Ready for the order, the negroes poured out the oil, and the raging waters were stilled as if by magic. A few moments more and perchance they would rage more vehemently than ever. But for the instant they were lulled.
The "Pilgrim," meanwhile, had glided onwards, and made dead for the adjacent shore. There was a sudden shock. Caught by an enormous wave the schooner had been hurled aground; her masts had fallen, fortunately without injury to any one on board. But the vessel had parted amidships, and was foundering; the water was rushing irresistibly into the hold.
The shore, however, was not half a cable's length away; there was a low, dark ridge of rocks that was united to the beach; it afforded ample means of rescue, and in less than ten minutes the "Pilgrim's" captain, crew, and passengers were all landed, with their lives, at the foot of the overhanging cliff.
CHAPTER XIV.
ASHORE.
Thus, after a voyage of seventy-four days, the "Pilgrim" had stranded. Mrs. Weldon and her fellow-voyagers joined in thanksgiving to the kind Providence that had brought them ashore, not upon one of the solitary islands of Polynesia, but upon a solid continent, from almost any part of which there would be no difficulty in getting home.
The ship was totally lost. She was lying in the surf a hopeless wreck, and few must be the hours that would elapse before she would be broken up in scattered fragments; it was impossible to save her. Notwithstanding that Dick Sands bewailed the loss of a valuable ship and her cargo to the owner, he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had been instrumental in saving what was far more precious, the lives of the owner's wife and son.
It was impossible to do more than hazard a conjecture as to the part of the South American coast on which the "Pilgrim" had been cast. Dick imagined that it must be somewhere on the coast of Peru; after sighting Easter Island, he knew that the united action of the equatorial current and the brisk wind must have had the effect of driving the schooner far northward, and he formed his conclusion accordingly. Be the true position, however, what it might, it was all important that it should be accurately ascertained as soon as possible. If it were really in Peru, he would not be long in finding his way to one of the numerous ports and villages that lie along the coast.
But the shore here was quite a desert. A narrow strip of beach, strewn with boulders, was enclosed by a cliff of no great height, in which, at irregular intervals, deep funnels appeared as chasms in the rock. Here and there a gentle slope led to the top.