Not a sail was in sight!
Far as our eyesight could reach around us, in a mighty circle, rolled the waters of the Southern Atlantic, almost tepid with heat, and pale and white, as they seemed to palpitate under the rays of the unclouded sun.
At our feet lay the whole isle of Alphonso and its two rocky appendages, with the encircling sea boiling in the narrow chasms between them, with a fury which was the result of contrary currents, and which formed a singular contrast to its calmness elsewhere.
After a brief rest we prepared to set up the signal-post.
Tom took off his shirt, and drawing from his pocket a piece of spunyarn, which a seaman is seldom without, he lashed his under-garment to the end of the studding-sail boom, and by the aid of the hatchet and our hands, we scraped a hole sufficiently deep in which to erect the spar, and then jammed it hard and fast with stones. As the shirt was blown out flag fashion upon the wind, we hoped it would prove a sufficient indication to a vessel approaching from any quarter that there were people on the island in want of succor.
For some hours we lingered on the mountain-top, in the fond hope of seeing a sail, and then returned slowly downward to the beach, where our shipmates awaited us at the wigwam which now formed our home, and which we jocularly designated the capital city of Alphonso.
CHAPTER XXXII.
A WILD BOAR.
We felt very much the want of firearms. The air seemed alive with birds—the woods with game of several kinds; and now an old musket with a few charges of powder would have proved more useful to us than the treasure of the Bank of England.
Hislop recovered strength rapidly, and his convalescence inspired our little band of castaways with new confidence and vigor, as they had implicit reliance in his superior knowledge and intelligence.