The animals had abundant pasture there throughout the year. The herd now numbered fifty head, and was bound to go on increasing.

 

            "What shall we do with all these animals?" Fritz asked, as he watched them frolicking between the quickset hedges of the enclosures.

 

            "Sell them," was Jack's answer.

 

            "Then you do admit that some day or another ships will come to which it will be possible to sell them?" Fritz enquired.

 

            "Not a bit of it," Jack replied; "when we sell them it will be in open market in New Switzerland."

 

            "Open market, Jack! From the way you talk one would suppose it won't be very long before New Switzerland has open markets."

 

            "No doubt about it, Fritz; or that it will have villages and little towns, cities, and even a capital, which, naturally, will be Rock Castle."

 

            "And when will that be?"

 

            "When the provinces of New Switzerland have several thousand inhabitants." "Foreigners?"

 

            "No, no, Fritz," Jack declared; "Swiss: none but Swiss. Our native land has enough people to be able to send us a few hundred families."

 

            "But it never has had any colonies, and I don't suppose it ever will, Jack."

 

            "Well, it will have one, at any rate, Fritz."

 

            "But our countrymen don't seem to show any inclination to emigrate."

 

            "What about ourselves?" Jack exclaimed. "Didn't we develop the liking for colonisation—and not without, some advantage?"

 

            "Because we were obliged to," Fritz answered. "No, if ever New Switzerland is to be populated, I am very much afraid she won't continue to justify her name, and that the large majority of her inhabitants will be Anglo-Saxon."

 

            Fritz was right, and Jack knew it so well that he could not refrain from making a grimace.

 

            For at this period Great Britain was still frequently acquiring new possessions. Bit by bit, the Indian Ocean was always giving her fresh domains. So the great probability was that if a ship ever did come in sight, the British flag would be flying at her peak and her captain would take possession of New Switzerland and hoist the British flag on the summit of Prospect Hill.

 

            When they had finished their inspection of the island the two brothers climbed the hill and went to the hangar where the battery stood.

 

            Standing upon the edge of the upper terrace they swept with their telescopes the whole vast segment of sea contained between False Hope Point and the cape which shut in Deliverance Bay to the east.

 

            Nothing but a desert waste of water! Right out to the extreme horizon, where sky and ocean met, nothing was to be seen except, three or four miles away to the north-east, the reef on which the Landlord had run aground.

 

            Turning their eyes towards False Hope Point, Fritz and Jack perceived between the trees upon the hill the belvidere of the villa at Prospect Hill. The summer dwelling was still standing—which would be a satisfaction to M. Zermatt, who was constantly afraid that it might be destroyed by some of the sudden squalls of the rainy season.

 

            The two brothers went into the hangar, which the storms had spared, although there had been more than enough thunderstorms and squalls during the two and a half months that the winter had lasted.

 

            Their next business was to run up to the head of the mast near the hangar the red and white flag which would wave there until the end of autumn, and to honour it with the annual salute of two guns.

 

            While Jack was busy taking the flag out of its case and fastening it by the corners to the halyard, Fritz examined the two carronades that were pointed towards the open sea. They were both in good condition, and only required to be loaded. In order to economise powder, Fritz was careful to use a wad of damped sod, as it was his practice to do, which increased the intensity of the discharge. Then he fixed in the touch-hole the quick match which would fire the gun the instant the flag reached the top of the mast.

 

            It was then half past seven in the morning. The sky, cleared now of the mists of early dawn, was absolutely serene. Only towards the west a few wisps of cloud rose in delicate spirals. The breeze seemed dying down. The bay, glittering beneath the streaming rays of the sun, was almost dead calm.

 

            As soon as he had finished, Fritz asked his brother if he was ready.

 

            "When you like, Fritz," Jack answered, satisfying himself that the halyard would run without catching on the roof of the hangar.

 

            "Number one, fire! Number two, fire!" cried Fritz, who took himself very seriously as artilleryman.

 

            The two shots rang out one after the other while the red and white bunting fluttered out in the breeze.

 

            Fritz busied himself reloading the two guns. But he had hardly put the cartridge in the second cannon when he jumped upright.

 

            A distant detonation had just struck upon his ear.

 

            At once Jack and he rushed out of the hangar.

 

            "A gun!" cried Jack.

 

            "No!" said Fritz. "It isn't possible. We are mistaken."

 

            "Listen!" answered Jack, scarcely breathing.

 

            A second detonation rang through the air, and then after an interval of a minute a third resounded.

 

            "Yes, yes!" Jack insisted. "Those are cannon shots all right."

 

            "And they came from the east," Fritz added.

 

            Was it really a ship, passing within sight of New Switzerland, that had replied to the double discharge from Shark's Island, and would that ship steer her course for Deliverance Bay?

 

 

CHAPTER II - FRITZ AND JACK PLAY SAVAGES

 

            DIRECTLY the double report rang out from the battery on Shark's Island the echoes of Rock Castle repeated it from cliff to cliff. M. Zermatt and his wife, Jenny, Ernest, and Frank, running down at once to the beach, could see the whitish smoke of the two guns drifting slowly in the direction of Falconhurst. Waving their handkerchiefs, they answered with a cheer.

 

            Then all were preparing to resume their several occupations when Jenny, who was looking towards the island through her telescope, exclaimed: "Fritz and Jack are coming back." "Already?" said Ernest. "Why, they have barely had time to reload the guns. Why are they in such a hurry to get back to us?"

 

            "They certainly do seem to be in a hurry," M. Zermatt replied.

 

            There could be no doubt that the moving speck revealed by the telescope a little to the right of the island was the frail boat being lifted swiftly along by the paddles.

 

            "It is certainly odd," said Mme. Zermatt. "Can they have any news for us—important news?" "I think they have," Jenny answered.

 

          Would the news be good or bad? That was the question each one asked himself without attempting to answer it.

 

            All eyes were fastened on the canoe which was growing larger to the sight. In a quarter of an hour it was halfway between Shark's Island and the mouth of Jackal River. Fritz had not hoisted his little sail, for the breeze was dropping, and by paddling the two brothers travelled faster than the wind over the almost unruffled waters of Deliverance Bay.

 

            It occurred to M. Zermatt's mind that this hurried return might be a flight, and he wondered whether there would appear in chase some canoe full of savages, or even a pirate vessel from the open sea.