Laura by George Sand Page B

brutes would not have lived here three days without bringing us into conflict with all the animal forces of nature. I have sent them away; accept that you will never see them again, nor their canoes, their companions, their sledges and their dogs. Here and over all the sea that encloses us we are absolute monarchs . It falls to us alone to find a way of leaving whenit so pleases us. There is no hurry, we are quite comfortable here. Get up, take a bath in this charming stream, which murmurs two paces from you, gather your meal from the first branch you find, and let us think about exploring our island, for it is indeed an island set apart from any visible continent and hollowed out like a cup, as I told you; only, there is a prodigiously tall volcano in the middle; but it is a natural beacon of electric light and nothing more.
    All objections, all recriminations, were perfectly useless . I was alone in this unknown world with a man who was stronger, more intelligent, more implacable and more of a believer than I was. I must not fight him, but equal him, if that were possible for me to do.
    I cast a last glance behind me, and, climbing up onto a promontory, I looked again at the place where we had landed. Either the sea had turned them to dust, or Nasias had saved and hidden them, but there was no trace of our vessels. As for the men, what had become of them? Even the imprint of their footsteps in the sand had been wiped away. I looked down at my feet, and saw light pools of blood; my hands were impregnated with it. I shivered and asked myself if, like my unfortunate companions from the
Tantalus
, I had not taken part in some frightful scene of delirium and carnage.
    Nasias, who was watching me, began to laugh, and, picking a wild blackberry the size of a pomegranate, he squeezed out the juice before me.
    What you see there, he told me, are the traces of your supper last night.
    I wanted to question him further; he turned his backon me and refused to answer. I must indeed submit to him. As he had already explored the surrounding area, he had one goal, and he headed towards it. I followed him in silence, without weapons or munitions, and as if we had conquered a land where man has nothing left to conquer.
    Nevertheless it was not long before we encountered beings that would have been infinitely formidable, had they shown any hostility towards us: these were bison, mouflon, reindeer, aurochs, and elands far larger than those known to us, and all belonging to species which had been entirely lost on the rest of the planet. There were even several that should not have been called by the names I have given them, unsure which one is appropriate for them, for almost all appeared to me to be intermediaries between types which had vanished and present-day fauna. We saw no reptiles there, nor carnivorous animals. As for these great herbivores, which moved in immense herds through the grassy or marshy regions, they were content to look at us with a touch of astonishment, but without fear or aversion. They scarcely bestirred themselves to let us pass, and we could have drawn them at our leisure, had we been armed with the necessary drawing equipment.
    In any case, Nasias paid them scant attention and did not allow me to stop for very long. I followed him regretfully , for, now that we were in no danger of any kind, no one was waiting for us anywhere any more, and we belonged entirely to this new life into which we had resolutely thrown ourselves, I scarcely knew what we were looking for any more, and why my uncle, instead of being content with seeing his premonitions made real within thelimits of the possible, still insisted on pursuing their chimerical aspect. I shared my reflections with him at my own risk and peril, for he had become imperious, feverish, wild, and I saw clearly that in the event of open resistance, he would not hesitate to rid himself of me. He scarcely answered me, or, when he deigned to explain, it was to reproach me