THE STORY OF JENNY MONTROSE
M. Zermatt felt very anxious when he thought of the risks his son was
about to run. But as he could neither stop him nor go with him the boat
was obliged to continue its course towards False Hope Point.
When he got back to Rock Castle M. Zermatt decided still to say nothing
to his children, or even to his wife. It would only have meant exciting
useless fears, and possibly raising idle hopes. He only talked about
an exploration to be conducted towards the west side of the shore. But
when the absent one had not come back, at the end of three days, M.
Zermatt was so uneasy that he resolved to go to look for him.
At daybreak on the 20th of April the _Elizabeth_ got under way. She had
been properly provisioned for this voyage, and had on board father,
mother, and the three sons.
A better wind could not have been wished for. A good breeze blew from
the south-west, allowing the pinnace to sail along the coast. In the
afternoon she rounded the rocks of the archway and entered Pearl Bay.
M. Zermatt dropped anchor near the oyster bed, at the mouth of the
river, where traces of the last camp were still to be seen. They were
all preparing to go ashore when Ernest exclaimed:
"A savage! A savage!"
And there indeed, towards the west of the bay, between the wooded
islets, was a canoe moving about, seemingly mistrustful of the pinnace.
Never as yet had there been any ground for believing that New
Switzerland was inhabited. Now, in view of a possible attack, the
_Elizabeth_ put herself on the defensive, with cannon loaded and guns
ready to fire. But as soon as the savage had approached within a few
cables' length, Jack cried out:
"It is Fritz!"
Fritz it was, alone in his canoe. Not having recognised from a distance
the pinnace, which he had not expected to see in these waters, he was
advancing cautiously, having even taken the precaution to blacken his
face and hands.
When he had joined his family and embraced his mother and brothers, not
without leaving a few smuts upon their cheeks, he led his father to one
side.
"I have succeeded," he said.
"What? The English girl on Burning Rock?"
"Yes, she is there, quite close, on an island in Pearl Bay," Fritz
replied.
Without a word to his wife or children, M. Zermatt turned the pinnace
towards the island pointed out by Fritz near the western shore of the
bay. As they approached they could see a little wood of palms close to
the beach, and in the wood a hut built in the Hottentot fashion.
They all landed, and Fritz fired a pistol in the air. Then they saw
what looked like a young man come down from a tree in whose branches he
was hiding.
But it was not a young man. It was a girl of about twenty, dressed like
a midshipman. She was Jenny Montrose, the young English girl of the
Burning Rock.
Mme. Zermatt, Ernest, Jack, and Frank now learnt the circumstances in
which Fritz had discovered the situation of the deserted creature on
a volcanic island in the open sea outside Pearl Bay, and how he had
replied in a note which the young girl had never received, for the
albatross did not return to Burning Rock.
How can one hope to describe the reception Jenny Montrose had, or the
tenderness with which Mme. Zermatt folded her in her arms? While they
had to wait for her to tell her story, Jenny had already heard from
Fritz the story of New Switzerland and of the shipwrecked passengers on
the _Landlord_.
The pinnace immediately left Pearl Bay, with all the family, now
augmented by the young English girl. On both sides English and German
were spoken sufficiently well for mutual understanding, and it was as
though Jenny had at once become a member of the Robinson family.
Of course the _Elizabeth_ carried home the few useful articles which
Jenny had made with her own hands during her stay on Burning Rock. It
was only natural that she should cling to these things, which had so
many memories for her.
Also there were two living creatures, two faithful companions from
which the young girl could never have parted--a cormorant that she had
trained to fish, and a tame jackal.
The _Elizabeth_ was favoured with a fresh breeze which enabled her
to carry every stitch of her canvas. The weather was so settled that
M. Zermatt could not resist the desire to put in at the various
establishments in the Promised Land as each came into view, when the
pinnace had rounded False Hope Point.
The villa on Prospect Hill was the first, situated on that green hill,
whence a view extended right to Falconhurst. The night was spent there,
and it was a long time since Jenny had enjoyed so quiet a sleep.
Fritz and Frank, however, started at earliest dawn in the canoe in
order to get everything ready at Rock Castle for the proper reception
of the young English girl. Some time afterwards the pinnace put to sea
again, and put in first at Whale Island, where a colony of rabbits was
swarming. M. Zermatt insisted on Jenny accepting this island for her
own--a present which she gratefully accepted.
From this point the passengers on the _Elizabeth_ might have taken the
land route and visited the farmstead at Wood Grange and the aerial
dwelling, Falconhurst. But M. Zermatt and his wife wanted to leave
Fritz the pleasure of taking their new companion to these.
Accordingly the pinnace continued to follow the windings of the shore
as far as the mouth of Jackal River. When she reached the opening into
Deliverance Bay she was received with a salute of three guns from the
battery on Shark's Island. At the same moment Fritz and Frank hoisted
the red and white flag in honour of the young girl.
When the salute had been returned by the two small guns aboard the
pinnace M. Zermatt came alongside just as Fritz and Frank landed from
the canoe. Then the entire family went up the beach to gain Rock Castle.
Jenny was overcome with wonder and admiration as she entered the fresh
and verdant verandah and saw the arrangement and the furniture of the
various rooms; when, too, she saw the dining table carefully laid by
Fritz and his brother, with bamboo cups, cocoanut plates, and ostrich
egg vessels side by side with utensils of European manufacture taken
from the _Landlord_.
The dinner consisted of fresh fish, roast fowl, peccary ham, and fruit,
with mead and canary wine as drinks.
Jenny Montrose was given the place of honour, between M. Zermatt and
his wife. Tears of joy sprang to her eyes when, on a banner garlanded
with flowers hung above the table, she read these words:
"Welcome to Jenny Montrose! God bless her entrance into the home of the
Swiss Family Robinson!"
Then she told her story.
Jenny was the only child of Major William Montrose, an officer in the
Indian army. While she was still quite young, a child indeed, she had
followed her father from garrison to garrison. Deprived of her mother
at the age of seven, she was brought up under her father's watchful
care, and equipped to meet all the struggles of life unaided, if her
last support should ever fail her. She was thoroughly instructed in
everything right for a girl to know, and physical exercises had been an
important part of her education--riding and hunting in particular.
In the middle of the year 1812 Major Montrose, now promoted Colonel,
was ordered to return to Europe on board a man-of-war bringing home
time-expired men from the Anglo-Indian army. He had been appointed to
the command of a regiment in a distant expedition, and there was every
probability that he would not return until he retired. This made it
necessary for his daughter, now seventeen, to journey to her native
country and make her home with an aunt in London. There she was to
await the return of her father when at last he should rest from the
fatigues of a life devoted to the service of arms.
As Jenny could not travel on a troopship, Colonel Montrose put her,
with a maid to attend her, in the charge of a friend of his, Captain
Greenfield, commander of the _Dorcas_. This ship sailed a few days
before the one which was to take the colonel.
The voyage was ill-starred from the very first. On leaving the Bay of
Bengal the _Dorcas_ encountered storms of fearful violence; later she
was chased by a French frigate, and compelled to seek refuge in the
harbour of Batavia.
When the enemy had left these waters, the _Dorcas_ set sail once more,
and steered her course for the Cape of Good Hope. Her passage was a
most difficult one at this stormy season. Contrary winds continued
to blow with astonishing persistence. The _Dorcas_ was put out of her
course by a storm which swept up from the south-west. For an entire
week Captain Greenfield was unable to take his bearings. In fact he
could not have told whereabouts in the Indian Ocean he had been carried
by the storm, when during the night his ship struck a reef.
An unknown coast rose some little distance off and the crew, jumping
into the first boat, made an attempt to reach it. Jenny Montrose, with
her maid and a few passengers, got into the second boat. The ship was
breaking up already, and had to be abandoned as speedily as possible.
Half an hour later the second boat was capsized by a huge wave just as
the first boat was disappearing in the darkness.
When Jenny recovered consciousness she found herself upon a beach where
the surf had laid her, probably the sole survivor of the wreck of the
_Dorcas_.
The girl did not know what length of time had elapsed since the boat
was swamped. It was almost a miracle that she had strength enough left
to drag herself into a cave, where, after she had eaten a few eggs, she
found a little rest in sleep.
When she awoke she dried in the sun the man's clothes which she had put
on at the time the ship struck, in order to be less hampered in her
movements, and in one of the pockets of which there was a tinder-box
which would enable her to make a fire.
Jenny walked all along the shore of the island but could not see any
of her shipmates. There was nothing but fragments of the ship, a few
pieces of wood from which she used to keep up her fire.
But, so great was the physical and moral strength of this young girl,
so potent was the influence of her almost masculine education, that
despair never took hold of her. She set her home within the cave
in order. A few nails taken from the wreckage of the _Dorcas_ were
her only tools. Clever with her fingers, and of an inventive mind,
she contrived the few things that were absolutely necessary. She
succeeded in making a bow and fastening a few arrows, with which to
hunt the furred and feathered game, and so provide for her daily food.
There were a few animals which she was able to tame, a jackal and a
cormorant, for instance, and these never left her side.
In the centre of the little island upon which she had been cast by the
sea there rose a volcanic mountain from whose crater smoke and flames
constantly belched. Jenny climbed to the top of this, a hundred fathoms
or so above the level of the sea, but could see no glimpse of land on
the horizon.
Burning Rock, which was about five miles in circumference, had on its
eastern side only a narrow valley through which a little stream ran.
Trees of various kinds sheltered here from too keen winds, covered it
with their thick boughs and foliage; and on one of these mangroves
Jenny established her dwelling-place, just as the Zermatt family had
done at Falconhurst.
Hunting in the valley and neighbourhood, fishing in the stream and
among the rocks with hooks fashioned out of nails, edible pods, and
berries from different trees--these, supplemented by a few cases of
preserved food and casks of wine, cast up on the shore during the three
or four days following the wreck, enabled the young English girl to
make an addition to the roots and shellfish which were her only food at
first.
How many months had Jenny Montrose lived in this fashion on Burning
Rock until the hour of her deliverance came?
At the beginning she had not thought of keeping count of time. But she
was able to calculate roughly that two years and a half had passed
since the wreck of the _Dorcas_.
Throughout all those months, rainy season and hot weather alike, not
a day passed when she did not search the horizon. But never once did
a sail appear on the background of the sky. From the highest point of
the island, however, when the atmosphere was clear, she fancied two or
three times that she could detect land to the eastward. But how was she
to cover the intervening distance? And what was this land?
Although in this intertropical region the cold was not severe, Jenny's
sufferings were great during the rainy season. Ensconced within her
cave, which she was unable to leave either to hunt or to fish, she was
still obliged to find food for herself. Happily the eggs, of which
there were numbers among the rocks, the shellfish densely packed at the
mouth of the cave, and the fruit stored in readiness for this season,
made her food supply secure.
More than two years had passed when the idea occurred to her, like an
inspiration from on high, to fasten to the foot of an albatross which
she had caught a note telling of her deserted state upon the Burning
Rock. She was quite unable to indicate its position. As soon as she set
the bird free it took flight towards the north-east. What likelihood
was there of its ever coming back to Burning Rock?
Several days went by without its reappearing. The faint hope the girl
had had from this venture gradually faded away. But she would not
lose all hope. If the help that she waited for did not come from this
source, it would from some other.
Such was the story which Jenny told to the Zermatts.
They still had to learn the circumstances in which Fritz had discovered
the Burning Rock.
When the boat left Pearl Bay, Fritz, who was in front of it in his
canoe, passed a note to his father acquainting him with his intention
to go to find the young English girl. So after passing the archway,
instead of following the coast to the east, he went off in the opposite
direction.
The shore was sown with reefs and fringed by enormous rocks. Beyond
were masses of trees as fine as those at Wood Grange and Eberfurt.
Numerous water-courses found their outlet in little bays. This
north-west coast was unlike that between Deliverance Bay and Nautilus
Bay.
Fritz was compelled by the heat, which was very great the first day,
to go ashore in order to find a little shade. He had to be rather
cautious, for the hippopotami which lived at the mouth of the streams
could easily have reduced the canoe to fragments.
Arriving at the outskirts of a dense wood, Fritz drew his light boat to
the foot of a tree. Then, tired out he sank to sleep.
Next morning the voyage was continued until midday. When he put in to
shore on this occasion Fritz was obliged to repulse the attack of a
tiger which he wounded in the flank while his eagle tried to tear out
the eyes of the brute. Two pistol shots stretched it dead at his feet.
But, to Fritz's bitter regret, the eagle, disembowelled by a blow from
the tiger's claw, had ceased to breathe. Poor Blitz was buried in the
sand, and his master resumed his voyage, grieved by the loss of his
faithful hunting companion.
The second day had been spent following the winding coastline. No smoke
out at sea indicated the presence of the Burning Rock. Now, as the sea
was calm, Fritz determined to go farther out, in order to see if any
smoke was visible above the south-western horizon. Accordingly he drove
his canoe in that direction. His sail bellied out in the brisk breeze
off the land. After sailing for a couple of hours he was preparing to
put about when he thought he could perceive a faint smoke.
At once Fritz forgot everything, the uneasiness his prolonged absence
would cause at Rock Castle, his own fatigue, and the risks he would run
in venturing out so far to sea. Driven by paddle as well as the wind,
the canoe flew over the sea.
An hour later Fritz found himself within half-a-dozen cable-lengths of
an island topped by a volcano, from which smoke and flame were escaping.
The eastern coast of the island seemed to be quite barren. But as he
wound round it Fritz saw that it was intersected by the mouth of a
stream at the extremity of a green valley.
The canoe was driven into a narrow creek and pulled up on the strand.
On the right hand was a cave, at the entrance to which a human being
was lying, sunk in a deep sleep.
Fritz gazed at her with profound emotion. She was a girl of seventeen
or eighteen, dressed in coarse sailcloth, which yet was clean and
decently arranged. Her features were charming, and her face was very
gentle. Fritz did not dare to waken her, and yet it was salvation which
would greet her when she woke.
At last the girl opened her eyes. At the sight of a stranger she
uttered a cry of alarm.
Fritz reassured her with a gesture, and then said in English:
"Do not be frightened, miss. I intend you no harm. I have come to save
you."
And before she had time to reply he told her how an albatross had
fallen into his hands, bearing a note begging help for the Englishwoman
on the Burning Rock. He told her that a few miles to the east there was
a land where a whole shipwrecked family was living.
Then, after throwing herself on her knees to thank God, the girl
stretched out her hands to him in gratitude. She told her story briefly
and invited Fritz to visit her wretched abode.
Fritz accepted the invitation, but stipulated that the visit must be a
short one. Time pressed, and he was longing to take the young English
girl to Rock Castle.
"To-morrow," she said, "we will start to-morrow, Mr. Fritz. Let me
pass this one night more upon Burning Rock, since I shall never see it
again."
"Very well, to-morrow," the young man answered.
And together they shared a meal provided from Jenny's stores, and the
food carried in the canoe.
At length Jenny said her evening prayers and withdrew inside the cave,
while Fritz lay down at the entrance to it, like a faithful watchdog.
Next day at earliest dawn they put into the canoe the little articles
which Jenny did not want to leave behind, not forgetting her cormorant
and her jackal. The young girl, in her man's dress, took the stern seat
in the light vessel. The sail was hoisted, the paddles were wielded,
and an hour later the last trails of smoke from the Burning Rock were
lost on the far horizon.
Fritz had intended to make direct for False Hope Point. But the canoe,
being heavily loaded, struck a snag of rock, and it was necessary to
repair it. So Fritz was obliged to put into Pearl Bay, and he took his
companion to the island, where the pinnace picked them up.
That was the narrative which Fritz related.
The addition of Jenny Montrose to the family circle increased its
happiness. The weeks went by, busy with the up-keep of the farmsteads
and the care of the animals. A beautiful avenue of fruit trees now
connected Jackal River with Falconhurst. Improvements had been
carried out at Wood Grange, at Sugar-cane Grove, at the hermitage at
Eberfurt, and at Prospect Hill. Many delightful hours were spent in
this last-named villa, built of bamboo on the plan of the Swiss chalet.
From the top of the hill the eye could range on one side over a large
part of the Promised Land, and on the other over a vista of twenty-five
miles, bounded by the line where sea and sky met.
June brought again the heavy rains. It was necessary to leave
Falconhurst and return to Rock Castle. These two or three months were
always rather trying, made depressing, as they were, by the constant
bad weather. A few trips to the farms to attend to the animals, and
a few hours hunting which took Fritz and Jack out into the immediate
neighbourhood of Rock Castle, represented the whole of the outdoor
business of each day.
But they were not idle. Work went on under the direction of Mme.
Zermatt. Jenny helped her, bringing to bear all her ingenious
Anglo-Saxon energy, which was different from the rather more methodical
Swiss system. And while the young girl studied German with M. Zermatt,
the family studied English with her, Fritz speaking that language
fluently at the end of a few weeks. How could they have made any but
rapid progress with such a teacher?
So there was no complaint of dull days during the rainy season. Jenny's
presence lent the evenings a new charm. No one was in a hurry for
bed now. Mme. Zermatt and Jenny busied themselves with needlework.
Sometimes the young girl was asked to sing, for she possessed a
charming voice. She learned the songs of Switzerland, those mountain
melodies which will never grow old, and it was enchanting to hear them
from her lips. Music was varied by reading aloud, when Ernest drew upon
the best works in the library, and it seemed that time for bed always
came too soon.
In this domestic atmosphere M. Zermatt, his wife, and his children,
were as happy as mortal man can be. Yet they could not entirely forget
their fears for the future, the improbability of rescue coming from
outside, or their old homeland. Jenny, too--must not her heart have
been rent sometimes when her thoughts turned to her father? Nothing had
ever been heard of the ship that was taking her home, the _Dorcas_, and
was it not the obvious conclusion that she had foundered with all hands?
The unlooked-for event which altered their situation so profoundly has
already been described.