The noise of the birds was exactly like that laughing sort of grating cry which a flock of geese make on being frightened, by some passer-by on a common, say, when they run screaming away with outstretched wings, standing on the tips of their webbed feet as if dancing—the appearance of the penguins rushing in and out of the tussock clump where their rookery was, bearing out the parallel.
“They are nice shipmates, that’s all I can say!” remarked Eric presently, after gazing at the movements of the birds for some little time and listening to the deafening din they made. “They seem to be all at loggerheads.”
“I dare say if we understood their language,” said Fritz, “we would know that each of their different cries has a peculiar signification of its own. Perhaps, they are talking together sociably about all sorts of things.”
“Just like a pack of gabbling old women, you mean!” exclaimed Eric. “I should like to wring all their necks for waking us up so early!”
“Not a bit too soon,” observed Fritz. “See, the sun is just rising over the sea there; and, as we turned in early last night, there is all the better reason for our being up betimes this morning, considering all there is for us to do before we can settle down regularly to the business that brought us here. What a lovely sunrise!”
“Yes, pretty fairish to look at from the land,” replied the other, giving but a half-assent to his brother’s exclamation of admiration. “I’ve seen finer when I was with Captain Brown last voyage down below the Cape near Kerguelen. There, the sun used to light up all the icebergs. Himmel, Fritz, it was like fairyland!”
“That might have been so,” responded the elder of the two, in his grave German way when his thoughts ran deep; “but, this is beautiful enough for me.”
And so it might have been, as he said—beautiful enough for any one!
The moon had risen late on the previous night, and when Fritz and Eric turned out it was still shining brightly, with the stars peeping out here and there from the blue vault above; while, the wind having died away, all the shimmering expanse of sea that stretched away to the eastwards out of the bay shone like silver, appearing to be lazily wrapped in slumber, and only giving vent to an occasional long hum like a deeply drawn breath. But, all in a moment, the scene was changed—as if by the wave of an enchanter’s wand.
First, a rosy tinge appeared, creeping up from below the horizon imperceptibly and spreading gradually over the whole arc of sky, melting presently into a bright, glowing madder hue that changed to purple, which faded again into a greenish neutral tint that blended with the faint ultramarine blue of the zenith above. The bright moonlight now waning, was replaced for an instant or two only—the transition was so short—by a hazy, misty chiaro-oscuro, which, in another second, was dissolved by the ready effulgence of the solar rays, that darted here, there, and everywhere through it, piercing the curtain of mist to the core as it annihilated it.