“We have known worse moments together, Isabel,” remarked Hughes, who had raised himself from his elbow to a sitting position, and was gazing intently over the waves.
“I dare say I am impatient, Enrico; but everything seems to go wrong. First of all the storm, and then, when safely moored in the land-locked bay, where everything seemed so quiet, the frightful affair with the Malays. I think I can hear their terrible yells yet.” And the girl covered her eyes with her hands.
Hughes had risen, and was leaning moodily against a pile of boxes, and still gazing over the sea.
“No sooner,” continued Isabel, “had we made all right than the pirate schooner was upon us, and, as if that was not sufficient, the storm which caused my dear father’s death followed.”
“To me, Isabel, there seems still one bright point in all the black past you are looking into,” replied Hughes, as his gaze left the distant horizon, to fix itself on Isabel’s fair face.
Raising her lustrous black eyes, and returning the look with one of deep confiding tenderness, Isabel placed her hand on his arm, as she continued—
“But just as we were close to land, when I could see the undulations of the coast line, and mark the clumps of trees on the shore, to be driven away,—and now this fearfully monotonous life, ever rising and falling on the waves. One of these days we shall see Madagascar, and just as we are about to land, be blown to sea again.”
“Sail ho!” shouted Hughes, in a voice which startled every one on board.
“You are right!” exclaimed Captain Weber, starting to his feet. “See there away to the westward.” And he laid his brown hand on the mate’s shoulder, pointing in the direction named; and, sure enough, no bigger than a man’s hand, like the wing of some far-away sea-gull, a small patch of white appeared on the horizon.
A hearty cheer burst from the missionary’s lips, and it was taken up by all on board. The men, however, did not evince much satisfaction. They were sorry, it may be, after all to change a life of idleness for one of toil; or they knew, perhaps, that the passing sail might not come near.