Next day a strong breeze sprang up from the south-west; and, taking advantage of it, away went the consorts under all sail en route for New Zealand.
* * * * * *
Nothing, I think, affords such convincing proof of the limitedness of the human mind as the futility of the attempts we sometimes make to grasp or understand the infinitely great or the infinitely small. We are willing enough, for instance, to take it for granted that the milky way on which we gaze on some still starry night is in reality a mist of myriads on myriads of worlds and suns, millions of which are as large in comparison to our mite of an earth as a crownpiece is to a pin's head; but if we attempt to form any just conception of so great a marvel we feel our own littleness at once. Again, we may be told that every drop of stagnant water under the microscope resolves itself at once into a world in which creatures live, and move, and have their being, and act out their own little life-stories on their particular stage just as we do in ours. We can grasp this truth; but take it in the aggregate, and where are we? How many drops of stagnant water are in yonder pond? And how many microscopic worlds are there? We are best to leave all such calculations alone. They do but stagger and stun us. Besides there is the golden hope given us in the Bible, that though here below we see darkly in a glass, our hereafter will be more bright and intellectual.
I am led to make these remarks from a glance I have just taken at a map or chart of the world, and that portion of it in particular we call the Pacific Ocean. On this map of mine the islands that dot its vast surface are fairly well marked to the extent of our present knowledge. But probably not a thousandth part of them are down here, nor have ever been visited even. And when we consider that most of them are teeming with life—with animal, human life even—and are the homes of creatures and peoples utterly foreign to us, as are also their fauna and flora, the thought is indeed somewhat startling. Then to think of the ages and ages that have elapsed during the formation of this mist of islands, whether by the breaking into pieces of vast continents, or the raising from the ocean's bed of isle upon isle by volcanic or coral agency! Is it not weirdly strange?
It is in the very centre of this wondrous mist of islands that the next scene of our story opens.
The vessels San Salvador and Resolute had reached New Zealand, and both had loaded up and were on their way home to San Francisco. Frank was strong and well again now, and had been transferred from his own brig to the Salvador, and proving to be really a fairly good sailor, Captain Cawdor had kept his promise to Fred, and duly installed him in the position of third mate. So all had gone well, and the two young men now felt as happy as the day was long, and just as bright as the days were.
Señor Sarpinto had also preferred to leave the brig and sail with Captain Cawdor. Frank was very fond of this Spanish grandee, as he called him. To all appearance there was not much of the grandee about him. He was a man of about forty years of age, small in stature, but as strong and lithe as a puma; his dark eyes at times used to glare and glitter when he talked, as if fires really raged within him that could not be concealed. His love of adventure and sight-seeing was remarkable. This it was that had determined him to go with the skipper of the brig Resolute to the southern seas, where whales and seals were said to swarm. This same love of adventure had made a rover of him all his life. He was wealthy, extremely so. He did not tell anyone this boastingly; he simply admitted it, and added that he could not help being rich. He believed, he said, if he were stripped naked, and put down in the midst of an unknown island, he would become a wealthy man in less than ten years. He was born to sprout and flourish like a green bay-tree, and every new speculation he turned his thoughts to was successful.
Yet he would have been deeply offended at anyone who ever hinted that he cared for money. No wonder Deakin and Co. would have been sorry to lose so fortunate a partner as this Señor Sarpinto.
Not a part of the world, even the most remote, he had not visited, or if such regions did exist, they existed but to be visited some day or other by this same adventurous Spaniard.
Being therefore a citizen of the world it will surprise no one to be told that the English he spoke was faultless.