Fritz was not long in the company of Mr Nathaniel Washington Slater on
the following day before he discovered, much to his disappointment, that
he was one of those superficial characters who are given largely to
dealing in promises that they either have no intention of keeping when
making them originally, or which they never were or would be in a
position to carry out.
When coming up Long Island Sound on board the Rhode Island steamer and
having that friendly chat in the bows of the boat, the deck hand had
been lavishly expansive as to what he would be able to accomplish for
his newly-made acquaintance, in the way of procuring him employment;
but, when Fritz met him again, according to their arrangement of the
previous afternoon, "Nat" did not appear to exhibit that eager alacrity
in introducing him to business men--or "big bugs," as he termed them--
which his words of the night before had led Fritz naturally to expect.
Whether this arose from the fact that the deck hand's desire to aid the
young German had evaporated as rapidly as it had arisen, or because his
morning reflections had convinced him that he had too rashly promised
something which he was unable to perform, Fritz, of course, could not
precisely tell. Whatever was the reason, the result came to the same
thing, that Mr Slater showed a most unmistakable inclination to "back
out" of the matter in the same easy way in which those double-ender
floating palaces Fritz had noticed on the way up could go astern in
order to avoid an obstruction; albeit Nat was prolific in the extreme
with all manner of excuses--excuses that were as baseless and
unsubstantial as the foam churned up by the steamboat's paddle-wheels!
He "felt ugly" and was "no end sorry," but he really "hadn't the time
that morning." This was his first attempt at shunting the engagement;
but then, when Fritz, in the exuberance of hopeful possibilities,
offered to meet him at the same place and time on the following day,
"Nat" "couldn't think of putting him to the trouble," as he "might have
to return to New York in the boat at a moment's notice." Besides, he
said, it would be "better to put off the appointment awhile," as he'd
just heard that the "boss" of the very identical shipping firm where he
thought he could have got Fritz a berth had started "right away" for
Boston, and he was such a "durned electric eel of a cuss, here, there,
and everywhere," that it would be "just dubersome to kalkerlate" when he
would "reel his way back to hum!"
Fritz could not understand many of these very choice Americanisms;
still, he was sufficiently gifted with common sense to see pretty
plainly that all the deck hand's "tall talking" of the previous evening
had been, to use his own expressive vernacular, nothing but "bunkum,"
and that, if he wished to get any situation in the place, he must trust
more to his own good fortune than to Mr Slater's kind offices as a go-
between.
This disheartened him at the time; but when he got back to Captain
Brown's shanty later on, the worthy old skipper, noticing his
despondency, soon cheered him out of it.
"Bless you, sonny," said he affectionately, for he seemed to have taken
as great a fancy to Fritz as he had to Eric--the young fellow having
told him all his plans and prospects, besides giving him an epitome of
his adventures during the war when narrating the same for his brother's
edification,--"Bless you, sonny, nary you mind what thet ne'er-do-well
Nat Slater sez. I'd half a mind to tell you thet yesterday, when I seed
you so thick with him! Jerusalem, mister, he's a coon thet's bin allers
a loafer all his life, stickin' to nuthin' even fur a dog-watch, an' as
shifty as one o' them sculpens in the creek thaar! You jest wait an'
make yourself comf'able haar till bye-em-bye, an' I reckon we'll fix you
up to sunthin'."
The same evening, when the two brothers were alone together, and
speaking of old Captain Brown's kindness, Eric suddenly, as if in a
moment of inspiration, said, "Why should you not come along with me in
the _Pilot's Bride_ when we start next month?"
"What!" exclaimed Fritz in astonishment.
"Don't look so startled, brother," said Eric, laughing at the expression
of the other's face. "Recollect, that as you say, you've been unable to
get any work here, so, why not go with me? I'm sure Captain Brown would
take you with us if you ask him."
"But I'm not a sailor," argued Fritz; "and, besides, if I were one,
going to sea would not be the way to make the fortune I have planned, so
that I may be able to return home and marry Madaleine."
"Ah, that dear Madaleine!" said Eric. "I wonder when I'll see her, and
whether I shall think her all that you describe? Never mind," he added,
seeing that Fritz appeared vexed at this speech, "I've no doubt she's a
beautiful maiden, and that you'll both be as happy as the day is long!
But, I'm going to speak about business now, my brother; and, if you
listen, you'll see that my idea of your coming in the _Pilot's Bride_ is
not such a wild-goose chase, after all."
"I confess I don't see it yet," interposed Fritz, with a smile at Eric's
boyish eagerness. "In what way will going whaling with Captain Brown
and your important self advance my fortunes?"
"Listen," said the other, "and I'll soon tell you. Do you recollect
when I was recounting my story, that after I was picked up from the boat
and taken on board the _Pilot's Bride_, I mentioned the fact of the ship
calling at Tristan d'Acunha?"
"Yes; and you also said that you would inform me of something important
about the place `bye-and-bye,' if you alluded then to what you're going
to tell me now."
"Precisely, `bye-and-bye' is `now,'" said Eric, laughing again and
tossing his mane-like hair back from his forehead in the old fashion.
"We landed at Tristan d'Acunha--"
"Where on earth is that place?" interrupted Fritz. "I've a confused
notion that it is an island of some sort; but, in what precise spot it
is situated, I'm sure I can't tell!"
"Well, then," commenced Eric grandiloquently--only too glad of the
opportunity of having to instruct his elder brother, who had been
regarded in the family circle as the centre of all wisdom--"`Tristan
d'Acunha' is the centre island of a group, so-called after the
Portuguese navigator who discovered them in the early beginning of the
sixteenth century. The islands are probably the most isolated and
remote of all the abodes of men, lying as they do almost in the middle
of the Atlantic Ocean, and nearly equidistant from the continents of
America and Africa; for, they are situated nearly on the line that could
be drawn between Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope--from the latter of
which they are distant some fifteen hundred miles in a westerly
direction, while Saint Helena, the nearest other land to them on the
north, is thirteen hundred miles away."
"You're very explicit, I'm sure," said Fritz in a chaffing way; "you
must have been coaching up your geography recently."
"I disdain vulgar interruption and idle clamour," returned the other in
a similar vein. "But, to proceed. The group consists of the larger
island of Tristan and two smaller islands--Inaccessible Island, some
eighteen miles to the south-west, and Nightingale Island, twenty miles
to the south. These islands are uninhabited, save by penguins and
seals; but an interesting little colony of some eighty souls occupies
Tristan, breeding cattle and cultivating vegetables, with which they
supply passing vessels, mostly whalers--these calling there from time to
time, on their way to and from their fishing grounds in the great
Southern Ocean."
"Your account is highly interesting, my dear Eric," said Fritz, when his
brother had completed this exhaustive description of the Tristan
d'Acunha group; "still, I confess I do not see in what way it affects
me."
"Don't you?"
"No."
"Then you will soon; listen a moment longer. I told you that, with the
exception of the larger one, these islands are uninhabited save by the
penguins and seals and such-like marine animals."
"Yes, you've told me that; and I don't wonder at it when they are
situated so remotely from all civilisation."
"That fact has its advantages none the less," proceeded Eric. "Being so
cut off from communication with men makes these islands just the
favourite resort of those animals that shun the presence of their
destroyers. Seals, as you know, are very nervous, retiring creatures
seeking their breeding-places in the most out-of-the-way, deserted spots
they can find; and the advance of the human race, planting colonies
where the poor things had formerly undisputed sway around the shores of
the South American continent, has driven them further and further
afield, or rather to sea, until they are now only to be met with in any
numbers in the Antarctic Ocean, and such islands as lie adjacent to that
great Southern continent which has never yet been discovered--although
Lord Ross pretty nearly put foot on it, if any explorer can be said to
have done that."
"Really, Eric," exclaimed Fritz jokingly, "you surpass yourself!"
"Oh, I've read up all this in some books Captain Brown lent me," said
the boy. "I wanted to learn everything that was to be learnt about a
whaler's life, and to become acquainted with the special parts of the
ocean that have to be visited by vessels in the trade in order to find a
profitable fishing ground."
"But you've been talking about seals, not whales," remarked Fritz.
"Yes, because it is with seals that my present business lies," said the
other, not a bit put out by the correction.
"Banished now from their once favourite waters around Cape Horn,
adjacent to the islands of the Pacific, there are yet some stray
outlandish spots left which the animals frequent, so as to be able to
breed in peace and multiply, without fear of that wholesale
extermination which is their unhappy lot elsewhere. Amongst such
isolated places is the Tristan d'Acunha group; and, to Inaccessible
Island as well as the other islets they come in countless numbers every
year. Seal fishing is a very profitable concern; for, not only is the
oil valuable, but the skins fetch the most extravagant prices in the
market, especially those of the finer sort. Now, do you see what I'm
after, brother?"
"You want to go sealing, I suppose; but, won't you have plenty of that
in the _Pilot's Bride_ with Captain Brown, eh?"
"Not in the way I mean," replied Eric. "I have an idea of settling for
a time at Tristan d'Acunha, going in thoroughly for the thing as a
business on shore."
Fritz appeared to prick up his ears at this.
"But, I thought you said there was a colony there already; why don't the
people manage to cultivate the trade? Besides, if they have it all
their own way, I think they would not like a couple of strange
interlopers, like you and me, going amongst them to rob them of their
harvest from the sea!"
"Ah, I see you're bitten with the idea," exclaimed Eric, clapping his
hands triumphantly. "But, it was not of Tristan, the larger island, I
was thinking; it was of Inaccessible Island, where there wouldn't be
another living soul but ourselves, the seals, and sea birds."
"`Monarchs of all we survey,' eh, like Robinson Crusoe?" said Fritz with
a smile. "That would be very nice, wouldn't it?"
"Don't laugh, brother," returned Eric, speaking earnestly. "I assure
you I've considered this thing well. The people living at Tristan told
me that they went fishing to the other islands once a year; but, the
weather is generally so rough and the beach so hard to land at or get
off from, on account of the heavy ocean rollers coming in when the wind
is up at all, that the islanders can never make a long stay at the
islets--and so cannot get half the number of sealskins which might be
easily procured by any one stopping ashore there for any length of time.
I really thought, I assure you, of asking Captain Brown, when I went on
my next voyage with him, to land me at Inaccessible Island, with
provisions enough to last me six months or so, and to call for me on his
return voyage from the Cape, as he was wending his way back home again
here."
"And you would have gone there alone?"
"Yes; why not? But now, oh, Fritz, if you would only go with me, we
might settle at this place like regular Robinson Crusoes--as you said
just now--and make a pile of money, or, rather, of skins, in a year or
two!"
"The idea is feasible," said Fritz in a reflective way. "I'll talk to
Captain Brown, and see what he says of it." The elder brother had a
good deal of German caution in his composition; so that, although prompt
of action, he was never accustomed to undertake anything without due
deliberation.
Eric, on the contrary, all impulse, was thoroughly carried away by the
notion, now that he saw that Fritz, instead of ridiculing it, thought it
worth consideration.
The project of going to settle on a real uninhabited island, like
Robinson Crusoe, that hero of boyhood throughout the world, exceeded the
realisation of his wildest dreams, when first as a little chap he had
planned how he should go to sea as soon as he was big enough. Why, he
and Fritz would now be "Brother Crusoes," if his project were carried
out, as there seemed every likelihood of its being--crusoes of their own
free-will and not by compulsion, besides having the satisfaction of
knowing that within a certain period it would be in their power to end
their solitary island life; that is, should they find, either that it
did not come up to their expectations in a business point of view, or
that its loneliness and seclusion combined with the discomforts of
roughing it were more than they could bear.
It was a glorious plan!
This was Eric's conclusion, the more he thought of it; while Fritz, on
his part, believed that there was something in the suggestion--something
that had to be weighed and considered carefully--for, might he not
really conquer Fortune in this way?
Captain Brown did not throw any cold water on the matter either, when it
was brought before him.
"By thunder! it's a durned good plan, it air, mister," said he to Fritz,
"thet it air, fur a young scaramouch like thet youngster thaar! I seed
him palaverin' with one o' them islanders at Tristan--they're a sort of
half-caste tan colour there, like mulattoes in the States. I rec'lect
one of the men who wer oncest on a whaler with me a v'y'ge or two to
Kerguelen Land an' back, tellin' me 'bout the lot of seals thet were on
Inaccessible Island, now I come to think of it; but I've never been
thaar myself. Its name's good enough fur me, since most of us thet go
by thaar gives it a pretty wide berth, you bet; fur it air inaccessible,
with a vengeance--a rocky coast plungin' down abruptly into the sea,
with a terrible surf breakin' ag'in the cliffs, an' no anchorage ground
anywheres nigh thet's safe!"
"And how could we land then?" asked Fritz.
"Oh, it ken be done, mister, fur the Tristaners go over thaar, as the
b'y told you, every year fur a week or so; an' they hev to git ashore
somehow or other. Yes, we'll manage to land you, safe enough, in a
whale-boat when the time comes. What I meant to say was, thet the ship
couldn't stay any while lyin' off, so as to see whether you liked the
place or not. If you land, thaar you'll hev to stay till we come back
fur you next v'y'ge!"
"All right, I shan't mind that, with Eric. If I were alone, of course
it would be another matter."
"Jest so," replied the Yankee skipper; and he then proceeded to advise
the brothers what would be best to take with them, Fritz wishing to lay
out his small remaining stock of money to advantage.
He also told them, good-naturedly, that he would convey them to their
contemplated destination for nothing, so that they would have no passage
to pay. Eric, indeed, would work his, being considered as attached to
the ship, his name besides being retained on the list of the crew while
sealing on shore; and, as for Fritz, Captain Brown said, he would "grub
him and give him a bunk into the barg'in."
Then, again, in respect of the provisions they would need for their
maintenance during their stay on the island, the skipper promised to
supply them from the ship's stores, on their arrival there, at cost
price; so that, not only would they thus get them much cheaper than they
would have been able to purchase them in open market, but they would
likewise save the cost of their freightage to Inaccessible Island, which
any one else would have expected them to pay.
Could Fritz desire more?
Hardly.
"I guess, mister," concluded the skipper, "so be it as how you kinder
makes up yer mind fur the venture, thet you two coons will start in
bizness with a clean sheet an' no book debts, like the boss of a dry
goods store; an' if you don't make a pile in less than no time, why it
won't be Job Brown's fault, I reckon!"
This settled the matter; when, the captain giving them a short
memorandum of certain necessary articles which they would find useful on
the island and which they could readily procure in Providence while the
_Pilot's Bride_ was refitting, the two brothers set to work making their
preparations without delay for the novel enterprise to which Eric's
project had given birth--that of going crusoeing in the South Atlantic!