If we had seen no ship, I should not have cared; but this seemed such tantalising, despairing work, and but for Miss Bell, I should have been about ready to give up.
That night I was sitting steering our lubberly craft, when Miss Bell came and sat beside me, and, after being silent for some time, she points out seaward, and asks me if what she saw was a star.
I looked at it for a few minutes, for I hardly dared to answer at first; but I felt sure directly after, as I told her it was, and a bright one for us, being a ship’s lantern.
Story 2--Chapter XXII.
Soon after sunrise next morning, we were laughing, crying, and acting as bad as that there fat passenger, for we were aboard a large ship, whose light had shone out like a star of hope for us; and when they picked us up, I found that the vessel was bound for Sydney.
But our pleasure did not last long, for what with the exposure and excitement, Miss Bell broke down, and next day she was so far from being in safety that she was in a raging fever.
Perhaps I may be right, perhaps wrong; but measuring things as I saw them, it has always struck me that, true-hearted man as he was, Mr Ward would never have won his wife after all, if it had not been for that fever; but it must have been a fine thing for him, being the only doctor within reach, to have to tend on her, and most likely save her life.
It was in after-years that I saw them happily settled in Wellington; and as they had me seated there between them, they seemed to treat me quite as an old friend, as we went over together the old days, and Mr Ward told me laughingly how hard a fight he had had to win his wife.
We talked long over our old troubles; and I had news for them of some of the mutineers—of how I had learned that one boat had been picked up, with the crew’s story written on their faces, for they had suffered horribly before they were saved from certain death. As for the other boat, it was never heard of more.