30
0每天五分钟听经典英文故事，读绘本，磨耳朵。两个孩子跨越半个地球寻找失踪父亲的冒险故事，勇气与亲情交织的凡尔纳经典之作。
When a hammerhead shark was hauled onto the deck of the Duncan, no one imagined that it was carrying a message from a missing father deep in its belly
Lord Glenarvan sliced open the shark and pulled out a bottle, bleached pale by the sea Inside were three sheets of paper, written in English, French, and German The ink had faded so badly that only a few place names and a single coordinate could be read: 37 degrees 11 minutes south latitude
And one sentence, broken and faint, like a last cry drifting across the water
Captain Grant and two sailors have perished Come to their rescue
Lord and Lady Glenarvan set out at once to trace Captain Grant They soon found Mary and Robert Mary was already grown, but Robert was still a child Their mother had died long ago, and their father had never returned from the sea
The Admiralty decided that a few scraps of paper could not prove Grant was still alive, and they refused to send a warship Lord Glenarvan did not argue for long He returned to his castle and made ready his own steam yacht, the Duncan
This time, he would take Grant's two children and search for their father himself
The yacht sailed south along the 37th parallel toward South America A French geographer named Paganel boarded the Duncan by mistake, having mixed up the ship's name, but he soon became the most important member of the expedition He was the one who deciphered the three papers, and the one who pointed out a new path when everyone else was losing hope
They crossed Patagonia, climbed the Andes, and marched into the Pampas Meltwater from the high peaks rushed down the valleys, and the rivers on the grasslands swelled overnight Robert was the youngest, but he always kept up at the back of the line He stumbled, he was afraid, but every time he heard his sister call his name, he got back on his feet
Mary wanted to know just one thing
Was their father dead, or was he still out there somewhere, waiting for them
They did not find Grant in South America So the Duncan sailed on, rounding the cape and heading for Australia The wilderness there was far larger than they had imagined A single line on the map, once you were standing in it, stretched into endless forests, swamps, and roads that no one had walked in years
That was when they met Ayrton
Ayrton claimed to have served under Captain Grant He said Grant was very likely still alive, and that he was right here in Australia Those words gave Mary hope again She did not care whether this stranger was trustworthy As long as the path he pointed to still led toward her father, she would keep walking
But John Mangles never stopped watching Ayrton
This man knew the ship too well He knew their route too well He kept urging Glenarvan to send the Duncan to another bay while he led the party across the Australian interior Then, under the pretense of delivering a message, Ayrton forged Glenarvan's orders
His real name was Ben Joyce He was a convict
He meant to lure the Duncan to where his gang could seize it and take the ship for themselves
By the time the expedition discovered the truth, it was too late Floodwaters had swollen the rivers and cut them off from the coast The sailor Mulrady, who had been sent with the message, came back wounded, and only then did they learn that Ayrton's gang was already on its way to capture the ship
Glenarvan and his men raced to the shore, only to find an empty sea
The Duncan had been taken by Ben Joyce
Grant was still lost, and now their own ship was gone Everyone believed the rescue had failed completely Mary did not cry She only lowered her head, unable to speak her father's name anymore But John told her that as long as there was still a way forward, he would keep searching
They boarded a ship bound for New Zealand at the bay A storm struck at sea, and the ship crashed onto a reef The captain and crew fled in the night, taking the only lifeboat and leaving Glenarvan and his party stranded on the sinking vessel
At dawn, they finally reached New Zealand, only to be captured by Maori warriors
Mountains, volcanoes, lakes, and a ring of guns trapped them inside a hilltop fortress Mary and Lady Glenarvan were locked in a sacred hut, and Robert could only hold his sister's hand Everyone knew that when the next clash came, they might not leave this place alive
Somehow, they broke out of the siege and stumbled through the forests and volcanic highlands, fighting for survival And then, out on the sea, a familiar ship appeared
It was the Duncan
No one could believe their eyes Only Paganel understood what had happened He had made a mistake in writing down a place name He had meant to send the ship to Australia, but he had written New Zealand instead That mistake had kept the Duncan away from the convicts and brought it, by sheer chance, to the very waters where they were stranded
Paganel's mistake had not carried them to Grant, but it had put them on the last road that mattered
They boarded the ship once more and sailed along the 37th parallel into the Pacific Ahead lay only one small, unremarkable island on the map: Tabor Island, also called Maria Theresa Island on British charts
At dusk, the lookout spotted smoke rising from the island
Mary stood on the deck, staring at the land as it drew closer For more than two years, she had pictured her father's face a thousand times Sometimes, she felt she could no longer remember the sound of his voice
A boat was lowered and rowed toward the shore
Before they reached the beach, a man suddenly rose from the sand He was tall and worn, but his face had the same lines as Mary's and Robert's
Mary recognized him first
"Father"
Captain Grant heard the cry, opened his arms, and collapsed onto the sand His two children rushed forward and held him tight
Grant had lived on this desolate island for two and a half years He and his two sailors had built a hut from the wreckage of their ship, planted seeds saved from the wreck, hunted goats, and grown vegetables They knew they were far from every shipping route They knew the chance of rescue grew smaller every day Still, they worked every day, and they waited
The day before, Grant had climbed to the hilltop and seen a wisp of smoke rising on the horizon
He lit a signal fire, plunged into the sea, and tried to swim toward the ship But the ship changed course, and he could only drag himself back to shore with the last of his strength
The next morning, the Duncan finally drew close to the island
Grant did not know that the people on board were his own children
And he did not know that the bottle drifting on the sea had carried Mary and Robert across half the world
After the reunion, Ayrton made a request of Glenarvan: do not hand him over to the courts, but leave him on an uninhabited island He would live by his own labor there, and he would spend the rest of his life atoning for what he had done
In the end, Ayrton was put ashore on Tabor Island
Grant stood on the deck and watched him The man who had once betrayed him and nearly destroyed them all offered no resistance now He simply stood on the beach, watching the ship sail away in silence
The Duncan turned its bow toward Scotland
Mary was back at her father's side at last, and Robert had decided to become a sailor As the coastline faded behind them, Captain Grant began to speak of a new plan: to find a new land where the poor people of Scotland could build a fresh life
This time, he was no longer a missing captain waiting alone to be rescued
He had his children, his friends, and a ship, and he was sailing on toward the open sea
