They were married at Batavia, to which port they were accompanied by Mr. Leighton, who, during the voyage, had pressed Corwell to leave his then employment and join him in a venture which had occupied his mind for the past year. This was to despatch either the barque or brig, laden with trade goods, to the Society Islands in the South Pacific, to barter for coconut oil and pearl shell.
Leighton was certain that there was a fortune awaiting the man who entered upon the venture, and his arguments so convinced the young man that he consented.
On arrival at Batavia they found there the officers and crew of a shipwrecked English vessel, and one of the former eagerly took Corwell's place as chief mate, his captain offering no objection. A few weeks after Mr. Leighton hired the Ceres to take himself, his daughter, and her husband back to Ternate, eager to begin the work of fitting out one of his vessels for the voyage that was to bring them fortune. He, it was arranged, was to remain at Ternate, Mary was to sail with her husband to the South Seas.
But a terrible shock awaited them. As the Ceres sailed up to her anchorage before Mr. Leighton's house, his Chinese clerk came on board with the news that the barque had foundered in a typhoon, and the brig had been plundered and burnt by pirates within a few miles of Canton. The unfortunate man gave one last appealing look at his daughter and then fell on the deck at her feet He never spoke again, and died in a few hours. When his affairs came to be settled up, it was found that, after paying his debts, there was less than four hundred pounds left—a sum little more than that which Corwell had managed to save out of his own wages.
“Never mind, Jack,” said Mary. “'Tis little enough, but yet 'tis enough. And, Jack, let us go away from here. I should not care now to meet any of the people father knew in his prosperity.”
Cornell kissed his wife, and then they at once discussed the future. Half an hour later he had bought the Ceres from her captain (who was also the owner), paid him his money and taken possession. Before the week was out he had bought all the trade goods he could afford to pay for, shipped a crew of Malays and Chinese, and, with Mary by his side, watched Ternate sink astern as the Ceres began her long voyage to the South Seas.
After a three weeks' voyage along the northern and eastern shores of New Guinea the Ceres came to an anchor in the harbour which Cornell had described to the Governor. The rest of his story, up to the time of his arrival in Sydney Cove, the reader knows. *****
Steadily northward under cloudless skies the high-pooped, bluff-bowed little vessel had sailed, favoured by leading winds nearly all the way, for four-and-twenty days, when, on the morning of the twenty-fifth, Corwell, who had been up aloft scanning the blue loom of a lofty island which lay right ahead, descended to the deck with a smiling face.
“That is not only the island itself, Mary, but with this breeze we have a clear run for the big village in the bay; I can see the spur on the southern side quite clearly.”
“I'm so glad, Jack, dear. And how you have worried and fumed for the past three days!”