So one and all had quite enough to get through.
Mr. Wolston and Jack made it their business to inspect the pinnace which was moored in the creek. She had not been to sea since her trip to Unicorn Bay. Some repairs had to be done, and Mr. Wolston was clever at this. Navigation would be no new thing to him, and Jack, too, could be relied upon, as the fearless successor to Fritz, to handle the Elizabeth as he handled the canoe.
M. Zermatt and Ernest, Mme. Zermatt, Mrs. Wolston and Hannah, were entrusted with the duty of providing the cattlesheds and the poultry yard with food, and they did it conscientiously. There was a large quantity left of the last harvest. Being graminivorous, the buffaloes, onager, asses, cows and the ostrich would lack nothing. The fowls, geese, ducks, Jenny's cormorant, the two jackals, the monkey, were made as sure of their food supply. Brownie and Fawn were to be taken, for there might be need to hunt on this trip, if the pinnace put in at any point on the coast.
All these arrangements of course made visits necessary to the farmsteads at Wood Grange, the hermitage at Eberfurt, Sugar-cane Grove, and Prospect Hill, among which the various animals were distributed. All these places were carefully kept in a state to receive visitors for a few days. But with the help of the waggon, the delay of thirty-six hours, stipulated for by M. Zermatt, was not exceeded.
There really was no time to be lost. The yellowing crops were on the point of ripening. The harvest could not be delayed beyond a fortnight, and the pinnace must be back by that time.
At last, in the evening of the 14th of March, a case of preserved meat, a bag of cassava flour, a cask of mead, a keg of palm wine, four guns, four pistols, powder, lead, enough shot for the Elizabeth's two small cannon, bedding, linen, spare clothes, oilskins, and cooking utensils were put on board.
Everything being ready for the start, all that had to be done was to take advantage, at the very first break of day, of the breeze which would blow off the land in order to reach Cape East.
After a peaceful night the two families went on board, at five o'clock in the morning, accompanied by the two dogs which gambolled and frolicked to their hearts' content.
As soon as the party had all taken their place on deck, the canoe was triced up aft. Then, with mainsail, foresail, and jib set, with M. Zermatt at the helm and Mr. Wolston and Jack on the lookout, the pinnace picked up the wind, and after passing Shark's Island speedily lost sight of the heights of Rock Castle.