“But how do you know it is for that?”

“What else could it be for?  The leader gives notice, by a peculiar cry, of the route it is about to take.  This cry is repeated by the flock, as if to say that they will follow, and keep the direction indicated.  When they meet with a bird of prey whose attacks they may have to repulse, the ranks fall in so as to present a solid phalanx to the enemy.”

“If they had a commissariat in the rear and a few sappers in front, the resemblance would be complete.”

“If a storm arises,” continued Fritz, without noticing Willis’s commentary, “they lower their flight and approach the ground.”

“Forgotten their umbrellas, perhaps.”

“When they make a halt, outposts are established to keep a look out while the troop sleeps.”

“And, in cases of alarm, the outposts fire and fall in as a matter of course.”

“Great Rono,” said Jack, “you are become a downright quiz.  I have finished my letter whilst you have been discussing the poultry,” he added, handing the pen to his brother, “and it only waits your postscriptum.”  Fritz having added a few lines, the epistle was sealed, and was then attached to one of the pigeons, which, after hovering a short time round the pinnace, took a flight upwards and disappeared in the clouds.

They were now in sight of a large island, which bore no traces of habitation.  There was a heavy surf beating on the shore, but the case was urgent, so Willis and Jack embarked in the canoe, and, after a hard fight with the waves, landed on the beach.

Each of them were armed with a double-barrelled rifle, and furnished with a boatswain’s whistle.  The whistle was to signal the discovery of water, and a rifle shot was to bring them together in case of danger.  These arrangements being made, Jack proceeded in the direction of a thicket, which stood at the distance of some hundred yards from the shore.  He had no sooner reached the cover in the vicinity of the trees than he was pounced upon by two ferocious-looking savages.  They gave him no time to level his rifle or to draw a knife.  One of his captors held his hands firmly behind his back, whilst the other dragged him towards the wood.  At this moment the Pilot’s whistle rang sharply through the air.  This put an end to any hopes that Jack might have entertained of being rescued through that means.  Had he sounded the whistle, it would only have led Willis to suppose that he had heard the signal, and was on his way to join him.

Poor Jack judged, from the aspect of the men who held him, that they were cannibals, and consequently that his fate was sealed, for if his surmises were correct, there was little chance of the wretches relinquishing their prey.  Jack had often amused himself at the expense of the anthropophagi, but here he was actually within their grasp.  Though death terminates the sorrows and the sufferings of man, and though the result is the same in whatever shape it comes, yet there are circumstances which cause its approach to be regarded with terror and dismay.  In one’s bed, exhausted by old age or disease, the lips only open to give utterance to a sigh of pain; life, then, is a burden that is laid down without reluctance; we glide imperceptibly and almost voluntarily into eternity.