"It is most extraordinary!"
"How so?"
"Bring up the chart, Morrison," said Bartelot, unheeding his friend's query, "and the log-book, too, with yesterday's reckoning and observation."
Morrison dived below, but speedily re-appeared, with a chart and the ship's log.
"At twelve, sir, yesterday, when we were running away from that rascally piccaroon, we were in latitude 28—25 south; longitude 35—20 west, Tristan d'Acunha bearing sixty-six miles to the eastward."
"That is not Tristan, but an island about three miles long, and there is no indication of it whatever in the chart. It is covered with trees; but I can see no sign of a human habitation," observed Bartelot, as he resumed his telescope.
Light though the wind, the ship gradually crept nearer the island; and by breakfast time is was abeam of her, and about four miles distant.
Save the rock before mentioned, no part of it was very high; it seemed to be about the size stated by Bartelot, and yet, strange to say, it was not recorded or borne in any map or chart on board.
Now there fell a dead and listless calm.
The sun was burning hot and the sea glistened like oil beneath its rays, but the fertility and greenness of this nameless and unknown isle were charming to look upon. Morley regretted the fresh delay occasioned by this calm, especially after the lost hundred miles yesterday (though a hundred were a trifle after Morrison's galling calculation of the oceans he had yet to traverse), but he could not resist the emotions of curiosity and novelty so peculiar to his age and temperament; and thus he expressed a strong wish to visit this terra incognita—this beautiful island of the southern sea. But Bartelot hesitated.