That other kid too, that we saw, must be grown up by now." "He shall be my prey," cried Eric, proceeding immediately to polish his rifle, so as to be ready for the excursion.
A day or two afterwards, the two ascended the cliff by the now familiar tussock-grass ladder; but, although Eric could almost have gone up blindfold this time, the ascent was quite as difficult as it had been at first to Fritz, who had never climbed it once since the day he sprained his ankle in coming down, having left the look-out department entirely to the sailor lad, on account, as he said, of its "being more in his line!" As he had not, therefore, seen it for so long, Fritz noticed a considerable change on going up.
The grass had grown very much taller, while the trees appeared more bushy; but, besides these alterations, the inhabitants of the plateau had become changed and more varied.
The droves of wild hogs had increased considerably; while the goats, headed by the old billy, who looked as lively and venerable as ever, had diminished--of course, through the ravages of the Tristaners, as mentioned before.
Still, not even the loss of these latter animals specially attracted his attention; what he particularly observed was, that the prairie tableland had a fresh class of visitors, which must have arrived with the new year, for they had not been there when he had previously ascended the cliff.
Eric was too much taken up with looking for seals to notice them, for he certainly never mentioned them on his return below to the hut; and, so, Fritz was doubly surprised now at seeing them.
These newcomers were the wandering albatross--the "Diomedia exulans," as naturalists term it--which sailors believe to float constantly in the upper air, never alighting on land or sea, but living perpetually on the wing! Eric was firmly convinced of this from what he had been told when on board the _Pilot's Bride_; but Fritz, of course, expressed doubts of the bird having any such fabulous existence when it was pointed out to him while illustrating "flight without motion," as its graceful movement through the air might be described.

Now, he had ocular demonstration of the fact that the albatross not only rests its weary feet on solid earth sometimes, but that it also builds a nest, and, marvellous to relate, actually lays eggs! No sooner had Fritz set foot on the plateau, after a weary climb up the toilsome staircase which the tussock-grass and irregularities of the cliff afforded, than he startled one of these birds.

It was straddling on the ground in a funny fashion over a little heap of rubbish, as the pile appeared to him.

The albatross was quite in the open part of the tableland, and the reason why it selected such a spot for its resting- place, instead of amid the brushwood and tussock-grass thickets that spread over the plateau, was apparent at once when the bird was disturbed; for, it had to take a short run along the bare ground before it could get its pinions thoroughly inflated and rise in the air.

Had it been amidst the trees or long grass, Fritz would have been able to approach it and knock it over before it could have sought safety in flight, on account of its long wings requiring a wide space for their expansion.
On proceeding to the little heap of rubbish, as Fritz thought it, from which the albatross had risen, he found it to be a nest.