Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 5.djvu/409

 CHAPTER XIII WHAT MAN MADE

", Captain, where are we going to begin?" asked Pencroft next morning of the engineer.

"At the beginning," replied Cyrus Harding.

In fact, the settlers were compelled to begin "at the very beginning." They did not possess even the tools necessary for making tools, and they were not even in the condition of nature, who, "having time, husbands her strength." They had not time, since they had to provide for the immediate wants of their existence, and though, profiting by acquired experience, they had nothing to invent, still they had everything to make: their iron and their steel were as yet only in the state of minerals, their earthenware in the state of clay, their linen and their clothes in the state of textile material.

It must be said, however, that the settlers were "men" in the complete and higher sense of the word. The engineer Harding could not have been seconded by more intelligent companions, nor with more devotion and zeal. He had tried them. He knew their abilities.

Gideon Spilett, a talented reporter, having learned everything so as to be able to speak of everything, would contribute largely with his head and hands to the colonization of the island. He would not draw back from any task: a determined sportsman, he would make a business of what till then had only been a pleasure to him.

Herbert, a gallant boy, already well informed in the natural sciences, would render great service to the common cause.

Neb was devotion personified. Clever, intelligent, indefatigable, robust, with iron health, he knew a little about forge work, and could not fail to be very useful in the colony.

As to Pencroft, he had sailed every sea, a carpenter in the dockyards at Brooklyn, assistant tailor in the vessels of the state, gardener, cultivator, during his holidays, and like all seamen, fit for anything, he knew how to do everything.

It would have been hard to unite five men, better fitted to struggle against fate, more certain to triumph over it.

"At the beginning," Cyrus Harding had said. Now 377