"I'm blessed if here ain't a regular made road, and no mistake, captain."
As Noah spoke, he pointed to a distinct foot track, or narrow beaten way, that passed through the grass. In one direction it led to a spring of deliciously cool and pure water, that fell plashing amid the sylvan silence from the face of a rock, which was covered with brilliant wild flowers; in the other it led away through a thicket of myrtles, from amid which some wild goats fled, as our explorers cautiously, and with cocked fire-arms, proceeded onward.
Morley was thinking of Ethel, and if with her what an Eden this lonely isle would be; but it was not without emotions of considerable anxiety and curiosity that he and his two companions continued to pursue the narrow track, which ascended in regular zigzag windings to the summit of that high rock, which they had first discerned at sea, and on the face of which the morning sun had shone so brightly.
"It is merely a track made by the goats or wild boars," said Bartelot; "the spring below seems to be the only one in the island, and there, no doubt, they drink."
"Mayhap, sir, the wild boars, and the wild goatses made the road; but 'twasn't them as made this bit o' furnitur—out of a ship's sheathing, too," exclaimed Noah, when, on the very summit of the eminence, that overlooked a vast expanse of sea, they came upon a rude seat, formed, apparently, by the number of holes pierced through it at regular intervals, from a piece of ship's planking, pegged down upon two uprights, which were securely driven into the turf.
The pathway ended here, and the soil about the seat seemed bare and denuded of grass, as if worn away by the feet of frequent sitters.
"What can this mean on such a place?" observed Tom Bartelot, perspiring with heat, and pushing his straw hat on one side of his handsome curly head.
"It means, sir, as there is some reg'lar-built Robinson Crusoe a livin' on this here island, and has made himself this seat to take a good squint to seaward comfortable ov a mornin', to look out for a ship, or, it may be, for the king of the Cannibal Islands, and them cussed ribroasting salwages in their piratical canoos."
This idea of Noah Gawthrop's seemed extremely probable; but after making a circuit of the entire island, they found themselves again on the eminence without discovering other traces of the supposed recluse.
After hallooing repeatedly, scaring all kinds of wild birds from the thickets above, and the gorse or jungle below, they descended towards the spring; but before reaching it found a track that diverged from thence into the very centre of the isle.