CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.
A LONG SWIM.
This plan was nothing else than their attempting the feat of swimminground the headland, in order to reach the western shore, from whence, ofcourse, they knew from past experience they could easily ascend to thetableland above--the happy hunting-ground for goats and pigs, theirlegitimate prey.
"Nonsense," exclaimed Fritz, when Eric mooted the project; "the thingcan never be done!"
"Never is a long day," rejoined the sailor lad. "I'm sure I havecovered over twice that distance in the water before now."
"Ah, that might have been in a calm sea," said Fritz; "but, justrecollect the terrible rough breakers we had to contend with that timein December when the whale-boat got smashed! Why, we might never getout of the reach of that current which you know runs like a mill-raceunder the eastern cliff."
"We won't go that way," persisted Eric. "Besides, the sea is not alwaysrough; for, on some days the water, especially now since the frost hasset in, is as calm as a lake."
"And terribly cold, too," cried his brother. "I dare say a fellow wouldget the cramp before he had well-nigh cleared the bay."
"Well, I never saw such a chap for throwing cold water on any suggestionone makes!" exclaimed Eric in an indignant tone. He was almost angry.
"It is cold water this time with a vengeance," retorted Fritz, laughing;whereupon Eric calmed down again, but only to argue the point moredeterminedly.
"Mind, I don't want you to go, brother," he pleaded. "I'm much thestronger of the two of us, although I am the youngest; so, I'll try thefeat. It will be easy enough after rounding the headland, which will bethe hardest part of the job; but when I have weathered that, it will becomparatively easy to reach the seal-caves. Once arrived there, I shallonly have to climb up to the plateau and shoot some pigs and a goat andfling them down to you here, returning at my leisure; for, there'll beno hurry. As for the swim back, it will not be half so difficult a taskas getting round there, for the wind and tide will both be in myfavour."
But, Fritz would not hear of this for a moment.
"No," he said; "if anybody attempts the thing, it must be me, myimpulsive laddie! Do you think I could remain here quietly while youwere risking your life to get food for us both?"
"And how do you expect me to do so either?" was the prompt rejoinder.
"I am the eldest, and ought to decide."
"Ah, we are brothers in misfortune now, as well as in reality; so theaccident of birth shall not permit you to assert a right of self-sacrifice over me!" cried Eric, using almost glowing language in hiszealous wish to secure his brother's safety at the expense of his own.
"What fine words, laddie!" said Fritz, laughing again at the other'searnestness, as if to make light of it, although he well recognised theaffection that called forth Eric's eloquence. "Why, you are speaking inas grand periods as little Burgher Jans!"
Eric laughed, too, at this; but, still, he was not going to be defeatedby ridicule.
"Grand words or not, brother," he said, with a decision that the othercould not bear down; "you shall not venture upon the swim while I stophere doing nothing!"
"Nor will I allow you to go and I remain behind," retorted Fritz.
"I tell you what, then," cried Eric; "as we're two obstinate fellows andhave both made up our minds, suppose we attempt the feat together, eh?"
Fritz urged at first that it was unnecessary for both to run the risk;however, Eric's pleadings made him finally yield.
"You see," argued the sailor lad, "we can swim side by side, the same aswe have done many a time in the old canal at Lubeck; and then, shouldeither of us get the cramp, or feel `played-out,' as the skipper used tosay, why the other can lend a helping hand!"
And, so it was finally settled, that, on the first bright calm day whenthere should be but little wind, and while the tide was setting out ofthe bay in the direction favourable for them, which was generally at thefull and change of the moon, they were to attempt the task of swimminground the headland to the west shore of the island. Thence they couldascend the plateau in search of that animal food which they so sadlyrequired, the two having been restricted for some weeks to a diet of drypotatoes, without even a scrap of butter or grease to make them go downmore palatably.
This being determined on, the two quickly made their preparations forthe undertaking, which to them appeared almost as formidable as poorCaptain Webb's feat of trying to go down the Falls of Niagara; although,it might be mentioned incidentally, that, at the time they attemptedtheir natatory exploit, that reckless swimmer's name was unknown tofame.
Of course, they had to consider that, should they reach the beach on theother side all right and thus get up to the tableland, they wouldrequire some weapon to bring down the animals they were going in chaseof; and, as both the Remington rifles as well as Fritz's shot gun hadbeen lost with the whale-boat, the only firearm remaining was theneedle-gun, which the elder brother had brought with him from Germany--more, indeed, as a reminiscence of the campaign in which he had beenengaged than from any idea of its serviceableness.
However, for want of anything better, there it was; and, as Fritz hadplenty of cartridges which would fit it, the weapon had a chance of nowbeing employed for a more peaceful purpose than that for which it wasoriginally intended. It would, certainly, still take life, it is true;but it would do so with the object of ultimately saving and notdestroying humanity.
There was the weapon and the cartridges; but, how to get them round withthem was the question?
The brothers could swim well enough without any encumbrance, still, theywould be crippled in their efforts should they be foolish enough to loadthemselves with a heavy gun, as well as sundry other articles which theythought it necessary to take with them for the success of theirexpedition.
Why, such a procedure would be like handicapping themselves heavily forthe race!
What was to be done?
Eric, the "inventive genius," very soon solved this difficulty.
"I tell you what we'll do, brother," he said; "let us put our blankets,with the kettle and rifle and the other things we require, in one of theoil casks. We can then push this before us as we swim along, the caskserving us for a life buoy to rest upon when we are tired, besidescarrying our traps, eh?"
"Himmel, Eric, you're a genius!" exclaimed Fritz, clapping him on theback. "I never knew such a fellow for thinking of things like you,laddie; you beat Bismark and Von Moltke both rolled into one!"
"Ah, the idea only just flashed across my mind," said the other,somewhat shamefaced at his brother's eulogy and almost blushing. "Itcame just on the spur of the moment, you know!"
"But, how are we going to get the needle-gun into the barrel?" askedFritz suddenly, taking up the weapon and seeing that its muzzle wouldproject considerably beyond the mouth of the said article, even when thebutt end was resting on the bottom.
"Why, by unscrewing the breech, of course," said Eric promptly.
Fritz gazed at him admiringly.
"The lad is never conquered by anything!" he cried out, as if speakingto a third person. "He's the wonder of Lubeck, that's what he is!"
"The `wonder of Lubeck' then requests you'll lose no time in getting thegun ready," retorted Eric, in answer to this chaff. "While we'retalking and thus wasting time, we may lose the very opportunity we wishfor our swim out of the bay!"
This observation made Fritz set to work: and the two had shortly placedall their little property in one of the stoutest of the oil casks, whichthey then proceeded to cooper up firmly, binding their old bed tarpaulinround it as an additional precaution for keeping out the salt water whenit should be immersed in the sea.
Rolling the cask down to the beach, they tried it, to see how itfloated; and this it did admirably, although it was pretty well loadedwith their blankets wrapped round the needle-gun and other things. Itstill rose, indeed, quite half out of the water.
Eric then plaited a rope round it, with beckets for them
to hold on by;and so, everything being ready, they only waited for a calm day to makethe venture.
Some three days afterwards, the south-east wind having lulled to agentle breeze and the sea being as smooth as glass, only a tumid swellwith an unbroken surface rolling into the bay, the brothers started,after having first stripped and anointed their bodies with seal oil--aplan for the prevention of cold which Eric had been told of by thewhalers.
Until they reached the headland, they had easy work; but, there, a crosscurrent carried them first one way and then another, so much interferingwith their onward progress that it took them a good hour to round thepoint.
That achieved, however, as the sailor lad had pointed out when they werefirst considering the feasibility of the attempt, all the rest of thedistance before them was "plain sailing"; so that, although they had tocover twice the length of water, if not more, another couple of hourscarried them to the west beach. Here they arrived not the leastexhausted with their long swim; for, by pushing the cask before them inturn and holding on to it by the beckets, they, were enabled to haveseveral rests and breathing spells by the way.
Arrived again on terra firma, they at once opened their novelportmanteau; and, taking out a spare suit of clothes for each, whichthey had taken the precaution to pack up with the rest of their gear,they proceeded to dress themselves. After this, they carried up theirblankets and other things to a little sheltered spot on the plateauabove, where they had camped on their previous expedition.
They did not find the tableland much altered, save that a considerableamount of snow was scattered about over its surface, accumulating inhigh drifts at some points where the wind had piled it in the hollows.The ground beneath the various little clumps of wood and brush, however,was partly bare; so, here, they expected to find their old friend"Kaiser Billy" and the remains of his flock.
But, high and low, everywhere, in the thickets and out on the openalike, they searched in vain for the goats. Not a trace of them was tobe seen; so, Fritz and Eric had finally to come to the conclusion thatthe islanders--along with their enemy, as they now looked upon him, NatSlater--had paid another secret visit to the plateau and destroyed theanimals. They believed the Tristaners did this with the object ofexpediting their departure from Inaccessible Island, where there couldbe no doubt they must have spoiled their sealing, thus depriving them ofa valuable article of barter.
"Never mind," said Eric the indomitable, when Fritz lamented thedisappearance of the goats. "We've got the wild hogs left; and, for mypart, I think roast pig better than dry potatoes!"
"Himmel, the idea is good!" replied Fritz, who had already screwed onthe breech of the needle-gun, making it ready for action. "We must gopig-chasing, then."
And, so they did, shooting a lusty young porker ere they had travelledmany steps further.
Eric's matches were then produced, the inevitable box of safety lightsbeing in the pocket of the sealskin jacket he had headed up in the oilcask; when, a fire being lit, the game was prepared in a very impromptufashion, the animal being roasted whole.
On previously tasting the flesh of these island hogs, they had thoughtthe pork rather fishy; but now, after weeks of deprivation from anyspecies of animal food, it seemed more delicious than anything they hadever eaten before.
"Why, Eric, it beats even your roast beef!" said Fritz jokingly.
The lad looked at him reproachfully; that was all he could do, for hismouth was full and this prevented him from speaking.
"I beg your pardon," interposed the other. "I shan't say so again; Iforgot myself that time."
"I should think you did," rejoined Eric, now better able to expresshimself. "It's best to let bye-gones be bye-gones!"
"Yes," replied Fritz; and the two then went on eating in silence, soheartily that it seemed as if they would never stop. Indeed, they madesuch good knife-and-fork play, that they were quite weary with theirexertions when they had finished, and were obliged to adjourn to theirlittle camp in the sheltered hollow where, curling themselves upcomfortably in their blankets, they went cosily to sleep.
The next day, they killed several of the younger hogs and threw theircarcases down to the bottom of the gully by the waterfall; for, besidesplanning out the manufacture of some hams out of the island porkers,they intended utilising the lard for frying their potatoes, in. This,in the event of their finding the pig's flesh too rank after a time,would then afford them an agreeable change of diet to the plain boiledtubers with which hitherto they had had only salt to eat for a relish.
On the third day, as the wind seemed about to change and ominous cloudswere flying across the face of the sky, they determined to return home,having by that time consumed the last of their roast pig as well as allthe potatoes they had brought with them in their floating cask.
They were taking a last walk over the plateau, which they thought theymight never see again--for the swim round the headland was not a feat tobe repeated often, even if the weather allowed it, the currents being sotreacherous and the sea working itself up into commotion at a moment'snotice--when, suddenly, Eric stopped right over the edge of the gully.He arrested his footsteps just at the spot where the tussock-grassladder had formerly trailed down, enabling them to reach their valley,without all the bother of toiling round the coast as they had to do now.
"Don't you think this spot here has altered greatly?" said the sailorlad to Fritz.
"No, I can't say I do," returned the other. "The grass has only beenburnt away; that, of course, makes it look bare."
"Well, I think differently," replied Eric, jumping down into thecrevice. "This place wasn't half so wide before."
"Indeed?"
"No, it wasn't I couldn't have squeezed myself in here when I last cameup the plateau."
"Why, that was all on account of the space the tussock-grass took up."
Eric did not reply to this; but, a moment after, he shouted out in atone of great surprise, "Hullo, there's a cave here, with somethingglittering on the floor!"
"Really?"
"Yes, and it looks like gold!"
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