The Castaways of the Flag (19 page)

           
The
provisions were taken from the bags and all ate. There was food for several
days, in any case. And might not all fear of spending a winter in Turtle Bay
soon be banished for ever?

           
Night fell—an
endless night it seemed, whose long drawn hours no one could ever forget, except
little Bob, who slept in his mother's arms. Utter darkness reigned. From the
sea-coast the lights of a ship would have been visible several miles out at
sea.

           
Captain
Gould, and most of the others, insisted on remaining afoot until daybreak.
Their eyes incessantly wandered over the east and west and south, in the hope
of seeing a vessel passing off the island, and not without fears that she might
leave it astern, never to return to it. Had they been in Turtle Bay at this
moment, they would have lighted a fire upon the end of the promontory. Here,
that was impossible.

           
No light
shone out before the return of dawn, no report broke the silence of the night,
no ship came in sight of the island.

           
The men began
to wonder whether they had not been mistaken, if they had not taken for the
sound of cannon what might only have been the roar of some distant storm.

           
"No,
no," Fritz insisted, "we were not mistaken! It really was a cannon
firing out there in the north, a good long way away.''

           
"I'm
sure of it," the boatswain replied.

           
"But why
should they be firing guns?"
J
ames
Wolston urged.

           
"Either
in salute or in self-defence," Fritz answered.

           
"Perhaps
some savages have landed on the island and made an attack," Frank
suggested.

           
"Anyhow,"
the boatswain answered, "it wasn't savages who fired those guns."

           
"So the
island would be inhabited by Americans or Europeans?" James enquired.

           
"Well,
to begin with, is it only an island?" Captain Gould replied. "How do
we know what is beyond this cliff? Are we perhaps upon some very large island
–"

           
"A very
large island in this part of the Pacific?" Fritz rejoined. "Which
one? I don't see –"

           
"In my
opinion," John Block remarked, with much good sense, "it is useless
to argue about all that. The truth is we don't know whether our island is in
the Pacific or the Indian Ocean. Let us have a little patience until dawn,
which will break quite soon, and then we will go and see what there is up there
to the northward."

           
"Perhaps
everything—perhaps nothing!" said James.

           
"Well,"
the boatswain retorted, "it will be something to know which!''

           
About five
o'clock the first glimmer of dawn began to show. Low on the horizon the east
grew pale. The weather was very calm, for the wind had dropped towards morning.
The clouds which had been chased by the breeze were now replaced by a veil of
mist, through which the sun eventually broke. The whole sky gradually cleared.
The streak of light drawn sharply across the east grew wider— spread over the
line of sky and sea. The glorious sun appeared, throwing long streamers of
light over the surface of the waters.

           
Eagerly all
eyes travelled over so much of the ocean as was visible.

           
But no vessel
was to be seen!

           
At this
moment Captain Gould was joined by Jenny, Dolly, and by Susan Wolston, who was
holding her child's hand.

           
The albatross
fluttered to and fro, hopped from rock to rock, and sometimes went quite
far off to the northward, as if it were pointing
out the way.

           
"It looks as if he were showing us where to go," said Jenny.

           
"We must follow him!" Dolly exclaimed.

           
"Not until we have had breakfast," Captain Gould replied.
"We may have several hours' marching in front of us, and we must keep up
our strength."

           
They shared the provisions hurriedly, so impatient were they to be off,
and before seven o'clock they were moving towards the north.

           
It was most difficult walking among the rocks. Captain Gould and the
boatswain, in advance, pointed out the practicable paths. Then Fritz came
helping Jenny, Frank helping Dolly, and James helping Susan and little Bob.

           
Nowhere did the foot encounter grass or sand. It was all a chaotic
accumulation of stones, what might have been a vast field of scattered rocks or
moraines. Over it birds were flying, frigate-birds, sea-mews, and sea-swallows,
in whose flight the albatross sometimes joined.

           
They marched for an hour, at the cost of immense fatigue, and had
accomplished little more than two miles, steadily up hill. There was no change
in the appearance of the nature of the plateau.

           
It was
absolutely necessary to call a halt in order to get a little rest.

           
Fritz then
suggested that he should go on ahead with Captain Gould and John Block. That
would spare the others fresh fatigue.

           
The proposal
was unanimously rejected. They would not separate. They all wanted to be there
when—or if—the sea became visible in the northward.

           
The march was
resumed about nine o'clock. The mist tempered the heat of the sun. At this
season it might have been insupportable on this stony waste, on which the rays
fell almost vertically at noon.

           
While still
extending towards the north, the plateau was widening out to east and west, and
the sea, which so far had been visible in both these directions, would soon be
lost to sight. And still there was not a tree, not a trace of vegetation,
nothing but the same sterility and solitude. A few low hills rose here and
there ahead.

           
At eleven
o'clock a kind of cone showed its naked peak, towering some three hundred feet
above this portion of the plateau.

           
"We must
get to the top of that," said Jenny.

           
"Yes,"
Fritz replied; "from there we shall be able to see over a much wider
horizon. But it may be a rough climb
I''

           
It probably
would be, but so irresistible was the general desire to ascertain the actual
situation that no one would have consented to remain behind, however great the
fatigue might be. Yet who could tell whether these poor people were not
marching to a last disappointment, to the shattering of their last hope?

           
They resumed
their journey towards the peak, which now was about half a mile away. Every
step was difficult, and progress was painfully slow among the hundreds of rocks
which must be scrambled over or gone round. It was more like a chamois track
than a footpath. The boatswain insisted on carrying little Bob, and his mother
gave the child to him. Fritz and Jenny, Frank and Dolly, and James and Susan
kept near together, that the men might help the women over the dangerous bits.

           
It was past
two o'clock in the afternoon when the base of the cone was reached. They had
taken three hours to cover less than a mile and three quarters since the last
halt. But they were obliged to rest again.

           
The stop was
of short duration, and in twenty minutes the climbing began.

           
It had
occurred to Captain Gould to go round the peak, to avoid a tiring climb. But
its base was seen to be impassable, and, after all, the height was not great.

           
At the outset
the foot found hold upon a soil where scanty plants were growing, clumps of
stonecrops to which the fingers could cling.

           
Half an hour
sufficed to bring them half-way up the peak. Then Fritz, who was in front, let
a cry of surprise escape him.

           
All stopped,
looking at him.

           
"What is
that, up there?" he said, pointing to the extreme top of the cone.

           
A stick was
standing upright there, a stick five or six feet long, fixed between the
highest rocks.

           
"Can it
be a branch of a tree, with all the leaves stripped off?" said Frank.

           
"No;
that is not a branch," Captain Gould declared.

           
"It is a
stick—a walking-stick!" Fritz declared. '' A stick which has been set up
there.''

           
"And to
which a flag has been fastened," the boatswain added; "and the flag
is still there!"

           
A flag at the
summit of this peak!

           
Yes; and the
breeze was beginning to stir the flag, although from this distance the colours
could not be identified.

           
"Then
there are inhabitants on this island!" Frank exclaimed.

           
"Not a
doubt of it!" Jenny declared.

           
"Or if
not," Fritz went on, "it is clear, at any rate, that someone has
taken possession of it."

           
"What
island is this, then?" James Wolston demanded.

           
"Or,
rather, what flag is this?" Captain Gould added.

           
"An
English flag!" the boatswain cried. "Look: red bunting with the yacht
in the corner!"

           
The wind had
just spread out the flag, and it certainly was a British flag. ,

           
How they
sprang from rock to rock! A hundred and fifty feet still separated them from
the summit, but they were no longer conscious of fatigue, did not try to
recover their wind, but hurried up without stopping, carried along by what
seemed supernatural strength!

           
At length,
just before three o'clock, Captain Gould and his companions stood side by side
on the top of the peak.

           
Their
disappointment was bitter when they turned their eyes towards the north. . A
thick mist hid the horizon. It was impossible to discover whether the plateau
ended on this side in a perpendicular cliff, as it did at Turtle Bay, or
whether it spread much further beyond. Through this dense fog nothing could be
seen. Above the layer of vapour the sky was still bright with the rays of the
sun, now beginning to decline into the west.

           
Well, they
would camp there and wait until the breeze had driven the fog away! Not one of
them would go back without having examined the northern portion of the island!

           
For was there
not a British flag there, float
ing in the
breeze? Did it not say as plainly as words that this land was known, that it
must figure in latitude and longitude on the English charts?