The Castaways of the Flag Page 6

  The animal kingdom was represented by a few sea-birds, gulls, black-divers, sea-mews, and swallows, which uttered deafening cries at finding their solitude disturbed by the presence of man. Higher up, great frigate-birds, halcyons and albatrosses sailed on powerful wings.

  "Well," said the boatswain at last, "even if this shore is not so good as yours in New Switzerland, that's no reason for not landing on it."

  "Then let us land," Fritz answered. "I hope we shall find somewhere to shelter at the foot of the cliff."

  "Yes, let us land," said Jenny.

  "Dear wife," said Fritz, "I advise you to remain here in the boat, with Mrs. Wolston and Dolly, while we make our trip. There is no sign of danger, and you have nothing to be afraid of."

  "Besides," the boatswain added, "we most likely shan't go out of sight."

  Fritz jumped on to the sand, followed by the others, while Dolly called out cheerfully:

  "Try to bring us back something for dinner, Frank! We are relying upon you."

  "We must rely upon you rather, Dolly,"

  Frank replied. "Put out some lines at the foot of those rocks."

  "We had better not land," Mrs. Wolston agreed. "We will do our best while you are away."

  "The great thing," Fritz remarked, "is to keep what little biscuit we have left, in case we are obliged to put to sea again."

  "Now, Mrs. Fritz," John Block said, "get the stove going. We are not the kind of people to be satisfied with lichen soup or boiled pebbles, and we promise to bring you something solid and substantial."

  The weather was fairly fine. Through the clouds in the east a few sun-rays filtered.

  Fritz, Frank, James, and the boatswain trudged together along the edge of the shore, over sand still wet from the last high tide.

  Ten feet or so higher the sea-weeds lay in zig-zag lines.

  Some were of kinds which contain nutritive substances, and John Block exclaimed:

  "Why, people eat that—when they haven't got anything else! In my country, in Irish sea-ports, a sort of jam is made of that!"

  After walking three or four hundred yards in this direction, Fritz and his companions came to the foot of the bastion to the west. Formed of enormous rocks with slippery surfaces, and almost perpendicular, it plunged straight down into the clear and limpid water which the slight surf scarcely disturbed. Its foundations could be seen seven or eight fathoms below.

  To climb along this bastion was quite impossible for it rose perpendicularly. It would be necessary to scale the cliff in order to find out if the upper plateau displayed a less arid surface. Moreover, if they had to abandon the idea of climbing this bastion it meant that they could only get round it by means of the boat. The matter of present urgency, however, was to look for some cavity in the cliff wherein they could take shelter.

  So all went up to the top of the beach, along the base of the bastion.

  When they reached the corner of the cliff, they came upon thick layers of sea-weeds, absolutely dry. As the last water-marks of the high tide were visible more than two hundred yards lower down, this meant—the steep pitch of the shore being taken into account—that these plants had been thrown up so far, not by the sea, but by the winds from the south, which are very violent in these waters.

  "If we were obliged to spend the winter here," Fritz remarked, "these sea-weeds would supply us with fuel for a long time, if we could not find any wood."

  "Fuel that burns fast," the boatswain added. "Before we came to the end of heaps like that, of course . But we have still got something to boil the pot with to-day. Now we must find something to put in it!"

  "Let's look about," Frank answered.

  The cliff was formed by irregular strata. It was easy to recognise the crystalline nature of these rocks, where feldspar and gneiss were mixed, an enormous mass of granite, of plutonic origin and extreme hardness.

  This formation recalled in no respect to Fritz and Frank the walls of their own island from Deliverance Bay to False Hope Point, where limestone only was found, easily broken by pick or hammer. It was thus that the grotto of Rock Castle had been fashioned. Out of solid granite, any such work would have been impossible.

  Fortunately there was no need to make any such attempt. A hundred yards from the bastion, behind the piles of sea-wrack, they found a number of openings in the rock. They resembled the cells of a gigantic hive, and possibly gave access to the inside of the rock.

  There were indeed several cavities at the foot of this cliff.

  While some provided only small recesses, others were deep and also dark, owing to the heaps of sea-weed in front of them. But it was quite likely that in the opposite part, which was less exposed to the winds from the sea, some cavern opened into which they might carry the stores from the boat.

  Trying to keep as near as possible to where the boat was moored, Fritz and his companions walked towards the eastern bastion. They hoped to find this more practicable than the other, because of its elongated outline in its lower portion, and thought that they might be able to get round it. Although it stood up sheer in its upper portion, it sloped towards the middle and ended in a point by the sea.

  Their anticipations were not disappointed. In the corner formed by the bastion was a cave quite easy of access. Sheltered from the easterly, northerly, and southerly winds, its position exposed it only to the winds from the west, less frequent in these regions.

  The four men went inside this cave, which was light enough for them to see all over it. It was some twelve feet high, twenty feet wide, and fifty or sixty feet deep, and contained several unequal recesses forming, as it were, so many rooms set round a common hall. It had a carpet of fine sand, free from any trace of damp. Entrance to it was through a mouth which could be easily closed.

  "As I am a boatswain," John Block declared, "we couldn't have found anything better!"

  "I agree," Fritz replied. "But what worries me is that this beach is absolute desert, and I am afraid the upper plateau may be so too."

  "Let us begin by taking possession of the cave, and we will attend to the rest presently."

  "Oh!" said Frank. ''That is not much like our house at Rock Castle, and I don't even see a stream of fresh water to take the place of our Jackal River!"

  "Patience! Patience!" the boatswain answered. "We shall find some spring all right by and by among the rocks, or else a stream coming down from the top of the cliff."

  "Anyhow," Fritz declared, "we must not think of settling on this coast. If we do not succeed in getting round the base of those bastions on foot we must take the boat and reconnoitre beyond them. If it is a small island we have come ashore upon, we will only stay long enough to set Captain Gould up again. A fortnight will be enough, I imagine."

  "Well, we have the house, at all events," John Block remarked. "As for the garden, who is to say that it isn't quite close by—on the other side of this point, perhaps?"

  They left the cave and walked down across the beach, so as to get round the bastion.

  From the cave to the first rocks washed by the sea at the half-ebb was about two hundred yards. On this side there were none of the heaps of sea-weeds found on the left-hand side of the beach. This promontory was formed of heavy masses of rocks which seemed to have been broken off from the top of the cliff. At the cave it would have been impossible to cross it, but nearer the sea it was low enough to get across.

  The boatswain's attention was soon caught by a sound of running water.

  A hundred feet from the cave, a stream murmured among the rocks, escaping in little liquid threads.

  The stones were scattered here, which enabled them to reach the bed of a little stream fed by a cascade that came leaping down to lose itself in the sea.

  "There it is! There it is! Good fresh water!" John Block exclaimed, after a draught taken up in his hands.

  "Fresh and sweet!" Frank declared when he had moistened his lips with it.

  "And why shouldn't there be vegetation on the top of the cliff," John B
lock enquired, "although that is only a stream?"

  "A stream now," Fritz said, "and a stream which may even dry up during the very hot weather, but no doubt a torrent in the rainy season."

  "Well, if it will only flow for a few days longer," the boatswain remarked philosophically, "we won't ask anything more of it."

  Fritz and his companions now had a cave in which to establish their quarters, and a stream which would enable them to refill the boat's casks with fresh water. The chief remaining question was whether they could provide themselves with food.

  Things did not look too promising. After crossing the little river the explorers had a fresh and deep disappointment.

  Beyond the promontory a creek was cut into the coast, in width about half a mile, fringed with a rim of sand, and enclosed behind by the cliff. At the far end rose a perpendicular bluff, whose foot was washed by the sea.

  This shore presented the same arid appearance as the other. Here, too, the vegetable growths were confined to patches of lichen and layers of sea-weeds thrown up by the tide. Was it, then, on a mere islet, a rocky, lonely, uninhabitable island in the Pacific Ocean, that the boat had come ashore? There seemed every reason to fear so.

  It appeared useless to carry the exploration as far as the bluff which enclosed the creek. They were about to go back to the boat when James stretched out his hand towards the shore and said:

  "What is that I see down there on the sand? Look—those moving specks. They look like rats."

  From the distance it did, indeed, look as if a number of rats were on march together towards the sea.

  '' Rats?'' said Frank enquiringly. "The rat is game, when he belongs to the ondatra genus. Do you remember the hundreds we killed, Fritz, when we made that trip after the boa-constrictor?"

  "I should think I do, Frank," Fritz answered ; "and I remember, too, that we did not make much of a feast off their flesh, which reeked too much of the marsh."

  "Right!" said the boatswain. "Properly cooked, one can eat those beggars. But there's no occasion to argue about it. Those black specks over there aren't rats."

  "What do you think they are, Block?" Fritz asked.

  "Turtles."

  "I hope you are right."

  The boatswain's good eyesight might have been trusted. There actually was a crowd of turtles crawling over the sand.

  So while Fritz and James remained on watch on the promontory, John Block and Frank slid down the other side of the rocks, in order to cut off the band of chelones.

  These tortoises were small, measuring only twelve or fifteen inches, and long in the tail. They belonged to a species whose principal food consists of insects. There were fifty of them, on march, not towards the sea, but towards the mouth of the stream, where a quantity of sticky laminariae, left by the ebb tide, were soaking.

  On this side the ground was studded with little swellings, like bubbles in the sand, the meaning of which Frank recognised at once.

  "There are turtles' eggs under those!" he exclaimed.

  "Well, dig up the eggs, Mr. Frank," John Block replied. "I'll belay the fowls! That's certainly ever so much better than my boiled pebbles, and if little Miss Dolly isn't satisfied –"

  "The eggs will be warmly welcomed, Block, you may be sure," Frank declared.

  "And the turtles, too; they are excellent beasts—excellent for making soup, I mean!"

  A moment later the boatswain and Frank had turned a score of them over on to their backs. They were quite helpless in that position. Laden with half a dozen of them, and twice as many eggs, they went back towards the boat.

  Captain Gould listened eagerly to John Block's story. Since he had been spared the shaking of the boat his wound had been paining him less, the fever was beginning to go down, and a week's rest would certainly put him on his feet again. Wounds in the head, unless they are exceptionally serious, generally heal easily and soon. The bullet had only grazed the surface of the skull, after tearing away part of the cheek; but it had been within an ace of going through the temple. A speedy improvement could now be looked for in the condition of the wounded man, thanks to the rest and care which he could now obtain.

  It was with much satisfaction Captain Gould learned that turtles abounded in this bay, which was named Turtle Bay in their honour. It meant the guarantee of a wholesome and plentiful food, even for a considerable time. It might even be possible to preserve some of it in salt and load the boat with it when the time came to put to sea again.

  For of course they would have later to seek a more hospitable shore to the northward, if the table-land at the top of the cliff proved to be as unfertile as that of Turtle Bay, if it had no woods or grass lands, if, in short, the land on which the passengers of the Flag had come ashore proved to be nothing more than a mere heap of rocks.

  "Well, Dolly, and you, too, Jenny," said Frank when he got back, "are you satisfied? How has the fishing gone while we have been away?"

  "Pretty well," Jenny answered, pointing to several fish lying on the poop.

  "And we've got something better than that to offer you," added Dolly, merrily.

  "What's that, then?" Fritz asked.

  "Mussels," the girl answered. "There are heaps of them at the foot of the promontory. Look at those boiling in the saucepan now!"

  "Congratulations!'' said Frank. '' And you owe us congratulations, too, Jenny, for we have not come back empty-handed. Here are some eggs –"

  "Hens' eggs?" Bob exclaimed eagerly.

  "No; turtles'," Frank replied.

  "Turtles' eggs?" Jenny repeated. "Did you find turtles?"

  "A regiment of them," the boatswain told her; "and there are lots more; there are enough to last us all the time we shall be at anchor in the bay."

  "Before we leave this bay," Captain Gould put in, " I think we ought to reconnoitre along the coast, or climb to the top of the cliff."

  "We'll try it, captain," John Block answered. '' But don't let's be in a greater hurry than we need be, since it is possible to exist here without touching what we have left of the biscuit."

  "That's what I think, Block."

  "What we want, captain," Frank went on, "is that you should have a rest to allow your wound to heal, and you to get back your strength. A week or two is nothing to spend here. When you are on your feet again you will have a look at things for yourself, and you will decide what is best to be done."

  During the morning they proceeded to unload the boat of all that it contained, the bag of biscuit, the casks, the fuel, the utensils, and the clothing, and everything was carried within the cave. The little stove was set up in the corner of the bastion, and was first employed in making the turtle soup.

  As for Captain Gould, he was carried to the cave by Fritz and the boatswain; a comfortable bed was waiting ready for him, made of dry sea-weed by Jenny and Dolly, and there he was able to enjoy several hours' sleep.

  CHAPTER VI - TIME OF TRIAL

  IT would have been difficult to find better quarters than those provided by this cave. The various recesses hollowed out inside it made capital separate rooms.

  It was a trifling disadvantage, that these recesses, which were of varying depth, were rather dark during the day, and that the cave itself was never very light. For, except in bad weather, it would only be occupied at night. At earliest dawn Captain Gould would be carried outside, to drink in the salt, invigorating air and bask in the sunshine.

  Inside the cave Jenny arranged to occupy one of the recesses with her husband. A larger one, sufficient to accommodate all three of them, was taken possession of by James Wolston and his wife and little Bob. Frank contented himself with a corner in the large hall, where he shared the company of the skipper and the boatswain.

  The remainder of the day was given up entirely to rest. The boat's passengers had to recuperate after the many emotions of this last week and the awful trial they had endured so bravely.

  Wisdom dictated their resolution to spend a fortnight in this bay, where material existence seem
ed to be secured for some time to come. Even if the Captain's condition had not required that they should do so, John Block would not have advised an immediate departure.

  In the evening, after a second meal of turtle soup, and turtle flesh and eggs, Frank led them in prayer, and all went into the cave. Captain Gould, thanks to the ministrations of Jenny and Dolly, was no longer shaking with fever. His wound now closing, gave him less pain. He was progressing rapidly towards complete recovery.

  To keep a watch during the night was needless. There was nothing to fear on this lonely shore, neither savages nor wild beasts. It was unlikely that these gloomy and depressing wastes had ever been visited by man before. The stillness was only broken by the harsh and melancholy cry of the sea-birds as they came home to their crannies in the cliff. The breeze died gradually away, and not a breath of air stirred till the rising of the sun.