“We can lie there as snugly as if we were in dock,” said the master; “the holding ground is good, and there is room for half a dozen line-of-battle ships.” Then, pointing to the chart lying before him, he added, “The place is called Tyar, and, curiously enough, was first made known to the Admiral at Calcutta by a Captain Channing, one or the Company's men. This plan of the harbour is a copy of the one he made ten years ago.”
“Channing's uncle, very probably,” said Captain Reay, who had been told by his Marine officer that he had an unknown uncle in the Company's service. “Very well, Mr. Dacre, let us get in there by all means. I am most anxious to see the ship out of this before darkness sets in and we get piled up on a reef.”
A mighty downpour of rain, which fell upon the frigate's deck like a waterspout, cut short all further speech by its deafening tumult, and although it lasted but a few minutes, it killed the fury of the squall to such an extent that the ship, unsteadied by her canvas, rolled so violently that no one could keep his feet. Suddenly the torrent ceased, and a short, savage, and gasping puff struck and almost sent her over on her beam-ends, then swept away as quickly as it came, to be followed a minute later by another almost as fierce but of longer duration.
Without further loss of time the reefs were shaken out of the topsails, for darkness was coming on, and, wearing ship at a favourable opportunity, the Triton kept away for Mr. Dacre's harbour. The wind, now blowing with steady force, sent her through the confused and lumpy sea at such a speed that before sundown she ran through the entrance to the harbour, and, bringing to under a high, wooded bluff, dropped anchor in ten fathoms of water, quite close to a narrow strip of beach that fringed the shores of a little bay.
The place in the immediate vicinity of the ship appeared to be uninhabited, but as darkness came on, a glimmer of lights appeared along the shore some miles away, and at daylight a number of fishing prahus approached the frigate, at first with hesitation, but when they were hailed by the master in their own tongue, and told that the ship was English, they came alongside and bartered their fish. They assured the master that the stormy weather was sure to continue for some days, until the moon quartered, and Captain Reay was pleased to learn from them that a certain amount of provisions, fish, vegetables, and fruit, would be brought off daily to the ship for sale.
The wind still blew with violence, and although the ship lay in water as smooth as a mill-pond, the narrow strip of open ocean visible from her decks was whipped foaming white with its violence.
In their conversation with the master, the natives had told him that at a village some miles away from where the Triton was anchored, there was a white man and his wife living—French people, so they said. A year before, a French privateer, running before a heavy gale and a wild, sweeping sea, had struck upon the barrier reef of one of the outer low-lying islands of the group, and, carried over it by the surf, had foundered in the lagoon inside. Only ten people were saved, and among them were the Frenchman and his wife. Two months afterwards eight of the male survivors took passage in a prahu belonging to the Sultan of Batchian, having heard that there was a French ship refitting at that island.
“Why did the two others remain?” asked Mr. Dacre.
The natives laughed. “Ah! the one man who stayed was a clever man. When the prahu from Batchian came here he said he was sick, and that his wife feared to sail so far in a small prahu. He would wait, he said, till a ship came.”
“And then?” asked Dacre.