"It may be the head-quarters, the rendezvous, of those who pursued us yesterday," said he; "and some of their sort, shipmates and companions, may be lurking among those thickets, the foliage of which seems so inviting."
"Save the sea-birds, I cannot discover a living object about it," urged Morley.
"There may be savages—who can say?—and most likely wild animals. There are some very ferocious boars on Tristan d'Acunha, and other South Sea isles. Then we have no arms."
"The revolver and two fowling-pieces——"
"Are not enough, Morley."
"Come, let us be off."
"Lastly, a sudden breeze might spring up, and blow the ship off the island to sea, so far that the boat, and what would be worse, its crew, might be lost. Four sufficient reasons, Morley, for not venturing ashore."
So Bartelot resisted all his friend's importunities, and the day passed away in idleness, after an observation had been taken at noon, and the exact bearings of the island recorded in the ship's log by Morrison, for the information of the Admiralty, Lloyd's, and others in London.
The calm continued; not a speck could be traced in the unclouded sky, betokening a coming wind, or a casual current of air. The ship lay like a log, with her courses clewed up, her spanker brailed and all the rest of her canvas hanging loose and straight from the yardheads; the wheel, left to itself, oscillated a spoke or two, alternately to port and starboard. There seemed to be little or no current in the water; she had probably not moved in any way more than half her own length for three hours, as Morley perceived by a bunch of seaweed, the top tuft of some mighty trailer (the root of which was, perhaps, forty fathoms deep in the bed of the ocean), which rested on the oily surface of the water, and remained in the same position, with regard to the ship, about five feet from the port quarter-gallery.
In the first dog-watch, about four o'clock P.M., finding matters still thus, and seeing all quiet on the isle, the whole outline of which was reflected downward, as if in a mirror, and with wonderful minuteness, the captain ordered the gig to be lowered. The fowling-pieces and revolver were carefully loaded, capped, and placed in her, and then he, Morley, old Gawthrop, and three more of the crew shoved off for the shore, or, as they called it, in default of a better name, "Bill Morrison's Island!"