“But you’ve been talking about seals, not whales,” remarked Fritz.
“Yes, because it is with seals that my present business lies,” said the other, not a bit put out by the correction.
“Banished now from their once favourite waters around Cape Horn, adjacent to the islands of the Pacific, there are yet some stray outlandish spots left which the animals frequent, so as to be able to breed in peace and multiply, without fear of that wholesale extermination which is their unhappy lot elsewhere. Amongst such isolated places is the Tristan d’Acunha group; and, to Inaccessible Island as well as the other islets they come in countless numbers every year. Seal fishing is a very profitable concern; for, not only is the oil valuable, but the skins fetch the most extravagant prices in the market, especially those of the finer sort. Now, do you see what I’m after, brother?”
“You want to go sealing, I suppose; but, won’t you have plenty of that in the Pilot’s Bride with Captain Brown, eh?”
“Not in the way I mean,” replied Eric. “I have an idea of settling for a time at Tristan d’Acunha, going in thoroughly for the thing as a business on shore.”
Fritz appeared to prick up his ears at this.
“But, I thought you said there was a colony there already; why don’t the people manage to cultivate the trade? Besides, if they have it all their own way, I think they would not like a couple of strange interlopers, like you and me, going amongst them to rob them of their harvest from the sea!”
“Ah, I see you’re bitten with the idea,” exclaimed Eric, clapping his hands triumphantly. “But, it was not of Tristan, the larger island, I was thinking; it was of Inaccessible Island, where there wouldn’t be another living soul but ourselves, the seals, and sea birds.”
“‘Monarchs of all we survey,’ eh, like Robinson Crusoe?” said Fritz with a smile. “That would be very nice, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t laugh, brother,” returned Eric, speaking earnestly. “I assure you I’ve considered this thing well. The people living at Tristan told me that they went fishing to the other islands once a year; but, the weather is generally so rough and the beach so hard to land at or get off from, on account of the heavy ocean rollers coming in when the wind is up at all, that the islanders can never make a long stay at the islets—and so cannot get half the number of sealskins which might be easily procured by any one stopping ashore there for any length of time. I really thought, I assure you, of asking Captain Brown, when I went on my next voyage with him, to land me at Inaccessible Island, with provisions enough to last me six months or so, and to call for me on his return voyage from the Cape, as he was wending his way back home again here.”