Free The Castaways of the Flag by Jules Verne Page A

why
shouldn't there be vegetation on the top of the cliff," John Block
enquired, "although that is only a stream?"
     
                "A
stream now," Fritz said, "and a stream which may even dry up during
the very hot weather, but no doubt a torrent in the rainy season."
     
                "Well,
if it will only flow for a few days longer," the boatswain remarked
philosophically, "we won't ask anything more of it."
     
                Fritz and his
companions now had a cave in which to establish their quarters, and a stream
which would enable them to refill the boat's casks with fresh water. The chief
remaining question was whether they could provide themselves with food.
     
                Things did
not look too promising. After crossing the little river the explorers had a fresh
and deep disappointment.
     
                Beyond the
promontory a creek was cut into the coast, in width about half a mile, fringed
with a rim of sand, and enclosed behind by the cliff. At the far end rose a
perpendicular bluff, whose foot was washed by the sea.
     
                This shore
presented the same arid appearance as the other. Here, too, the vegetable
growths were confined to patches of lichen and layers of sea-weeds thrown up by
the tide. Was it, then, on a mere islet, a rocky, lonely, uninhabitable island
in the Pacific Ocean, that the boat had come ashore? There seemed every reason
to fear so.
     
                It appeared
useless to carry the exploration as far as the bluff which enclosed the creek.
They were about to go back to the boat when James stretched out his hand
towards the shore and said:
     
                "What is
that I see down there on the sand? Look—those moving specks. They look like
rats."
     
                From the
distance it did, indeed, look as if a number of rats were on march together
towards the sea.
     
                '' Rats?''
said Frank enquiringly. "The rat is game, when he belongs to the ondatra
genus. Do you remember the hundreds we killed, Fritz, when we made that trip
after the boa-constrictor?"
     
                "I
should think I do, Frank," Fritz answered ; "and I remember, too,
that we did not make much of a feast off their flesh, which reeked too much of
the marsh."
     
                "Right!"
said the boatswain. "Properly cooked, one can eat those beggars. But
there's no occasion to argue about it. Those black specks over there aren't
rats."
     
                "What do
you think they are, Block?" Fritz asked.
     
                "Turtles."
     
                "I hope
you are right."
     
                The
boatswain's good eyesight might have been trusted. There actually was a crowd
of turtles crawling over the sand.
     
                So while
Fritz and James remained on watch on the promontory, John Block and Frank slid
down the other side of the rocks, in order to cut off the band of chelones.
     
                These
tortoises were small, measuring only twelve or fifteen inches, and long in the
tail. They belonged to a species whose principal food consists of insects.
There were fifty of them, on march, not towards the sea, but towards the mouth
of the stream, where a quantity of sticky laminariae, left by the ebb tide, were soaking.
     
                On this side
the ground was studded with little swellings, like bubbles in the sand, the
meaning of which Frank recognised at once.
     
                "There
are turtles' eggs under those!" he exclaimed.
     
                "Well,
dig up the eggs, Mr. Frank," John Block replied. "I'll belay the
fowls! That's certainly ever so much better than my boiled pebbles, and if
little Miss Dolly isn't satisfied –"
     
                "The
eggs will be warmly welcomed, Block, you may be sure," Frank declared.
     
                "And the
turtles,