As the Aurora, when she was last at Malta, had nearly exhausted the dockyard for her repairs, she was even longer fitting out this time, during which Captain Wilson’s despatches had been received by the admiral, and had been acknowledged by a brig sent to Malta. The admiral, in reply, after complimenting him upon his gallantry and success, desired that, as soon as he was ready, he should proceed to Palermo with communications of importance to the authorities, and having remained there for an answer, was again to return to Malta to pick up such of his men as might be fit to leave the hospital, and then join the Toulon fleet. This intelligence was soon known to our hero, who was in ecstasies at the idea of again seeing Agnes and her brothers. Once more the Aurora sailed away from the high-crowned rocks of Valette, and with a fine breeze dashed through the deep blue waves.
But towards the evening the breeze increased, and they were under double-reefed topsails. On the second day they made the coast of Sicily, not far from where Easy and Gascoigne had been driven on shore; the weather was then more moderate, and the sea had, to a great degree, subsided. They therefore stood in close to the coast, as they had not a leading wind to Palermo. As they stood in, the glasses, as usual, were directed to land; observing the villas with which the hills and valleys were studded, with their white fronts embowered in orange groves.
“What is that, Gascoigne,” said Easy, “under that precipice?—it looks like a vessel.”
Gascoigne turned his glass in the direction—“Yes, it is a vessel on the rocks: by her prow she looks like a galley.”
“It is a galley, sir—one of the row galleys—I can make out her bank of oars,” observed the signal-man.
This was reported to Captain Wilson, who also examined her.
“She is on the rocks, certainly,” observed he; “and I think I see people on board. Keep her away a point, quarter-master.”
The Aurora was now steered right for the vessel, and in the course of an hour was not more than a mile from her. Their suppositions were correct—it was one of the Sicilian government galleys bilged on the rocks, and they now perceived that there were people on board of her, making signals with their shirts and pieces of linen.
“They must be the galley-slaves; for I perceive that they do not one of them change their positions: the galley must have been abandoned by the officers and seamen, and the slaves left to perish.”
“That’s very hard,” observed Jack to Gascoigne; “they were condemned to the galleys, but not to death.”