Fritz then suggested that he should go on ahead with Captain Gould and John Block. That would spare the others fresh fatigue.
The proposal was unanimously rejected. They would not separate. They all wanted to be there when—or if—the sea became visible in the northward.
The march was resumed about nine o’clock. The mist tempered the heat of the sun. At this season it might have been insupportable on this stony waste, on which the rays fell almost vertically at noon.
While still extending towards the north, the plateau was widening out to east and west, and the sea, which so far had been visible in both these directions, would soon be lost to sight. And still there was not a tree, not a trace of vegetation, nothing but the same sterility and solitude. A few low hills rose here and there ahead.
At eleven o’clock a kind of cone showed its naked peak, towering some three hundred feet above this portion of the plateau.
“We must get to the top of that,” said Jenny.
“Yes,” Fritz replied; “from there we shall be able to see over a much wider horizon. But it may be a rough climb!”
It probably would be, but so irresistible was the general desire to ascertain the actual situation that no one would have consented to remain behind, however great the fatigue might be. Yet who could tell whether these poor people were not marching to a last disappointment, to the shattering of their last hope?
They resumed their journey towards the peak, which now was about half a mile away. Every step was difficult, and progress was painfully slow among the hundreds of rocks which must be scrambled over or gone round. It was more like a chamois track than a footpath. The boatswain insisted on carrying little Bob, and his mother gave the child to him. Fritz and Jenny, Frank and Dolly, and James and Susan kept near together, that the men might help the women over the dangerous bits.
It was past two o’clock in the afternoon when the base of the cone was reached. They had taken three hours to cover less than a mile and three quarters since the last halt. But they were obliged to rest again.