Fritz and Eric Part 49

Everything was got ready for their instant departure; the consequence of which was that all their own personal little goods and chattels were packed up so soon that they had frequently to open the bundles again to take out some article they required for use!

The golden treasure was not forgotten either--that may be taken for granted.

The result of their sealing for the past year was also put up for shipment. This consisted of eighty-five sealskins and fifty barrels of oil--a result that said much for their industry during the period.

And so, the brother crusoes waited and looked out, day after day, with longing eyes for the anxiously expected vessel that was to terminate their exile on Inaccessible Island and bear them back to the loved ones at home!

Fritz of late had somewhat reformed his lazy habits, rising much earlier than he used to do, this reformation being caused by a natural desire to be up and stirring when the _Pilot's Bride_ should arrive; but, still, Eric invariably forestalled him. The sailor lad was always down on the beach on the look-out, in default of being able to climb up to his former signalling station on the cliff, at the first break of day!

Morning after morning, he went down to the sh.o.r.e; morning after morning, he returned with a disconsolate face and the same sad report--

"Nothing in sight!"

This was the case every day.

There was never the vestige of a vessel on the horizon.

At last, one morning became a gladdened one in their calendar!

Eric had proceeded to the beach as usual; but, not returning so soon as was his general habit, Fritz had time to awaken and rouse up from bed.

Anxious at the lad's delay, he went to the door of the hut, peering out to seaward as the sun rose in the east, flooding the ocean with a radiance of light.

At the same instant, Fritz heard Eric hailing him in the distance.

It was the cheeriest shout, he thought, he had ever heard!

Only two words the lad called out.

"Sail ho!"

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

IN THE GULDEN STRa.s.sE AGAIN.

That was all.

"Sail ho!" shouted Eric in stentorian tones, his voice penetrating through the entire valley, and reaching probably the remotest extent of the island.

The shout was quite enough for Fritz; for, hardly taking time to dress, he at once rushed down to join his brother on the beach.

"Where is she?" he cried out anxiously, when yet some distance off. He panted out the question as he ran.

"Right off the bay!" sang out Eric, in quite as great a state of frenzied excitement. "She's hull down to windward now; but she's rising every moment on the horizon."

"Where?" repeated Fritz, now alongside of the other. "I can't see her."

"There," said Eric, pointing to a tiny white speck in the distance, which to Fritz's eyes seemed more like the wing of a sea bird than anything else.

"How can you make her out to be the _Pilot's Bride_?" was his next query. "I can barely discern a faint spec far away; and that might be anything!"

Eric smiled.

"Himmel!" he cried with an infinite superiority. "What bad sight you landsmen have, to be sure! Can't you see that she is a barque and is steering straight for the bay. What other vessel, I should like to know, would be coming here of that description, save the old skipper's ship!"

Fritz made no reply to this unanswerable logic; so, he asked another question instead.

"What time do you think she'll be near enough to send a boat off, eh, brother? We can't go out to meet her, now, you know."

"No, worse luck!" said Eric. "However, I think, with this breeze, she'll be close to us in a couple of hours' time."

"A couple of hours!" exclaimed Fritz with dismay, the interval, in his present excited state of feeling, appearing like an eternity!

"Yes; but, the time will soon pa.s.s in watching her," replied the sailor lad. "Look how she rises! There, can't you now see her hull above the waves?"

Fritz gazed till his eyes were almost blinded, the sun being right in his face when he looked in the direction of the advancing vessel; but, to his inexperienced eyes, she still seemed as far off as ever.

"I dare say you are right, Eric," he said; "still, I cannot see her hull yet--nor anything indeed but the same little tiny speck I noticed at first! However," he added, drawing a deep sigh, "if we only wait patiently, I suppose she'll arrive in time."

"Everything comes to him who knows how to wait," replied his brother, rather grandiloquently; after which speech the two continued to look out over the shimmering expanse of water, now lit up by the rays of the steadily rising sun, without interchanging another word. Their thoughts were too full for speech.

Some two hours later, the _Pilot's Bride_--for it was that vessel, Eric's instinct not having misled him--backed her main-topsail and lay- to off the entrance to the little bay, the gaudy American flag being run up as she came to the wind, and a gun fired.

The brother crusoes were almost mad in their eagerness to get on board.

"What a pity we have no boat!" they both exclaimed together.

They looked as if they could have plunged into the sea, ready dressed as they were, so as to swim off to the welcome vessel!

Eric waved his handkerchief frantically to and fro.

"The skipper will soon know that something has prevented our coming off, and will send in a boat," he said; and the two then waited impatiently for the next act of the stirring nautical drama in which they had so deep an interest.

In a few minutes, they could see a boat lowered from the side of the ship; and, presently, this was pulled towards the sh.o.r.e by four oarsmen, while another individual, whom Eric readily recognised in the distance as Captain Brown, sat in the stern-sheets, steering the little craft in whaling fashion with another oar.

"It's the good old skipper!" exclaimed Eric, dancing about and waving his hat round his head so wildly that it seemed as if he had taken leave of his senses. "I can see his jolly old face behind the rowers, as large as life!"

Two or three minutes more, and the boat's keel grated on the beach, when Fritz and Eric sprang into the water to greet their old friend.

"Waall, boys!" cried the skipper, "I guess I'm raal downright glad to see you both ag'in, thet I am--all thet, I reckon. It's a sight for sore eyes to see you lookin' so slick and hearty."

So saying, Captain Brown shook hands with the two in his old, thoroughgoing arm-wrenching fashion, their hands when released seeming to be almost reduced to pulp in the process, through the pressure of his brawny fist.

Of course, they then had a long talk together, the brothers recounting all that had happened to them in the past year, Captain Fuller of the schooner _Jane_ having taken to the Cape an account of their doings during the preceding twelve months.

"Waal," exclaimed the skipper, when he was showed their little cargo of sealskins and oil, and told also of the treasure which they had found, "I guess you h'ain't made half so bad a job o' crusoeing, arter all! I reckon them skins an' He, along o' what you shipped afore, will fetch you more'n a couple o' thousan' dollars; an' what with them doubloons you mention, I guess you'll hev' made a pretty considerable pile fur the time you've been sealin'!"