The Castaways of the Flag Page 8

  It was useless to think of trying to find some other mooring on the other side of the bluff or of the bastion, for, even in calm weather, the sea broke there with violence.

  "What's to be done?" Fritz asked the boatswain, and the boatswain had no answer.

  One hope remained—that the storm might blow itself out before it fell upon the coast. But as they listened they could hear a distant rumbling, although the wind was very faint. The sea was roaring out there in the distance, and already intermittent flaws were sweeping over its surface, giving it a livid tint.

  Captain Gould gazed at the horizon.

  "We are in for a bad spell," Fritz said to him.

  "I am afraid we are," the captain acknowledged ; "as bad a spell as our worst fears could have imagined!"

  "Captain," the boatswain broke in, "this isn't a time to sit and twiddle one's thumbs. We've got to use a little elbow grease, as sailor-men say."

  "Let us try to pull the boat up to the top of the beach," said Fritz, calling James and his brother.

  "We will try," Captain Gould replied. "The tide is coming up and will help us. Meanwhile let us begin by lightening the boat as much as we can."

  All buckled to. The sails were laid upon the sand, the mast unstepped, the rudder unshipped, and the seats and spars were taken out and carried within the cave.

  By the time the tide was slack the boat had been hauled about twenty yards higher up. But that was not enough; she would have to be pulled up twice as far again to be out of reach of the waves.

  Having no other tools, the boatswain pushed planks under the keel, and all combined to pull and push. But their efforts were useless: the heavy boat was fixed in the sand and did not gain an inch beyond the last high-water mark.

  When evening came the wind threatened a hurricane. From the piled clouds in the zenith flash after flash of lightning broke, followed by terrific peals of thunder, which the cliff reechoed in appalling reverberations.

  Although the boat had been left high and dry by the ebb tide, the waves, momentarily becoming stronger, would soon lift it up from the stern.

  And now the rain fell in big drops, so heavily charged with electricity that they seemed to explode as they struck the sand on the shore.

  "You can't stay outside any longer, Jenny, dear," said Fritz. "Do go back into the cave, I beg you! You, too, Dolly, and you too, Mrs. Wolston."

  Jenny did not want to leave her husband. But Captain Gould spoke authoritatively.

  "Go inside, Mrs. Fritz," he said.

  "You too, captain," she replied; "you must not expose yourself to a wetting yet."

  "I have nothing to fear now," Harry Gould answered.

  "Jenny, I tell you again, go back, there's no time to lose!" Fritz exclaimed.

  And Jenny, Dolly, and Susan took refuge in the cave just as the rain, in which hail was mingled, began to rattle down like grapeshot.

  Captain Gould and the boatswain, Fritz,

  Frank, and James remained near the boat, though it was with the utmost difficulty that they stood up against the squalls which swept the shore. The waves were breaking in the bay already and throwing their spray right over it.

  The danger was acute. Would it be possible to sustain the boat against the shocks which were rolling it from one side to the other? If it were broken up, how would Captain Gould and his companions be able to get away from this coast before the winter?

  All five stood by, and when the sea came farther up and lifted the boat, they hung on to its sides trying to steady it.

  Soon the storm was at its height. From twenty places at once tremendous flashes of lightning burst. When they struck the bastions they tore off fragments which could be heard crashing upon the heaps of sea-weed.

  An enormous wave, twenty-five or thirty feet high at least, was lifted up by the hurricane and dashed upon the shore like a huge waterspout.

  Caught in its grip Captain Gould and his companions were swept right up to the heaps of sea-weed, and it was only by a miracle that the enormous wave did not carry them back with it as it drew again to the sea!

  The disaster feared so much had befallen them!

  The boat, torn from its bed, swept up to the top of the beach and then carried down again to the rocks at the end of the promontory, was smashed, and its fragments, after floating for a moment in the creaming foam of the backwater, disappeared from view round the bend of the bluff!

  CHAPTER VII - THE COMING OF THE ALBATROSS

  THE situation seemed worse than ever. While they were in the boat, exposed to all the perils of the sea, Captain Gould and his passengers at least had a chance of being picked up by some ship, or of reaching land. They had not fallen in with a ship. And although they had reached land, it was practically uninhabitable, yet it seemed they must give up all hope of ever leaving it.

  "Still," said John Block to Fritz, "if we had run into a storm like that out at sea, our boat would have gone to the bottom and taken us with it!"

  Fritz made no reply. He hurried through a deluge of rain and hail to take shelter with Jenny and Dolly and Susan, who were intensely anxious. Owing to its position in the corner of the promontory, the inside of the cave had not been flooded.

  Towards midnight, when the rain had stopped, the boatswain piled a heap of seaweed near the mouth of the cave. A bright fire soon blazed, drying their drenched clothes.

  Until the fury of the storm abated the whole sky was incessantly ablaze. The pealing thunder diminished as the clouds were driven rapidly towards the north. But as long as distant lightning continued to light up the bay, the wind blew with great force, lifting billows which plunged and broke wildly on the shore.

  At dawn the men came out of the cave. Tattered clouds were passing over the cliff. Some, hanging lower, skimmed the surface. During the night the lightning had struck it in several places. Huge fragments of rock lay at its base. But there was no sign of a new cleft or crevice into which it might be possible to squeeze, and so to reach the plateau above.

  Captain Gould, Fritz, and John Block took stock of what was left of the boat. It comprised the mast, the foresail and the jib, the rigging, the hawsers, the rudder, the oars, the anchor and its cable, the wooden seats, and the casks of fresh water. Some use could no doubt be made of most of these things, damaged as they were.

  "Fortune has tried us cruelly!" Fritz said. "If only we had not these poor women with us —three women and a child! What fate awaits them here on this shore, which we cannot even leave now!"

  Even Frank, with all his faith, kept silence this time. What could he say?

  But John Block was wondering whether the storm had not brought yet another disaster upon the shipwrecked company, for so they might well be described. Was there not good reason to fear that the turtles might have been destroyed by the breakers, and their eggs smashed as the sand was washed away? It would be an irreparable loss if this food supply failed.

  The boatswain made a sign to Frank to come to him, and said a few words in an undertone. Then both crossed the promontory and went down to the creek, intending to go over it as far as the bluff.

  While Captain Gould, Fritz, and James went towards the western bastion, Jenny and Dolly and Susan resumed their usual occupations—what might be called their household duties. Little Bob played on the sand in sublime indifference, waiting for his mother to prepare some soaked biscuit for him. Susan was overcome by grief and anxiety as she thought of the distress and want which her child might not have the strength to endure.

  After putting everything in order inside the cave, Jenny and Dolly came out and joined Mrs. Wolston. Then very sadly they talked of their present situation, which had been so sorely aggravated since the day before. Dolly and Susan were more overcome than the courageous Jenny.

  "What will become of us?" Susan asked.

  "Don't let us lose heart," Jenny answered, "and above all don't let us discourage our men."

  "But we can never get away now," Dolly said. "And when the rainy season comes�
�"

  "I tell you, Dolly, as I told Susan," Jenny answered, "that no good is done by giving up courage."

  "How can I keep any hope at all?" Mrs. Wolston exclaimed.

  '' You must! It's your duty to!" Jenny said. "Think of your husband; you will increase his misery a thousandfold if you let him see you cry."

  "You are strong, Jenny," Dolly said; "you have fought misfortune before. But we –"

  '' You?'' Jenny replied. '' Do you forget that Captain Gould and Fritz and Frank and James and John Block will do everything that is possible to save us all?"

  "What can they do?" Susan demanded.

  "I don't know, Susan, but they will succeed provided we don't hamper them by giving way ourselves to despair!"

  '' My child! My child!'' murmured the poor woman, choked by sobs.

  Seeing his mother crying, Bob stood in wonder, with his eyes wide open.

  Jenny drew him to her and took him on her knees.

  "Mummy was anxious, darling! She called you, and you didn't answer, and then—you were playing on the sand, weren't you?"

  "Yes," said Bob; "with the boat that Block made for me. But I wanted him to make a little white sail for it, so that it could sail. There are holes full of water in the sand where I can put it. Aunty Dolly promised to make me a sail."

  "Yes, Bob dear; you shall have it to-day," Dolly promised.

  "Two sails," the child answered; "two sails like the boat that brought us here."

  "Of course," Jenny answered. "Aunty Dolly will make you a lovely sail, and I will make you one, too."

  "Thank you, thank you, Jenny," Bob answered, clapping his hands. "But where is our big boat? I can't see it anywhere!''

  "It has gone away—fishing," Jenny answered. "It will come back soon, with lots of beautiful fish! Besides, you have got your own; the one that good John Block made for you."

  "Yes; but I am going to tell him to make me another, one in which I can sail—with papa and mama, and aunty Dolly and Jenny, and everybody!"

  Poor little fellow! He voiced so exactly what was wanted—the replacement of the boat —and how was that to be done?

  "Run away again and play, darling,'' Jenny said to him; "and don't go far away."

  "No; over there; quite close, Jenny!"

  And he kissed his mother and went bounding away as children of his age will.

  "Susan dear, and you, too, Dolly dear," said Jenny, "God will see that that little child is saved! And Bob's rescue means our own! I do beg of you, no more weakness, no more crying! Have faith in Providence as I have, as I have always had!''

  So Jenny spoke out of her brave heart. Come what might, she would never despair. If the rainy season set in before the shipwrecked people could leave this coast—and how could they leave it unless some ship took them off?—arrangements would be made to spend a winter there. The cave would give secure protection from the heavy weather. The heaps of sea-weed would give fuel to protect them from the cold. Fishing, hunting perhaps, would suffice to provide them with their daily bread.

  It was of the first importance to know whether John Block's fears about the turtles were well founded. Happily they were not. After being away for an hour, the boatswain and Frank came back with their accustomed load of turtles, which had taken refuge under the heap of kelp. But they had not a single egg.

  "Never mind, they will lay, good old things," said John Block cheerily.

  It was impossible not to smile at the boatswain's little joke. In the course of their walk to the bastion, Captain. Gould, Fritz, and James had seen again the impossibility of getting round it in any other way than by sea. Currents ran there, with tremendous force and in both directions. Even in calm weather the violent surf would have prevented any boat from getting close in, and the strongest swimmer might have been carried out to sea or dashed upon the rocks.

  So the necessity of getting to the top of the cliff by some other means became more imperative than ever.

  "How are we to do it?" said Fritz one day, gazing irritably at the inaccessible crest.

  "You can't get out of a prison when its walls are a thousand feet high," was James's answer.

  "Unless you tunnel through them," Fritz replied.

  "Tunnel through that mass of granite— which is probably thicker than it is high?" said James.

  "Anyhow, we can't remain in this prison!" exclaimed Fritz, in a burst of impotent but uncontrollable anger.

  "Be patient, and have confidence," said Frank again.

  "Patience I can have," Fritz retorted, "but confidence—that is another thing."

  And indeed on what might confidence be placed? Rescue could only come from a ship passing beyond the bay. And if one came, would it see their signals, the lighting of a huge fire on the beach or on the end of the promontory?

  A fortnight had passed since the boat came to land. Several more weeks passed without bringing any change in the situation. As to the food supplies, they were reduced to turtles and their eggs, and to crustaceans, crabs and lobsters, some of which John Block was generally able to catch. It was he who usually occupied himself with the fishing, assisted by Frank. Lines with bent nails for hooks taken from the boat's planks, had rendered possible the capture of various kinds of fish: dorado twelve to fifteen inches long, of a beautiful reddish colour and excellent eating, and bass, or salt-water perch. Once even, a large sturgeon was caught with a slip-knot which landed it on the sand.

  The dog-fish, plentiful in these waters, were poor eating. But there was obtained from them a grease used to make coarse candles, for which wicks were fashioned out of dry seaweed. Disturbing as the prospect of wintering here might be, thought had to be given to it, and precautions taken against the long and dark days of the rainy season.

  The salmon, which used to go up Jackal River in New Switzerland in such numbers at certain times of the year, were not forthcoming here. But one day a school of herrings stranded at the mouth of the little stream. Several hundreds of them were taken, and, smoked over a fire of dry sea-weed, made an important reserve of food.

  "Isn't there a saying that herrings bring their own butter?" John Block enquired. "Well, if so, here are some already cooked, and what I want to know is what we shall do with all these good things!"

  Several times during these six weeks attempts had been made to climb to the top of the cliff. As all these attempts were fruitless, Fritz determined to go round the bluff to the east. But he was careful to say nothing of his intention to anyone except John Block. So, on the morning of the 7th of December, the two men went to the creek, under the pretence of collecting turtles at its eastern point.

  There, at the foot of the enormous mass of rock, the sea was breaking savagely, and to get round it Fritz must risk his life.

  The boatswain vainly did his best to induce him to desist from the idea, and, failing, had no choice but to help him.

  After undressing, Fritz fastened a long line around his loins—one of the boat's yard-ropes —gave the other end to John Block, and jumped into the sea.

  The risk was twofold—of being caught by the surf and thrown against the base of the bluff, and of being carried away by the current if the line should break.

  Twice did Fritz try without success to get free of the waves. It was only at the third attempt that he succeeded in reaching and maintaining a position in which he could look beyond the bluff, and then John Block was obliged to pull him in again to the point—not without a good deal of trouble.

  "Well," the boatswain enquired, "what is there beyond?"

  "Nothing but rocks and more rocks!" Fritz answered as soon as he had recovered his wind. "I only saw a succession of creeks and capes. The cliff goes right on to the northward."

  "I'm not surprised," John Block replied.

  When the result of this attempt was made known—one can imagine Jenny's emotions when she heard of it—it seemed as if the last hope had vanished. This island, from which Captain Gould and his boat's company could not escape, was apparently nothing b
etter than an uninhabited and uninhabitable rock!

  And this unhappy situation was complicated by so many bitter regrets! But for the mutiny, the passengers on the Flag would have reached the fertile domain of the Promised Land a couple of months ago. Think of the anguish of all those who were expecting them and watched in vain for their coming!

  Truly these relations and friends of theirs were more to be pitied than Captain Gould and his company. At any rate, the forlorn company knew that their dear ones were safe in New Switzerland.

  Thus the future loomed heavy with anxiety, and the present was hard.