"He's coming from the north that will marry me,
He's coming from the north, and oh happy I will be,
With a broad-sword by his side and a buckle on his knee,
And I know it, oh, I know it, that he'll marry me".
But the Tristan Da Cunha people are moral and good, and although they have no parson on board they have services on Sunday. As to marriage--well, the governor does the splicing, and it is considered quite as binding as if the ceremony had been performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Southward now they sailed away in a delightful breeze, and when the sun was slowly sinking towards the western sea, the weird wee island of Tristan appeared but as a hazy cloud far away on the northern horizon.
So strange a place our young heroes had never visited before, and for many days it seemed but an island of dreamland.
But that island, readers, is still there amidst its waste of waters, and it is within the kaleidoscope of events, that some of you may yet visit its iron-bound and surf-beaten shores.
Who knows?
CHAPTER V.--JOHNNIE SHINGLES AND OLD MR. PEN.
South, straight south. South as the bird flies. And with a fair and spanking breeze too. As for birds--once past the rocky and volcanic island of Diego Alvarez, few indeed bore them company. I believe anybody might have this rocky place who had a mind to. They found it to be the home of myriads--clouds, in fact--of gulls of every sort, including the well-known Cape pigeon, the puffin, the penguin, and albatross, to say nothing of the cormorant, and that strange, strange creature on its wondrous wings, that lives in the sky most of its time, and even goes to sleep as it soars high above the clouds--the frigate-bird.
They went near enough to the island to witness one of the strangest sights in nature--the bird-laden rocks. There was little chance of landing on the island itself, owing to the terrible surf that beats for ever and aye around the cliffs; but Ibsen, who turned out to be a real handy fellow, had been here before, and pointed out to the captain some rocks in the lee of which a boat could land, and--this being spring in these regions--soon find enough eggs to keep the crew in food for a month. His knowledge was taken advantage of, and a boat under his guidance called away.
In it went Duncan and Frank.