Chapter Twenty Eight.
Some Visitors.
“What donkeys we are!” exclaimed Eric presently, a moment or so after the discharge of the firearms. “We are real stupids to be astonished at all!”
“How, in what way?” asked Fritz. “Why, the strange boat must have come from Tristan d’Acunha. Don’t you recollect, we were told that a party always came sealing here, as well as at Nightingale Island, during the summer?”
“Oh yes; I forgot,” said Fritz. “I wonder, though, you didn’t see their boat pass your look-out station—you, with your fine observant eyes!”
“Ah, they must have come round to leeward of the promontory, close under the land,” replied Eric to this taunt:—“that is how they escaped my notice. But, what shall we do now—go on, or return home?”
“It strikes me we had better go home, for we shall have uncommon little sport to-day, since they have been first in the field!” said Fritz dryly. “Still, I suppose we’d better be friendly with them. Let us go on to shore first before leaving, and have a chat. No doubt, they’ll be as much surprised to see us as we were just now at their unexpected appearance here.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” observed Eric. “I should think young Glass would have told them about our having settled here.”
“But, I asked him not to mention it,” replied Fritz, “and, as he seemed a very decent sort of young fellow, I dare say he has obeyed my wish—especially as he was your friend, you know.”
“It’s all right then,” said Eric; “my Tristaner would be certain to keep his word if he promised it. Let us proceed now and astonish them with our presence, which must therefore, as you say, be quite unexpected.”
“Pull away then, brother.”
“Right you are!” said Eric in response; and the two, putting their backs into the oars, the boat was soon speeding to the point where the islanders were gathered in a group on the shore—far too busy with the seals they had shot to notice their approach.
“Now,” cried Fritz, when they were close to the others, although still unobserved, “let us give them a call.”
“Shout away!” said Eric; when, he and his brother joining their voices, they gave utterance to a ringing hail that must have frightened all the fish near.
“Boat ahoy!”
The party on shore, who had their backs turned seawards, jumped round at this as if they had been shot; but soon, an answering hail assured them that some one amongst the islanders had recognised them.
“Hillo, whar be you sprung from?” inquired a voice with a strong nasal twang.
It was that of Nat Slater, the “deck hand” of the Rhode Island steamboat!
Fritz was perfectly astounded to find him now amongst the Tristaners. How came he there? What could possibly have become of the Pilot’s Bride and Captain Brown?
These were the anxious thoughts that at once flashed through the mind of the young German, and his brother shared his anxiety to an equal extent.
Nat Slater however did not keep them long in suspense.
“I guess,” he said—as soon as they reached the beach and accosted the islanders, who received them very coldly they could perceive, as if looking upon them now as rivals in the same pursuit—“me and the old man couldn’t drive the same team long. We had a muss together, soon as you parted company, an’ I asked him to put me ashore at Tristan, thinking to ship in another whaling craft; but, I’m blest if ary a one’s called thar since the Pilot’s Bride sailed, so I’ve ben forced to chum in with these islanders!”
“Did you get on a spree, or what, to make Captain Brown leave you behind?” asked Fritz, judging by what the skipper had told him of Mr Nathaniel Slater’s character that the real facts of the case might put quite another complexion on his plausible statement, that the skipper had quarrelled with him.
“Waall, I reckon, I did go on a bit of a bender aboard,” said the whilom deck hand in a drawling way. “I managed to stow away a couple o’ bottles of Bourbon whisky I got to Providence after I left hum, an’ I thought I would have a licker-up arter we parted with you an’ your brother, mister, I felt so kinder lonesome.”
“And I suppose you got so drunk that Captain Brown kicked you out of the ship?” exclaimed the young German indignantly. “Why, you knew his particular orders about never allowing any spirituous liquors on board his vessel when at sea!”
“I guess he wern’t boss of everybody,” said the American coolly. “An’ so I told him, too! But, say, mister, I’ve a kinder hankering to jine you and your brother haar; will you let a poor coon chum in?”
“No, I confess I would rather not,” was the instant reply that came from Fritz—a decision which, from his quick look of satisfaction, Eric most cordially shared in. “We did not appear to get on together very well before, and I certainly do not care to associate with any one who does not keep his word!”
“I guess this here island don’t belong to you, mister?” said Nat Slater sneeringly, on purpose apparently to make Fritz angry; but the young German remained perfectly cool and collected.
“I never said it did,” he answered. “Of course, you have every right to settle here if you like; but I and my brother decline having any association with you.”
“Oh, jist as you like, mister,” replied the American, now showing himself in his true colours, having evidently nourished a spite against the two brothers on account of Captain Brown’s friendship for them. “I’m durned if I kinder kear now to hang out along with you, as I sed at first; I’d rayther a durned sight stick to these good chaps haar, as hev more friendly feelins than a pair o’ blessed foreign coons that don’t know how to treat a free-born American citizen like a man! I guess, though, I’ll spile your sealing for you, if I hev any influence with the islanders.”
“You are welcome to do your worst,” said Fritz; and then, as young Glass was not amongst the Tristaners—who now seemed, either from the deck hand’s threat or on account of some other reason, to look upon them in rather a hostile manner—he and Eric withdrew from the party. Retiring at once to their boat, they returned to their own little settlement in the eastern bay, with the resolve of not coming out after the seals again until after the islanders had left the coast, so as not to risk any further altercation with them.
“It’s a great nuisance, though,” grumbled Eric, who was especially annoyed by the fact of their going back to the hut with an empty boat instead of the full cargo | he expected, similar to their first day’s experience of sealing. “I should like to pay out that mean Yankee for his spite. He’s not like a true sailor, for he wasn’t worth his salt aboard the Pilot’s Bride; and I’ve heard the skipper say that he only took him out of good nature and nothing else!”
“Yes, I know he only allowed him to come in order to save him from ruin at home,” Fritz said. “But, he might just as well have left him at Providence, for all the good the voyage has done him!”
“Well, he has spoilt our sealing, as he said he would,” observed Eric after a bit, when they were rounding the western promontory of their own little bay, and their cottage home was just in sight.
“Only to-day, or, at the worst, for but a short time longer,” replied Fritz. “The islanders will not stay for any period after they’ve filled their boat; and, of course, he will return with them to Tristan. He’s too lazy to stop here and shift for himself, although he would have been glad to sponge upon us.”
“Joy go with him when he leaves!” cried Eric heartily on the keel of their whale-boat touching the beach, when they then proceeded to draw her up on the shingle and take all their traps and gear out of her. They did this in case their American friend might persuade the islanders to come round to the bay and make a raid on their property, so as to prevent them from interfering with their sealing—that being the only grievance which they could possibly have against them.
However, as next morning, the whale-boat lay intact where they had left her, their suspicions of the Tristaners’ bad faith proved to be quite unfounded.
Still, the brothers were glad to find, from Eric’s observations on the tableland, whence he kept a constant watch on the visitors’ movements, that, after a ten days’ stay they left the little island once more to them alone; although, as they also discovered to their grief a short time after their departure, the Tristaners took away with them the greater number of the goats on the plateau, or else killed them for their sustenance whilst they remained.
This was a sad discovery. The islanders were quite welcome to the pigs, thought the brother crusoes; but the flesh of the goats was so delicate and needful besides, as a change of diet to their ordinary salt provision, that any diminution of their numbers was a serious loss to them.
It was not until a week at least after the Tristaners had left, that Eric reported the presence of seals again on the west beach, where, probably, the fact of the islanders camping on the spot had quite as much to do with scaring away the timid creatures from the coast as the warfare waged upon them. Fortunately, however, the poor animals had an affection for the place; for, having now observed, no doubt from some of their number sent out as scouts, that their enemies had departed, they once more returned to the rock caverns they had before frequented.
“There are some of those ‘elephants,’ as you call them, amongst them, too,” said Eric when he came down the cliff with the news to Fritz. “There are a great many more than I saw last time.”
“Ah, we must try and catch some of the gentlemen this trip,” remarked Fritz. “Perhaps it will be the last chance we may have of capturing sea elephants!”
“Right you are,” replied the lad. “I’ll do my best to kill them; but really, brother, they look awfully formidable fellows!”
“Oh, they’re not half so dangerous as they look,” said Fritz. “They’re like your friends the penguins; their bark is worse than their bite!”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Eric good-temperedly; “you will continue to chaff me about those wretched birds I suppose! Never mind, though, I’ve got the joke about the billy-goat frightening you as a set-off, eh, brother?”
“That’s nothing—nothing!” said Fritz in an off-hand way. “We’d better see about starting round after the seals, I think.”
“Ah, it’s all very well your trying to get out of it like that!” retorted Eric, going off, laughing, to haul the whale-boat down into the bay; when, as soon as she was afloat and all their preparations made, they set off again round the headland for the sealing ground.
They noticed, as they approached, that the animals were much more wary now than at the time of their first visit, many plunging into the water from off the outlying rocks on the boat nearing the shore; consequently, they had to use their rifles at once to secure any seals at all, without trusting to their harpoons.
Fritz fired six shots rapidly from the Remington he carried, Eric, who was not so handy in the use of the weapon, managing about half the number; and then, seeing that some of the animals which were only wounded were endeavouring to wriggle down the beach into the sea, the two dashed in at them with the harpoons and boat-hook—Master Eric selecting the latter weapon from his being more accustomed to its use.
They had a great scrimmage amongst the struggling seals, which roared and bellowed like so many bull calves, looking when they opened their mouths as if they would swallow up the brothers at one gulp; but, it was all bravado, for the poor things had not an ounce of fight in them. They suffered themselves to be knocked on the head without the slightest resistance, only bleating piteously when they received their death-blow and dropping down in their tracks at once.
One enormous sea elephant Fritz made for, just as he was on the point of sliding off into the sea from a little rocky jetty where he had ensconced himself.
The animal reared itself on its fore flappers and seemed to tower over the young German; but, on Fritz pluckily piercing it with his harpoon right through the chest, the warm blood gushed over him in a torrent and the portentous sea elephant sank down lifeless.
The creature was upwards of eighteen feet long, from the point of his queer-looking nose or snout, which was elongated like an elephant’s trunk—hence its name of “sea elephant”—to the hind flappers; while it must have been pretty nearly ten feet in girth.
“Ah, here are eight barrels of oil at least!” shouted Fritz when he had given the monster his death-blow. “Fancy all that quantity from one sea elephant!”
“You don’t say you’ve caught one of those fellows?” cried Eric, who was kneeling down and trying to detach a little cub seal from its dead mother. “I wish I had killed him, instead of my victim here. I wonder what this poor little baby thing will do without its parent?”
“You’d better knock it on the head,” said Fritz. “It is safe to pine away, if left alone to take care of itself, now that its mother is dead.”
“I’m sure I can’t do that,” replied the lad, turning away from the pitiful sight. “It would seem to me exactly like committing a murder in cold blood!”
“You are too tender-hearted for a sealer,” said Fritz in his matter-of-fact way; and then, with one tap from the butt end of his harpoon on its nose, he settled the fate of the poor little beast.
The result of this day’s sport was, some thirteen sealskins, in addition to that of the sea elephant, which, although much larger of course than the others, did not appear to be of the same quality of fur. From the number of animals they bagged, it was apparent that the bullets from their rifles must have penetrated more than one seal at a time, passing through the one aimed at and hitting some of those behind. This would be quite feasible if the leaden messenger of death did not come in contact with the bone, for the bodies of the mammals were very soft and yielding from the amount of adipose tissue they contained.
These sealskins, with those which they had previously obtained, made up their quota to thirty. The oil, likewise, extracted from the blubber filled up their remaining empty casks, so that they had now no receptacle wherein to stow any more should they succeed in killing more seals. But, the brothers need not have troubled themselves on this account, for their last onslaught on the breeding-ground had the effect of the final straw on the camel’s back, not one of the cat-faced animals—as Eric called them, from their fancied resemblance to old Mouser—being to be seen in the neighbourhood of the coast for months afterwards, albeit the young crusoes were constantly on the watch for them!
Boiling down the blubber was, certainly, a tedious operation.
The brothers had made a rocky bed for their cauldron, near the hut, with an ingeniously constructed fireplace beneath it which had a cross-cut trench for creating a draught, in the way Fritz noticed that the soldiers made their camp fires during the war—the whole affair when finished looking like one of those “coppers” placed in back kitchens for washing days. Over this laboratory, the two were busy enough for some days, making themselves so black with smoke and begrimed with oil that they resembled a couple of chimney sweepers, or engine fitters for the nonce!
Eric, who superintended the details by reason of the superior knowledge which his whaling experience gave him, first cut up the blubber into long thin strips, which Fritz again subdivided into smaller portions with the aid of his sheath knife. These strips of blubber were then heaped into the pot, under which a roaring fire was kept up, the operation being continued until the cauldron was full; when, as it came to the boil, the refuse matter and pieces of flesh adhering to the fat were skimmed off from the top, and the melted oil allowed to cool gradually, after which it was emptied into the casks kept ready by the side of the hut.
The brothers were very glad when the job was ended, for the blubber smelt terribly fishy and almost suffocated them with its fumes as the pot came to the boiling point; but, they persevered with their task until their casks were all full and headed up, when they proceeded to dress their sealskins roughly and salt them down in a large puncheon which they had reserved especially for their storage.
Next, they had a grand clean up, putting the hut and place in order, the blubber boiling having covered everything with a deposit of oily soot; and, the morning after they had made things comfortable again, they proceeded down to the garden to see how matters were progressing there, not having visited the spot since the day they had started on their last sealing excursion.
“I say, brother,” observed Eric, as they directed their steps towards the little wood beyond the waterfall, where they could hear the thrushes chirping and whistling as they came near; for, the penguins were not so noisy now, having hatched their eggs and abandoned the nests they used to make such a fuss over. “I say, brother, how are the days going—it must be nearly the end of December now, eh?”
Fritz thought for a moment.
He was the methodical member of the family and had always been looked up to as having the best memory for dates at home.
“Himmel!” he exclaimed. “What day do you think it is?”
“I’m sure I can’t imagine,” replied Eric. “All the days go alike here; why, it seems more than a year already since good Captain Brown left us, although I know it’s only a few months.”
“Only, think, Eric, it is—”
“No, never!” said the lad, interrupting his brother and guessing that the answer he was going to give would confirm his own conjecture. “It cannot be, really, eh?”
While saying this, Eric stopped abruptly as they were entering the little grove of buckthorn trees, where the thrushes and finches were hopping about amongst their branches as merry as grigs in the sunshine; for, the weather was as warm as our June, although it was then December—the seasons in southern latitudes being the reverse of what we are accustomed to in Europe.
“Yes, you’ve guessed right, laddie,” replied Fritz, looking into his face with a smile. “It is, without doubt, Christmas Day!”
“What, to-day?” said Eric, incredulous in spite of himself.
“Yes, to-day,” repeated his brother.
“Well, that is wonderful!” exclaimed Eric; adding a moment afterwards, however, in a tone of the greatest dismay, “only think, though, we haven’t prepared a Christmas tree, or anything!”
“Never mind,” said Fritz consolingly. “Those sort of arrangements for the festival would be a little out of place here.”
“Would they?” cried Eric. “Ah, we’ll see about that!”