Chapter Twenty Nine.
Black Snow!
By the middle of September, the worst of the winter weather was over, the snow gradually ceasing to fall and the drifts that had accumulated in the valley up which the creek entered, and where the shipwrecked people from the Nancy Bell had built their house—beginning to melt under the influence of the milder winds and increasing warmth of the sun’s rays.
But, everywhere the landscape still remained wrapped in the same white mantle it had worn ever since the castaways had first taken up their residence on the island, the bare spots then apparent in some places, which was a circumstance owing to the shelter of the cliffs and crags in the immediate vicinity of the sea, having been subsequently covered by the heavy storms at the end of August.
It would take a long time, all saw, for the snow to clear away even if the most rapid thaw were now to set in; and this the climate did not permit of, the transition from winter to spring being carried through a course of progressive stages that were as disagreeable as they were prolonged.
There was balm in Gilead, however.
Not long after the last of the heavy snowfalls, and when the days began to grow brighter, thus enabling the castaways to crawl out in the open and have a little more exercise than they could obtain within doors, the bird colony adjacent to “Penguin Castle” became largely increased, their numbers swelling continually by fresh accessions; so that, in a short time, it was impossible for any of the people to stir out of their habitation without stumbling across a batch of penguins, ever continually grumbling, croaking, chuckling, and otherwise expressing their indignation at being, as they seemed to think, so unjustly interfered with by the castaways.
It was evident that the building season of the birds had arrived; and it could not certainly have come at a more auspicious time, for their provisions were almost exhausted and Mr Meldrum was in great straits how to supply the party with food. The despised flesh of the sea-elephants, even, had by this time been consumed and all hands placed on short allowance, it being impossible to go out hunting again as yet, or to penetrate up the valley to the rabbit warren, on account of the snow blocking the way and rendering the ascent of the hills impracticable.
The influx of the penguins, therefore, for which he had been looking out for the last few weeks and had almost despaired of, was hailed by Mr Meldrum with the deepest joy, for it solved his greatest difficulty at once, taking away the fear of starvation that had been haunting him. With such a plentiful supply of the birds, they might now hope to last out until they could procure more palatable food; and those who were “squeamish” in objecting to the fishy odour of the penguins themselves, would faut de mieux find plenty of sustenance in the eggs that there was no doubt would soon be laid in much greater abundance than they either required or could consume.