CHAPTER XVI.
SPIES OF CANAAN.
Day dawned in crimson and gold; up rose the sun, and showed us the Haunted Island.
There was a narrow shore of white sand, curving and twisting with stupendous cliffs, the sheer and beetling fronts of which could not have had less than fifteen hundred feet. A little to the left we spied an opening, wherein a river ran spating down to the sea, making a great indraught of the water, and occasioning, no doubt, the current that had horsed us in.
It was now flood of tide; yet the depth of water was increased but little, and, to our dismay, the ship remained fast.
On seeing this, Wallis, the new Captain, caused great store of heavy gear to be hove overboard to lighten her. Yet ’twas all one: the ship would not budge. Thereupon we got out the boats and fastened tow-lines, to have rowed her off; but we could not. Nay, it had been all one even if we could have floated her; for soon the land-breeze sunk, and then the wind came from the sea.
So they gave over the attempt; and, their anxiety being somewhat abated with the labour, they turned in to breakfast.
I fared with Wallis in the great cabin, his mate—one Peter Burrows—remaining with the watch on deck. Wallis was very moody and cross, and I dwelt heavily on the death of my brother; so that the meal passed with but scant speech. Wallis, afterwards going to the quarter-deck, called lustily for all hands; and, when they were come together, he made them a sort of rambling speech.
“Shipmates,” said he, “there a’n’t no manner of need for me to tell you how we lay. You know what fell yester-night, that there be dark things hatching yonder. We be fallen in on the Devil’s island by the look on’t. Ay, but we don’t properly know that yet! We a’n’t got the bearings of this business; and maybe we’re like children frighted with tricks and shows.
“Howsoever, this here a’n’t no sort o’ berth for you and me, and I’d scamper away full-sail if I could. But I can’t. We be stuck here as fast as so many limpets; and when the wind rises she’ll split, and we’ll be scurrying ashore like rats!
“Well, then, I’m for leaving of her now, afore the break-up comes—ay, and afore the night comes, too! There be the boats; but this here a’n’t the English Channel, and yonder a’n’t the cliffs of Dover, and what we mought look for in the boats a’n’t pleasant to think. No, there’s no way out on’t that course, sure! So I gives my vote for going ashore and boarding ’em while there’s light.... And then the treasure!—you a’n’t forgot the treasure, mates, as we’ve come so far for to get it? Well, then, who’ll offer for a shore-party to spy ’em out?”