A BARREN SHORE
The castaways had reached land at last! Not one of them had succumbed to
the fatigue and privations of their fortnight’s voyage under such
distressing and dangerous conditions, and for that thanks were due to
God. Only Captain Gould was suffering terribly from fever. But in spite
of his exhaustion, his life did not appear to be in danger, and a few
days’ rest might set him up again.
The question rose, what was this land on which they had disembarked?
Whatever it was, it unhappily was not New Switzerland, where, but for
the mutiny of Robert Borupt and his crew, the _Flag_ would have arrived
within the expected time. What had this unknown shore to offer instead
of the comfort and prosperity of Rock Castle?
But this was not the moment to waste time over such questions. The night
was so dark that nothing could be seen except a strand backed by a lofty
cliff, at its sides bastions of rock. It was settled that all should
remain in the boat until sunrise. Fritz and the boatswain were to keep
watch until the morning. The coast might be frequented by natives, and
vigilance was necessary. Whether it were Australian continent or Pacific
Island, they must be upon their guard. In the event of attack they would
be able to escape by putting out to sea.
Jenny, Dolly, and Susan therefore resumed their places beside Captain
Gould. Frank and James stretched themselves out between the benches,
ready to spring up at the call of the boatswain. But for the moment they
had reached the limit of their strength, and they fell asleep
immediately.
Fritz and John Block sat together in the stern and talked in low tones.
“So here we are in harbour, Mr. Fritz,” said the boatswain; “I knew we
should end by getting there. If it isn’t, properly speaking, a harbour,
you will agree at any rate that it is ever so much better than anchoring
among rocks. Our boat is safe for the night. To-morrow we will look into
things.”
“I envy you your cheerfulness, my dear Block,” Fritz answered. “This
neighbourhood does not inspire me with any confidence, and our position
is anything but comfortable near a coast whose bearings we do not even
know.”
“The coast is a coast, Mr. Fritz. It has got creeks and beaches and
rocks; it is made like any other, and I don’t suppose it will sink from
under our feet. As for the question of leaving it, or of settling on it,
we will decide that later.”
“Anyhow, Block, I hope we shall not be obliged to put to sea again
before the captain has had a little time to rest and recover. So if the
spot is deserted, if it has resources to offer, and we run no risk of
falling into the hands of natives, we must stay here some time.”
“Deserted it certainly seems to be so far,” the boatswain replied, “and
to my thinking, it is better it should be.”
“I think so, too, Block, and I think that we shall be able to renew our
provisions by fishing, if we can’t by hunting.”
“As you say, sir. Then, if the game here only amounts to sea-birds which
one can’t live on, we will hunt in the forests and plains inland and
make up our fishing that way. Without guns, of course——”
“What brutes they were, Block, not even to leave us any firearms!”
“They were perfectly right—in their own interests, you understand,” the
boatswain replied. “Before we let go I could not have resisted the
temptation to shoot at the head of that rascal Borupt—the treacherous
hound!”
“Traitors all,” Fritz added; “all of them who stood in with him.”
“Well, they shall pay for their treachery some day!” John Block
declared.
“Did you hear anything, bos’un?” Fritz asked suddenly, listening
intently.
“No; that sound is only the ripples along the shore. There is nothing to
worry about, so far, and although the night is as dark as the bottom of
the hold I’ve got good eyes.”
“Well, don’t shut them for a moment, Block; let us be prepared for
anything.”
“The hawser is ready to be cast off,” the boatswain answered. “If need
be, we shall only have to seize the oars, and with one shove with the
boat-hook I’ll guarantee to drive the boat a good twenty yards from the
rocks.” More than once, however, during the night, Fritz and the
boatswain were set on the alert. They thought they could hear a crawling
sound upon the sandy shore.
Deep silence reigned. The breeze had died away; the sea had fallen to a
calm. A slight surf breaking at the foot of the rocks was all that could
be heard. A few birds, a very few, gulls and sea-mews flying in from the
sea, sought their crannies in the cliffs. Nothing disturbed the first
night passed upon the shore.
Next morning all were astir at daybreak, and it was with sinking hearts
that they examined the coast on which they had found refuge.
Fritz had been able to see part of it the day before, when it was a mile
or so away. Viewed from that point it extended ten or twelve miles east
and west. From the promontory at the foot of which the boat was moored,
only a fifth of that, at most, could be seen, shut in between two angles
with the sea beyond, clear and lucent on the right hand but still dark
upon the left. The shore extended for a stretch of perhaps a mile,
enclosed at each end by lofty bastions of rock, while a black cliff
completely shut it in behind.
This cliff must have been eight or nine hundred feet in height, rising
sheer from the beach, which sloped steeply up to its base. Was it higher
still beyond? That could only be ascertained by scaling the crest by
means of the bastions, one of which, the one to the east, running rather
farther out to sea, presented an outline that was not so perpendicular.
Even on that side, however, the ascent would be an uncommonly difficult
one, if indeed it were not impracticable.
Captain Gould and his companions were first conscious of a feeling of
utter discouragement as they beheld the wild desolation of this carpet
of sand, with points of rock jutting out here and there. Not a tree, not
a bush, not a trace of vegetation! Here were the melancholy and horror
of the desert. The only verdure was that of scanty lichens, those
rudimentary productions of nature, rootless, stalkless, leafless,
flowerless, looking like scabby patches on the sides of the rocks, and
of every tint from faded yellow to brilliant red. In some places, too,
there was a kind of sticky mildew caused by the damp. At the edge of the
cliff there was not a blade of grass; on its granite wall there was not
a single one of those stone-crops or rock plants which need so very
little soil.
Was it to be deduced that soil was lacking on the plateau above as well?
Had the boat found nothing better than one of those desert islands
undeserving of a name?
“It certainly isn’t what you might call a gay place,” the boatswain
murmured in Fritz’s ear.
“Perhaps we should have had better luck if we had come ashore on the
west or east.”
“Perhaps,” Block assented; “but at any rate we shall not run up against
any savages here.”
For it was obvious that not even a savage could have existed on this
barren shore.
Jenny, Frank, Dolly, James, and Susan sat in the boat, surveying the
whole coast, so different from the verdant shores of the Promised Land.
Even Burning Rock, gloomy of aspect as it was, had had its natural
products to offer to Jenny Montrose, the fresh water of its stream and
the game in its woods and plains. Here was nothing but stones and sand,
a bank of shells on the left, and long trails of sea-weeds left high and
dry by the tide. Verily, a land of desolation!
The animal kingdom was represented by a few sea-birds, gulls,
black-divers, sea-mews, and swallows, which uttered deafening cries at
finding their solitude disturbed by the presence of man. Higher up,
great frigate-birds, halcyons and albatrosses sailed on powerful wings.
“Well,” said the boatswain at last, “even if this shore is not so good
as yours in New Switzerland, that’s no reason for not landing on it.”
“Then let us land,” Fritz answered. “I hope we shall find somewhere to
shelter at the foot of the cliff.”
“Yes, let us land,” said Jenny.
“Dear wife,” said Fritz, “I advise you to remain here in the boat, with
Mrs. Wolston and Dolly, while we make our trip. There is no sign of
danger, and you have nothing to be afraid of.”
“Besides,” the boatswain added, “we most likely shan’t go out of sight.”
Fritz jumped on to the sand, followed by the others, while Dolly called
out cheerfully: “Try to bring us back something for dinner, Frank! We
are relying upon you.”
“We must rely upon you rather, Dolly,” Frank replied. “Put out some
lines at the foot of those rocks.”
“We had better not land,” Mrs. Wolston agreed. “We will do our best
while you are away.”
“The great thing,” Fritz remarked, “is to keep what little biscuit we
have left, in case we are obliged to put to sea again.”
“Now, Mrs. Fritz,” John Block said, “get the stove going. We are not the
kind of people to be satisfied with lichen soup or boiled pebbles, and
we promise to bring you something solid and substantial.”
The weather was fairly fine. Through the clouds in the east a few
sun-rays filtered.
Fritz, Frank, James, and the boatswain trudged together along the edge
of the shore, over sand still wet from the last high tide.
Ten feet or so higher the sea-weeds lay in zig-zag lines.
Some were of kinds which contain nutritive substances, and John Block
exclaimed:
“Why, people eat that—when they haven’t got anything else! In my
country, in Irish sea-ports, a sort of jam is made of that!”
After walking three or four hundred yards in this direction, Fritz and
his companions came to the foot of the bastion to the west. Formed of
enormous rocks with slippery surfaces, and almost perpendicular, it
plunged straight down into the clear and limpid water which the slight
surf scarcely disturbed. Its foundations could be seen seven or eight
fathoms below.
To climb along this bastion was quite impossible for it rose
perpendicularly. It would be necessary to scale the cliff in order to
find out if the upper plateau displayed a less arid surface. Moreover,
if they had to abandon the idea of climbing this bastion it meant that
they could only get round it by means of the boat. The matter of present
urgency, however, was to look for some cavity in the cliff wherein they
could take shelter.
So all went up to the top of the beach, along the base of the bastion.
When they reached the corner of the cliff, they came upon thick layers
of sea-weeds, absolutely dry. As the last water-marks of the high tide
were visible more than two hundred yards lower down, this meant—the
steep pitch of the shore being taken into account—that these plants had
been thrown up so far, not by the sea, but by the winds from the south,
which are very violent in these waters.
“If we were obliged to spend the winter here,” Fritz remarked, “these
sea-weeds would supply us with fuel for a long time, if we could not
find any wood.”
“Fuel that burns fast,” the boatswain added. “Before we came to the end
of heaps like that, of course——. But we have still got something to boil
the pot with to-day. Now we must find something to put in it!”
“Let’s look about,” Frank answered.
The cliff was formed by irregular strata. It was easy to recognise the
crystalline nature of these rocks, where feldspar and gneiss were mixed,
an enormous mass of granite, of plutonic origin and extreme hardness.
This formation recalled in no respect to Fritz and Frank the walls of
their own island from Deliverance Bay to False Hope Point, where
limestone only was found, easily broken by pick or hammer. It was thus
that the grotto of Rock Castle had been fashioned. Out of solid granite,
any such work would have been impossible.
Fortunately there was no need to make any such attempt. A hundred yards
from the bastion, behind the piles of sea-wrack, they found a number of
openings in the rock. They resembled the cells of a gigantic hive, and
possibly gave access to the inside of the rock.
There were indeed several cavities at the foot of this cliff.
While some provided only small recesses, others were deep and also dark,
owing to the heaps of sea-weed in front of them. But it was quite likely
that in the opposite part, which was less exposed to the winds from the
sea, some cavern opened into which they might carry the stores from the
boat.
Trying to keep as near as possible to where the boat was moored, Fritz
and his companions walked towards the eastern bastion. They hoped to
find this more practicable than the other, because of its elongated
outline in its lower portion, and thought that they might be able to get
round it. Although it stood up sheer in its upper portion, it sloped
towards the middle and ended in a point by the sea.
Their anticipations were not disappointed. In the corner formed by the
bastion was a cave quite easy of access. Sheltered from the easterly,
northerly, and southerly winds, its position exposed it only to the
winds from the west, less frequent in these regions.
The four men went inside this cave, which was light enough for them to
see all over it. It was some twelve feet high, twenty feet wide, and
fifty or sixty feet deep, and contained several unequal recesses
forming, as it were, so many rooms set round a common hall. It had a
carpet of fine sand, free from any trace of damp. Entrance to it was
through a mouth which could be easily closed.
“As I am a boatswain,” John Block declared, “we couldn’t have found
anything better!”
“I agree,” Fritz replied. “But what worries me is that this beach is
absolute desert, and I am afraid the upper plateau may be so too.”
“Let us begin by taking possession of the cave, and we will attend to
the rest presently.”
“Oh!” said Frank. “That is not much like our house at Rock Castle, and I
don’t even see a stream of fresh water to take the place of our Jackal
River!”
“Patience! Patience!” the boatswain answered. “We shall find some spring
all right by and by among the rocks, or else a stream coming down from
the top of the cliff.”
“Anyhow,” Fritz declared, “we must not think of settling on this coast.
If we do not succeed in getting round the base of those bastions on foot
we must take the boat and reconnoitre beyond them. If it is a small
island we have come ashore upon, we will only stay long enough to set
Captain Gould up again. A fortnight will be enough, I imagine.”
“Well, we have the house, at all events,” John Block remarked. “As for
the garden, who is to say that it isn’t quite close by—on the other side
of this point, perhaps?”
They left the cave and walked down across the beach, so as to get round
the bastion.
From the cave to the first rocks washed by the sea at the half-ebb was
about two hundred yards. On this side there were none of the heaps of
sea-weeds found on the left-hand side of the beach. This promontory was
formed of heavy masses of rocks which seemed to have been broken off
from the top of the cliff. At the cave it would have been impossible to
cross it, but nearer the sea it was low enough to get across.
The boatswain’s attention was soon caught by a sound of running water.
A hundred feet from the cave, a stream murmured among the rocks,
escaping in little liquid threads.
The stones were scattered here, which enabled them to reach the bed of a
little stream fed by a cascade that came leaping down to lose itself in
the sea.
“There it is! There it is! Good fresh water!” John Block exclaimed,
after a draught taken up in his hands.
“Fresh and sweet!” Frank declared when he had moistened his lips with
it.
“And why shouldn’t there be vegetation on the top of the cliff,” John
Block enquired, “although that is only a stream?”
“A stream now,” Fritz said, “and a stream which may even dry up during
the very hot weather, but no doubt a torrent in the rainy season.”
“Well, if it will only flow for a few days longer,” the boatswain
remarked philosophically, “we won’t ask anything more of it.”
Fritz and his companions now had a cave in which to establish their
quarters, and a stream which would enable them to refill the boat’s
casks with fresh water. The chief remaining question was whether they
could provide themselves with food.
Things did not look too promising. After crossing the little river the
explorers had a fresh and deep disappointment.
Beyond the promontory a creek was cut into the coast, in width about
half a mile, fringed with a rim of sand, and enclosed behind by the
cliff. At the far end rose a perpendicular bluff, whose foot was washed
by the sea.
This shore presented the same arid appearance as the other. Here, too,
the vegetable growths were confined to patches of lichen and layers of
sea-weeds thrown up by the tide. Was it, then, on a mere islet, a rocky,
lonely, uninhabitable island in the Pacific Ocean, that the boat had
come ashore? There seemed every reason to fear so.
It appeared useless to carry the exploration as far as the bluff which
enclosed the creek. They were about to go back to the boat when James
stretched out his hand towards the shore and said:
“What is that I see down there on the sand? Look—those moving specks.
They look like rats.”
From the distance it did, indeed, look as if a number of rats were on
march together towards the sea.
“Rats?” said Frank enquiringly. “The rat is game, when he belongs to the
ondatra genus. Do you remember the hundreds we killed, Fritz, when we
made that trip after the boa constrictor?”
“I should think I do, Frank,” Fritz answered; “and I remember, too, that
we did not make much of a feast off their flesh, which reeked too much
of the marsh.”
“Right!” said the boatswain. “Properly cooked, one can eat those
beggars. But there’s no occasion to argue about it. Those black specks
over there aren’t rats.”
“What do you think they are, Block?” Fritz asked.
“Turtles.”
“I hope you are right.”
The boatswain’s good eyesight might have been trusted. There actually
was a crowd of turtles crawling over the sand.
So while Fritz and James remained on watch on the promontory, John Block
and Frank slid down the other side of the rocks, in order to cut off the
band of chelones.
These tortoises were small, measuring only twelve or fifteen inches, and
long in the tail. They belonged to a species whose principal food
consists of insects. There were fifty of them, on march, not towards the
sea, but towards the mouth of the stream, where a quantity of sticky
laminariæ, left by the ebb tide, were soaking.
On this side the ground was studded with little swellings, like bubbles
in the sand, the meaning of which Frank recognised at once.
“There are turtles’ eggs under those!” he exclaimed.
“Well, dig up the eggs, Mr. Frank,” John Block replied. “I’ll belay the
fowls! That’s certainly ever so much better than my boiled pebbles, and
if little Miss Dolly isn’t satisfied——”
“The eggs will be warmly welcomed, Block, you may be sure,” Frank
declared.
“And the turtles, too; they are excellent beasts—excellent for making
soup, I mean!”
A moment later the boatswain and Frank had turned a score of them over
on to their backs. They were quite helpless in that position. Laden with
half a dozen of them, and twice as many eggs, they went back towards the
boat.
Captain Gould listened eagerly to John Block’s story. Since he had been
spared the shaking of the boat his wound had been paining him less, the
fever was beginning to go down, and a week’s rest would certainly put
him on his feet again. Wounds in the head, unless they are exceptionally
serious, generally heal easily and soon. The bullet had only grazed the
surface of the skull, after tearing away part of the cheek; but it had
been within an ace of going through the temple. A speedy improvement
could now be looked for in the condition of the wounded man, thanks to
the rest and care which he could now obtain.
It was with much satisfaction Captain Gould learned that turtles
abounded in this bay, which was named Turtle Bay in their honour. It
meant the guarantee of a wholesome and plentiful food, even for a
considerable time. It might even be possible to preserve some of it in
salt and load the boat with it when the time came to put to sea again.
For of course they would have later to seek a more hospitable shore to
the northward, if the table-land at the top of the cliff proved to be as
unfertile as that of Turtle Bay, if it had no woods or grass-lands, if,
in short, the land on which the passengers of the _Flag_ had come ashore
proved to be nothing more than a mere heap of rocks.
“Well, Dolly, and you, too, Jenny,” said Frank when he got back, “are
you satisfied? How has the fishing gone while we have been away?”
“Pretty well,” Jenny answered, pointing to several fish lying on the
poop.
“And we’ve got something better than that to offer you,” added Dolly,
merrily.
“What’s that, then?” Fritz asked.
“Mussels,” the girl answered. “There are heaps of them at the foot of
the promontory. Look at those boiling in the saucepan now!”
“Congratulations!” said Frank. “And you owe us congratulations, too,
Jenny, for we have not come back empty-handed. Here are some eggs——”
“Hens’ eggs?” Bob exclaimed eagerly.
“No; turtles’,” Frank replied.
“Turtles’ eggs?” Jenny repeated. “Did you find turtles?”
“A regiment of them,” the boatswain told her; “and there are lots more;
there are enough to last us all the time we shall be at anchor in the
bay.”
“Before we leave this bay,” Captain Gould put in, “I think we ought to
reconnoitre along the coast, or climb to the top of the cliff.”
“We’ll try it, captain,” John Block answered. “But don’t let’s be in a
greater hurry than we need be, since it is possible to exist here
without touching what we have left of the biscuit.”
“That’s what I think, Block.”
“What we want, captain,” Frank went on, “is that you should have a rest
to allow your wound to heal, and you to get back your strength. A week
or two is nothing to spend here. When you are on your feet again you
will have a look at things for yourself, and you will decide what is
best to be done.”
During the morning they proceeded to unload the boat of all that it
contained, the bag of biscuit, the casks, the fuel, the utensils, and
the clothing, and everything was carried within the cave. The little
stove was set up in the corner of the bastion, and was first employed in
making the turtle soup.
As for Captain Gould, he was carried to the cave by Fritz and the
boatswain; a comfortable bed was waiting ready for him, made of dry
sea-weed by Jenny and Dolly, and there he was able to enjoy several
hours’ sleep.