Their island home

by Jules Verne

"My father," she said—it was the first time that she had so addressed him—"bless me as my mother has just blessed me! Let me—let us—leave for Europe! Your children will come back to you, and you need not fear that anything can ever separate them from you. Colonel Montrose is a man of feeling who will wish to pay his daughter's debt. Let Fritz come to England to meet him. Trust us to each other. Your son will answer for me as I will answer for him!"

Finally, this was what was arranged, with the consent of the commander of the Unicorn. The landing of the Wolstons would set some berths on the corvette free. Fritz, Frank, and Jenny were to embark upon her accompanied by Dolly, the younger of the Wolston girls. Dolly was to go to Cape Town to join her brother whom she would then bring back to New Switzerland with his wife and child. As for Ernest and Jack, they would not hear of leaving their parents.

Lieutenant Littlestone's mission was accomplished, for he had found Jenny Montrose, the sole survivor of the passengers on the Dorcas, and in this island of New Switzerland had discovered an excellent anchorage in the Indian Ocean. And since M. Zermatt, who in his capacity of its first occupier was its owner, desired to offer it to Great Britain, Lieutenant Littlestone promised to take the matter to a satisfactory conclusion and to bring back the formal acceptance of the British Government.

The presumption, therefore, was that the Unicorn would return to take possession of the island. She would bring back Fritz, Frank, and Jenny Montrose, and would also embark at Cape Town James Wolston with his sister Dolly, and his wife and child. Fritz would provide himself, with the consent of M. and Mme. Zermatt, with the papers necessary for his marriage—a marriage of which Colonel Montrose would be delighted to approve. Everybody took it for granted that the colonel would want to accompany the young couple to New Switzerland.

So everything was arranged. But still it would not be without much sorrow that the members of the Zermatt family would be separated for a time. Of course when Fritz came back, with Frank and Jenny, and Jenny's father, with perhaps other colonists who might ask leave to accompany them, there would be nothing but happiness—happiness that nothing would disturb thereafter, and a prosperous future for the colony!

Preparations were made at once for the start. A few days more and the Unicorn would be ready to leave the bay upon the coast to which her name had been given. Directly her rigging had been repaired and reset, the corvette would stand out to sea again and turn her course towards the Cape of Good Hope.

Jenny naturally wanted to take away, or, rather, take to Colonel Montrose, the few articles she had made with her own hands upon Burning Rock. Each one of them would be a reminder of the existence she had endured so bravely during more than two years of utter solitude. So Frank took charge of these things, which he would guard like priceless treasure.

M. Zermatt placed in the hands of his two sons everything that had marketable value and could be converted into money in England, the pearls, which would produce a considerable sum, the coral picked up along the islands in Nautilus Bay, the nutmegs and vanilla pods, with which several sacks were filled. With the cash realised by the sale of these various products, Fritz was to buy the material and stores necessary to the colony—stores which would be sent out by the first ship on which the future colonists might take passage with their own outfit. The whole would form a cargo large and valuable enough to require a vessel of several hundred tons.

M. Zermatt, on his part, made various exchanges with Lieutenant Littlestone. He thus procured several casks of brandy and of wine, clothes, linen, stores, and a dozen barrels of powder, shot, lead and bullets. Inasmuch as New Switzerland was able to supply the needs of her inhabitants, it was of the first importance to make sure of an adequate supply of fire-arms. These were indispensable, not only for hunting but also for purposes of self-defence in the event, possible if unlikely, of the colonists being attacked by pirates or even by aborigines.

At the same time the commander of the Unicorn undertook to return to the families of the passengers who had perished the valuable securities and the jewelry that had been found on board the Landlord. As for the journal of his life which M. Zermatt had kept from day to day, Fritz was to arrange for its publication in England in order to secure the place to which New Switzerland was entitled in geographical nomenclature.[1]