"Oh, Fritz!" exclaimed his brothers, who had looked behind him, "a sucking-pig, a little sucking-pig. Where did you get it? How did you shoot it? Do let us see it!"
Fritz then with sparkling eyes exhibited his prize.
"I am glad to see the results of your prowess, my boy," said I; "but I cannot approve of deceit, even as a joke; stick to the truth in jest and earnest."
Fritz then told us how he had been to the other side of the stream. "So different from this," he said; "it is really a beautiful country, and the shore, which runs down to the sea in a gentle slope, is covered with all sorts of useful things from the wreck. Do let us go and collect them. And, father, why should we not return to the wreck and bring off some of the animals? Just think of what value the cow would be to us, and what a pity it would be to lose her! Let us get her on shore, and we will move over the stream, where she will have good pasturage, and we shall be in the shade instead of on this desert, and father, I do wish——"
"Stop, stop, my boy!" cried I. "All will be done in good time. To-morrow and the day after will bring work of their own. And tell me, did you see no traces of our shipmates?"
"Not a sign of them, either on land or sea, living or dead," he replied.
"But the sucking-pig," said Jack, "where did you get it?"
"It was one of several," said Fritz, "which I found on the shore; most curious animals they are; they hopped rather than walked, and every now and then would squat down on their legs and rub their snouts with their fore-paws. Had not I been afraid of losing them all, I would have tried to catch one alive, they seemed so tame."
Meanwhile Ernest had been carefully examining the animal in question.
"This is no pig," he said; "and except for its bristly skin, does not look like one. See, its teeth are not like those of a pig, but rather those of a squirrel. In fact," he continued, looking at Fritz, "your sucking-pig is an agouti."