ve dug up the
whole plot."

"Here goes then!" cried Eric; and, away he went, trundling the
wheelbarrow along, with a shovel inside it for scraping up the bird
refuse and loading the little vehicle--disappearing soon from his
brother's gaze behind the tussock-grass thicket that skirted the extreme
end of the garden patch, close to the cliff on the right-hand side of
the bay, and exactly opposite to the site of their cottage, this being
the place where, as already mentioned, the penguins had established
their breeding-place, or "rookery."

Prior to Eric's departure, the birds had been noisy enough, keeping up
such a continual croaking and barking that the brothers could hardly
hear each other's voice; but now, no sooner had the lad invaded what
they seemed to look upon as their own particular domain, than the din
proceeding from thence became terrific, causing Fritz to drop his spade
for the first time since handling it and look up from his work,
wondering what was happening in the distance.

He could, however, see nothing of Eric, the tussock-grass growing so
high as to conceal his movements; so, he was just about resuming
digging, fancying that his brother would shortly be back with his
wheelbarrow full of guano manure and that then the uproar would be over,
when, suddenly, he distinguished, above all the growling and barking of
the penguins, the sound of the lad's voice calling to him for aid.

"Help, Fritz, help!" cried Eric, almost in a shriek, as if in great
pain. "Help, Fritz, help!"

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

ERIC'S COOKERY.

To throw down his spade a second time and rush off in the direction from
whence his brother's cries for assistance proceeded was but the work of
an instant for Fritz; and when he had succeeded in pushing his way
through the tangled tussock-grass, which grew matted as thick as a cane-
brake, he found the lad in a terrible plight.

At first, the strong ammoniacal smell of the guano was so overpowering,
combined with the fearful noise the penguins made--all screaming and
chattering together, as if the denizens of the monkey house at the
Zoological Gardens, which Fritz had once visited when in London, had
been suddenly let loose amongst the parrots in the same establishment--
that his senses were too confused to distinguish anything, especially as
the thicket was enveloped in semi-darkness from the overhanging stems of
the long grass which shut out the sunlight; but, after a brief inte