The Castaways of the Flag (16 page)

           
"And the
promontory," Frank added. "It is possible that Bob may have taken it
into his head to go climbing there and have fallen into some hole."

           
So they
separated, some going to the right, some to the left. Jenny and Dolly stayed
with Mrs. Wolston and tried to allay her anxiety.

           
Half an hour
later, all were back again, after a fruitless search. Nowhere in the bay was
any trace of the child, and all their calling had been without result.

           
Susan's grief
broke out. She sobbed in anguish and had to be carried, against her will, into
the cave. Her husband, who went with her, could not utter a word. Outside,
Frank said:

           
'' The child
can 't possibly be lost! I tell you again, I saw him on the shore scarcely an
hour ago, and he was not near the sea. He had a string in his hand, with a
pebble at the end of it, and was playing with the albatross."

           
"By the
way, where is the bird?" Frank asked, looking round.

           
"Yes;
where is he?" John Block echoed.

           
"Can
they have disappeared together?" Captain Gould enquired.

           
"It
looks like it," Fritz replied.

           
They looked
in every direction, and especially towards the rocks where the bird was
accustomed to perch.

           
It was not to
be seen, nor could its cry be heard—a cry easily distinguishable from the
noises of the divers, gulls, and sea-mews.

           
The albatross
might have flown above the cliff and made for some other eminence along the
coast. But the little boy could not have flown away. Yet he might have been
capable of climbing along the promontory after the bird. This explanation was
hardly admissible, however, after the search that Frank and the boatswain had
made.

           
Yet it was
impossible not to see some connection between Bob's disappearance and that of
the albatross. They hardly ever separated, and now they were both lost
together!

           
Evening drew
on. The father and mother were in terrible grief. Susan was so agitated that
they feared for her reason. Jenny, Dolly, Captain Gould and the others, did not
know what next to do. When they reflected that if the child had fallen into
some hole he would have to stay there all night, they began to search again. A
fire of sea-weed was lighted at the far end of the promontory, to be a guide
for the child in case he should have gone to the back of the creek. But after
remaining afoot until the last possible minute of the evening, they had to give
up hope of finding Bob. And what were the chances of their being more
successful next day?

           
All went back
into the cave, but not to sleep. How could they sleep? First one, and then
another went out, watched, listened through the rippling of the tide, and then
came back and sat down again without saying a word.

           
It was the
most sorrowful, heart-breaking night of all that Captain Gould and his company
had passed upon this deserted coast.

           
About two
o'clock in the morning, the sky, which had been brilliant with stars until
then, began to be overcast. The breeze was now in the north, and the clouds
from that quarter gathered overhead. Not yet very thick, they chased each other
with ever increasing speed, and east and west of the cliff the sea must
certainly be rough.

           
It was the
time when the flood brought up on to the beach the rollers of the rising tide.

           
Just at this
moment Mrs. Wolston got up, and before she could be stopped she rushed out of
the cave in delirium, shrieking:

           
"My
child! My child!"

           
Force had to
be used to get her back again. James, who had caught his wife up, took her in
his arms and carried her back, more dead than alive.

           
The unhappy
mother remained stretched out on the heap of kelp where Bob usually slept by
her side. Jenny and Dolly tried to bring her round, but it was only after great
efforts on their part that she recovered consciousness.

           
Throughout
the remainder of the night the wind moaned incessantly round the top of the
cliff. A score of times the men searched all over the shore, fearing always
that the incoming tide might lay a little corpse upon the sand.

           
But there was
nothing, nothing! Could the child have been carried out to sea by the waves?

           
About four
o'clock when the ebb tide was just setting in after the slack, light appeared
in the east.

           
At this
moment Fritz, who was leaning against the back of the cave, thought he heard a
kind of cry behind the wall. He listened, and fearing that he might be
mistaken, went up to the captain.

           
"Come
with me!" he said.

           
Without
knowing, without even asking what Fritz wanted, Captain Gould went with him.

           
"Listen!"
said Fritz.

           
Captain Gould
listened intently.

           
"I can
hear a bird's cry," he said.

           
"Yes, a
bird's cry!" Fritz declared.

           
"Then
there is a hollow behind the wall."

           
"There
must be; and perhaps a passage communicating with the outside; how else is it
to be explained?"

           
"You are
right, Fritz!"

           
John Block
was told. He put his ear against the wall, and said positively:

           
"It's
the albatross's cry: I recognise it."

           
"And if
the albatross is there," said Fritz, "little Bob must be there
too."

           
'' But how
could they both have got in?" the captain asked.

           
'' That we
will find out,'' John Block replied.

           
Frank and
Jenny and Dolly were now told. James and his wife recovered a little hope.

           
'' He is
there! He is there!'' Susan said over and over again.

           
John Block
had lighted one of the thick candles. That the albatross was behind the wall
nobody could doubt, for its cry continued to be heard.

           
But just
before looking to see if it had slipped in by some opening outside, it was
necessary to make sure that the back wall had no orifice.

           
Candle in
hand, the boatswain began to examine this wall.

           
John Block
could only see on its surface a few fissures which were too narrow for the
albatross or Bob to get through. But at the bottom a hole, twenty to
twenty-five inches wide, was hollowed out in the ground, a hole big enough to
take the bird and the child.

           
Meantime,
however, the albatross's cry had ceased, and all were afraid that Captain
Gould, the boatswain, and Fritz must have been mistaken.

           
Then Jenny
took John Block's place, and stooping down level with the hole, she called the
bird several times. The albatross knew her voice as well as it knew her caress.

           
A cry
answered her, and almost immediately the bird came out through the hole.

            "
Bob!
Bob!'' Jenny called again.

           
The child did
not answer, did not appear. Was he not with the bird behind the wall? His mother
could not restrain a cry of despair.

           
'' Wait!''
said the boatswain.

           
He crouched
down and enlarged the hole, throwing the sand out behind him. In a few minutes
he had made the hole large enough for him to squeeze into it.

           
A minute
later he brought out little Bob, who had fainted, but who was not long in
recovering consciousness under his mother's kisses.

           
IT took Mrs.
Wolston some time to recover from her terrible shock. But Bob was restored to
her, and that comforted her. It appeared that Bob, playing with the albatross,
had followed it to the back of the cave. The bird made its way in through the
narrow passage, and Bob went after it. A dark excavation opened out at the end,
and when the little fellow wanted to get out of this he found that he could
not. At first he called, but his calls were not heard. Then he lost
consciousness, and nobody knows what might have happened if by the luckiest
chance Fritz had not happened to hear the cry of the albatross.

           
"Well,"
said the boatswain, "now that Bob is in his mother's arms again,
everything is for the best. Thanks to him we have discovered another cave. It
is true we haven't any use to put it to. The first one was enough for us, and
as a matter of fact we ask nothing better than to get away from that one."

           
"But I
want to find out how far it runs back," Captain Gould remarked.

           
"Right
to the other side of the cliff, do you fancy, captain?"

           
"Who can
tell, Block?"

            "
All
right,'' the boatswain answered. '' But even supposing it does run through the
cliff, what shall we find on the other side? Sand, rocks, creeks, promontories,
and as much green stuff as I can cover with my hat.''

           
"That's
very likely," Fritz replied. "But none the less we must look."

           
'' We'll
look, Mr. Fritz; we'll look. Looking costs nothing, as the saying is."

           
The
investigation might have such priceless results that it had to be undertaken
without delay.

           
The captain,
Fritz, and Frank went back to the end of the cave. The boatswain walked behind
them, armed with several big candles. To make the way easier, those in front
enlarged the aperture by removing some more of the stones which had fallen into
it.

           
A quarter of
an hour sufficed to make the opening large enough. None of them had put on
flesh since they had landed. Only the boatswain had not lost weight since he
had left the
Flag.

           
When they had
all got through, the candles gave sufficient light for them to examine this
second excavation.

           
It was deeper
than the first one, but much narrower, a hundred feet or so long, ten or twelve
feet in diameter, and about the same height. It was possible that other
passages
branched off from it and formed a
kind of labyrinth inside the massive cliff. Captain Gould wondered whether one
of these branches might not perhaps lead, if not to the top of the cliff, at
any rate beyond the bluff or the bastion.