“Hullo!” exclaimed the latter good-humouredly, smiling as he disengaged himself from Eric’s bear-like embrace. “Gently lad. Your affectionate plan, I’m afraid, would sometimes interfere with the progress of our work; but talking of that, as the vessel has now disappeared, there’s no use in our standing here any longer looking at the sea. Suppose we begin to make ourselves at home and arrange our things in the snug little cottage which our good friends have built for us?”
“Right you are!” responded Eric, starting off towards the cliff, under the lee of which the Tristaner had directed the hut to be built, so that it might be sheltered from the strong winds of the winter, which would soon have blown it down had it been erected in a more exposed situation.
Fritz followed more leisurely to the level plateau by the waterfall, where stood their cottage.
Here, arresting his footsteps, he remained a moment surveying the little domain before joining his brother, who had already rushed within the building.
That boy was all impulse: always eager to be doing something!
The territory of the young crusoes was of limited dimensions. Extending about a mile laterally, it was bounded on either side by lofty headlands that projected into the sea, enclosing the narrow strip of beach that lay between in their twin arms. The depth of the valley inwards was even more confined by a steep cliff, down whose abrupt face slipped and hopped through a gorge, or gully, a little rivulet. This stream, on its progress being arrested by a shelf in front of the rocky escarpment, tumbled over the obstacle in a sheet of cloud-like spray, being thus converted into a typical “waterfall” that resembled somewhat that of Staubbach, as the brothers had noticed when making their first observations from the ship. The rivulet, collecting its scattered fragments below, made its way to the beach in a meandering course, passing by in its passage the slight hollow in the plateau at the base of the furthermost crag, close by where the cottage was situated.
The “location,” as Captain Brown would have termed the sloping ground between the cliff and the sea, was certainly not an extensive one; for, in the event of their wishing to expand their little settlement, in the fashion of squatters out West, by “borrowing” land from adjacent lots, the inexorable wall of volcanic rock to the rear of the plateau and on its right and left flank forbade the carrying out of any such scheme; still, the place was big enough for their house, besides affording room for a tidy-sized garden—that is, when the two had time to dig up the soil and plant the potatoes and other seed which the skipper had provided them with, so that they might have a supply of vegetables anon.
At first sight, there did not appear to be any means of exit from this little valley; for, the steep cliffs that hedged in its sides and back lifted themselves skywards to the height of nearly a thousand feet, while their fronts were generally so smooth and perpendicular that it would have been impossible even for a monkey to have climbed them—much less human beings, albeit one was a sailor and pretty well accustomed to saltatory feats! But, on their inspecting the apparently insurmountable breastwork a little closer, Fritz noticed, as the young Tristaner had pointed out to them, that, by the side of the gorge through which the waterfall made its erratic descent to the lower level, the face of the cliff was more strongly indented; so that, by using the tussock-grass, which grew there in great abundance, as a sort of scaling ladder, and taking advantage of the niches in the rock to step upon where this failed, the summit could be thus easily gained. The top, however, was so far away from the beach and the foothold so insecure that the work of ascending the crag would be a most hazardous proceeding at the best of times, to the elder brother at all events.
While Fritz was thus cogitating, and diligently studying the features of the scene around, Eric was waiting for him impatiently at the door of the rough-looking hut which the sailors had built for them under the superintendence of Captain Brown and the Tristaner.
The young sailor was too restless to remain quiet very long.