Tuamotu, it is more convenient to speak of them here under their better-known name of Paumotu.

Dangerous as the navigation might be, the Commodore did not hesitate. He was so accustomed to these seas that every confidence was to be placed in him. He manœuvred his island as if it were a canoe. He could spin it round within its own length. He was said to treat it as if it were a sculling boat. Frascolin need have no fear for Floating Island; the capes of Paumotu would not even be grazed by its hull of steel.

In the afternoon of the 19th the look-outs at the observatory reported the first appearance of the heights of the group twelve miles away. If a few rise some fifty metres above the level of the sea, seventy-four of them rise but a yard or so, and would be under water twice a day if the tides were not almost imperceptible. The others are but atolls surrounded by breakers, coral banks of absolute aridity, mere reefs leading on to the larger islands of the archipelago.

It was on the east that Floating Island approached the group and was to reach Anaa Island, which Farakava has replaced as the capital, owing to Anaa having been partially destroyed by the terrible cyclone of 1878, in which a large number of its inhabitants perished, and which extended its ravages to the island of Kaukura.

The first island passed was Vahitahi, three miles away. The most minute precautions were taken in these parts, the most dangerous of the archipelago, on account of the currents and the extensions of the reefs towards the east. Vahitahi is but a mass of coral flanked by three wooded islands, of which that to the north is occupied by the principal village.

Next morning they sighted the island of Akiti, with its reefs carpeted with prionia, with purslane, a creeping plant of yellowish hue, and with hairy borage. It differs from the others in that it possesses no interior lagoon. If it is visible for some distance away, it is because its height is rather above that of the average of the group.

The following day another island of rather more importance, Anranu, was sighted, the lagoon of which communicates with the sea by two channels on the north-west coast.

While the Floating Islanders were content to wander indolently amidst the archipelago, which they had visited the preceding year, admiring its wonders as they passed, Pinchinat, Frascolin, Yvernès would have been glad of a few stoppages, that they might explore these islands, due to the work of polyparies, that is to say artificial, like Floating Island.

“Only,” said the Commodore, “ours has the power of movement.”

“A little too much so,” replied Pinchinat, “for it stops nowhere.”

“It will stop at the islands of Hao, Anaa, and Farakava, and you will have plenty of time to explore them.”

When asked as to the mode of formation of these islands, Ethel Simcoe answered in the terms of the theory most generally adopted; that is, that in this part of the Pacific the ocean bed has gradually sunk about thirty metres. The zoophytes, the polyps, have formed on its sunken summits a solid foundation for their coral constructions. Little by little these constructions have risen stage by stage, owing to the work of the infusorians, who cannot work at great depths. They have reached the surface, they have formed this archipelago, the islands of which can be classed as barrier reefs, fringing reefs, and atolls— the Indian name of those provided with interior lagoons. Then the fragments dashed up by the waves have formed a vegetable mould; seeds have been brought by the wind; vegetation has appeared on their coral rings; the calcareous margin is clothed with herbs and plants, and dotted with shrubs and trees under the influence of our intertropical climate.

“And who knows,” asked Yvernès in a burst of prophetic enthusiasm, “if the continent swallowed up by the waters of the Pacific will not appear again at its surface, reconstructed by these myriads of microscopic animalcules? And then on these regions, now ploughed by sailing ships and steamers, there will run at full speed express trains which will connect the old with the new world—”

“Take the handle off—take the handle off, my old Isaiah!” replied the disrespectful Pinchinat.

As the Commodore had said, Floating Island stopped on the 23rd of September off the island of Hao, which it was able to get rather near to, owing to the great depth of water. Its boats took several visitors through the passage, which on the right is sheltered by a curtain of cocoanut trees. The principal village is six miles away on the top of a hill. The village consists of from two to three hundred inhabitants, for the most part pearl fishers, employed as such by the merchants at Tahiti. There abound the pandanus and the mikimiki myrtle, which were the first trees of a soil whence now rises the sugar-cane, the pineapple, the taro, the prionia, the tobacco, and above all the cocoanut tree, of which the immense palm groves of the archipelago contain more than forty thousand.

One might say that this “tree of providence” succeeds almost without culture. Its nut serves as the customary food of the natives, being superior in nutritive substances to the fruits of the pandanus. With it they fatten their pigs, their poultry, and also their dogs, whose chops and steaks are much in demand. And then the cocoanut gives a valuable oil. When scraped, reduced to pulp, and dried in the sun, it is submitted to pressure in a very rudimentary machine. Ships take cargoes of these “copperas” to the continent, where the factories treat them in more profitable fashion.

It is not at Hao that an idea of the people of Paumotu can be gained. The natives there are not numerous, but where the quartette could observe them to advantage was in the island of Anaa, before which Floating Island arrived in the morning of the 27th of September.

Anaa shows its wooded masses of superb aspect from but a short distance. One of the largest islands of the archipelago, it is eighteen miles in length by nine in breadth, measured at its madreporic base.

We have said that in 1878 a cyclone ravaged this island and necessitated the transport of the capital of the archipelago to Farakava. That is true, although in this wonderful climate it was presumable that the devastation would be repaired in a few years. In fact, Anaa has become as flourishing as ever, and possesses fifteen hundred inhabitants. It is, however, inferior to Farakava, its rival, for a reason which is of importance; the communication between the sea and the lagoon being through a narrow channel troubled with whirlpools. At Farakava, on the contrary, the lagoon has two wide openings to the north and south. At the same time, although the principal market for cocoanut oil has been removed to Farakava, Anaa, which is more picturesque, always attracts the preference of visitors.

As soon as Floating Island had taken up its position in a favourable spot, a number of the Milliardites went ashore. Sebastien Zorn and his comrades were among the first, the violoncellist having consented to take part in the excursion.

At first they went to the village of Tuahora, after studying the way in which the island had been formed—a formation common to all the islands of this archipelago. Here the calcareous margin, the width of the ring, if you like, is from four to five metres, very steep towards the sea and sloping gently towards the lagoon, the circumference of which encloses about a hundred miles, as at Rairoa and Farakava. On this ring are massed thousands of cocoanut trees, the principal, if not the only wealth of the island, the branches of which shelter the huts of the natives.

The village of Tuahora is traversed by a sandy road of dazzling whiteness. The French resident in the archipelago no longer lives at Anaa, since it has ceased to be the capital; but his house is there protected by a small fortification. On the barracks of the little garrison, confided to the care of a sergeant of marines, floats the tricolor. The houses of Tuahora are not undeserving of praise. They are not huts, but comfortable and salubrious dwellings, sufficiently furnished, and built for the most part on coral foundations. Their roofs are of the leaves of the pandanus, the wood of this valuable tree being used for the doors and windows. Occasionally they are surrounded with kitchen gardens, which the hand of the native has filled with vegetable soil, and their appearance is really enchanting.

If these natives, with their lighter colour, their less expressive physiognomy, their less amiable character, are of a type less remarkable than those of the Marquesas, they yet offer fine specimens of the people of equatorial Oceania. Being intelligent and laborious workers, they may perhaps oppose more resistance to the physical degeneracy which menaces the Pacific Islanders.

Their principal industry, as Frascolin noticed, was the fabrication of cocoanut oil; hence the considerable quantity of cocoanut trees in the palm gardens of the archipelago. These trees reproduce themselves as easily as the coralligens at the surface of the atoll. But they have one enemy, and the Parisian excursionists discovered it one day when they were stretched on the beach of the interior lake, whose green waters contrasted with the azure of the surrounding sea.

At first their attention, and then their horror was provoked by a sound of creeping among the herbage.

What did they see? A crustacean of enormous size.

Their first movement was to jump up, their second to look at the animal.

“The ugly beast!” said Yvernès.

“It is a crab,” said Frascolin.

A crab it was, the crab called “birgo” by the natives. Its front claws form two strong pincers or shears with which it opens the nuts on which it chiefly feeds. These birgos live in a kind of cave dug deeply in among the roots, the fibres of cocoanut being heaped up to form a bed. During the night more particularly they seek about for fallen nuts, and even catch hold of the trunk and branches to shake the fruit down. The crab must have been seized with wolfish hunger, as Pinchinat said, to have left his dark retreat in broad daylight.

They let the animal alone, for the operation promised to be extremely curious. He found a large nut among the bushes, he tore off gradually the fibres with his pincers; then when the nut was bare, he attacked the hard skin, knocking it, hammering it at the same place. When he had made the opening the birgo picked out the interior substance, using his hind pincers, which are very narrow at the end.

“It is certain,” observed Yvernès, “that nature has created this birgo for opening cocoanuts.”

“And that nature created the cocoanut for feeding the birgo,” added Frascolin.

“Well, suppose we frustrate the intentions of nature by preventing this crab from eating this nut, and this nut from being eaten by this crab?” proposed Pinchinat.

“I beg you will not disturb him,” said Yvernès. “Do not even to a birgo give a bad impression of Parisians on their travels.”

They consented, and the crab, who had doubtless given an angry look at his Highness, gave a grateful glance at the first violin of the Quartette Party.

After a stay of sixty hours at Anaa, Floating Island moved off towards the north. It passed through the thicket of islets and islands, Commodore Simcoe following the channel with perfect sureness of hand. It need hardly be said that under these circumstances Milliard City was rather abandoned by its inhabitants for the shore, and especially that part of it about Prow Battery. Islands were constantly in view, or rather baskets of verdure which seemed to float on the surface of the waters. It looked like a flower market on one of the Dutch canals. Numerous canoes tacked about at the entrances to the harbours, but were not permitted to enter, the custom-house officers having received formal notice with regard to this. Numbers of native women came swimming towards the island, when it went close to the madreporic cliffs. If they did not accompany the men in the canoes, it was because their vessels are tabooed to the Paumotuan fair sex, and they are forbidden to enter them.

On the 4th of October Floating Island stopped off Farakava, at the opening of the southern passage. Before the boats were got ready to take visitors ashore the French Resident presented himself at Starboard Harbour, whence the Governor gave orders to conduct him to the town hall.

The interview was very cordial. Cyrus Bikerstaff put on his official manner—which he kept for ceremonies of this nature. The resident, an old officer of infantry of marine, was in no way behind him. Impossible to imagine anything more serious, more dignified, more proper, more wooden on both sides!

The reception over, the Resident was invited to look round Milliard City, Calistus Munbar doing the honours. As Frenchmen, the Parisians and Athanase Dorémus asked to accompany the superintendent.

Next day the Governor went to Farakava, to return the visit, and did so in the style of the day before. The quartette landed and went to the residency. It was a very simple habitation, occupied by a garrison of twelve old sailors, and from the mast was displayed the flag of France.

Although Farakava has become the capital, it cannot compare with its rival, Anaa. The principal village is not as picturesque under the verdure of the trees, and the people move about more.

Besides the manufacture of cocoanut oil, the centre of which is at Farakava, the natives are employed in pearl fishing. The mother-o’-pearl trade obliges them to frequent the neighbouring island of Toau, which is specially devoted to this industry. Bold divers, these natives do not hesitate to plunge to depths of twenty and thirty metres, accustomed as they are to support such pressures without inconvenience and to hold their breath for more than a minute.

A few of these fishermen were authorized to offer the products of their fishery, mother-o’-pearl or pearls, to the notables of Milliard City. Assuredly it was not jewels that these opulent dames were in want of. But these natural productions in their rough state were not easily procurable, and the opportunity presenting itself, the fishers were able to sell at unheard-of prices, The moment Mrs. Tankerdon bought a pearl of great price, Mrs. Coverley must have another. Fortunately there was no opportunity of outbidding one another on some one thing different to anything else, for no one knows when the bidding would have stopped. Other families took heart to imitate their friends, and that day the Farakavans had a good time.

After twelve days, on the 13th of October, the Pearl of the Pacific started early. In leaving the capital of the Paumotu it had reached the western limit of the archipelago. Commodore Simcoe had no longer to be anxious regarding such a wonderful maze of isles and islets, reefs and atolls. He had come out of it without a scratch. Beyond extended that portion of the Pacific which over a space of four degrees separates the Paumotu group from the Society Islands. It was in heading south-west that Floating Island, driven by the million horses of its engines proceeded towards the island so poetically celebrated by Bougainville, as the enchantress Tahiti.
CHAPTER XIII.

THE Society Islands, otherwise the Tahiti Archipelago are comprised between the fifteenth and seventeenth degrees of south latitude and the hundred and fiftieth and hundred and fifty-sixth west longitude. The area of the archipelago is two thousand two hundred superficial kilometres.

There are two groups; first the Windward Islands, Taiti or Tahiti Tahau, Tapamanoa, Moorea or Simeo, Tetiaroa, Meetia, which are under the protectorate of France; and secondly the Leeward Islands, Tubuai, Manu, Huahmi, Kaiateathao, Bora-Bora, Moffy-Iti, Maupiti, Mapetia, Bellinghausen, Scilly, governed by native sovereigns. Cook, their discoverer, called them the Society Islands, in honour of the Royal Society of London. Situated some two hundred and fifty marine leagues from the Marquesas, this group, according to the most recent census, contains but forty thousand inhabitants.

Coming from the north-east, Tahiti is the first of the Windward Islands to be sighted by navigators. And it was Tahiti that the look-outs of the observatory reported at a great distance, thanks to Mount Maiao or Diadem, which rises for a thousand two hundred and thirty-nine metres above the level of the sea.

The voyage was accomplished without incident. Aided by the trade winds, Floating Island crossed these admirable waters above which the sun moves as it descends towards the tropic of Capricorn. Still two months and a few days more and it would reach the tropic and return towards the equatorial line, and Floating Island would have it in its zenith during several weeks of burning heat; then the island would follow it as a dog follows his master, keeping it at the regulation distance.

It was the first time the Milliardites were to put in at Tahiti. The preceding year their voyage had begun too late; they had not gone so far to the westward, and after leaving Paumotu they had steered for the equator. Yet this archipelago of the Society Islands is the most beautiful in the Pacific. As they passed through it our Parisians would realize all that was enchanting in the moving island, free to choose its anchorages and its climate.

“Yes; but we shall see what will be the end of this absurd adventure!” was the invariable conclusion of Sebastien Zorn.

“May it never finish! That is all I ask!” exclaimed Yvernès.

Floating Island arrived in sight of Tahiti at dawn on the 17th of October. It was the north shore of the island that was seen first. During the night the lighthouse on Point Venus had been sighted. During the day they could reach Papaete, situated in the north-west, beyond the point. But the council of notables had assembled under the presidency of the governor. Like every well-balanced council it was divided into two camps. One section with Jem Tankerdon wished to go west; the other with Nat Coverley wished to go east. Cyrus Bikerstaff, having a vote when the sides were equal, decided to reach Papaete by passing round the south of the island. This decision could but satisfy the quartette, for it would allow of their admiring in all its beauty this Jewel of the Pacific, the New Cythera of Bougainville.

Tahiti possesses an area of a hundred and four thousand two hundred and fifteen hectares, about nine times that Paris. Its population, which in 1875 comprised seven thousand six hundred natives, three hundred French and eleven hundred foreigners, is now but seven thousand.

In shape it is exactly like a flask turned upside down, the body of the flask being the principal island, joined to the mouth, represented by the peninsula of Tatarapu, by the narrow isthmus of Taravao.

It was Frascolin who made this comparison in studying the large scale map of the archipelago, and his comrades thought it so good that they christened Tahiti “the Flask of the Tropics.”

Administratively, Tahiti is divided into six sections, subdivided into twenty-one districts, since the establishment of the protectorate on the 9th of September, 1842. It will be remembered what difficulties occurred between Admiral Dupetit-Thouars, Queen Pomare, and England at the instigation of that abominable trafficker in bibles and cotton goods who called himself Pritchard, and was so humorously caricatured in the Guêpes of Alphonse Karr.

But that is ancient history, quite as much fallen into oblivion as the performances of the famous Anglo-Saxon apothecary.

Floating Island could venture without danger within a mile of the shore of the Flask of the Tropics. This flask reposes on a coral base, whose foundations descend sheer down into the depths of the ocean. But before approaching so near, the Milliardites were able to contemplate its imposing mass, its mountains more generously favoured by nature than those of the Sandwich Islands, its verdant summits, its wooded gorges, its peaks rising like the pinnacles of some vast cathedral, its belt of cocoanut trees watered by the white foam of the surf on the ridge of breakers.

During the day the course lay along the western side; the sightseers, glasses in hand, gathered in the environs of Starboard Harbour, watching the thousand details of the shore. The district of Papenoo, the river of which they saw across, the wide valley from the base of the mountains, and which falls into the sea where there is a break of several miles in width; Hitiia, a safe port from which millions and millions of oranges are exported to San Francisco; Mahaeua, where the conquest of the island was completed in 1845, after a terrible battle with the natives.

In the afternoon, they had arrived off the narrow isthmus of Taravao. In rounding the peninsula the Commodore approached close enough for the fertile fields of the Tautira district, the numerous water-courses of which make it one of the richest in the archipelago, to be admired in all its splendour. Tatarapu, reposing on its plate of coral, lifts majestically the rugged cones of its extinct craters. As the sun sinks on the horizon, the summits grow purple for the last time, and the colours fade into the hot transparent mist. Soon it is no more than a confused mass from which the evening breeze arises laden with the fragrance of oranges and lemons, and after a short twilight the darkness is profound.

Floating Island then rounded the extreme south-east point of the peninsula, and next morning at daybreak was moving up the western side of the island.

The district of Taravao, much cultivated, and thickly populated, displayed its fine roads among the orange woods which link it to the district of Papeiri. At the highest point is a fort, commanding both sides of the isthmus, defended by a few cannon, whose muzzles project from the embrasures like gargoyles of bronze. Below is Port Phaeton.

“Why has the name of that presumptuous driver of the solar chariot lighted on this isthmus?” asked Yvernès.

The day was spent in coasting at slow speed along the more varied contours of the coralline substructure which distinguishes the west of Tahiti. New districts rose into view—Papeiri with its marshy plains, Mataiea with its excellent harbour of Papeiriri, then a wide valley watered by the river Vaihiria, and at the head this mountain of five hundred metres, as a sort of washstand supporting a basin half a kilometre in circumference. This ancient crater, doubtless full of fresh water, did not appear to have any communication with the sea.

After the district of Ahauraono, devoted to vast cotton fields, after the district of Papara, which is principally given over to agriculture, Floating Island, beyond Point Mara, opened the wide valley of Paruvia, cut off from the Diadem, and watered by the Punarnu. Beyond Tapuna, Cape Tatao and the mouth of the Faa, the Commodore headed slightly to the north-east, cleverly avoiding the islet of Motu-Uta, and at six o’clock in the evening stopped before the gap giving access to the Bay of Papaete.

At the entrance lay in capricious windings through the coral reef the channel buoyed with obsolete guns up to Point Fareute. Ethel Simcoe, thanks to his charts, had no need for the services of the pilots who cruise in whale-boats off the entrance of the channel. A boat, however, came out, with a yellow flag at its stern. This was the quarantine boat, bound for Starboard Harbour. People are strict at Tahiti, and no one can land before the health officer accompanied by the harbour master has given free pratique.

Landing at Starboard Harbour, the doctor put himself in communication with the authorities. It was only mere formality. Sick there were none, either in Milliard City or its environs. In any case epidemic maladies, cholera, influenza, yellow fever, were absolutely unknown. A clear bill of health was given according to custom. But as the night was rapidly closing in, landing was postponed until the morning, and Floating Island slept until daybreak.

At dawn there were reports of cannon. It was Prow Battery saluting with twenty-one guns the group of the Windward Islands and Tahiti the capital of the French Protectorate. At the same time, on the observatory tower, the red flag with the golden sun rose and fell three times.

Immediately an identical salvo was given by the Ambuscade Battery at the head of the main passage into Tahiti.

Starboard Harbour was crowded from the earliest hour. The trams had brought a considerable crowd of tourists, on their way to the capital of the archipelago. Doubt not that Sebastien Zorn and his friends were as impatient as any. As the boats were not numerous enough to take all this crowd, the natives were busy offering their services to cross the six cables’ length which separated Starboard Harbour from the port.

At the same time it was necessary for the Governor to be the first to land. He must have the customary interview with the civil and military authorities of Tahiti, and pay the no less official visit to the Queen.

Consequently about nine o’clock Cyrus Bikerstaff and his assistants, Barthélemy Ruge, and Hubley Harcourt, all in full uniform, the chief notables of both sections, among others Nat Coverley and Jem Tankerdon, Commodore Simcoe and his officers in brilliant uniforms, Colonel Stewart and his escort, took their places in the boats and were rowed towards Papaete.

Sebastien Zorn, Frascolin, Yvernès, Pinchinat, Athanase Dorémus, and Calistus Munbar occupied another boat with a certain number of functionaries.

Canoes and native boats formed in procession behind the official world of Milliard City, worthily represented by its Governor, its authorities, its notables, of whom the two chief were rich enough to buy Tahiti right out, and even the Society Islands, including their sovereign.

This harbour of Papaete is an excellent one, and of such depth that ships of heavy tonnage can anchor there. There are three channels into it: the main channel on the north, seventy metres wide and eighty long, narrowed by a small bank marked with buoys, the Tanoa channel on the east, and Tapuna channel on the west.

The electric launches majestically skirted the beach dotted with villas and country houses, and the quays at which the vessels were moored. The landing took place at the foot of an elegant fountain which serves as a watering-place and is fed by the streams from the neighbouring mountains, on one of which is a semaphore.

Cyrus Bikerstaff and his suite landed amid a large crowd of the French, native and foreign population, who welcomed the Pearl of the Pacific as the most extraordinary of the marvels made by the genius of man. After the first outbursts of enthusiasm the procession moved towards the palace of the Governor of Tahiti.

Calistus Munbar, superb in his state costume, which he only wore on ceremony days, invited the quartette to follow him, and they were only too happy to accept the superintendent’s invitation.

The French protectorate not only embraces the island of Tahiti and the island of Moorea, but also the neighbouring group. The chief is a commandant-commissioner, having under his orders an “ordonnateur” who manages the troops, the shipping, the colonial and local finances and the judicial administration. The general secretary of the commissioner has charge of the civil affairs of the country. Several Residents are located in the islands, at Moorea, at Farakava in the Paumotus, at Taio-Hahè, at Nuka-Hiva, and a justice of the peace, whose jurisdiction extends over the Marquesas. Since 1861 there has been a consultative committee for agriculture and trade, which sits once a year at Papaete. There also are the headquarters of the artillery and the engineers. The garrison comprises detachments of colonial gendarmerie, artillery, and marine infantry. A curé and a vicar appointed by the government, and nine missionaries scattered among the islands, assure the practice of the Catholic religion. In truth the Parisians might believe themselves in France, in a French port, and there was nothing displeasing to them in that.

As to the villages on the different islands, they are administered by a sort of native municipal council presided over by a tarana, assisted by a judge, a chief mutoi, and two councillors elected by the inhabitants.,

Under the shade of beautiful trees the procession marched towards the palace of the government. On every side were cocoanut trees of superb growth, miros with rosy foliage, bancoulias, clumps of orange trees, guava trees, caoutchoucs, etc. The palace stood amid this charming verdure, which rose as high as its roof, which was decorated with charming mansardes; its front was of considerable elegance and embraced a ground floor and one storey. The principal French functionaries were here assembled, and the colonial gendarmerie formed a guard of honour.

The commandant-commissioner received Cyrus Bikerstaff with a graciousness that he certainly would not have met with in the English archipelagoes of these parts. He thanked him for having brought Floating Island into the waters of this archipelago. He hoped that the visit would be renewed every year, regretting that Tahiti could not return the compliment. The interview lasted half an hour, and it was agreed that Cyrus Bikerstaff might expect the authorities next day at the town hall.

“Do you intend to remain some time at Papaete?” asked the commandant-commissioner.

“A fortnight,” replied the Governor.

“Then you will have the pleasure of seeing the French naval division which is expected here at the end of the week.”

“We shall be happy to do them the honours of our island.”

Cyrus Bikerstaff presented the members of his suite, his assistants, Commodore Ethel Simcoe, the commandant of the militia, the different functionaries, the superintendent of fine arts, and the artistes of the Quartette Party, who were welcomed as they ought to be by a compatriot.

Then there was a slight embarrassment with regard to the delegates of the sections of Milliard City. How was he to avoid giving offence to Jem Tankerdon and Nat Coverley, those two irritable personages who had the right—

“To march both at once,” said Pinchinat.

The difficulty was evaded by the commandant-commissioner himself. Knowing the rivalry between the two famous millionaires, he was of such perfect tact, so rigid in his official correctness, and acted with such diplomatic address, that the matter passed over as if it had been all arranged.

It is needless to say that Sebastien Zorn, Yvernès, Pinchinat, and Frascolin had intended to leave Athanase Dorémus, who was already out of breath, to get back to his house in Twenty-Fifth Avenue. They hoped to spend as much time as possible at Papaete, in visiting the environs, making excursions into the principal districts, even as far as the peninsula of Tatarapu, even to exhaust to the last drop this Flask of the Pacific.

Having decided on this, they informed Calistus Munbar, who could but approve of the plan.

“But,” he said, “you had better wait a couple of days before starting on your journey.”

“And why not to-day?” asked the impatient Yvernès.

“Because the authorities of Floating Island wish to pay their respects to the Queen, and you will have to be presented to her and her court.”

“And to-morrow?” said Frascolin.

“To-morrow the commandant-commissioner of the archipelago is to return the visit he has received from the authorities of Floating Island, and it is the proper thing—”

“For us to be there,” replied Pinchinat. “Well, Mr. Superintendent, we shall be there, we shall be there.”

Leaving the palace of the Government, Cyrus Bikerstaff and his procession directed their steps to the palace of her Majesty. It was a simple promenade under the trees, which did not take more than a quarter of an hour.

The royal dwelling is very agreeably situated amid masses of verdure. It is a quadrilateral in two storeys, with a chalet-like roof overhanging two tiers of verandahs. From the upper windows the view embraces the large plantations which extend up to the town, and beyond is a large section of sea. In short a charming house, not luxurious, but comfortable.

The Queen had lost nothing of her prestige in passing under the rule of a French protectorate. If the flag of France is displayed from the masts of the vessels moored in the port of Papaete or anchored in the roadstead, on the civil and military edifices of the city, at least the standard of the sovereign displays over her palace the ancient colours of the archipelago—red and white stripes, horizontal, with a tricolour in the upper canton.

It was in 1706 that Quiros discovered the island of Tahiti, to which he gave the name of Sagittaria. After him Walter in 1767, Bougainville in 1768, completed the exploration of the group. At the time of the first discovery Queen Oberea was reigning, and after her death the celebrated dynasty of the Pomares appeared in the history of Oceania.

Pomare I. (1762-1780) having reigned under the name of Otoo, the Black Heron, changed it for that of Pomare.

Her son, Pomare II. (1780-1819), favourably welcomed in 1797 the first English missionaries, who converted him to the Christian religion ten years afterwards. This was a period of dissensions and internecine war, and the population of the archipelago gradually decreased from a hundred thousand to sixteen thousand.

Pomare III., son of the preceding, reigned from 1819 to 1827, and his sister Aimata, born in 1812, became Queen of Tahiti and the neighbouring islands. Having no children by Tapoa, her first husband, she repudiated him to marry Ariifaaite. From this union there was born in 1849 Arione, the heir presumptive, who died at the age of thirty-five. From the following year afterwards the Queen presented four children to her husband, who was the finest man in the islands—a daughter, Teriimaevarua, princess of the island of Bora-Bora since 1860; Prince Tamatoa, born in 1842, King of the island of Raiatea, who was overthrown by his subjects revolting against his brutality; Prince Teriitapunui, born in 1846, afflicted with lameness, and Prince Tuavira, born in 1848, who finished his education in France.

The reign of Queen Pomare was not absolutely peaceful. In 1835 the Catholic missionaries began a struggle with the Protestant missionaries. Being sent out of the country, they were brought back by a French expedition in 1838. Four years afterwards the protectorate of France was accepted by the five chiefs of the island. Pomare protested, the English protested. Admiral Dupetit-Thouars proclaimed the deposition of the Queen in 1843. But the admiral having been disavowed to a certain extent, Admiral Bruat was sent to bring the matter to a conclusion.

Tahiti submitted in 1846, and Pomare accepted the protectorate by the treaty of June 19th, 1847, receiving the sovereignty of the islands of Raiatea, Huahine and Bora-Bora. There were further troubles in 1852; an outbreak overthrew the Queen, and a republic was even proclaimed. At last the French Government reinstated the sovereign, who abandoned three of her crowns; in favour of her eldest son that of Raiatea and Tahaa, in favour of her second son that of Huahine, and in favour of her daughter that of Bora-Bora.

In these days it is one of her descendants, Pomare IV., who occupies the throne of the archipelago.

The complaisant Frascolin continued to justify his title of the Larousse of the Pacific which Pinchinat had given him. These historical and biographical details he gave to his comrades, declaring that it was always better to know the people among whom they went and to whom they spoke. Yvernès and Pinchinat replied that he was right in instructing them as to the genealogy of the Pomares, and Sebastien Zorn observed that it was a matter of indifference to him.

The sensitive Yvernès became entirely steeped in the charm of this poetic Tahitian nature. To his memory returned the enchanting narratives of the voyages of Bougainville and Dumont-D’Urville. He did not hide his emotion at the thought that he was to find himself in the presence of this sovereign of New Cythera, of a real Queen Pomare, whose name—

“Signifies ‘ right of coughing’ ” said Frascolin.

“Good!” exclaimed Pinchinat, “as if you were to say the goddess of catarrh, the empress of coryza! Beware, Yvernès, and don’t forget your handkerchief.”

Yvernès was furious at this unseasonable attempt at wit, but the others laughed so heartily that he finished by joining in with them.

The reception of the Governor of Floating Island, his assistants, and the delegation of the notables took place in great state. The honours were rendered by the mutoi, the chief of the gendarmerie, with whom were some of the native auxiliaries.

Queen Pomare IV. was about forty years of age. She wore, like her family who surrounded her, a ceremonial costume of pale rose, the colour preferred by the Tahitian populace. She received the compliments of Cyrus Bikerstaff with an affable dignity, if such an expression is permissible, which would not have disgraced a European monarch. She replied graciously and in very correct French, for our language is current in the Society Archipelago. She had besides a very great wish to see this Floating Island, of which there had been so much talking in the Pacific, and hoped that its stay would not be the last. Jem Tankerdon was the object of particular attention —much to the disgust of Nat Coverley. This was because the royal family are of the Protestant religion, and Jem Tankerdon was the most notable personage of the Protestant section of Milliard City.

The Quartette Party were not forgotten in the presentations. The Queen deigned to inform its members that she would be charmed to hear them and applaud them. They bowed respectfully, affirming that they were at her Majesty’s command, and the superintendent would arrange for the Queen to be gratified.

After the audience, which lasted for half an hour, the honours given to the procession as it entered the royal palace were repeated as it retired.

The visitors returned to Papaete. A halt was made at the military club, where the officers had prepared a luncheon in honour of the Governor and his companions. The champagne flowed, toasts succeeded, and it was six o’clock when the launches left the Papaete quays for Starboard Harbour.

In the evening, when the Parisian artistes found themselves in the casino, —

“We have a concert in view,” said Frascolin. “What shall we play to her Majesty? Will she understand Mozart or Beethoven?”

“We will play Offenbach, Varney, Lecoq, or Audran!” replied Sebastien Zorn.

“Not at all! The bamboula is plainly suggested!” said Pinchinat, indulging in the characteristic hip motions of this negro dance.
CHAPTER XIV.

The island of Tahiti was destined to become a stopping place for Floating Island. Every year, before pursuing its route towards the tropic of Capricorn, its inhabitants would sojourn in the neighbourhood of Papaete. Received with sympathy by the French authorities as well as by the natives, they showed their gratitude by opening wide their gates, or rather their ports. Soldiers and civilians crowded on to the island, exploring the country, the park, the avenues, and probably no incident would happen to alter this satisfactory state of affairs. At the departure, it is true, the Governor’s police would have to assure themselves that the population had not been fraudulently increased by the intrusion of a few Tahitians, not authorized to take up their abode on his floating domain.

It followed, that by reciprocity, every latitude was given to the Milliardites to visit the islands of the group, when Commodore Simcoe called at one or the other of them.

In view of the stay here, a few rich families had rented villas in the environs of Papaete, and secured them in advance by telegraph. They intended to take up their quarters there, as the Parisians do in the neighbourhood of Paris, with their servants and horses, so as to live the life of large landowners, as tourists, excursionists, sportsmen even although they had little taste for sport. In short, they would have a little country life without having anything to fear from the salubrious climate, the temperature of which ranges between thirty and forty degrees centigrade between April and December the other months of the year constituting the winter in the southern hemisphere.

Among the notables who left their mansions on the island for their country houses ashore were the Tankerdons and the Coverleys. Mr. and Mrs. Tankerdon, their sons and their daughters, departed next day for a picturesque chalet on the heights of Tatao Point. Mr. and Mrs. Coverley, Miss Diana and her sisters left their palace in Fifteenth Avenue for a delightful villa, hidden beneath the big trees of Venus Point. Between these habitations there was a distance of several miles, which Walter Tankerdon perhaps thought a little too long. But it was not in his power to bring these two points of the Tahitian coast any nearer. Besides, there were carriage roads, conveniently arranged to place them in direct communication with Papaete.

Frascolin remarked to Calistus Munbar that if they started in the morning, the two families could not be present at the visit of the commandant to the Governor.

“Well, so much the better!”  replied the superintendent, his eyes brightening with diplomatic acuteness. “That will avoid any conflict between them. If the representative of France paid his first visit to the Coverleys, what would the Tankerdons say, and if he went to the Tankerdons, what would the Coverleys say? Cyrus Bikerstaff must be glad of their departure.”

“Is there no reason for hoping that the rivalry of these families will end?” asked Frascolin.

“Who knows?” replied Calistus Munbar.

“It may perhaps depend on the amiable Walter and the charming Diana.”

“Up to the present, however,” observed Yvernès, “it does not seem that this heir and this heiress—”

“Good! good!” replied the superintendent. “It wants an opportunity, and if chance does not bring it about, we may have to take the place of chance—for the good of our beloved island.”

And Calistus Munbar performed a pirouette on his heels, which would have been applauded by Athanase Dorémus, and would not have been disavowed by a marquis in the days of Louis Quatorze.

In the afternoon of the 20th of October, the commander and his staff landed at Starboard Harbour. They were received by the Governor with the honours due to their rank. There was a salute from both batteries. Cars decorated with the French and Milliardite colours took the procession to the capital, where the rooms at the town hall were prepared for this interview. On the road there was a flattering reception from the population, and before the steps of the municipal palace an exchange of official speeches of regulation length.

Then came a visit to the temple, the cathedral, the observatory, the two electric works, the two harbours, the park, and finally a circular trip on the trams round the coast. On the return a luncheon was served in the grand hall of the casino. It was six o’clock when the commandant and his staff embarked for Papaete amid the thunders of the artillery of Standard Island, taking away with him a pleasing remembrance of this reception.

The next morning, the 21st of October, the four Parisians landed at Papaete. They had invited no one to accompany them, not even the professor of deportment, whose legs were not suited for lengthy peregrinations. They were free as the air—like schoolboys on a holiday, happy to have under foot a real soil of rocks and vegetable mould.

In the first place they must visit Papaete. The capital of the archipelago is incontestably a pretty town. The quartette took a real pleasure in wandering about under the lovely trees which shaded the houses on the beach, and the offices and trading establishments near the harbour. Then passing up one of the streets abutting on the quay, where a railway on the American system was working, our artistes ventured into the interior of the city.

There the streets are wide, as well planned with rule and square as the avenues of Milliard City, among gardens of verdure and freshness. Even at this early hour there was a constant passing and re-passing of Europeans and natives, and this animation, which would be greater after eight o’clock in the evening, would last all through the night. You understand that the tropical nights, and particularly Tahitian nights, are not made to spend in bed, although the beds of Papaete are composed of a network of cocoa fibre, a palliasse of banana leaves, and a mattress of tufts of the silk cotton tree, to say nothing of the net protecting the sleeper against the irritating attacks of mosquitoes.

As to the houses, it is easy to distinguish those which are European from those which are Tahitian. The former, built almost entirely of wood, are raised a few feet on blocks of masonry, and leave nothing to be desired in the way of comfort, The latter, of which there are not many in the town, scattered here and there under the shade of the trees, are made of jointed bamboos covered with matting, which renders them clean, airy and agreeable.

But the natives?

“The natives!” said Frascolin to his comrades. “There are no more here than at the Sandwich Islands; we shall not find those gallant savages, who, before the conquest, dined on a human cutlet, and reserved for their sovereign the eyes of a vanquished warrior roasted according to the recipe of Tahitian cookery!”

“Ah, is that it?” asked Pinchinat. “Then there are no more cannibals in Oceania. What! we shall have voyaged thousands of miles without meeting one of them!”

“Patience!” remarked the violoncellist, beating the air with his right hand like Rodin in the Mysteries of Paris; “we may find one, if it is only to gratify your foolish curiosity.”

The Tahitians are of Malay origin, very probably, and of the race known as Maori. Raiatea, the Holy Island, was the cradle of their Kings—a charming cradle washed by the limpid waters of the Pacific in the Windward group.

Before the arrival of the missionaries, Tahitian society comprised three classes: those of the princes, privileged persons who were recognized as possessing the gift of performing miracles; chiefs, or owners of the soil, of little consideration, and reduced to servitude by the princes; the common people, possessing nothing, or when they did possess it, having nothing beyond a life interest in the land.

All this has been changed since the conquest, and even before, under the influence of the English and Catholic missionaries. But that which has not changed is the intelligence of the natives, their lively speech, their cheerful disposition, their unfailing courage, their physical beauty. The Parisians could not help admiring this in the town and in the country.

“What fine men!” said one.

“And what fine girls!”  said another.

Men of a stature above the average, their skin copper-coloured as if impregnated with the ardour of their blood, their proportions as admirable as those of antique statues, their faces gentle and prepossessing. These Maories are truly superb, with their large bright eyes, their rather thick but well-cut lips. Their tattooing for war purposes is disappearing with the occasions which formerly rendered it necessary.

The more wealthy natives clothe themselves in European fashion, and yet they look well with shirts cut to the figure, vest of pale rose stuff, trousers falling over the boots. But these did not attract the attention of the quartette. No! To the trousers of modern cut, our tourists preferred the pareo of cotton, coloured and striped, draped from the belt to the ankle, and in place of the high hat, and even the Panama hat, the headdress common to both sexes, the hei, composed of leaves and flowers.

The women are still the poetic and graceful Otaheitans of Bougainville. The white petals of the tiara, a sort of gardenia, mingle with the black mats unrolled on their shoulders their heads covered with the light hat made of the epidermis of a cocoanut, but of which the sweet name of revareva “seems to come from reverie,” as Yvernès said. Add to the charm of this costume, with its colours like those of a kaleidoscope modifying at every movement, the gracefulness of the walk, the freedom of the attitudes, the sweetness of the smile, the penetration of the look, the harmonious sonorousness of the voice, and you will understand why, as soon as one of our artistes exclaimed, “What fine men!” the others should have answered in chorus, —

“And what fine girls!”

When the Creator had fashioned such marvels of beauty, would it have been possible for Him not to have given them a frame worthy of them? And what could be imagined more delightful than the Tahitian landscapes, in which the vegetation is so luxuriant under the influence of the running streams and abundant dews of the night?

During their excursions across this island, and in the neighbourhood of Papaete, the four Parisians did not cease to admire this world of vegetable wonders. Leaving the borders of the sea, which are more suited to cultivation, where the forests are replaced by plantations of lemon trees, orange trees, arrowroot, sugar-cane, coffee-plants, cotton trees, fields of yams, manioc, indigo, sorghum, and tobacco, they ventured under the masses of trees in the interior up to the foot of the mountains, whose summits rose above the dome of foliage. Everywhere were elegant cocoanut trees of magnificent growth, miros or rosewood trees, casuarinas or ironwood trees, tiairi or bancoulias, puraus, tamanas, ahis or santals, guava trees, mango trees, taccas, whose roots are edible, and also the superb taro, the precious breadfruit tree, high in the stem, slender and white, with large brownish-green leaves, amid which are groups of large fruits, with chiselled bark, and of which the white pulp forms the principal food of the natives.

The tree which with the cocoanut is the commonest is the guava tree, which grows all the way up the mountains, and whose name in the Tahitian tongue is tuava. It grows in thick forests, while the puraus form gloomy thickets, difficult to get through, when you are imprudent enough to venture among them.

There were no dangerous animals. The only native quadruped is a sort of pig. As to the horses and cattle, they have been imported into the island, where they prosper like the sheep and goats. The fauna is much less rich than the flora, even with the birds included. There are pigeons and swallows as at the Sandwich Islands. There are no reptiles. There are centipedes and scorpions. And for insects there are wasps and mosquitoes.

The products of Tahiti are mainly cotton and sugarcane, the cultivation of which is largely developed, to the detriment of tobacco and coffee; besides these there are cocoanut oil, arrowroot, oranges, nacre and pearls. This is, however, enough for an important trade with America, Australia, and New Zealand, with China in Asia, with France and England in Europe, to a value of three million two hundred thousand francs of imports, counterbalanced by four millions and a half of exports.

The excursions of the quartette extended to the peninsula of Tabaratu. A visit to Fort Phaeton introduced them to a detachment of marine infantry, who were delighted to welcome their compatriots.

At an inn near the harbour, kept by a colonist, Frascolin stood treat. To the natives of the neighbourhood, to the mutoi of the district, there were glasses round of French wine, which the innkeeper did not forget to charge for. In return the locals offered their entertainers some of the products of the country, such as the preparation from a species of banana known as fei, of beautiful yellow colour, yams prepared in a succulent fashion, maiore, which is the breadfruit cooked to bursting in a hole full of hot stones, and finally a confection sourish in flavour, made from grated cocoa nut, and which, under the name of taiero, is kept in bamboo twigs.

This luncheon was very jolly. The party smoked many hundreds of cigarettes made of tobacco leaf dried at the fire, and rolled within a pandanus leaf. Only, instead of imitating the Tahitian men and women, who pass them from mouth to mouth after taking a few whiffs, the Frenchmen preferred to smoke them in French fashion. And when the mutoi offered his, Pinchinat thanked him with a “mea maitai,” that is to say ”very well,” with such a grotesque intonation that it put the whole crowd into good humour.

In the course of their excursions it need not be said that the quartette returned every evening to Papaete or to Floating Island. Everywhere, in the villages, in the scattered habitations, among the colonies, among the natives, they were received with as much sympathy as comfort.

On the 7th of November they decided to visit Point Venus, an excursion undertaken by every tourist worthy of the name.

They started at dawn, crossing the river Fantalina by the bridge. They ascended the valley up to the noisy cascade, double that of Niagara in height, but much narrower, which falls with superb uproar from a height of 200 feet. In this way they arrived, by following the road along the flank of Paharahi Hill, on the edge of the sea, at the hillock to which Captain Cook gave the name of Tree Cape—a name justified at that time by the presence of an isolated tree, since dead of old age. An avenue planted with magnificent trees led them from the village of Paharahi to the lighthouse at the extreme end of the island.

It was in this place, half-way up a verdant hill, that the Coverley family had fixed their residence. There was no apparent reason for Walter Tankerdon, whose villa was on the other side of Papaete, to be in the neighbourhood of Point Venus. The young man was, however, on horseback, close to the cottage of the Coverleys, and he exchanged a salute with the quartette, and asked them if they intended to return to Papaete that evening.

“No, Mr. Tankerdon,” replied Frascolin. “We have received an invitation from Mrs. Coverley, and it is probable that we shall spend the evening at the villa.”

“Then, gentlemen, I bid you good-bye,” said Walter Tankerdon.”

And it seemed as if the young man’s face darkened as if a cloud had for a moment veiled the sun.

He then spurred his horse and went off at a gentle trot, giving a glance at the villa, which stood out white among the trees.

“Eh!”  said Pinchinat. “Perhaps he would like to have accompanied us, this charming cavalier?”

“Yes,” added Frascolin, “and it is evident that our friend Munbar may be right. He did not seem happy at not being able to meet Miss Coverley.”

“That proves that millions do not bring happiness,” replied Yvernès, like a great philosopher.

During the afternoon and evening a delightful time was spent with the Coverleys. At the villa the quartette met with as warm a welcome as at the house in the Fifteenth Avenue. A sympathetic meeting in which art was agreeably mingled. The music was excellent—at the piano, be it understood. Mrs. Coverley played a few new pieces, Miss Coverley sang like a true artiste, and Yvernès, who had a fine voice, mingled his tenor with her soprano.

We do not know why—perhaps designedly—Pinchinat slipped into the conversation that he and his comrades had met Walter Tankerdon in the neighbourhood of the villa. Was this clever on his part, or had he done better to have been silent? No, and if the superintendent had been there he could not but have approved of his Highness. A slight smile, almost imperceptible, flitted across Miss Coverley’s lips, her beautiful eyes sparkled, and it seemed when she sang again as though her voice had become more penetrating.

Mrs. Coverley looked at her for a moment, and was content to say, while Mr. Coverley frowned:

“You are not tired, my child?”

“No, mother.”

“And you, Monsieur Yvernès?”

“Not the least in the world, madam. Before my birth I ought to have been a chorister boy in one of the chapels of Paradise.”

The evening came to an end, and it was nearly midnight when Mr. Coverley thought the time had come to retire to rest.

Next morning the quartette, enchanted at their simple and cordial reception, went back again down the road to Papaete.

The stay at Tahiti could not last longer than a week; according to the programme which had been laid down in advance, Floating Island would then resume its route to the south-west. And without doubt there would have been nothing to distinguish this last week, during which the quartette completed their excursions, if a very pleasant incident had not happened on the 11th of November. The division of the French squadron of the Pacific was signalled in the morning by the semaphore on the hill behind Papaete.

At eleven o’clock a cruiser of the first class, the Paris, escorted by two cruisers of the second class and a gunboat, dropped anchor in the roadstead.

The regulation salutes were exchanged, and the rear-admiral, whose flag was flying on the Paris, landed with his officers.

After the official salutes, in which the Floating Island batteries took part, the rear-admiral and the commandant of the Society Islands returned each other’s visits.

It was fortunate for the ships of the divisions, their officers and crews, to have arrived in the roadstead of Tahiti while Floating Island was there. Here were new opportunities for receptions and festivities. The Pearl of the Pacific was open to the French sailors, who crowded to admire its wonders. For two days the uniforms of our navy mingled with the Milliardite costumes. Cyrus Bikerstaff did the honours at the observatory, the superintendent did the honours at the casino and the other establishments under his superintendence.

It was under these circumstances that an idea occurred to that astonishing Calistus Munbar, a genial idea, the realization of which would never be forgotten, and this idea he communicated to the Governor, who adopted it at the advice of his council of notables.

Yes! A grand festival was decreed for the 15th of November. Its programme included a set dinner and a ball given in the rooms of the town hall.

By this time all the Milliardites would have returned to the island, for the departure would take place two days afterwards.

The high personages of both sections would not fail to be present at this festival in honour of Queen Pomare IV., the Tahitians, native or European, and the French squadron.

Calistus Munbar was entrusted with the management of the festival, and his imagination and zeal could be relied on. The quartette offered their services, and it was agreed that a concert should figure among the most attractive features of the programme.

As far as the invitations were concerned, the Governor undertook to send them out.

In the first place Cyrus Bikerstaff went in person to Queen Pomare and the princes of her court to assist at the festivities, and the Queen deigned to reply by accepting the invitation. There were similar thanks on the part of the commandant and the chief French functionaries, and of the rear-admiral and his officers, who showed themselves deeply sensible of the kindness.

In short a thousand invitations were issued. It must be understood that the thousand guests could not sit down at the municipal table. No! Only a hundred: the royal personages, the officers of the squadron, the authorities of the protectorate, the chief functionaries and council of notables and superior clergy of Floating Island. But there would be in the park, refreshments, games, and fireworks, with which to satisfy the populace.

The King and Queen of Malecarlie were not forgotten, that need scarcely be said. But their Majesties, averse to all pomp, living retired in their modest habitation in the Thirty-Second Avenue, thanked the Governor for an invitation they regretted to be unable to accept.

“Poor sovereigns!” said Yvernès.

The great day arrived, and the island was decked with the French and Tahitian colours mingled with the Milliardite colours.

Queen Pomare and her court, in gala costume, were received at Starboard Harbour amid a salute from the island’s artillery, replied to by the guns of Papaete and the guns of the fleet.

About six o’clock in the evening, after a promenade in the park, all the great ones went to the municipal palace, which was superbly decorated. What a splendid sight was the monumental staircase, every step of which cost at least ten thousand francs, like that at Vanderbilt’s house in New York! And in the splendid dining-hall the guests sat down at the tables.

The code of precedence was observed by the Governor with perfect tact. There was no reason for conflict between the great rival families of the two sections. Everyone was contented with the places reserved for them, among others Miss Coverley, who found herself opposite Walter Tankerdon. That was as much as the young people could expect, for they could not be brought much nearer.

There is no need to say that the French artistes had nothing to complain of. They were placed at the table of honour, a new proof of esteem and sympathy for their talent and for themselves.

As to the bill of fare of this memorable repast, studied, meditated, and composed by the superintendent, it proved that even from the culinary point of view Milliard City had nothing to fear from old Europe.

Here is this bill of fare, as printed in gold on vellum by Calistus Munbar: —

Le potage à la d’Orléans ,

La crême comtesse,

Le turbot à la Mornay,

Le filet de bœuf à la Napolitaine,

Les quenelles de volaille à la Viennoise,

Les mousses de foie gras à la Trévise.

Sorbets.

Les cailles rôties sur canapé,

La salade provençale,

Les petits pois à l’anglaise,

Bombe, macédoine , fruits,

Gâteaux variés ,

Grissins au parmesan.

Vins:

Château d’Yquem. —Château-Margaux.

Chambertin.—Champagne.

Liqueurs variées .

At the table of the Queen of England, of the Emperor of Russia, of the German Emperor, or the President of the French Republic, was there ever any better combination for an official dinner, and could the most famous cooks of both continents have produced a better one?

At nine o’clock the guests went to the casino for the concert. The programme contained four items: —

Fifth quartette in A major: Op. 18, Beethoven.

Second quartette in D minor: Op. 10, Mozart.

Second quartette in D major: Op. 64 (2nd part), Haydn.

Twelfth quartette in E flat. Onslow.

This concert was a fresh triumph for the Parisian executants so fortunately embarked—no matter what the recalcitrant violoncellist might say—on Floating Island.

Meanwhile Europeans and strangers took part in the different games in the park. Open-air dances were organized on the lawns, and—why should we not admit it?— there was dancing to the music of accordions, which are instruments much in vogue among the natives of the Society Islands. French sailors have a weakness for this pneumatic apparatus, and as the men on leave from the Paris and other ships of the squadron had landed in great numbers, accordions became the rage. Voices joined in, and ship songs responded to the “himerre,” which are the popular and favourite airs of the Oceanic peoples.

Besides, the natives of Tahiti, men and women, have a decided taste for singing and dancing in which they excel. On this occasion they many times repeated the figures of the “repanipa,” which may be considered a national dance, of which the measure is marked by beating the tambourine. Thus dancers of all kinds, natives and foreigners, enjoyed themselves immensely, thanks to the stimulus of refreshments of all kinds provided by the municipality.

At the same time there were dances of more select arrangement and composition, at which, under the direction of Athanase Dorémus, the families gathered in the saloons of the town hall. The Milliardite and the Tahitian ladies tried to surpass each other in their dresses, but we need not be surprised at the former, who were faithful customers of the Parisian dressmakers, easily eclipsing even the most elegant Europeans of the colony. The diamonds rippled on their heads, their shoulders, their necks, and it was amongst them only that the contest was of any interest. But who would dare say if Mrs. Coverley or Mrs. Tankerdon were the more dazzling? Certainly not Cyrus Bickerstaff, always so careful to preserve a perfect equilibrium between the two sections of the island.

In the quadrille of honour there figured the sovereign of Tahiti and her august spouse, Cyrus Bikerstaff and Mrs. Coverley, the rear-admiral and Mrs. Tankerdon, the commodore and the first lady of honour to the Queen. At the same time other quadrilles were formed, in which the couples took part according to their tastes and sympathies. All this was charming, and yet Sebastien Zorn kept himself apart in an attitude, if not of protest, at least of disdain, like the two snarling Romans in the famous picture of the Décadence . But Yvernès, Pinchinat, Frascolin waltzed and danced polkas and mazurkas with the prettiest Tahitians and the most delightful young ladies of Floating Island. And who knows if, this evening, a few weddings were not decided as a finish to the ball—which would doubtless give a little more work to the civil officials?

Besides, what was the general surprise when chance made Walter Tankerdon Miss Coverley’s cavalier in a quadrille? Was it chance, or had not that astute diplomatist, the superintendent, managed to assist it in some way? In any case it was the event of the evening, great perhaps in its consequences, if it marked a first step towards the reconciliation of these two powerful families.

After the fireworks on the large lawn, dancing was resumed in the park and at the town hall, and continued until daylight.

Such was the memorable festival, of which the remembrance would be perpetuated through the long and happy series of ages that the future—it was hoped—had in store for Floating Island.

Two days afterwards the stay terminated and Commodore Simcoe gave orders to get under way at dawn. The roar of cannon saluted the departure of the island as it had saluted its arrival, and it returned the salutes gun for gun from both Tahiti and the naval division.

The direction was north-west, so as to pass in review the other isles of the archipelago. Thus it coasted along the picturesque outline of Moorea, bristling with superb peaks; Raiatea, the Holy Island, the cradle of the native royalty; Bora-Bora, dominated by a mountain a thousand metres high; then the islets of Motu-Iti, Mapeta, Tubuai, Manu, the heads of the Tahitian chain stretched across these regions.

On the 19th of November, as the sun descended towards the horizon, the last summits of the archipelago disappeared.

Floating Island then steered south-west, as shown by the charts displayed on the windows of the casino.

And who at this moment would notice Captain Sarol, as, with a gloomy look in his eye and a fierce expression on his face, with a menacing hand he showed his Malays the route to the New Hebrides, situated twelve hundred leagues to the westward?
END OF THE FIRST PART.