The Castaways of the Flag (13 page)

           
And now the
rain fell in big drops, so heavily charged with electricity that they seemed to
explode as they struck the sand on the shore.

           
"You
can't stay outside any longer, Jenny, dear," said Fritz. "Do go back
into the cave, I beg you! You, too, Dolly, and you too, Mrs. Wolston."

           
Jenny did not
want to leave her husband. But Captain Gould spoke authoritatively.

           
"Go
inside, Mrs. Fritz," he said.

           
"You
too, captain," she replied; "you must not expose yourself to a
wetting yet."

           
"I have
nothing to fear now," Harry Gould answered.

           
"Jenny,
I tell you again, go back, there's no time to lose!" Fritz exclaimed.

           
And Jenny,
Dolly, and Susan took refuge in the cave just as the rain, in which hail was
mingled, began to rattle down like grapeshot.

           
Captain Gould
and the boatswain, Fritz,

           
Frank, and
James remained near the boat, though it was with the utmost difficulty that
they stood up against the squalls which swept the shore. The waves were
breaking in the bay already and throwing their spray right over it.

           
The danger
was acute. Would it be possible to sustain the boat against the shocks which
were rolling it from one side to the other? If it were broken up, how would
Captain Gould and his companions be able to get away from this coast before the
winter?

           
All five
stood by, and when the sea came farther up and lifted the boat, they hung on to
its sides trying to steady it.

           
Soon the
storm was at its height. From twenty places at once tremendous flashes of
lightning burst. When they struck the bastions they tore off fragments which
could be heard crashing upon the heaps of sea-weed.

           
An enormous
wave, twenty-five or thirty feet high at least, was lifted up by the hurricane
and dashed upon the shore like a huge waterspout.

           
Caught in its
grip Captain Gould and his companions were swept right up to the heaps of
sea-weed, and it was only by a miracle that the enormous wave did not carry
them back with it as it drew again to the sea!

           
The disaster
feared so much had befallen them!

           
The boat,
torn from its bed, swept up to the top of the beach and then carried down again
to the rocks at the end of the promontory, was smashed, and its fragments,
after floating for a moment in the creaming foam of the backwater, disappeared
from view round the bend of the bluff!

           
THE situation
seemed worse than ever. While they were in the boat, exposed to all the perils
of the sea, Captain Gould and his passengers at least had a chance of being
picked up by some ship, or of reaching land. They had not fallen in with a
ship. And although they had reached land, it was practically uninhabitable, yet
it seemed they must give up all hope of ever leaving it.

           
"Still,"
said John Block to Fritz, "if we had run into a storm like that out at
sea, our boat would have gone to the bottom and taken us with it!"

           
Fritz made no
reply. He hurried through a deluge of rain and hail to take shelter with Jenny
and Dolly and Susan, who were intensely anxious. Owing to its position in the
corner of the promontory, the inside of the cave had not been flooded.

           
Towards
midnight, when the rain had stopped, the boatswain piled a heap of seaweed near
the mouth of the cave. A bright fire soon blazed, drying their drenched
clothes.

           
Until the
fury of the storm abated the whole sky was incessantly ablaze. The pealing
thunder diminished as the clouds were driven rapidly towards the north. But as
long as distant lightning continued to light up the bay, the wind blew with
great force, lifting billows which plunged and broke wildly on the shore.

           
At dawn the
men came out of the cave. Tattered clouds were passing over the cliff. Some,
hanging lower, skimmed the surface. During the night the lightning had struck
it in several places. Huge fragments of rock lay at its base. But there was no
sign of a new cleft or crevice into which it might be possible to squeeze, and
so to reach the plateau above.

           
Captain
Gould, Fritz, and John Block took stock of what was left of the boat. It
comprised the mast, the foresail and the jib, the rigging, the hawsers, the
rudder, the oars, the anchor and its cable, the wooden seats, and the casks of
fresh water. Some use could no doubt be made of most of these things, damaged
as they were.

           
"Fortune
has tried us cruelly!" Fritz said. "If only we had not these poor
women with us —three women and a child! What fate awaits them here on this
shore, which we cannot even leave now!"

           
Even Frank,
with all his faith, kept silence this time. What could he say?

           
But John
Block was wondering whether the storm had not brought yet another disaster upon
the shipwrecked company, for so they might well be described. Was there not
good reason to fear that the turtles might have been destroyed by the breakers,
and their eggs smashed as the sand was washed away? It would be an irreparable
loss if this food supply failed.

           
The boatswain
made a sign to Frank to come to him, and said a few words in an undertone. Then
both crossed the promontory and went down to the creek, intending to go over it
as far as the bluff.

           
While Captain
Gould, Fritz, and James went towards the western bastion, Jenny and Dolly and
Susan resumed their usual occupations—what might be called their household
duties. Little Bob played on the sand in sublime indifference, waiting for his
mother to prepare some soaked biscuit for him. Susan was overcome by grief and
anxiety as she thought of the distress and want which her child might not have
the strength to endure.

           
After putting
everything in order inside the cave, Jenny and Dolly came out and joined Mrs.
Wolston. Then very sadly they talked of their present situation, which had been
so sorely aggravated since the day before. Dolly and Susan were more overcome
than the courageous Jenny.

           
"What
will become of us?" Susan asked.

           
"Don't
let us lose heart," Jenny answered, "and above all don't let us
discourage our men."

           
"But we
can never get away now," Dolly said. "And when the rainy season comes—"

           
"I tell
you, Dolly, as I told Susan," Jenny answered, "that no good is done
by giving up courage."

           
"How can
I keep any hope at all?" Mrs. Wolston exclaimed.

           
'' You must!
It's your duty to!" Jenny said. "Think of your husband; you will
increase his misery a thousandfold if you let him see you cry."

           
"You are
strong, Jenny," Dolly said; "you have fought misfortune before. But
we –"

           
'' You?''
Jenny replied. '' Do you forget that Captain Gould and Fritz and Frank and
James and John Block will do everything that is possible to save us all?"

           
"What
can they do?" Susan demanded.

           
"I don't
know, Susan, but they will succeed provided we don't hamper them by giving way
ourselves to despair!"

           
'' My child!
My child!'' murmured the poor woman, choked by sobs.

           
Seeing his
mother crying, Bob stood in wonder, with his eyes wide open.

           
Jenny drew
him to her and took him on her knees.

           
"Mummy
was anxious, darling! She called you, and you didn't answer, and then—you were
playing on the sand, weren't you?"

           
"Yes,"
said Bob; "with the boat that Block made for me. But I wanted him to make
a little white sail for it, so that it could sail. There are holes full of
water in the sand where I can put it. Aunty Dolly promised to make me a
sail."

           
"Yes,
Bob dear; you shall have it to-day," Dolly promised.

           
"Two
sails," the child answered; "two sails like the boat that brought us
here."

           
"Of
course," Jenny answered. "Aunty Dolly will make you a lovely sail,
and I will make you one, too."

           
"Thank
you, thank you, Jenny," Bob answered, clapping his hands. "But where
is our big boat? I can't see it anywhere!''

           
"It has
gone away—fishing," Jenny answered. "It will come back soon, with
lots of beautiful fish! Besides, you have got your own; the one that good John
Block made for you."

           
"Yes;
but I am going to tell him to make me another, one in which I can sail—with
papa and mama, and aunty Dolly and Jenny, and everybody!"

           
Poor little
fellow! He voiced so exactly what was wanted—the replacement of the boat —and
how was that to be done?

           
"Run
away again and play, darling,'' Jenny said to him; "and don't go far
away."

           
"No;
over there; quite close, Jenny!"

           
And he kissed
his mother and went bounding away as children of his age will.

           
"Susan
dear, and you, too, Dolly dear," said Jenny, "God will see that that
little child is saved! And Bob's rescue means our own! I do beg of you, no more
weakness, no more crying! Have faith in Providence as I have, as I have always
had!''

           
So Jenny
spoke out of her brave heart. Come what might, she would never despair. If the
rainy season set in before the shipwrecked people could leave this coast—and
how could they leave it unless some ship took them off?—arrangements would be
made to spend a winter there. The cave would give secure protection from the
heavy weather. The heaps of sea-weed would give fuel to protect them from the
cold. Fishing, hunting perhaps, would suffice to provide them with their daily
bread.

           
It was of the
first importance to know whether John Block's fears about the turtles were well
founded. Happily they were not. After being away for an hour, the boatswain and
Frank came back with their accustomed load of turtles, which had taken refuge
under the heap of kelp. But they had not a single egg.

           
"Never
mind, they will lay, good old things," said John Block cheerily.

           
It was
impossible not to smile at the boatswain's little joke. In the course of their
walk to the bastion, Captain. Gould, Fritz, and James had seen again the
impossibility of getting round it in any other way than by sea. Currents ran
there, with tremendous force and in both directions. Even in calm weather the
violent surf would have prevented any boat from getting close in, and the
strongest swimmer might have been carried out to sea or dashed upon the rocks.