In the centre of the little island upon which she had been cast by the sea there rose a volcanic mountain from whose crater smoke and flames constantly belched. Jenny climbed to the top of this, a hundred fathoms or so above the level of the sea, but could see no glimpse of land on the horizon.
Burning Rock, which was about five miles in circumference, had on its eastern side only a narrow valley through which a little stream ran. Trees of various kinds sheltered here from too keen winds, covered it with their thick boughs and foliage; and on one of these mangroves Jenny established her dwelling-place, just as the Zermatt family had done at Falconhurst.
Hunting in the valley and neighbourhood, fishing in the stream and among the rocks with hooks fashioned out of nails, edible pods, and berries from different trees—these, supplemented by a few cases of preserved food and casks of wine, cast up on the shore during the three or four days following the wreck, enabled the young English girl to make an addition to the roots and shellfish which were her only food at first.
How many months had Jenny Montrose lived in this fashion on Burning Rock until the hour of her deliverance came?
At the beginning she had not thought of keeping count of time. But she was able to calculate roughly that two years and a half had passed since the wreck of the Dorcas.
Throughout all those months, rainy season and hot weather alike, not a day passed when she did not search the horizon. But never once did a sail appear on the background of the sky. From the highest point of the island, however, when the atmosphere was clear, she fancied two or three times that she could detect land to the eastward. But how was she to cover the intervening distance? And what was this land?
Although in this intertropical region the cold was not severe, Jenny's sufferings were great during the rainy season. Ensconced within her cave, which she was unable to leave either to hunt or to fish, she was still obliged to find food for herself. Happily the eggs, of which there were numbers among the rocks, the shellfish densely packed at the mouth of the cave, and the fruit stored in readiness for this season, made her food supply secure.
More than two years had passed when the idea occurred to her, like an inspiration from on high, to fasten to the foot of an albatross which she had caught a note telling of her deserted state upon the Burning Rock. She was quite unable to indicate its position. As soon as she set the bird free it took flight towards the north-east. What likelihood was there of its ever coming back to Burning Rock?
Several days went by without its reappearing. The faint hope the girl had had from this venture gradually faded away. But she would not lose all hope. If the help that she waited for did not come from this source, it would from some other.
Such was the story which Jenny told to the Zermatts.