“Elm Island, captain.”
“Does anybody live there?”
“Yes, sir; Ben Rhines.”
“What Ben Rhines?”
“Him they call Lion.”
“That can’t be, Sam: he took his father’s ship when the old man gave up; there ain’t his equal along shore. I’ve been “shipmates” with him: he wouldn’t be living on such a place as that.”
“It is so, captain; he was offered the ship; but like another man I know of, that is a relation to me, he fell in love with a pretty girl, who vowed she wouldn’t marry him if he went to sea. And so he bought that island, married the girl, and has turned farmer. There’s some trouble there; I can see a woman on the beach, and she has got a petticoat—that’s the flag of all nations—on an oar, and is making signals.”
“If my old shipmate is in trouble, I’m there. Keep her off for the island, John. Flow the main sheet, and set the colors in the main rigging, and then she’ll know we see her signals.”
The vessel, with the wind free, increased her speed, but not sufficiently to suit the impatience of the noble-hearted seaman, who exclaimed,—