The Swiss family Robinson
men, so that they may be able to conquer such terrible beasts.”
“Poor Flora!” said Fritz, as he detached the dead body of our dear
dog from that of the lioness; “she has done for us to-day what our
old ass did in the case of the boa. Come, Ernest, see if you cannot
induce your muse to fabricate an epitaph.”
“Ah! my muse, I must confess, has been too terribly frightened to
make any rhymes.”
“Tush! go and meditate while we dig the grave of our poor hunter, and
be sure to be ready when we are done.”
Flora received the honours of a funeral by torchlight; we dug a
grave, and silently placed in it the remains of the faithful animal,
and a flat stone served to mark her resting-place. Ernest composed
the following legend, which he read to us, saying that he was too
frightened for poetry, and Flora must be contented with prose:
Here Lies
FLORA, A DOG
remarkable
for her courage and devotion.
She died
under the claws of a lion,
on whom
she also inflicted death.
“Admirable,” said Fritz. “It must be confessed, Ernest, you write
full as good prose as poetry.”
At sunrise next morning we were up, and our first care was to
deprive our noble prey of their superb furs. Jack wanted to make a
mantle of the lion’s skin, such as Hercules wore after his victory
in the Nemæan forest; but I adjourned all arrangements about their
appropriation till a more convenient time.
The heat of the sun had commenced to corrupt the oysters heaped upon
the bank, and the effluvia which they exhaled induced us to return
to Felsenheim, and early in the morning we set sail. Fritz set off
before us, as if to serve as pilot; but when he had conducted us
through the vault, and over the shoals, he rowed up to our canoe,
and, handing me a paper, shot off again like an arrow. I opened the
paper quickly, and imagine my surprise when I found that, instead of
having forgotten the albatross and the smoking rock, he informed me
in the letter that he was going in search of the unfortunate being! I
had a thousand objections to make to this romantic project; but Fritz
rowed so fast, I could barely halloo through the speaking-trumpet,
“Return soon, and be prudent,” before he was out of sight. We gave
to the cape where he left us the name of the “Adieu Cape.” We prayed
that our adventurer might return safe, and I begged my rowers
to redouble their endeavours, so that we could arrive early at
Felsenheim, for I suspected that my good Elizabeth would be worried
at our long absence of three days.
We finally arrived without accident, and the different treasures we
had brought were joyfully received; the truffles, the lion-skins, the
pearls, the Nankin, became the objects of a thousand questions, but
they could not drive away the thoughts of Fritz; and my wife said she
would willingly give up all our cargo of pearls, etc., if she could
only see her beloved son.
I had not yet spoken to my wife concerning the reason of Fritz’s
absence, as I did not wish to give rise to hopes which were so
unlikely to be realized; but now I thought that it was my duty to do
so. I therefore confided to her the secret of the albatross; and the
dear woman, to my surprise, was calm and resigned; she only prayed
with me that he might be successful.
Five days had thus passed away and still Fritz had not returned, and
his mother was so anxious and worried that I proposed to launch the
pinnace and make a new excursion to the Bay of Pearls. We lost no
time; the pinnace was prepared, and early the next day we bade adieu
to Felsenheim, and soon were in sight of the promontory of the bay,
when suddenly the vessel ran against a black mass, and was nearly
thrown over by the shock. My wife and sons uttered a cry of terror;
but the boat soon righted, and I perceived that the obstacle was not
a point of rock, as I had thought, but a marine monster of the family
of blowers, for we soon saw him throw up into the air two spouts of
water mingled with blood. I instantly pointed the cannons of the
pinnace, and a discharge of artillery prevented the huge monster
from overturning us, which he certainly would have done if the blow
had not stunned him. We saw with pleasure that the waves carried the
enormous body to a sand-bank a little distance from the shore, and
there it lay like a stranded ship.
Suddenly Ernest uttered a loud scream. “A man! a savage!” said he,
and he pointed out to us in the distance a sort of canoe dancing over
the waves. The person who conducted it seemed to have perceived us,
for he advanced and then made towards a projecting point, as if to
communicate his discovery to his companions. I leave our sensations
to the imagination of the reader. I had not the slightest doubt that
we had fallen in with a band of savages, and we began to fortify our
boat against their arrows, by making a bulwark of the stalks of maize
and corn we had brought with us. We loaded our cannons, guns, and
pistols, and, everything arranged, we stood ready behind our rampart,
resolved to defend it as long as we were able. We dared not advance,
for there was the savage; and Ernest, growing tired of the pantomime,
observed that, if we used the speaking-trumpet, possibly our savage
might understand some words of the half-dozen languages we were
familiar with.
The advice appeared good. I took up the speaking-trumpet and bellowed
out with all my force some words of Malay; but still the canoe
remained immovable, as if its master had not comprehended us.
“Instead of Malay,” said Jack, “suppose we try English.” So saying,
he caught up the trumpet, and in his clear, loud tone pronounced some
common sailor-phrases, well known to all who have ever been on board
ship. The device succeeded, and we saw the savage advancing toward
us, holding a green branch in his hand. Nearer and nearer he came,
and at last we recognized in the painted savage our own dear Fritz.
CHAPTER LVIII
Adventures of Fritz--Sir Edward Montrose--Our
Adopted Sister--Attack of Wolves--Preparations
for Return
When we had freed Fritz from our oft-repeated embraces, we commenced
asking him all manner of questions; and, speaking all together, the
poor fellow was so confused he did not know what to do. I demanded
an answer on two points only--whether his excursion had been
satisfactory, and why he had played this farce of dressing himself
like a savage, and causing us such anxiety.
“As to the purpose of my excursion,” said he, with a joy he could
scarcely conceal, “I have attained it”; and the young man, as he
said these words, pressed my hand, which he held in his. “As for my
costume, I mistook you for a tribe of Malays, or some other nation,
and, in the fear that you were enemies, I endeavoured to disguise
myself by painting the upper part of my body with powder, soaked in
water. The two reports of the cannon that I heard convinced me more
and more that you were enemies; the Malay words that you addressed to
me confirmed me, and I should still have been endeavouring to deceive
you, and you would still have been in fear of me, if Jack had not
bawled out those sailor-phrases in his unmistakable voice.”
We all began to laugh over the farce we had been enacting; and Fritz,
drawing me aside, said, in an eager, joyous tone, “I have succeeded,
papa: the hand of God conducted me to the dwelling-place of the poor
shipwrecked girl--for it was a woman that had written those lines.
Three years has she lived on that smoking rock, all alone, destitute
of everything! Can you believe it, but the poor girl has conjured me
not to betray her sex, except to you and my mother. I have brought
her with me: she is near by, on a little island just beyond the Bay
of Pearls; come and see her. Oh! do not say anything to my brothers.
I want to enjoy their surprise when they find I have brought them
back a sister, for I am sure she will allow them to call her so.”
I consented to the wish of my son, and, without saying anything to
the rest of the family, I ordered them to hoist the sails, weigh
anchor, and make ready to depart. Fritz, who had changed his dress
and washed off his disguise, flew about, hastening his less eager
brothers; then, jumping into his cajack, he piloted us through the
shoals and reefs that were scattered along the coast. After an hour’s
sailing he turned off, and directed his course toward a shady island
not far from the Bay of Pearls; we sailed close up to the shore,
and fastened the pinnace to the trunk of a fallen tree. Fritz,
however, was quicker than we, and he was on shore, and had entered
a little wood in the middle of the island before we had yet landed.
We followed him into the wood, and soon found ourselves in the
vicinity of a hut, built like those of the Hottentots, with a fire
burning before it, on which some fish were cooking in a large shell.
Fritz uttered a peculiar kind of halloo, and what was our surprise
to see, descending from a large tree, a young and handsome sailor,
who, turning his timid eyes on us, stood still, as if he dared not
approach!
It was such a long time since we had seen a man--ten years!--society
had become so strange a thing to us, that we remained stupefied; our
hearts felt for the young stranger, but our tongues remained dumb.
The silence was broken by Fritz, who, taking the young sailor by
the hand, advanced toward us. “My father, my mother, and you, my
brothers,” said he, in a voice broken by emotion, “behold a friend--a
brother--that I present you, a new companion in misfortune--Sir
Edward Montrose, who, like ourselves, has been shipwrecked on the
coast.”
“He is welcome among us,” was the general cry; and, approaching the
young sailor, whom I easily recognized as being a woman, and taking
her by the hand, I comforted and encouraged her, assuring the seeming
man, that among us he would always find food and sustenance; my wife
and myself would be his parents, and my sons his brothers. My wife,
moved by compassion, opened her arms, and the young sailor rushed
into them, bursting into a flood of tears, as he thanked us for our
kindness. The most lively joy now reigned in our little circle, and
his brothers poured question after question upon Fritz, who joyfully
replied, “I will tell you all afterward; let us attend now to our new
brother.” Supper was served, and my wife brought out a bottle of her
spiced hydromel to add to the feast. Everybody spoke at once, and my
sons addressed their new companion with such vivacity as to embarrass
the timid stranger: my wife saw his distress, and, as it was late,
she gave the signal for retirement, taking the sailor with her on the
pinnace where she said she intended to provide a bed for him that
would amply console him for the uncomfortable nights he had hitherto
passed. We then separated, my wife and the stranger retiring to
the boat, while my sons and I stopped to light and arrange our
watch-fires.
The new-comer naturally became the subject of conversation, and Fritz
recounted to his brothers the whole history of the albatross. He
spoke of his thoughts and actions, but he became so excited in his
narration, that he forgot himself and the secret he had to keep. A
word escaped him, and he called the young sailor “Emily.”
“Emily!--Emily!” repeated his brothers, who had begun to doubt
the mystery; “Emily!--Fritz has deceived us, and Sir Edward is a
girl!--our adopted brother turned into a sister!”
I leave to the imagination to picture the embarrassment of Fritz when