How they sprang from rock to rock! A hundred and fifty feet still separated them from the summit, but they were no longer conscious of fatigue, did not try to recover their wind, but hurried up without stopping, carried along by what seemed supernatural strength!
At length, just before three o’clock, Captain Gould and his companions stood side by side on the top of the peak.
Their disappointment was bitter when they turned their eyes towards the north.
A thick mist hid the horizon. It was impossible to discover whether the plateau ended on this side in a perpendicular cliff, as it did at Turtle Bay, or whether it spread much further beyond. Through this dense fog nothing could be seen. Above the layer of vapour the sky was still bright with the rays of the sun, now beginning to decline into the west.
Well, they would camp there and wait until the breeze had driven the fog away! Not one of them would go back without having examined the northern portion of the island!
For was there not a British flag there, floating in the breeze? Did it not say as plainly as words that this land was known, that it must figure in latitude and longitude on the English charts?
And those guns they had heard the day before, who could say that they did not come from ships saluting the flag as they moved by? Who could say that there was not some harbour on this coast, that there were not ships at anchor there at this very moment?
And, even if this land were merely a small islet, would there be anything wonderful in Great Britain having taken possession of it, when it lay on the confines of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans? Alternatively, why should it not belong to the Australian continent, so little of which was known in this direction, which was part of the British dominions?
As they talked a bird’s cry rang out, followed by a rapid beating of wings.
It was Jenny’s albatross, which had just taken flight, and was speeding away through the mists towards the north.