Fritz and Eric Part 31

"I came at once," interposed Fritz, "the moment I heard you call out."

"Well, I suppose you did, old fellow," said Eric; "but whether you did or didn't, in another five minutes I believe it would have been all up with me, for I felt as if I were strangled, lying down there on my face in that beastly stuff. It seemed to have a sort of take-away-your- breath feeling, like smelling-salts; and, besides, the penguins kicked up such a hideous row all the while that I thought I would go mad. I never heard such a racket in my life anywhere before, I declare!"

"But they've bitten you, too, awfully," remarked Fritz sympathisingly.

"Look, your poor legs are all bleeding."

"Oh, hang my legs, brother!" replied the other. "They'll soon come right, never fear, when they have had a good wash in salt water. It was the noise of the blessed birds that bothered me more than all their pecking; and, I can say truly of them, as of an old dog, that their bark is worse than their bite!"

So chuckling, the lad appeared to think no more of it; albeit he had not escaped scathless, and had been really in imminent peril a moment before. "The penguins do bark, don't they, Fritz?" he presently asked when he had stopped laughing.

"Yes," said his brother, "I don't think we can describe the sounds they make as anything else than barking. Talking of dogs, I wish I had my old Gelert here; he would soon have made a diversion in your favour and routed the penguins!"

"Would he?" exclaimed Eric in a doubting tone, still rather sore in his mind at having been forced to beat a retreat before his feathered a.s.sailants. "I fancy the best dog in the world would have been cowed by those vicious brutes; for, if he didn't turn tail, he would be pecked to death in a minute!"

Eric was not far wrong, as a fine setter, belonging to one of the officers of HMS _Challenger_, when that vessel was engaged in surveying the islands of the South Atlantic, during her scientific voyage in 1874, was torn to pieces by the penguins in the same way that Eric was a.s.sailed, before it could be rescued.

"Never mind," said Fritz, "I wish dear old Gelert were here all the same."

"So do I," chorussed Eric, jumping up on his legs and shaking himself, to see whether his bones might not have received some damage in the affray. "We should have rare fun setting him at the penguins and interrupting their triumphant marches up and down the beach!" And he raised his fist threateningly at his late foes.

"Do you know," observed Fritz, who had been cogitating awhile, "I think I see the reason for their methodical habit of going to and from the water."

"Indeed?" said Eric.

"Yes. Don't you recollect how an equal number seem always to come out from the rookery and proceed down the beach when the other batches land from the sea, just as if they took it in rotation to go fishing?"

"Of course. Why, Captain Brown specially pointed that out to us."

"Well," said Fritz, "the reason for that is, that the males and females mind the nests in turn, just as you sailors keep watch on board ship.

First, let us say, the gentlemen penguins go off to the sea to have a swim, and see what they can catch; and then, at the expiration of a fixed time, these return to the sh.o.r.e and take charge of the nests, sitting on the eggs while their wives, whom they thus relieve for a spell, have a spell off, so as to get a mouthful of fresh air--"

"Water, you mean," interposed Eric, jokingly.

"All right, water then, and perhaps a fish or two as well; after which they come back to attend to their own legitimate department. Look now at that group there, just in front of us?"

Eric glanced towards the spot where his brother directed his attention, and noticed a party of penguins returning from the sea. These separated as soon as they approached the line of nests, different individuals sidling up to the sitting birds and giving their partners a peck with their beaks, by way of a hint, barking out some word of explanation at the same time. In another moment, the home-coming penguin had wedged itself into the place of the other, which struggling on to its feet then proceeded outside the thicket, where, being joined by others whose guard had been thus similarly relieved, the fresh group proceeded together, in a hurried, scrambling sort of run, to the beach, whence they shortly plunged into the sea, having, however, their usual gabbling colloquy first in concert before taking to the water.

"They're a funny lot," said Eric; "still, they're not going to get the better of me, for I intend to load the wheelbarrow with their guano, whether they like it or not!"

"I wouldn't disturb them again, if I were you," observed Fritz. "They seem to have quieted down, and do not mind our presence now."

"I won't trouble them, for I shall not go inside their rookery," said Eric. "I only intend to skirt round the place, and see what I can pick up outside."

"Very well then, I will go on digging the garden, which I have been neglecting all this time, if you will get the manure. I should like to plant some of our potatoes to-day, before knocking off work, if we can manage it."

"All right, fire away; I will soon come and join you," said Eric, and the brothers separated again--Fritz proceeding back to the ground he had been digging, which now began to look quite tidy; while the sailor lad, lifting up the handles of the wheelbarrow, trundled it off once more along the edge of the tussock-gra.s.s thicket, stopping every now and again to shovel up the guano, until he had collected a full load, when he wheeled his way back to where Fritz was working away still hard at the potato patch.

A piece of ground twenty yards long by the same in breadth is not easy to dig over in a day, even to the most industrious toiler, and so Fritz found it; for, in spite of the interruption his brother had suffered from on his first start after the manure from the bird colony, the lad managed to cover the whole of the plot they had marked out with the fertilising compound, which he wheeled up load after load, long before he had accomplished half his task, although he dug away earnestly.

Fritz had been a little more sanguine than he usually was. He thought he could have finished the job before the middle of the day; but, when it got late on in the afternoon and the sun gave notice as he sank behind the western cliff that the evening was drawing nigh, there was still much to finish; and so, much to the elder brother's chagrin, the task had to be abandoned for the day in an incomplete state.

"Never mind," he said to Eric--when, putting their spades and other tools into the wheelbarrow, they trundled it homeward in turn, like as their friends the penguins practised their domestic duties--"we'll get it done by to-morrow, if we only stick to it."

"I'm sure I will do my best, brother," responded Eric; "but, really, I do hate digging. The man who invented that horrible thing, a spade, ought to be keel-hauled; that's how I would serve him!"

"Is that anything like what the penguins did to you this morning?" asked Fritz with a chuckle.

"Pretty much the same," said Eric, grinning at the allusion. "I declare I had almost forgotten all about that! However, I'll now go and get a change of clothes, and have a bath in the sea before sitting down comfortably to our evening meal;" and, anxious to carry out this resolve at once, the lad set off running towards the hut with the wheelbarrow before him, he having the last turn of the little vehicle.

"There never was so impetuous a fellow as Eric," Fritz said to himself, seeing the lad start off in this fashion. "Himmel, he is a regular young scatter-brain, as old Lorischen used to call him!"

"Pray be quick about your bath," he called out after him. "I will get the coffee ready by the time you come back."

"Good!" shouted Eric in return. "Mind and make it strong too; for, I'm sure I shall want something to sustain me after all my exertions!"

The day terminated without any further incident; although the wind having calmed down, the young fellows heard the penguins much more plainly through the night than previously. Still, this did not much affect their rest; for in the morning they turned out fresh and hearty for another day's experience of gardening.

But, again, they were unable to finish the plot of land properly on this second day, to Fritz's satisfaction, so as to begin planting their seeds. The ground was so hard and there were such numbers of roots and weeds to remove from the soil, that it took them up to the middle of the afternoon of the third day ere their little plot could be said to be clear of all extraneous matter. Then, however, it was really ready for the reception of their seedling potatoes and other vegetables, with the guano well dug in.

"Hurrah!" exclaimed Fritz, as he and Eric began fixing a piece of line across the fresh mould, so as to be able to make the furrows straight for the potatoes, which they had ready cut in a basket, only pieces with an "eye" in them being selected, "now, we'll soon be finished at last!

When we've put in the cabbage seed and onions, I think we'll have a holiday for the rest of the day."

"Right you are," said Eric, in high glee at the prospect of a little respite from the arduous toil they had been engaged in almost since they had landed. He would have struck work long before, had it not been for Fritz labouring on so steadily, which made him ashamed to remain idle.

"I tell you what we'll do to celebrate the event, now the garden is done. We will have a feast there."

"I don't know where that's to come from," observed Fritz in his sober way, just then beginning to place carefully the pieces of potato in the drills prepared for them. "I don't think there's much chance of our having any feasting here."

"Oh, indeed," replied Eric; "am I not cook?"

"Well, laddie, I haven't noticed any great display of your skill yet since we landed," said Fritz dryly.

"Ah, we've been too busy; you just wait till I have time, like this afternoon. Then you shall see what you shall see!"

"No doubt," said Fritz, laughing at this sapient declaration. "However, I a.s.sure you, brother mine and most considerate of cooks, I'll not be sorry to have a change of diet from the cold salt pork and biscuit on which we have fared all the time we've been gardening."

"How could I cook anything else, when you wanted me here?" replied Eric indignantly, handing the last piece of potato to put in the sole remaining drill. "I couldn't be up at the hut with my saucepans and down here helping you at the same time, eh?"

"No," said Fritz, proceeding to give the plot a final rake over; after which he sowed some cabbage seed and onions in a separate patch, while Eric put in the peas and scarlet runners which the skipper had given him. "We'll consider the past a blank, laddie. See what you can do with your saucepans to-day; you've got the whole afternoon before you."

"All right," replied Eric. "Only, you must promise not to interfere with me, you know; mind that, old fellow!"

"What, I have the temerity to offer advice to such a grand cuisinier as the n.o.ble ex-midshipman? no, not if I know myself."

"Thanks, Herr Lieutenant," said Eric, with a deferential bow; "I will summon your lordship when the dinner is ready."

With this parting shot, the lad went off laughing towards the hut.

Fritz proceeded down to the sh.o.r.e; and, in order that he might keep his promise to Eric of not disturbing him, he determined to devote his time to watching the penguins, so as to get up an appet.i.te for the forthcoming banquet--although the hard work he had just gone through rendered any stimulus to eating hardly necessary. Indeed, Fritz would have been well enough satisfied to have sat down and demolished a fair quant.i.ty of the despised cold pork and biscuits long before Eric summoned him up to the hut, which he did presently, with a hail as loud as if he were calling "all hands" at sea, in a heavy squall.

"Ahoy, Herr Lieutenant!" shouted out the lad in his funny way. "Your gracious majesty is served!"--screeching out the words so distinctly that, though he was on the opposite side of the valley, the portentous announcement sounded to Fritz as if it had been bellowed in his ears.