The last weeks of the year brought them to despair. After the lapse of fifteen months, all abandoned hope of ever seeing the Unicorn again. Mme. Zermatt, Mrs. Wolston, and Hannah mourned their lost ones. None had courage left for anything. Nothing seemed of any use.
It was only after this long delay, that they took it for granted that the Unicorn had been wrecked, lost with all hands, and that nothing more would ever be heard of her, either in England or in the Promised Land!
For if the corvette had accomplished her outward voyage without mishap, after a call at the Cape of Good Hope lasting a few days, she would have reached Portsmouth, her destination, within three months. From there, a few months later, she would have sailed for New Switzerland, and several emigrant ships would have been despatched soon after her to the English colony. The fact that no ship had visited this portion of the Indian Ocean meant that the Unicorn had foundered in the dangerous seas that lie between Australia and Africa before she had reached her first port of call, Cape Town; it meant, too, that the existence of the island was still unknown, and would remain unknown, unless the chances of navigation brought some other ship into these remote seas which, at this period, lay within none of the maritime routes.
During the first half of the dry season neither M. Zermatt nor Mr. Wolston thought of leaving Rock Castle. As a rule they spent the finest part of the year at Falconhurst, reserving a week each for the farms at Wood Grange, Sugar-cane Grove, Prospect Hill, and the hermitage at Eberfurt. On this occasion they limited themselves to the brief visits necessitated by their duty to the animals. They made no attempt to explore the other portions of the island outside the district of the Promised Land. Jack contented himself with hunting in the immediate neighbourhood of Rock Castle, leaving Whirlwind and Storm and Grumbler idle. Various works which Mr. Wolston had planned to do, to which his engineering instinct had moved him, were left unattempted.
What was the use? In those four little words was summed up a volume of despondency.
So when they came to celebrate the festival of Christmas—kept with joy so many years—tears were in the eyes of all, and prayers rose for those who were not with them!
Thus the year 1817 opened. In that splendid summer season Nature was more lavish with her gifts than she had ever been before. But her generosity far exceeded the requirements of seven persons. The great house seemed empty, now that those they had expected could be looked for no longer!
And yet there came at times faint hopes that everything was not lost irreparably. Could the delay of the Unicorn be explained in no other way than by shipwreck with loss of all hands? Perhaps she had prolonged her stay in Europe. Perhaps quite soon they would see her topsails on the horizon, and the long pennon streaming from her mainmast.
It was in the second week of January of this most gloomy year that M. Zermatt saw a flotilla of pirogues round Cape East, and making for Deliverance Bay. Their appearance caused no great surprise, for after Jack had fallen into their hands, the savages could no longer be unaware that the island was inhabited.
In less than two hours the tide would bring the pirogues to the mouth of Jackal River. Manned by something like a hundred men, for, of course, the whole party that had landed on the island must have joined in this expedition, how would it be possible to offer them serious resistance?