These innocent wretches trembled to think. I call them innocent simply because they knew not sin.
"If then," says the apostle, "knowing these things, happy are ye if ye do them."
For knowledge brings with it responsibility, and this neglected is accounted to us as sin.
This night our young heroes spent in the car of the balloon, and honest Viking went on guard. But even if the savages--for savages they were of the most demoniacal type--possessed any longing to do them to death, fear, natural and supernatural, deterred them.
Next morning early, Carrambo, the king's prime minister, departed upon his long and dangerous mission, taking two young warriors with him, and promising faithfully to return in two weeks at the farthest.
"S'pose you not see me den," he added sententiously, "den I gone deaded foh tlue."
The place seemed more lonesome now that Carrambo had gone, for, scoundrel though he undoubtedly was, he was someone to speak to.
They now began seriously to consider their situation and prospects.
In their heart of hearts they believed that they had been the means of sending succour to their marooned shipmates, on that lonely isle of the ocean. Their minds were easy enough on that score, for if even the steamer they had hailed had resumed her course without making any attempt to find the isle and rescue the mariners, the Sultan of Lamoo, Duncan fully understood, had always been friendly with the British, and would immediately despatch assistance in some shape or other.
Duncan, before doing anything else, got out his instruments of observation, and as well as could be made out, the glen in which they were virtually imprisoned was between two and three hundred miles off the coast, and some degrees south of the line.