Partitioning the Spoil.
The same sun that shines upon the abandoned barque lights up the men who abandoned her, still on that spot where they came ashore. As the first rays fall over the cliff’s crest, they show a cove of semicircular shape, backed by a beetling precipice. A ledge or dyke, sea-washed, and weed-covered, trends across its entrance, with a gate-like opening in the centre, through which, at high tide, the sea sweeps in, though never quite up to the base of the cliff. Between this and the strand lies the elevated platform already spoken of, accessible from above by a sloping ravine, the bed of a stream running only when it rains. As said, it is only an acre or so in extent, and occupying the inner concavity of the semicircle. The beach is not visible from it, this concealed by the dry reef which runs across it as the chord of an arc. Only a small portion of it can be seen through the portal which admits the tidal flow. Beyond, stretches the open sea outside the surf, with the breakers more than a mile off.
Such is the topography of the place where the mutineers have made landing and passed the night. When the day dawns, but little is there seen to betray their presence. Only a man seated upon a stone, nodding as if asleep, at intervals awakening with a start, and grasping at a gun between his legs; soon letting it go, and again giving way to slumber, the effects of that drunken debauch kept up to a late hour. He would be a poor sentinel were there need for vigilance.
Seemingly, there is none. No enemy is near—no human being in sight; the only animate objects some seabirds, that, winging their way along the face of the cliff, salute him with an occasional scream, as if incensed by his presence in a spot they deem sacred to themselves.
The sun fairly up, he rises to his feet, and walks towards the entrance of the larger cavern; then stopping in front of it, cries out:
“Inside there, shipmates! Sun’s up—time to be stirring!”
Seeing him in motion, and hearing his hail, the gulls gather, and swoop around his head in continuous screaming. In larger numbers, and with cries more stridulent, as his comrades come forth out of the cave, one after another—yawning, and stretching their arms.
The first, looking seaward, proposes to refresh himself by a plunge in the surf; and for this purpose starts toward the beach. The others, taken with the idea, follow in twos and threes, till in a string all are en route for the strand.
To reach this, it is necessary for them to pass through the gap in the transverse ledge; which the tide, now at ebb, enables them to do.
He who leads, having gone through it, on getting a view of the shore outside, suddenly stops; as he does so, sending back a shout. It is a cry of surprise, followed by the startling announcement: