“Yes. Go on.”
“I see a beach of coral sand, dark canoes like tree-trunks are lying here and there, and I see dark figures moving to and fro, and many more around a fire. The beach is banked behind by waving plantain or banana-trees, and cocoa palms are nodding in the air.”
“Then,” said Halcott, “I was right, and those savages you see, Tandy, are the natives of this Island of Gold—for we shall call it the Isle of Misfortune never again—the very natives, Tandy, who fled from this place when Vulcan’s thunders began to shake the earth.”
Slowly homewards now they took their way, and just as the sun was westering stood once more upon the coral beach. The boat was speedily sent for them, and they were not sorry to find themselves once more on board.
Fine weather continued, with scarcely ever a breath of wind, for a whole week. But this could not always be so. The ocean that stretches from the shores of South America far across to New Zealand and Australia is Pacific by name, but not always pacific by nature, and terrible indeed are the gales and circular storms that sometimes sweep over its surface.
So, knowing this, Halcott and Tandy determined to seek, if possible, a safer anchorage or harbour.
It was with this view that they extended their explorations, and made little boat excursions round the rocky coast. These last Nelda, much to her joy, was permitted to join. Looking over the boat’s gunwale, far down into the depths of the clear, transparent water, she could see marine gardens more lovely than any she had ever dreamt of.
“Oh,” she cried, “look, daddy, look! That is fairyland. Oh, I should like to go down and see a mermaids’ ball.”
After rounding the promontory, with its bold, bluff cliffs frowning darkly over the deep, they came to the entrance to the river.