This naïve acknowledgment quite restored Fritz’s good humour, and he burst out laughing; his anger and disgust dispelled at once by the comical confession.
“If ever I let you cook for me again,” he observed presently when he was able to speak again, “I’ll—yes, I will eat a stewed penguin, there!”
Eric laughed, too, at this; although he remarked, wisely enough, “Perhaps you might have to eat worse than that, old fellow!”
“I don’t know what could be,” said Fritz.
“Nothing!” curtly replied Eric, the truism silencing his brother for the moment and setting him thinking; but he presently spoke again to the point at issue.
“Is there nothing left for us to eat?” he asked. “I’m famishing.”
“There’s the cheese and some raw ham if you can manage with those,” said Eric sadly, quite disheartened at the failure of all his grand preparations for giving his brother a treat.
“Capitally,” replied Fritz, “fetch them out, and let us make a good square meal. We can have some coffee afterwards. Next time, laddie,” he added to cheer up Eric, “I dare say you’ll do better.”
The lad was somewhat relieved at his brother taking the matter so good-humouredly, and quickly brought out the cheese and ham, which with some biscuits served them very well in place of the rejected viands; and, soon, the two were chatting away together again in their old affectionate way as if no misunderstanding had come between them, talking of home and old familiar scenes and recollections of Lubeck.
While they were yet sitting in front of the hut, over their coffee, the setting sun cast the shadow of the cliff right before their feet; and, at the very edge of the craggy outline, they perceived the shadow of something else which was in motion.