Chapter Thirty Three.
Across Country.
It was a lovely morning, the loveliest that the shipwrecked people had seen since their landing on Kerguelen Land, when the little party started away from Penguin Castle, bidding adieu to the spot which for so many long months had given them a shelter and a home.
The sun was shining out brightly, the sky without a cloud, and the air felt quite warm, although with a freshness in it that just gave zest to movement; while the atmosphere had that peculiar opalescent translucency about it and an almost imperceptible colouring—in the faintest tints of light mauve and amber, with a shade of tender apple-green—which is rarely seen in more northern latitudes, excepting in those regions that are well within the borders of the Arctic circle.
Out in the bay opposite the creek, the water was as smooth as glass, undisturbed by the slightest breath of wind so as to cause a ripple; and numbers of baby puffins and young penguins, their spruce little downy bodies clad in bright new coats of silky feathers, were scattered in groups over the mirror-like expanse, diving and coming up again in a moment in the centre of a series of expanding circles that gradually grew wider and wider in diameter, as when a stone is flung into a still pond, only to disappear the next minute. Others were flitting along over the surface with the pinions of their little wings just dipped in the water, so that they flicked it up, in the short flights they took now and then in play and mimic pursuit of each other, like as rowing men do when they “feather” their oars too soon in lumpy water. Sometimes, the generally restless birdlets would rest tranquilly for a brief while on the bosom of the sea, chattering away like so many aquatic magpies in miniature mottled flocks; but this was only for a very short spell.
To the right of the creek, rising abruptly out of the sea, the black basaltic cliffs which formed such a bold headland to the bay stretched far out to where the extreme point of Cape Saint Louis could be seen, embracing within the compass of its arm the reef on which the Nancy Bell had been lost; and to the left, beyond the ridge at the back of the castaways’ dwelling, the higher ranges of the inland mountains, which seemed to run down to the southwards and eastwards as far as the eye could reach, stood up—towering in the distance above the hills immediately near in the foreground and lifting their snow-clad summits into the blue vault of the heavens.
The “travelling caravan,” as Mr Lathrope had styled the jolly-boat when he saw it first mounted on its broad-flanged, awkward-looking carriage, had been packed the night before with all the impedimenta of the pilgrims. Their few “goods and chattels and household effects” were stowed in and about below the thwarts, with the canvas bags containing the dried birds and Kerguelen cabbage which formed their stock of provisions ranged round the gunwales and crammed in anywhere; while a special place was kept clear and reserved in the stern-sheets for the accommodation of poor Captain Dinks, who was deposited here in his cot.
Pussy, who had been so happily saved from the wreck at the last moment and had since done such good service in demolishing the mice which infested the house, was placed alongside of the captain to keep him company, and he had also in charge a tame, or rather an educated penguin, that Master Maurice Negus had displayed considerable ability in training and which Mr Meldrum had allowed to be taken along with the other things as a reward for the “imp’s” services of late in assisting at the preparations of the expedition.
For some days prior to this, Mr Meldrum had been very busy taking short excursions in various directions, but all tending to the same point of the compass. He was endeavouring to find out which route would be the most practicable for reaching the eastern seaboard; and, after collecting all his observations into one harmonised whole and deliberating over the matter with Mr Lathrope and the first-mate, who had severally accompanied him in his various prospecting tours, the final course of the party was at length agreed on.