THE FLAG ON THE PEAK
All stood motionless, their hearts tense with excitement, their eyes
turned towards the northern horizon, listening intently, scarcely
breathing.
In the distance a few more shots rang out, the sound borne to them on
the faint breath of the breeze.
“It’s a ship passing off the coast!” said Captain Gould at length.
“Yes; those reports can only come from a ship,” John Block replied;
“when night falls, perhaps we shall see her lights.”
“But couldn’t those shots have been fired on land?” Jenny suggested.
“On land, Jenny dear?” Fritz exclaimed. “You mean there may be some land
near this island?”
“I think it is more likely that there is some ship off there to the
northward,” Captain Gould said again.
“Why should it have fired the gun?” James asked.
“Yes, why?” Jenny echoed him.
If the second surmise were the right one, it followed that the ship
could not be very far from the shore. Perhaps when it was quite dark
they would be able to distinguish the flashes from the guns, if they
were fired again. They might also see her lights before long. But, since
the sound of the guns had come from the north, it was quite possible
that the ship would remain invisible, since the sea in that direction
could not be seen.
No longer did anyone think of going through the ravine, back to Turtle
Bay. Whatever the weather might be, they would all remain where they
were until day. Unfortunately, in the event of a ship coming down on the
west or east, lack of wood would prevent them from lighting a fire to
signal it.
Those distant reports had stirred their hearts to the very depths. They
seemed united by them once more to their kind, felt as though this
island were now not so utterly isolated.
They would have liked to go at once to the far end of the plateau, and
to watch the sea to the northward, whence the cannon shots had come. But
the evening was getting on, and night would fall quite soon—a night
without moon or stars, darkened by the low clouds that the breeze was
chasing to the south. They could not venture among the rocks in
darkness. It would be difficult enough by day; it was impossible by
night.
So it became necessary to settle themselves for the night where they
were, and everyone got busy. After a long search the boatswain
discovered a kind of recess, a space between two rocks, where Jenny,
Susan, Dolly, and the little boy could lie close to the ground, as there
was no sand or sea-weed for them to lie on. They would at least have
shelter from the wind if it should freshen, even shelter from the rain
if the clouds broke.
The provisions were taken from the bags and all ate. There was food for
several days, in any case. And might not all fear of spending a winter
in Turtle Bay soon be banished for ever?
Night fell—an endless night it seemed, whose long drawn hours no one
could ever forget, except little Bob, who slept in his mother’s arms.
Utter darkness reigned. From the sea-coast the lights of a ship would
have been visible several miles out at sea.
Captain Gould, and most of the others, insisted on remaining afoot until
daybreak. Their eyes incessantly wandered over the east and west and
south, in the hope of seeing a vessel passing off the island, and not
without fears that she might leave it astern, never to return to it. Had
they been in Turtle Bay at this moment, they would have lighted a fire
upon the end of the promontory. Here, that was impossible.
No light shone out before the return of dawn, no report broke the
silence of the night, no ship came in sight of the island.
The men began to wonder whether they had not been mistaken, if they had
not taken for the sound of cannon what might only have been the roar of
some distant storm.
“No, no,” Fritz insisted, “we were not mistaken! It really was a cannon
firing out there in the north, a good long way away.”
“I’m sure of it,” the boatswain replied.
“But why should they be firing guns?” James Wolston urged.
“Either in salute or in self-defence,” Fritz answered.
“Perhaps some savages have landed on the island and made an attack,”
Frank suggested.
“Anyhow,” the boatswain answered, “it wasn’t savages who fired those
guns.”
“So the island would be inhabited by Americans or Europeans?” James
enquired.
“Well, to begin with, is it only an island?” Captain Gould replied. “How
do we know what is beyond this cliff? Are we perhaps upon some very
large island——”
“A very large island in this part of the Pacific?” Fritz rejoined.
“Which one? I don’t see——”
“In my opinion,” John Block remarked, with much good sense, “it is
useless to argue about all that. The truth is we don’t know whether our
island is in the Pacific or the Indian Ocean. Let us have a little
patience until dawn, which will break quite soon, and then we will go
and see what there is up there to the northward.”
“Perhaps everything—perhaps nothing!” said James.
“Well,” the boatswain retorted, “it will be something to know which!”
About three o’clock the first glimmer of dawn began to show. Low on the
horizon the east grew pale. The weather was very calm, for the wind had
dropped towards morning. The clouds which had been chased by the breeze
were now replaced by a veil of mist, through which the sun eventually
broke. The whole sky gradually cleared. The streak of light drawn
sharply across the east grew wider-spread over the line of sky and sea.
The glorious sun appeared, throwing long streamers of light over the
surface of the waters.
Eagerly all eyes travelled over so much of the ocean as was visible.
But no vessel was to be seen!
At this moment Captain Gould was joined by Jenny, Dolly, and by Susan
Wolston, who was holding her child’s hand.
The albatross fluttered to and fro, hopped from rock to rock, and
sometimes went quite far off to the northward, as if it were pointing
out the way.
“It looks as if he were showing us where to go,” said Jenny.
“We must follow him!” Dolly exclaimed.
“Not until we have had breakfast,” Captain Gould replied. “We may have
several hours’ marching in front of us, and we must keep up our
strength.”
They shared the provisions hurriedly, so impatient were they to be off,
and before seven o’clock they were moving towards the north.
It was most difficult walking among the rocks. Captain Gould and the
boatswain, in advance, pointed out the practicable paths. Then Fritz
came helping Jenny, Frank helping Dolly, and James helping Susan and
little Bob.
Nowhere did the foot encounter grass or sand. It was all a chaotic
accumulation of stones, what might have been a vast field of scattered
rocks or moraines. Over it birds were flying, frigate-birds, sea-mews,
and sea-swallows, in whose flight the albatross sometimes joined.
They marched for an hour, at the cost of immense fatigue, and had
accomplished little more than two miles, steadily up hill. There was no
change in the appearance of the nature of the plateau.
It was absolutely necessary to call a halt in order to get a little
rest.
Fritz then suggested that he should go on ahead with Captain Gould and
John Block. That would spare the others fresh fatigue.
The proposal was unanimously rejected. They would not separate. They all
wanted to be there when—or if—the sea became visible in the northward.
The march was resumed about nine o’clock. The mist tempered the heat of
the sun. At this season it might have been insupportable on this stony
waste, on which the rays fell almost vertically at noon.
While still extending towards the north, the plateau was widening out to
east and west, and the sea, which so far had been visible in both these
directions, would soon be lost to sight. And still there was not a tree,
not a trace of vegetation, nothing but the same sterility and solitude.
A few low hills rose here and there ahead.
At eleven o’clock a kind of cone showed its naked peak, towering some
three hundred feet above this portion of the plateau.
“We must get to the top of that,” said Jenny.
“Yes,” Fritz replied; “from there we shall be able to see over a much
wider horizon. But it may be a rough climb!”
It probably would be, but so irresistible was the general desire to
ascertain the actual situation that no one would have consented to
remain behind, however great the fatigue might be. Yet who could tell
whether these poor people were not marching to a last disappointment, to
the shattering of their last hope?
They resumed their journey towards the peak, which now was about half a
mile away. Every step was difficult, and progress was painfully slow
among the hundreds of rocks which must be scrambled over or gone round.
It was more like a chamois track than a footpath. The boatswain insisted
on carrying little Bob, and his mother gave the child to him. Fritz and
Jenny, Frank and Dolly, and James and Susan kept near together, that the
men might help the women over the dangerous bits.
It was past two o’clock in the afternoon when the base of the cone was
reached. They had taken three hours to cover less than a mile and three
quarters since the last halt. But they were obliged to rest again.
The stop was of short duration, and in twenty minutes the climbing
began.
It had occurred to Captain Gould to go round the peak, to avoid a tiring
climb. But its base was seen to be impassable, and, after all, the
height was not great.
At the outset the foot found hold upon a soil where scanty plants were
growing, clumps of stone-crops to which the fingers could cling.
Half an hour sufficed to bring them half-way up the peak. Then Fritz,
who was in front, let a cry of surprise escape him.
All stopped, looking at him.
“What is that, up there?” he said, pointing to the extreme top of the
cone.
A stick was standing upright there, a stick five or six feet long, fixed
between the highest rocks.
“Can it be a branch of a tree, with all the leaves stripped off?” said
Frank.
“No; that is not a branch,” Captain Gould declared.
“It is a stick—a walking-stick!” Fritz declared. “A stick which has been
set up there.”
“And to which a flag has been fastened,” the boatswain added; “and the
flag is still there!”
A flag at the summit of this peak!
Yes; and the breeze was beginning to stir the flag, although from this
distance the colours could not be identified.
“Then there are inhabitants on this island!” Frank exclaimed.
“Not a doubt of it!” Jenny declared.
“Or if not,” Fritz went on, “it is clear, at any rate, that someone has
taken possession of it.”
“What island is this, then?” James Wolston demanded.
“Or, rather, what flag is this?” Captain Gould added.
“An English flag!” the boatswain cried. “Look: red bunting with the
yacht in the corner!”
The wind had just spread out the flag, and it certainly was a British
flag.
How they sprang from rock to rock! A hundred and fifty feet still
separated them from the summit, but they were no longer conscious of
fatigue, did not try to recover their wind, but hurried up without
stopping, carried along by what seemed supernatural strength!
At length, just before three o’clock, Captain Gould and his companions
stood side by side on the top of the peak.
Their disappointment was bitter when they turned their eyes towards the
north.
A thick mist hid the horizon. It was impossible to discover whether the
plateau ended on this side in a perpendicular cliff, as it did at Turtle
Bay, or whether it spread much further beyond. Through this dense fog
nothing could be seen. Above the layer of vapour the sky was still
bright with the rays of the sun, now beginning to decline into the west.
Well, they would camp there and wait until the breeze had driven the fog
away! Not one of them would go back without having examined the northern
portion of the island!
For was there not a British flag there, floating in the breeze? Did it
not say as plainly as words that this land was known, that it must
figure in latitude and longitude on the English charts?
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! 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.