Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 5.djvu/400

368 the north and not in the south, as, in its apparent movement, it seems to do, to those places situated in the northern hemisphere.

Everything was finished, and the settlers had only to descend Mount Franklin to return to the Chimneys, when Pencroft cried out, "Well! we are preciously stupid!"

"Why?" asked Gideon Spilett, who had closed his note-book and risen to depart.

"Why! our island! we have forgotten to christen it!" Herbert was going to propose to give it the engineer's name, and all his companions would have applauded him, when Cyrus Harding said simply:

"Let us give it the name of a great citizen, my friends; of him who now struggles to defend the unity of the American Republic! Let us call it Lincoln Island!"

The engineer's proposal was replied to by three hurrahs.

And that evening, before sleeping, the new colonists talked of their absent country; they spoke of the terrible war which stained it with blood; they could not doubt that the South would soon be subdued, and that the cause of the North, the cause of justice, would triumph, thanks to Grant, thanks to Lincoln!

This happened the 30th of March, 1865. They little knew that sixteen days afterwards a frightful crime would be committed in Washington, and that on Good Friday Abraham Lincoln would fall by the hand of a fanatic. CHAPTER XII WHAT NATURE GAVE

now began the descent of the mountain. Climbing down the crater, they went round the cone and reached their encampment of the previous night. Pencroft thought it must be lunch-time, and the watches of the reporter and engineer were therefore consulted to find out what hour it might be.

That of Gideon Spilett had been preserved from the seawater, as he had been thrown at once on the sand out of reach of the waves. It was an instrument of excellent quality, a perfect pocket chronometer, which the reporter had not forgotten to wind up carefully every day.