But he did not communicate this highly alarming idea to anyone else. Followed by Betsy, Jenny, Ernest and Frank, he hurried to the far end of the creek, in haste to question Fritz and Jack.

 

            A quarter of an hour later the canoe stopped by the nearest rocks, which served as landing stage, at the end of the creek.

 

            "What is the matter?" M. Zermatt cried.

 

            Fritz and Jack jumped out onto the beach. Quite out of breath, their faces bathed in perspiration and their arms worn out with exertion, they could only answer with gestures at first, pointing to the coast east of Deliverance Bay.

 

            "What is the matter?" Frank repeated, grasping Fritz's arm.

 

            "Didn't you hear?" Fritz asked at last when he had recovered his breath.

 

            "Yes: you mean the two guns you fired from the Shark's battery?" said Ernest.

 

            "No," Jack answered; "not ours; those that answered!"

 

            "What?" M. Zermatt exclaimed. "Reports?" "It isn't possible! It isn't possible!" Mme. Zermatt repeated.

 

            Jenny had drawn near Fritz, and, pale with excitement, she asked in her turn:

 

            "Did you hear reports near here?"

 

            "Yes, Jenny," Fritz answered; "three guns fired at regular intervals."

 

            Fritz spoke so positively that it was impossible to believe he had made a mistake. Besides, Jack confirmed what his brother said, adding:

 

            "There can't be any doubt a ship is off New Switzerland and that her attention has been caught by the discharge of our two cannon."

 

            "A ship! A ship!" whispered Jenny.

 

            "And you are sure it was to the eastward?" M. Zermatt insisted.

 

            "Yes, to the eastward," Fritz declared; "and I am sure now that Deliverance Bay can only be a few miles from the main sea."

 

            This was very likely the case; but no one knew, as no exploration had yet been carried out along that coast.

 

            Great was the emotion of the inhabitants of New Switzerland after the first moment of surprise, almost of stupefaction.

 

            A ship—there really was a ship within sight, a ship, the report of whose guns had been borne by the breeze to Shark's Island! It was a connecting link by which this unknown land, where for eleven years the survivors of the wreck of the Landlord had lived, was united once more to the rest of the inhabited world! The cannon is the deep voice of ships that make long voyages, and that voice had just been heard for the first time since the battery on Shark's Island welcomed the returning dry season! It was almost as if this happening, on which they had ceased to count, took M. Zermatt and his people unprepared, as if this ship spoke a tongue which they had forgotten.

 

            However, they pulled themselves together and only thought of the bright side of this new situation. This distant sound which had reached them was not one of those sounds of nature to which they had been so long accustomed, the snapping of trees by the violence of the gale, the roar of the sea broken by the tempest, the crash of the thunder in the mighty storms of this intertropical zone. No! This sound was caused by the hand of man! The captain and the crew of the ship which was passing by at sea could no longer suppose that this land was uninhabited. If they should come to anchor in the bay their flag would salute the flag of New Switzerland!

 

            There was none of them but saw there the certainty of an impending deliverance. Mme. Zermatt felt herself freed from fears of the future; Jenny thought of her father, whom she had despaired of ever seeing again; M. Zermatt and his sons found themselves once more among their kind.

 

            So the first emotion felt by this family was that caused by the realisation of their dearest wishes. Thinking only of the happy side of this great event, they were all full of hope and of gratitude to heaven.

 

            "It is right that we should first give thanks to God, Whose protection has never failed us," said Frank. "It is to Him that our thanks ought to ascend and to Him that our prayers should be given."

 

            It was natural for Frank to express himself so. His religious feelings had always been deep, and had become even deeper as he grew older. His was an upright, tranquil character, full of affection for his people, that is to say for what had been all human kind to him hitherto. Although the youngest of the brothers, he was yet their counsellor in the very-few disputes that arose between the members of this most united family.

 

            What would his vocation have been if he had lived in his native land? No doubt he would have sought in medicine, or the law, or the priesthood to satisfy the devotional need which was the basis of his being, as physical activity was in the case of Fritz and Jack, and intellectual activity in the case of Ernest. And so he sent up a fervent prayer to Providence, in which he was joined by his father and mother, his brothers, and Jenny.

 

            It was necessary to act without delay. The ship, of whose presence no one would any longer admit a doubt, was probably anchored in one of the little bays along the coast, and was not passing by off New Switzerland. Would the sound of the guns to which it had replied induce it to set about the exploration of this land? Would it even try, perhaps, to make its entry into Deliverance Bay, after doubling the cape which closed it in to the east?

 

            That was what Fritz maintained, and he wound up his argument by saying:

 

            "The only thing we have to do is to go and meet this ship, following along the eastern coast, which must run from north to south."

 

            "Perhaps we have waited too long as it is," said Jenny.

 

            "I don't think so," Ernest answered. "It is out of the question that the captain of this ship, whatever it is, won't try to find out all about it."

 

            "What is the good of all this talk, talk!" cried Jack. "Let us go!"

 

            "Give us time to get the launch ready," said M. Zermatt.

 

            "It would take too long," Fritz declared, "and the canoe will serve."

 

            "Very well," said M. Zermatt. Then he added: "The important point is to behave with the utmost caution. I do not think it likely that any Malay or Australian savages have landed on the eastern coast, but the Indian Ocean is infested by pirates, and we should have everything to fear from them."

 

            "Yes," said Mme. Zermatt, "and it would be better for this ship to go away if—"

 

            "I will go myself," M. Zermatt declared. "Before we get into communication with these strangers we must know with whom we have to deal."

 

            This decision was a wise one.