The Castaways of the Flag (2 page)

           
They all
return to Rock Castle and face the dull days of the rainy season, which proves
more stormy than usual, and does some damage to their possessions elsewhere
than at Rock Castle. That season over, they make preparations for another
expedition—this time wholly by land, and made by Mr. Wolston, Jack, and Ernest only,
M. Zermatt remaining with the three ladies.

           
The three are
determined to reach the topmost peak of the mountain range, and after some
considerable difficulty they achieve their object. They plant the British flag
there, Lieut. Littlestone having provisionally taken possession of the island
in Great Britain's name, and they christen the mountain crest Jean Zermatt
Peak. From it they discern out at sea a ship flying the British colours. But
she disappears, to their intense disappointment.

           
At Rock Castle
those left behind grow anxious when the time the explorers had expected to be
away lengthens itself by several days. Then Mr. Wolston and Ernest turn
up—without Jack.

           
That
adventurous young man has wandered off after three elephants, in the hope of capturing
and taming the calf after killing the father and mother. They have searched in
vain for him, and are almost forced to the conclusion that something tragic
must have happened.

           
But Jack
turns up, safe and sound. He has, however, an alarming tale to tell. It would
seem that their days of peace on the island are numbered. He has been captured
by savages, and, though he has escaped by adroit courage, all know that the
chance of the savages finding the Promised Land is one with which they must
reckon.

           
The
Unicorn
is now past the time appointed for her return, and the seven have thus a
double reason for anxiety.

-

           
Here
"Their Island Home" finishes, and in the present book may be read
what came of it all, and in what way they emerged from heavy trouble into peace
and prosperity even greater than of old.

THE

CASTAWAYS
OF THE FLAG

           
NIGHT—a
pitch-dark night! It was almost impossible to distinguish sky from sea. From
the sky, laden with clouds low and heavy, deformed and tattered, lightning
flashed every now and then, followed by muffled rolls of thunder. At these
flashes the horizon lit up for a moment and showed deserted and melancholy.

           
No wave broke
in foam upon the surface of the sea. There was nothing but the regular and
monotonous rolling of the swell and the gleam of ripples under the lightning
flashes. Not a breath moved across the vast plain of ocean, not even the hot
breath of the storm. But electricity so charged the atmosphere that it escaped
in phosphorescent light, and ran up and down the rigging of the boat in tongues
of Saint Elmo's fire. Although the sun had set four or five hours ago, the sweltering
heat of the day had not passed.

           
Two men
talked in low tones, in the stern of a big ship's boat that was decked in to
the foot of the mast. Her foresail and jib were flapping as the monotonous
rolling shook her.

           
One of these
men, holding the tiller tucked under his arm, tried to dodge the cruel swell
that rolled the boat from side to side. He was a sailor, about forty years of
age, thick-set and sturdy, with a frame of iron on which fatigue, privation,
even despair, had never taken effect. An Englishman by nationality, this
boatswain was named John Block.

           
The other man
was barely eighteen, and did not seem to belong to the sea-faring class.

           
In the bottom
of the boat, under the poop and seats, with no strength left to pull the oars,
a number of human beings were lying, among them a child of five years old—a
poor little creature whose whimpering was audible, whom its mother tried to
hush with idle talk and kisses.

           
Before the
mast, upon the poop, and near the jib stays, two people sat motionless and
silent, hand in hand, lost in the most gloomy thoughts. So intense was the
darkness that it was only by the lightning flashes that they could see each
other.

           
From the
bottom of the boat a head was lifted sometimes, only to droop again at once.

           
The boatswain
spoke to the young man lying by his side.

           
"No, no.
I watched the horizon until the sun went down. No land in sight—not a sail!

           
But what I
didn't see this evening will perhaps be visible at dawn."

           
"But,
bo'sun," his companion answered, "we must get to land somewhere in
the next forty-eight hours, or we shall have succumbed."

           
"That's
true," John Block agreed. "Land must appear—simply must. Why,
continents and islands were made on purpose to give shelter to brave men, and
one always ends by getting to them!"

           
"If the
wind helps one, bo'sun."

           
"That is
the only reason wind was invented, '' John Block replied. "To-day, as bad
luck would have it, it was busy somewhere else, in the middle of the Atlantic
or the Pacific perhaps, for it didn't blow enough here to fill my cap. Yes, a
jolly good gale would blow us merrily along."

           
"Or
swallow us up, Block."

           
"Oh no,
not that! No, no, not that! Of all ways to bring this job to a finish, that
would be the worst."

           
"Who can
tell, bo'sun?"

           
Then for some
minutes the two men were silent. Nothing could be heard but the gentle rippling
under the boat.

           
"How is
the captain?" the young man went on.

           
"Captain
Gould, good man, is in bad case," John Block replied. "How those
blackguards knocked him about! The wound in his head makes him cry out with
pain. And it was an officer in whom he had every confidence who stirred those
wretches up! No, no! One fine morning, or one fine afternoon, or perhaps one fine
evening, that rascal of a Borupt shall make his last ugly face at the yardarm
or --"

           
"The
brute! The brute!" the young man exclaimed, clenching his fists in wrath.
"But poor Harry Gould! You dressed his wounds this evening, Block --"

           
"Ay, ay;
and when I put him back under the poop, after I had put compresses on his head,
he was able to speak to me, though very feebly. 'Thanks, Block, thanks,' he
said—as if I wanted thanks! ' And land? What about land?'
he asked. 'You
may be quite sure, captain,' I told him, 'that there is land somewhere, and
perhaps not very far off.' He looked at me and closed his eyes."

           
And the
boatswain murmured in an aside:

           
"Land?
Land? Ah, Borupt and his accomplices knew very well what they were about! While
we were shut up in the bottom of the hold, they altered the course; they went
some hundreds of miles away before they cast us adrift in this boat—in seas
where a ship is hardly ever seen, I guess."

           
The young man
had risen. He stooped, listening to port.

           
"Didn't
you hear anything, Block?" he asked.

           
"Nothing,
nothing at all," the boatswain answered; "this swell is as noiseless
as if it were made of oil instead of water."

           
The young man
said no more, but sat down again with his arms folded across his breast.

           
Just at this
moment one of the passengers sat up, and exclaimed, with a gesture of despair :

           
"I wish
a wave would smash this boat up, and swallow us all up with it, rather than
that we should all be given over to the horrors of starvation! To-morrow we
shall have exhausted the last of our provisions. We shall have nothing left at
all."

           
"To-morrow
is to-morrow, Mr. Wolston," the boatswain replied. "If the boat were
to capsize there wouldn't be any to-morrow for us; and while there is a
to-morrow –"

           
"John
Block is right," his young companion answered. "We must not give up
hope, James! Whatever danger threatens us, we are in God's hands, to dispose of
as He thinks fit. His hand is in all that comes to us, and it is not right to
say that He has withdrawn it from us."

           
"I
know," James whispered, drooping his head, "but one is not always
master of one's self."

           
Another
passenger, a man of about thirty, one of those who had been sitting in the
bows, approached John Block and said:

           
"Bo'sun,
since our unfortunate captain was thrown into this boat with us—and that is a
week ago already—it is you who have taken his place. So our lives are in your
hands. Have you any hope?"

           
"Have I
any hope?" John Block replied. "Yes! I assure you I have. I hope
these infernal calms will come to an end shortly and that the wind will take us
safe to harbour."

           
"Safe to
harbour?" the passenger answered, his eyes trying to pierce the darkness
of the night.

           
"Well,
what the deuce!" John Block exclaimed. '' There is a harbour somewhere!
All we have to do is to steer for it, with the wind whistling through the
yards. Good Lord! If I were the Creator I would show you half a dozen islands
lying all round us, waiting our convenience!"

           
"We
won't ask for as many as that, bo'sun," the passenger replied, unable to
refrain from smiling.

           
"Well,"
John Block answered, "if He will drive our boat towards one of those which
exist already, it will be enough, and He need not make any islands on purpose,
although, I must say, He seems to have been a bit stingy with them
hereabouts!"

           
''But where
are we?"

           
"I can't
tell you, not even within a few hundred miles,'' John Block replied. "You
know that for a whole long week we were shut up in the hold, unable to see what
course the ship was shaping, whether south or north. Anyhow, it must have been
blowing steadily, and the sea did plenty of rolling and chopping."

           
"That is
true, John Block, and true, too, that we must have gone a long way; but in what
direction?"

           
"About
that I don't know anything," the boatswain declared. "Did the ship go
off to the Pacific, instead of making for the Indian Ocean? On the day of the
mutiny we were off Madagascar. But since then, as the wind has blown from the
west all the time, we may have been taken hundreds of miles from there, towards
the islands of Saint Paul and Amsterdam."

           
"Where
there are none but savages of the worst possible sort," James Wolston
remarked. "But after all, the men who cast us away are not much
better."

           
"One
thing is certain," John Block declared; "that wretch Borupt must have
altered the
Flag's
course and made for waters where he will be most likely
to escape punishment, and where he and his gang will play pirates! So I think
that we were a long way out of our proper course when this boat was cut adrift.
But I wish we might strike some island in these seas—even a desert island would
do! We could live all right by hunting and fishing; we should find shelter in
some cave. Why shouldn't we make of our island what the survivors of the
Landlord
made of New Switzerland? With strong arms, brains, and pluck –"