The Castaways of the Flag (20 page)

           
And those guns they had heard the day before, who could say that they
did not come from ships saluting the flag as they moved by? Who could say that
there was not some harbour on this coast, that there were not ships at anchor
there at this very moment?

           
And, even if this land were merely a small islet, would there be
anything wonderful in Great Britain having taken possession of it, when it lay
on the confines of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans? Alternatively, why should
it not belong to the Australian continent, so little of which was known in this
direction, which was part of the British dominions?

           
As they talked a bird's cry rang out, followed by a rapid beating of
wings.

           
It was Jenny's albatross, which had just taken flight, and was speeding
away through the mists towards the north.

           
Whither was the bird going? Towards some distant shore?

           
Its departure produced a feeling of depression, even of anxiety. It
seemed like a desertion.

           
But time was passing. The) intermittent breeze was not strong enough to
disperse the fog, whose heavy scrolls were rolling at the
base of the cone. Would the night fall before the northern horizon had been
laid bare to view?

           
But no; all
hope was not yet lost. As the mists began to decrease, Fritz was able to make
out that the cone dominated, not a cliff, but long slopes, which probably
extended as far as the level of the sea.

           
Then the wind
freshened, the folds of the flag stiffened, and, nearly level with the mists,
everyone could see the declivity for a distance of a hundred yards.

           
It was no
longer a mere accumulation of rocks, it was the other side of a mountain, where
showed growths on which they had not set eyes for many a long month!

           
How they
feasted their sight on these wide stretches of verdure, on the shrubs, aloes,
mastic-trees, and myrtles which were growing everywhere! No; they would not
wait for the fog to disperse, and besides, it was imperative that they should
reach the base of the mountain before night enveloped them in its shadows!

           
But now,
eight or nine hundred feet below, through the rifts in the mist, appeared the
top of the foliage of a forest which extended for several miles; then a vast
and fertile plain, strown with clumps of trees and groves, with broad meadows
and vast grass-lands traversed by water-courses, the largest of which ran
eastwards towards a bay in the coast-line.

           
On the east
and west, the sea extended to the furthest limit of the horizon. Only on the
north was it wanting to make of this land, not an islet, but a large island.

           
Finally, very
far away, could be seen the faint outlines of a rocky rampart running from west
to east. "Was that the edge of a coast?

            "
Let
us go! Let us go!'' cried Fritz.

            "
Yes;
let us go!" Frank echoed him. "We shall be down before night."

           
"And we
will pass the night in the shelter of the trees," Captain Gould added.

           
The last
mists cleared away. Then the ocean was revealed over a distance which might be
as much as eighteen or twenty miles.

           
This was an
island—it was certainly an island!

           
They then saw
that the northern coast was indented by three bays of unequal size, the largest
of which lay to the north-west, another to the north, while the smallest opened
to the north-east, and was more deeply cut into the coast-line than the other
two. The arm of the sea which gave access to it was bounded by two distant
capes, one of which had at its end a lofty promontory.

           
No other land
showed out to sea. Not a sail appeared on the horizon.

           
Looking back
towards the south the eye was held by the top of the crest of the cliff which
enclosed Turtle Bay, five miles or so away.

           
What a
contrast between the desert region which Captain Gould and his companions had
just crossed and the land which now lay before their eyes! Here was a fertile
and variegated champaign, forests, plains, everywhere the luxuriant vegetation
of the tropics I But nowhere was there a hamlet, or a village, or a single
habitation.

           
And then a
cry—a cry of sudden revelation which he could not have restrained!—broke from
the breast of Fritz, while both his arms were stretched out towards the north.

           
"New
Switzerland!''

           
"Yes;
New Switzerland!" Frank cried in his turn.

           
"New
Switzerland!" echoed Jenny and Dolly, in tones broken by emotion.

           
And so, in
front of them, beyond that forest, and beyond those prairies, the rocky barrier
that they could see was the rampart through which the defile of Cluse opened on
to the Green Valley! Beyond lay the Promised Land, with its woods and farms and
Jackal River! There was Falconhurst in the heart of its mangrove wood, and
beyond Rock Castle and the trees in its orchards! That bay on the left was
Pearl Bay, and farther away, like a small black speck, was the Burning Rock,
crowned with the smoke from its crater; there was Nautilus Bay, with False Hope
Point projecting from it; and Deliverance Bay, protected by Shark's Island! And
why should it not have been the guns from that battery whose report they had
heard the day before, for there was no ship to be seen either in the bay or out
in the open sea?

           
Joyful
exceedingly, with throbbing hearts and eyes wet with tears of gratitude, all of
them joined with Frank in the prayer which went up to God.

           
THE cave in
which Mr. Wolston, Ernest, and Jack had spent the night four months before, on
the day before the English flag was planted at the summit of Jean Zermatt peak,
was that evening full of happiness. If no one enjoyed a tranquil sleep,
sleeplessness was not due to bad dreams but to the excitement of the recent
happenings.

           
After their
prayer of thanksgiving, they had all declined to delay a minute longer at the
summit of the peak. Not for two hours would day yield to night, and that time
would be long enough for them to reach the foot of the range.

           
"It
would be very strange," Fritz remarked, "if we could not find some
cave large enough to shelter us all."

           
"Besides,"
Frank answered, "we shall be lying under the trees—under the trees of New
Switzerland!—New Switzerland!"

           
He could not
refrain from saying the dear name over and over again, the name that was
blessed by all.

           
"Speak it again, Dolly dear!" he exclaimed. "Say it
again, that I may hear it once more."

           
"New Switzerland!" laughed the girl, her eyes shining with
happiness.

           
"New Switzerland!" Jenny repeated, holding Fritz's hand in her
own.

           
And there was not one of them, not even Bob, who did not echo it.

           
"Well, good people," said Captain Harry Gould, "if we
have made up our minds to go down to the foot of the mountain we have no time
to lose."

           
"What about eating?" John Block enquired. "And how are we
to get food on the way?"

           
"In forty-eight hours we shall be at Rock Castle,'' Frank declared.

           
"Besides," Fritz said, "isn't there any quantity of game
on the plains of New Switzerland?"

           
"And how are you going to hunt it without guns?" Captain Gould
enquired. "Clever as Fritz and Frank are, I hardly imagine that merely by
pointing a stick –"

           
''Pooh!'' Fritz answered. '' Haven't we got legs? You'll see, captain!
Before mid-day to-morrow we shall have real meat instead of that turtle
stuff."

           
"We must not abuse the turtles, Fritz," said Jenny, "if
only out of gratitude."

           
"You are quite right, wife, but let us be off!
Bob
doesn't want to stay here any longer; do you, Bob?"

           
"No,
no," the child replied; "not if papa and mama are coming too.''

           
"And to
think," said the boatswain slyly, "to think that down there, in the
south, we have got a beautiful beach where turtles and mussels swarm—and a
beautiful cave where there are provisions for several weeks—and in that cave a
beautiful bed of sea-weed—and we are going to leave all that for –"

           
"We will
come back for our treasures by and by!" Fritz promised.

           
"But
still –" John Block persisted.

           
"Oh,
shut up, you wretched fellow!" Captain Gould ordered, laughing.

           
"I'll
shut up, captain; there are only two words more I should like to say."

           
"What
are they?"

           
"Cut
away!"

           
As usual,
Fritz took the lead. They descended the cone without any difficulty, and
reached the foot of the range. Some happy instinct, a genuine sense of
direction, had led them to take the same path as Mr. Wolston, Ernest, and Jack
had taken, and it was barely eight o'clock when they reached the edge of the
vast pine-forest.

           
And by a no
less happy chance—there seemed nothing surprising in it, for they had entered
upon the season of happy chances—the boatswain found the cave in which Mr.
Wolston and the two brothers had taken shelter. It was rather small, but large
enough for Jenny and Dolly and Susan and little Bob. The men could sleep in the
open air. They could tell, from the white ashes of a fire, that the cave had
been occupied before.

           
Perhaps all
the members of the two families had crossed this forest and climbed the peak on
which the British flag was waving!

           
After supper,
when Bob had fallen asleep in a corner of the cave, they talked long,
notwithstanding all the fatigue of the day, and the talk turned upon the
Flag.

           
During the
week that they had been held prisoners, the ship must have sailed northwards.
The only explanation of that could be the persistence of contrary winds, for it
was manifestly to the interest of Robert Borupt and the crew to reach the far
waters of the Pacific. If they had not done so it was because the weather had prevented
them.

           
Everything
now went to show that the
Flag
had been driven towards the Indian Ocean,
into the proximity of New Switzerland. Reckoning the time that had passed, and
the course that had been followed, since the boat had been cast adrift, the
incontestable conclusion followed that on that day Harry Gould and his
companions could not have been much more than a couple of hundred miles from
the desired island, though they had imagined themselves separated from it by a
thousand or more.