Just then, the discharge of several rifles all together, as if practising platoon firing, struck on his ear; and, as Fritz sniffed the smell of the burnt gunpowder floating by him in the air to seaward, driven off from shore by the wind, the saltpetrous scent did not tend to restore his equanimity!
Chapter Twenty Eight.
Some Visitors.
“What donkeys we are!” exclaimed Eric presently, a moment or so after the discharge of the firearms. “We are real stupids to be astonished at all!”
“How, in what way?” asked Fritz. “Why, the strange boat must have come from Tristan d’Acunha. Don’t you recollect, we were told that a party always came sealing here, as well as at Nightingale Island, during the summer?”
“Oh yes; I forgot,” said Fritz. “I wonder, though, you didn’t see their boat pass your look-out station—you, with your fine observant eyes!”
“Ah, they must have come round to leeward of the promontory, close under the land,” replied Eric to this taunt:—“that is how they escaped my notice. But, what shall we do now—go on, or return home?”
“It strikes me we had better go home, for we shall have uncommon little sport to-day, since they have been first in the field!” said Fritz dryly. “Still, I suppose we’d better be friendly with them. Let us go on to shore first before leaving, and have a chat. No doubt, they’ll be as much surprised to see us as we were just now at their unexpected appearance here.”