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 I 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.
CHAPTER XI - BY WELL-KNOWN WAYS
THE cave in which Mr. Wolston, Ernest, and Jack had spent the night four months before, on the day before the English flag was planted at the summit of Jean Zermatt peak, was that evening full of happiness. If no one enjoyed a tranquil sleep, sleeplessness was not due to bad dreams but to the excit
ement of the recent happenings.
After their prayer of thanksgiving, they had all declined to delay a minute longer at the summit of the peak. Not for two hours would day yield to night, and that time would be long enough for them to reach the foot of the range.
"It would be very strange," Fritz remarked, "if we could not find some cave large enough to shelter us all."
"Besides," Frank answered, "we shall be lying under the trees—under the trees of New Switzerland!—New Switzerland!"
He could not refrain from saying the dear name over and over again, the name that was blessed by all.
"Speak it again, Dolly dear!" he exclaimed. "Say it again, that I may hear it once more."
"New Switzerland!" laughed the girl, her eyes shining with happiness.
"New Switzerland!" Jenny repeated, holding Fritz's hand in her own.
And there was not one of them, not even Bob, who did not echo it.
"Well, good people," said Captain Harry Gould, "if we have made up our minds to go down to the foot of the mountain we have no time to lose."
"What about eating?" John Block enquired. "And how are we to get food on the way?"
"In forty-eight hours we shall be at Rock Castle,'' Frank declared.
"Besides," Fritz said, "isn't there any quantity of game on the plains of New Switzerland?"
"And how are you going to hunt it without guns?" Captain Gould enquired. "Clever as Fritz and Frank are, I hardly imagine that merely by pointing a stick –"
''Pooh!'' Fritz answered. '' Haven't we got legs? You'll see, captain! Before mid-day to-morrow we shall have real meat instead of that turtle stuff."
"We must not abuse the turtles, Fritz," said Jenny, "if only out of gratitude."
"You are quite right, wife, but let us be off! Bob doesn't want to stay here any longer; do you, Bob?"
"No, no," the child replied; "not if papa and mama are coming too.''
"And to think," said the boatswain slyly, "to think that down there, in the south, we have got a beautiful beach where turtles and mussels swarm—and a beautiful cave where there are provisions for several weeks—and in that cave a beautiful bed of sea-weed—and we are going to leave all that for –"
"We will come back for our treasures by and by!" Fritz promised.
"But still –" John Block persisted.
"Oh, shut up, you wretched fellow!" Captain Gould ordered, laughing.
"I'll shut up, captain; there are only two words more I should like to say."
"What are they?"
"Cut away!"
As usual, Fritz took the lead. They descended the cone without any difficulty, and reached the foot of the range. Some happy instinct, a genuine sense of direction, had led them to take the same path as Mr. Wolston, Ernest, and Jack had taken, and it was barely eight o'clock when they reached the edge of the vast pine-forest.
And by a no less happy chance—there seemed nothing surprising in it, for they had entered upon the season of happy chances—the boatswain found the cave in which Mr. Wolston and the two brothers had taken shelter. It was rather small, but large enough for Jenny and Dolly and Susan and little Bob. The men could sleep in the open air. They could tell, from the white ashes of a fire, that the cave had been occupied before.
Perhaps all the members of the two families had crossed this forest and climbed the peak on which the British flag was waving!
After supper, when Bob had fallen asleep in a corner of the cave, they talked long, notwithstanding all the fatigue of the day, and the talk turned upon the Flag.
During the week that they had been held prisoners, the ship must have sailed northwards. The only explanation of that could be the persistence of contrary winds, for it was manifestly to the interest of Robert Borupt and the crew to reach the far waters of the Pacific. If they had not done so it was because the weather had prevented them.
Everything now went to show that the Flag had been driven towards the Indian Ocean, into the proximity of New Switzerland. Reckoning the time that had passed, and the course that had been followed, since the boat had been cast adrift, the incontestable conclusion followed that on that day Harry Gould and his companions could not have been much more than a couple of hundred miles from the desired island, though they had imagined themselves separated from it by a thousand or more.
The boat had touched land on the southern coast, which Fritz and Frank did not know at all, the other side of the mountain range which they had seen for the first time when they came out into the Green Valley. Who could have dreamed that there could be such an amazing difference in the nature of the soil and its products between the rich country to the north of the range and the arid plateau which extended from the peak to the sea?
Now they could understand the arrival of the albatross on the other side of the cliff. After Jenny Montrose's departure the bird had probably returned to Burning Rock, whence it flew sometimes to the shore of New Switzerland, though it had never gone either to Falconhurst or Rock Castle.
What a big part the faithful bird had played in their salvation! It was to him that they owed the discovery of that second cavern into which little Bob had followed him, and, as a consequence, the finding of the passage which came out on the top of the cliff.
The conversation lasted far into the night. But at last fatigue overcame them, and they slept. But at early dawn they took some food and set out again in high spirits.
Besides the traces of a fire in the cave, the little band encountered other signs in the forest and the open country. The trampled grass and broken branches were caused by the constant movement of animals, ruminants or beasts of prey, but it was impossible to be under any misapprehension when they came upon the traces of encampments.
"Besides," Fritz pointed out, "who but our own people could have planted the flag on the summit of that peak?"
"Unless it went and planted itself there!" the boatswain replied with a laugh.
"Which would not be a surprising thing for an English flag to do!" Fritz replied cheerfully. "There are quite a lot of places where it would seem to have grown by itself!"
Led by Fritz, the party descended the first slopes of the range, which were partly covered by the forest.
Great obstacles to overcome or serious risks to be incurred seemed unlikely on the way from the range to the Promised Land.
The distance between the two points might be estimated at twenty miles. If they did ten miles a day, with a halt for two hours at midday, and slept one night on the way, they could reach the defile of Cluse in the evening of the following day.
From the defile to Rock Castle or to Falconhurst would be a matter of a few hours only.
"Ah," said Frank, "if we only had our two good buffaloes, Storm and Grumbler, or Fritz's onager, or Whirlwind, Jack's ostrich, it would only take us one day to get to Bock Castle!"
"I am sure that Frank forgot to post the letter we wrote, asking them to send the animals to us," Jenny answered merrily.
"What, Frank, did you forget?" asked Fritz. "A thoughtful, attentive fellow like you?"
"No," said Frank, "it was Jenny who forgot to tie a note to her albatross's leg before he flew off."
"How thoughtless of me!'' the young woman exclaimed.
"But it is not certain that the postman would have taken the letter to the right address," Dolly said.
"Who knows?" Frank replied. "Everything that is happening now is so extraordinary."
"Well," said Captain Gould, "since we can't count upon Storm or Grumbler or Whirlwind or the onager, the best thing we can do is to trust to our own legs."
"And to step lively," John Block added.
They started with the firm intention only to halt at mid-day. From time to time James and Frank and the boatswain carried Bob, although the child wanted to walk. So they lost no time crossing the forest.
James and Susan Wolston, who knew nothing of the marvels of New Switzerland, were filled with constant admiration of the luxuriant vegetation, which is far finer
than that of Cape Colony.
And yet they were only in the part of the island which was left to itself, and had never been touched by the hand of man! What would it be like when they came to the cultivated portion of the district, to the farms at Eberfurt, Sugar-cane Grove, Wood Grange, and Prospect Hill, the rich territory of the Promised Land?
Game abounded everywhere—agoutis, peccaries, cavies, antelopes, and rabbits, besides bustards, partridges, grouse, hazel-hens, guinea fowls, and ducks. Fritz and Frank had good reason to regret not having their sporting guns with them. The cavies and peccaries and agoutis would not let anyone come near them, and it seemed likely that they would be reduced to finishing what was left of their provisions for their next meal.