The steamer anchored during the night and the black men were taken on board.
At daylight that morning the black men continued along the shore in the canoe, the steamer following. As the canoe came in sight of the cove they saw the wreck and signalled back to the steamer, which had answered by a blast on her whistle.
It was the sound of the steamer's whistle which we heard just before the boat appeared. In a few minutes a large steamer came in sight from behind the point and anchored off the cove. A boat was immediately lowered and rowed swiftly ashore. A man in uniform sprang ashore and came hurriedly to us, extending both his hands which we eagerly grasped.
He was the second officer of the Royal Mail steamship Dunmore Castle, from England for West Indian and Colombian ports. When off the east side of the island somewhat out of her course by reason of a heavy squall into which she had run a few hours before sighting the island, the first officer had seen my beacon and called the Captain's attention to it. The rest had been related by the black men.
My story is nearly told. We were transported on board the steamer, with such of our belonging as we wished to take with us. The great weight of Marjorie's trunk called forth some remarks from the men who handled it, but we made some casual allusion to rare sea-shells and other curios and felt relieved when the trunk was on board.
The Dunmore Castle proceeded to make her ports of call, during which we had to give a detailed account of our life and strange adventures on the island, to the wondering passengers.
We were landed at Kingston, Jamaica, from whence we proceeded by stage over-land to Port Antonio on the north-east coast, where we embarked on the steamship Sama, for Boston, with fruit.
I have nothing more of interest to relate, unless the reader may like to know that I see Marjorie every day still, and that her father visits us at least once each year, when we talk over and over again, the incidents that I have, in my humble way, tried to relate.
FINIS.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOY CRUSOE ***