"It's best to let bye-gones be bye-gones!" "Yes," replied Fritz; and the two then went on eating in silence, so heartily that it seemed as if they would never stop.

Indeed, they made such good knife-and-fork play, that they were quite weary with their exertions when they had finished, and were obliged to adjourn to their little camp in the sheltered hollow where, curling themselves up comfortably in their blankets, they went cosily to sleep.
The next day, they killed several of the younger hogs and threw their carcases down to the bottom of the gully by the waterfall; for, besides planning out the manufacture of some hams out of the island porkers, they intended utilising the lard for frying their potatoes, in.

This, in the event of their finding the pig's flesh too rank after a time, would then afford them an agreeable change of diet to the plain boiled tubers with which hitherto they had had only salt to eat for a relish.
On the third day, as the wind seemed about to change and ominous clouds were flying across the face of the sky, they determined to return home, having by that time consumed the last of their roast pig as well as all the potatoes they had brought with them in their floating cask.
They were taking a last walk over the plateau, which they thought they might never see again--for the swim round the headland was not a feat to be repeated often, even if the weather allowed it, the currents being so treacherous and the sea working itself up into commotion at a moment's notice--when, suddenly, Eric stopped right over the edge of the gully.
He arrested his footsteps just at the spot where the tussock-grass ladder had formerly trailed down, enabling them to reach their valley, without all the bother of toiling round the coast as they had to do now.
"Don't you think this spot here has altered greatly ?" said the sailor lad to Fritz.
"No, I can't say I do," returned the other.

"The grass has only been burnt away; that, of course, makes it look bare." "Well, I think differently," replied Eric, jumping down into the crevice.

"This place wasn't half so wide before." "Indeed ?" "No, it wasn't I couldn't have squeezed myself in here when I last came up the plateau." "Why, that was all on account of the space the tussock-grass took up." Eric did not reply to this; but, a moment after, he shouted out in a tone of great surprise, "Hullo, there's a cave here, with something glittering on the floor!" "Really ?" "Yes, and it looks like gold!".