Chapter Eight.
A Flurry with Fur-Seals.
As if Captain Gancy’s petition had been heard by the All-Merciful, and is about to have favourable response, the next morning breaks clear and calm; the fog all gone, and the sky blue, with a bright sun shining in it—rarest of sights in the cloudlands of Tierra del Fuego. All are cheered by it, and, with reviving hope, eat breakfast in better spirits, a fervent grace preceding.
They do not linger over the repast, as the skipper and Seagriff are impatient to ascend to the summit of the isle, the latter in hopes of making out some remembered landmark. The place where they have put in is on its west side, and the high ground interposed hinders their view to the eastward, while all seen north and south is unknown to the old carpenter.
They are about starting off, when Mrs Gancy says interrogatively, “Why shouldn’t we go too?”—meaning herself and Leoline, as the daughter is prettily named.
“Yes, papa,” urges the young girl; “you’ll take us with you, won’t you?”
With a glance up the hill, to see whether the climb be not too difficult, he answers, “Certainly, dear; I’ve no objection. Indeed, the exercise may do you both good, after being so long shut up on board ship.”
“It would do us all good,” thinks Henry Chester, for a certain reason wishing to be of the party, that reason, as a child might see, being Leoline. He does not speak his wish, however, backwardness forbidding, but is well pleased at hearing her brother, who is without bar of this kind, cry out, “Yes, father. And the other pair of us, Harry and myself, would like to go too. Neither of us have got our land legs yet, as we found yesterday while fighting the penguins. A little mountaineering will help to put the steady into them.”
“Oh, very well,” assents the good-natured skipper. “You may all come—except Caesar. He had better stay by the boat, and keep the fire burning.”
“Jess so, Massa Cap’n, an’ much obleeged to ye. Dis chile perfur stayin’. Golly! I doan’ want to tire myse’f to deff a-draggin’ up dat ar pressypus. ’Sides, I hab got ter look out for de dinner, ’gainst yer gettin’ back.”