WHICH CONCLUDES BY EXPLAINING WHAT UP TO NOW HAD APPEARED INEXPLICABLE¹.
At that instant, and before Godfrey could reply, the report of fire-arms was heard not far from Will Tree.
 
At the same time one of those rain storms, regular cataracts² in their fury, fell in a torrential shower just as the flames devouring³ the lower branches were threatening to seize upon the trees against which Will Tree was resting.
 
What was Godfrey to think after this series of inexplicable events? Carefinotu speaking English like a cockney, calling him by his name, announcing the early arrival of Uncle Will, and then the sudden report of the fire-arms?
 
He asked himself if he had gone mad; but he had no time for insoluble questions, for below him—hardly five minutes after the first sound of the guns—a body of sailors appeared hurrying through the trees.
 
Godfrey and Carefinotu slipped down along the stem, the interior of which was still burning.
 
But the moment that Godfrey touched the ground, he[Pg 261] heard himself spoken to, and by two voices which even in his trouble it was impossible for him not to recognize.
 
"Nephew Godfrey, I have the honour to salute⁴ you!"
 
"Godfrey! Dear Godfrey!"
 
"Uncle Will! Phina! You!" exclaimed Godfrey, astounded⁵.
 
Three seconds afterwards he was in somebody's arms, and was clasping that somebody in his own.
 
At the same time two sailors, at the order of Captain Turcott who was in command, climbed up along the sequoia⁶ to set Tartlet⁷ free, and, with all due respect, pluck him from the branch as if he were a fruit.
 
And then the questions, the answers, the explanations which passed!
 
"Uncle Will! You?"
 
"Yes! me!"
 
"And how did you discover Phina Island?"
 
"Phina Island!" answered William W. Kolderup. "You should say Spencer Island! Well, it wasn't very difficult. I bought it six months ago!"
 
"Spencer Island!"
 
"And you gave my name to it, you dear Godfrey!" said the young lady.
 
"The new name is a good one, and we will keep to it," answered the uncle; "but for geographers⁸ this is Spencer[Pg 262] Island, only three days' journey from San Francisco, on which I thought it would be a good plan for you to serve your apprenticeship⁹ to the Crusoe business!"
 
"Oh! Uncle! Uncle Will! What is it you say?" exclaimed Godfrey. "Well, if you are in earnest, I can only answer that I deserved it! But then, Uncle Will, the wreck¹⁰ of the Dream?"
 
"Sham¹¹!" replied William W. Kolderup, who had never seemed in such a good humour before. "The Dream was quietly sunk by means of her water ballast, according to the instructions I had given Turcott. You thought she sank for good, but when the captain saw that you and Tartlet had got safely to land he brought her up and steamed away. Three days later he got back to San Francisco, and he it is who has brought us to Spencer Island on the date we fixed¹²!"
 
"Then none of the crew perished in the wreck?"
 
"None—unless it was the unhappy Chinaman who hid himself away on board and could not be found!"
 
"But the canoe?"
 
"Sham! The canoe was of my own make."
 
"But the savages¹³?"
 
"Sham! The savages whom luckily you did not shoot!"
 
"But Carefinotu?"
 
[Pg 263]
 
"Sham! Carefinotu was my faithful Jup Brass¹⁴, who played his part of Friday marvellously well, as I see."
 
"Yes," answered Godfrey. "He twice saved my life—once from a bear, once from a tiger—"
 
"The bear was sham! the tiger was sham!" laughed William W. Kolderup. "Both of them were stuffed with straw, and landed before you saw them with Jup Brass and his companions!"
 
"But he moved his head and his paws!"
 
"By means of a spring which Jup Brass had fixed during the night a few hours before the meetings which were prepared for you."
 
"What! all of them?" repeated Godfrey, a little ashamed at having been taken in by these artifices¹⁵.
 
"Yes! Things were going too smoothly¹⁶ in your island, and we had to get up a little excitement!"
 
"Then," answered Godfrey, who had begun to laugh, "if you wished to make matters unpleasant for us, why did you send us the box which contained everything we wanted?"
 
"A box?" answered William W. Kolderup. "What box? I never sent you a box! Perhaps by chance—"
 
And as he said so he looked towards Phina, who cast down her eyes and turned away her head.
 
"Oh! indeed!—a box! but then Phina must have had an accomplice—"
 
[Pg 264]
 
And Uncle Will turned towards Captain Turcott, who laughingly answered,—
 
"What could I do, Mr. Kolderup? I can sometimes resist you—but Miss Phina—it was too difficult! And four months ago, when you sent me to look round the island, I landed the box from my boat—"
 
"Dearest Phina!" said Godfrey, seizing the young lady's hand.
 
"Turcott, you promised to keep the secret!" said Phina with a blush.
 
And Uncle William W. Kolderup, shaking his big head, tried in vain to hide that he was touched.
 
But if Godfrey could not restrain his smiles as he listened to the explanations of Uncle Will, Professor Tartlet did not laugh in the least! He was excessively mortified¹⁷ at what he heard! To have been the object of such a mystification, he, a professor of dancing and deportment! And so advancing with much dignity he observed,—
 
"Mr. William Kolderup will hardly assert, I imagine, that the enormous crocodile, of which I was nearly the unhappy victim, was made of pasteboard and wound up with a spring?"
 
"A crocodile?" replied the uncle.
 
"Yes, Mr. Kolderup," said Carefinotu, to whom we had better return his proper name of Jup Brass. "Yes, a real[Pg 265] live crocodile, which went for Mr. Tartlet, and which I did not have in my collection!"
 
Godfrey then related what had happened, the sudden appearance of the wild beasts in such numbers, real lions, real tigers, real panthers, and then the invasion of the snakes, of which during four months they had not seen a single specimen¹⁸ in the island!
 
William W. Kolderup at this was quite disconcerted. He knew nothing about it. Spencer Island—it had been known for a long time—never had any wild beasts, did not possess even a single noxious¹⁹ animal; it was so stated in the deeds of sale.
 
Neither did he understand what Godfrey told him of the attempts he had made to discover the origin of the smoke which had appeared at different points on the island. And he seemed very much troubled to find that all had not passed on the island according to his instructions, and that the programme had been seriously interfered²⁰ with.
 
As for Tartlet, he was not the sort of man to be humbugged. For his part he would admit nothing, neither the sham shipwreck²¹, nor the sham savages, nor the sham animals, and above all he would never give up the glory which he had gained in shooting with the first shot from his gun the chief of the Polynesian tribe—one of the servants of the Kolderup establishment, who turned out to be as well as he was.
 
[Pg 266]
 
All was described, all was explained, except the serious matter of the real wild beasts and the unknown smoke. Uncle Will became very thoughtful about this. But, like a practical man, he put off, by an effort of the will, the solution of the problems, and addressing his nephew,—
 
"Godfrey," said he, "you have always been so fond of islands, that I am sure it will please you to hear that this is yours—wholly yours! I make you a present of it! You can do what you like with it! I never dreamt of bringing you away by force; and I would not take you away from it! Be then a Crusoe for the rest of your life, if your heart tells you to—"
 
"I!" answered Godfrey. "I! All ............