Chapter I: Front Matter

THE CASTAWAYS OF THE FLAG

BOOKS BY JULES VERNE

THE LIGHTHOUSE AT THE END OF THE WORLD
THE CASTAWAYS OF THE FLAG
THEIR ISLAND HOME

THE CASTAWAYS
OF THE FLAG

THE FINAL ADVENTURES OF
THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON

JULES VERNE

AUTHOR OF
“THE LIGHTHOUSE AT THE END OF THE WORLD,”
“THEIR ISLAND HOME,” etc.

Frontispiece by
H. C. MURPHY

NEW YORK
G. HOWARD WATT
1819 BROADWAY
1924

Copyright, 1924, by
G. HOWARD WATT
Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Preface—“The Swiss Family Robinson”
and Its Sequel “Their Island Home”

I. The Castaways
II. In England
III. The Mutiny on the Flag
IV. Land Ahoy!
V. A Barren Shore
VI. Time of Trial
VII. The Coming of the Albatross
VIII. Little Bob Lost
IX. Bob Found
X. The Flag on the Peak!
XI. By Well-Known Ways
XII. Enemies in the Promised Land
XIII. Shark’s Island
XIV. A Perilous Plight
XV. Fighting for Life
XVI. Conclusion

“THE CASTAWAYS OF THE FLAG”

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

With the restoration of Fritz Zermatt and his wife Jenny, his brother Frank and the other Castaways of the Flag to their anxious and sorely tried relatives in New Switzerland, the story of “The Swiss Family Robinson” is brought to its proper end. Thereafter, the interest of their domestic life is merged in that of the growth of a young colony. Romance is merged in history and the romancer’s work is finished. Jules Verne has here set the coping stone on the structure begun by Rudolph Wyss, and in “The Swiss Family Robinson,” “Their Island Home” and “The Castaways of the Flag” we have, not a story and two sequels, but a complete trilogy which judges who survey it must pronounce very good.

A word may be permitted about this English version. Jules Verne is a master of pure narrative. His style is singularly limpid and his language is so simple that people with a very limited knowledge of French can read his stories in the original and miss very little of their substance. But to be able to read a book in one language and to translate it into another are very different things. The very simplicity of Jules Verne’s French presents difficulties to one who would translate it into English. What the French call “idiotismes” abound in all Verne’s writing, and I know few French authors to whose books it is so difficult to impart a really English air in English dress. Whatever the imperfections of these translations may be they cannot, however, mar very greatly the pleasure the stories themselves give to every reader.

Cranstoun Metcalfe.