Adrift on the Pacific: A Boys [sic] Story of the Sea and its Perils

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

As the Coral sped forward––sometimes on the long, sloping crest of an immense swell, and then again in the valley between––the captain saw and thought of nothing else but the little island ahead, which was slowly rising out of the ocean. He had discovered that it was circular in shape, quite small, and fringed with vegetation. This corresponded, in a general way, with the description given by the sailor in the hospital; but there are hundreds of other islands in the South Seas to which the same description will apply, and it was not impossible that the Coral was many a long league astray.

“When I was on the island, ten years ago,” said Grebbens, “I found remains of a ship that had been wrecked there but a short time before. There was a portion of the mast, which we managed to erect by scooping a deep hole in the beach and then packing the sand about the base. On the top of this we kept our signal of distress flying, in the hope of catching the notice of some passing vessel, as was the case after a long while. It was my jacket which fluttered from the top of that mast, and the old garment has been 81 blown away long ago; but I don’t know any reason why the pole itself shouldn’t be standing, and if it is, you will find it on the right of the entrance to the lagoon.”

The island, it will be understood, was an atoll––that is, a circular fringe of coral, with a lagoon of the sea inside which was entered through a comparatively narrow passage from the ocean. The atoll to which the old sailor referred was extensive enough to furnish fresh water and fruit, while at the entrance, and in other places, there was a sufficient depth of sand to afford secure “anchorage” for the pole which they erected. Peering through the spy-glass, Captain Bergen could see the white line where the sea beat against the coral shores and was rolled back again in foam. And while he was gazing, his practiced eye detected a gap in the line of breakers––that is, a spot where the white foam did not show itself. This must necessarily be the opening through which the ocean flowed into the lagoon within the island. Since it met with no opposition, it swept inward with a smooth, grand sweep, which proved that the water was deep and without any obstruction.

“Suppose he deceived me?”

Captain Bergen asked himself the question while he was scanning the island.

It was the first time the thought suggested that 82 maybe the sailor, dying in the Boston hospital, had told him an untruth, and such a shuddering, overwhelming feeling of disappointment came over the poor fellow at that moment that he grew dizzy and sick at heart, and came nigh losing his balance.

“No, it cannot be,” he repeated, rallying himself, with a great effort. “I have a better opinion of human nature than that.”

His glasses were still pointed in the direction of the island, and he was peering with an intensity that was painful at the spot where the dark break in the foamy breakers showed the entrance to the atoll, when he detected a black, needle-like column which rose from the beach at one side of the entrance. It was so thin that he could not make sure it was not some trick of his straining vision, and in doubt as to its reality, he relieved his aching eye by removing the glass for a moment and looking down on the deck beneath him.

He saw Redvignez and Brazzier standing at the bow, also gazing toward the island, which was plainly visible from the deck. They occasionally spoke, but their tones were so low that no word could be distinguished by any ears excepting those for which they were intended. Mr. Storms was at his post, and as Pomp and Inez were invisible, the conclusion was inevitable that they were in the cabin, whence issued the appetizing odor of cooking fish, and where no 83 doubt the young lady was receiving the attention which she expected as her right.

At this instant a peculiar experience came to the captain of the yacht Coral. A slight flaw in the breeze, which was bearing the vessel forward, caused the sails to flap, and must have made a sort of funnel of one of them for the moment; or rather, as may be said, it made a temporary whispering gallery of the deck and rigging of the craft. And being such, it bore the following ominous words to Captain Bergen, uttered, as they were, by Hyde Brazzier in a most guarded undertone: