Fritz and Eric Part 41

"So should I," said Eric, disconsolately.

In silence, the two continued to pace up and down the little platform they had levelled in front of their hut, trying to pierce the darkness that now entirely obscured the sea, the north-easter having brought up a thick fog in its train, perhaps from the far-distant African coast, which shut out everything on that side; although, the light of the bonfire still illumined the cliff encircling the valley where they had pitched their homestead, disclosing the inmost recesses of this, so that they could see from where they stood, the wood, which the conflagration had spared, as well as their garden and the tussock-gra.s.s rookery of the penguins beyond, not a feature of the landscape being hid.

Again came the booming, melancholy sound of the minute guns from sea, making the brothers more impatient than ever; and, at that moment, the fog suddenly lifted, being rapidly wafted away to leeward over the island, enabling the two anxious watchers to see a bit of bright sky overhead, with a twinkling star or two looking down on the raging ocean, now exposed to their gaze--all covered with rolling breakers and seething foam as far as the eye could reach, to the furthest confines of the horizon beyond the bay.

Still, they could perceive nothing of the ship that had been firing the signals of distress, till, all at once, another gun was heard; and the flash, which caught their glance at the same moment as the report reached them, now enabled them to notice her imminent peril. This, the people on board could only then have noticed for the first time, the fog having previously concealed their danger; for they distinctly heard, above the noise of the sea and wind, a hoa.r.s.e shout of agonised, frantic alarm, wafted sh.o.r.ewards by the wind in one of its wild gusts.

The vessel was coming up under close-reefed topsails, bow on to the headland on the western side of the bay; and, almost at the very instant the brothers saw her, she struck with a crash on the rocks, the surf rushing up the steep face of the cliff and falling back on the deck of the ill-fated craft in sheets of spray like soapsuds.

Fritz and Eric clasped their hands in mute supplication to heaven; but, at the same moment, the spars of the vessel--she was a brig, they could see--fell over her side with a crash. There was a grinding and rending of timbers; and then, one enormous wave, as of three billows rolled into one, poured over her in a cataract.

One concentrated shriek of horror and agony came from the seething whirlpool of broken water, and, all was over; for, when the foam had washed away with the retreating wave, not a single vestige could be seen of the hapless craft!

She had sunk below the sea with those on board.

"Oh, brother, it is awful!" cried Eric.

Fritz could not answer. His throat was filled with a great gulping lump which prevented him from drawing his breath; while his eyes were suffused with tears that no unmanly feelings had called forth.

Eric was starting off again down to the beach, to see whether any one had escaped from the wreck and been swept into the bay, in which case he might have been of use in trying to drag them from the clutch of the cruel waves, when Fritz called him back.

"Don't leave me behind, brother," he cried out pa.s.sionately. "Wheel me down, in the barrow, so that I may help, too!"

The lad stopped in a instant, comprehending his brother's request; and, flying back, in and out of the hut as if he had been galvanised, he quickly placed the old door on top of the wheelbarrow as a sort of platform, with a mattress on top. He then lifted Fritz on the superstructure as if he were a child, the excitement having given him tenfold strength; and, wheeling the barrow down at a run, the two arrived on the beach almost sooner than a boat could have pulled ash.o.r.e from the point where the catastrophe to the vessel had occurred.

But, although it was now light enough to scan the surface of the restless sea for some distance out, no struggling form could be seen battling with the waves; nor was there a single fragment of the wreck noticeable, tossing about on the billows that still rolled in thunderingly on the beach, marking out the contour of the bay with a line of white surf, which shone out in contrast to the glittering black sand that was ever and anon displayed as the back-wash of the waves swept out again in a downward curve preparatory to the billows hurling themselves in sh.o.r.e once more with renewed force.

"Poor chaps, they must all have gone down!" said Eric, half crying. He had made sure that some one would have escaped, if only for him to rescue at the last moment--perhaps just when the sinking swimmer might require a helping hand to drag him from the clutches of the grasping billows that sought to overwhelm him as he was getting beyond their reach!

"There's no doubt of that," echoed Fritz, who had got off his platform on the wheelbarrow with much more agility than he had been capable of a short time before. "The sea has swallowed up those who were not dashed to pieces on the headland! I hardly know which fate was the least preferable of the two?"

"I do hope that the bonfire did not lead to their misfortune," said Eric presently. "If so, I should consider myself to be the cause of their death!"

"No, I don't think it was, laddie," replied Fritz, to cheer him, the lad being greatly distressed at the thought of having occasioned the catastrophe. "You see, the ship must have been coming from the other side of the headland, whose height would shut all view of our valley entirely from the sea."

"Well, I only hope so," replied Eric, only half consoled. "I'm afraid, however, the people on board took the flame of the burning gra.s.s to be some beacon to warn them."

"In that case, they would have kept away from it, of course," said Fritz decidedly; "so, no blame can be attached to you. The wind, you see, was blowing a gale from the north-east; and, probably, they were driving on before it, never thinking they were near Inaccessible Island, nor believing that there was such a place anywhere within miles of them, or land at all, for that matter, till they should reach the South American coast!"

"Perhaps so," rejoined Eric, in a brighter tone; "but then, again, they might have thought the light to be a ship on fire, and, in going out of their way to lend a.s.sistance, they possibly met with their doom, eh?"

"Ah, that would be sad to believe," said Fritz. "However, I don't think we should worry ourselves over the dispensations of providence. Poor fellows, whoever they are, or whatever they were about at the time of the disaster, I'm sorry for them from the bottom of my heart!"

"And so am I," chimed in his brother. "But now, old fellow," added Eric, "it is time for you to be getting back indoors, with your poor back and wounded leg."

"Yes, I shan't be sorry to lie down now; for, I've exerted myself more than I should have done. Oh," continued Fritz, as the lad helped him on to the wheelbarrow platform, again preparing to return to the hut, "I shall never forget the sight of that doomed vessel dashing against the rocks. I fancy I can now see the whole hideous panorama before my eyes again, just as we saw it when the mist cleared away, disclosing all the horrors of the scene!"

"I shan't forget it either, brother," said Eric, as he commenced to wheel back Fritz homeward, neither uttering another word on the way.

Both went to bed sadly enough; for, the calamity that had just occurred before their eyes made them more depressed than they had ever been before--aye, even in the solitude of their first night alone on the island.

Next morning, the gale had blown itself out, the wind having toned down to a gentle breeze; while the sea was smiling in the sunshine, so innocently that it seemed impossible it could have been lashed into the fury it exhibited the previous night. There it was, rippling and prattling away on the beach in the most light-hearted fashion, oblivious, apparently, of all thought of evil!

All trace of the wreck, too, had disappeared, nothing being subsequently cast ash.o.r.e but one single plank, on which the hieroglyphic letters, "PF Bordeaux," were carved rudely with a chisel; so, the mystery of the brig's name and destination remained unsolved to the brothers, as it probably will continue a mystery, until that day when the ocean gives up its secrets and yields up its dead to life!

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

"NEWS FROM HOME."

For some time after the wreck, the brothers seemed to experience a strange dreariness about the place which they never felt before.

They were now shut in entirely, being confined, as it were, to the little valley of the waterfall through the destruction of the tussock- gra.s.s ladder, which previously had opened the tableland on top of the crags to them, giving greater liberty of action; although the ascent had not been by any means an easy matter for Fritz.

Now, however, restricted to their scanty domain, bounded by the bare cliff at the back and encompa.s.sed by lofty headlands on either side, they were prevented from wandering beyond the limits of the bay, save by taking to their boat; and this, the strong winds which set in at the latter end of March rendered utterly impossible of achievement.

Consequently, they began to realise more fully their solitary condition, recognising the fact that they were crusoes indeed!

No event of any importance happened after the episode of the bonfire and the storm in which the crew of the brig perished, for some weeks, nothing occurring to break the monotony of the solitary life they were leading; until, one morning, without any warning, the penguins, which had been their constant companions from the commencement of their self- chosen exile up to now, suddenly left the island.

This was in the month of April.

Never was a migration more unexpected.

On the evening before, the birds, so long as daylight lasted, were seen still playing about in the bay and arranging themselves in lines along the rough escarpment of the headlands, where they were drawn up like soldiers on parade and apparently dressed in the old-fashioned uniform that is sometimes still seen on the stage. Really, their black and white plumage exactly resembled the white buckskin breeches and black three-cornered hats of the whilom mousquetaires; while their drooping flappers seemed like hands down their sides in the att.i.tude of "attention!"--the upper portions of the wings, projecting in front, representing those horrible cross-belts that used to make the men look as if they wore stays.

The penguins seemed so much at home on the island that it looked as if they never intended leaving it, albeit the brothers noticed that the birds barked and grumbled more discordantly than they had done of late.

No doubt there was something on hand, they thought; but they never dreamt that this grand pow-wow was their leave-taking of the rookery; but, lo and behold! when Eric came out of the hut next morning to pay his customary matutinal visit to the beach, there was not a single penguin to be seen anywhere in the vicinity, either out in the water or on land!

They had disappeared, as if by magic, in one single night. In the evening before, they were with them; when day dawned, they were gone!

Fritz and Eric had got so accustomed to the birds by this time, studying their habits and watching the progress of many of the adult penguins from the egg to representative birdom, as they pa.s.sed through the various gradations of hatching and moulting, that they quite missed them for the first few days after their departure.

The cliffs, without their presence to enliven them, appeared never so stern and bleak and bare as now; the headlands never so forbidding and impa.s.sable; the valley never so prison-like, to the brothers, shut in as they were and confined to the bay!

However, the winter season coming on apace, the two soon had plenty to do in preparing for its advent. This served to distract their attention from becoming morbid and dwelling on their loneliness, which was all the more dismal now from the fact of their being debarred from their hunting-ground on the plateau--Fritz having got strong and well again after the wreck, and being now able to start on a second expedition in pursuit of "Kaiser Billy," did he so wish, if the access to the tableland above the cliffs by way of the gully were only still open to them.

Goat-shooting, therefore, being denied them, the brothers busied themselves about other matters, as soon as the increasing coldness of the air and an occasional snow-storm warned them that winter would soon visit the sh.o.r.es of the island.

"I tell you what," said Fritz, when the first few flakes of snow came fluttering down one afternoon as they were standing outside the hut, the sun having set early and darkness coming on. "We're going to have some of the old weather we were accustomed to at Lubeck."

"Ah; but, we can have no skating or slides here!" replied Eric, thinking of the ca.n.a.ls and frozen surface of the sea near his northern home, when the frost a.s.serted its sway, ruling with a sceptre of ice everywhere.

"No, and we don't want them either," rejoined the practical Fritz. "I am pondering over a much more serious matter; and that is, how we shall keep ourselves warm? My coat, unfortunately, is getting pretty nearly worn-out!"

"And so is mine," cried Eric, exhibiting the elbows of his reefing jacket, in which a couple of large holes showed themselves. The rest of the garment, also, was so patched up with pieces of different coloured cloth that it more resembled an old-clothes-man's sack than anything else!

"Well, what do you think of our paying our tailor a visit?" said Fritz all at once, after cogitating a while in a brown study.