“Only two days ago, boy!” echoed the captain, starting up; “d’you happen to know the direction of that island?”
Watty did not know, of course, having had no compass in his boat; but he fortunately remembered what Captain Samson had said when he had ascertained the latitude and longitude of it.
“Mr Barnes,” shouted the captain to the first mate, who stood on deck near the open skylight, “how’s her head?”
“Sou’-sou’-west, sir.”
“Put her about and lay your course west and by north. Now,” said the captain, turning again to Watty, with a look of satisfaction, “we’ll soon rescue Captain Samson and his crew. I’m sorry I won’t be able to take you all back to England, because we are bound for San Francisco, but a trip to California is preferable to life on a coral island. Now, boy, I’ve talked enough to you. The steward will bring you some dinner. If you feel disposed, you may get up after that. Here are dry clothes for you. We ripped up your own to save time after hauling you out of the sea.”
It was not usual for the gentle Polly Samson to alarm the camp with a shriek that would have done credit to a mad cockatoo, nevertheless, she did commit this outrage on the feelings of her companions on the afternoon of the day on which Watty was run down and rescued.
Her father and all the others were seated around the camp fire among the bushes at the time. Polly had left them, intending to pay a visit to one of her beautiful water-gardens on the beach, and had just emerged from the bushes and cast her eyes upon the sea, when she beheld the sight that drew from her the shriek referred to. She gave it forth in an ascending scale.
“Oh! Oh!! Oh!!! father! come here! quick! quick! oh!”
Never since he was a boy had the captain jumped so sharply from a sitting posture to his legs. Every man followed suit like a Jack-in-the-box. There was a rush as if of a tempest through the bushes, and next moment the whole party burst upon the scene, to find Polly—not as they had feared in some deadly peril, but—with flashing eyes and glowing cheeks waving her arms like a windmill, and shrieking with joy at a ship which was making straight for the island under full sail.
The captain greeted the sight with a bass roar, Philosopher Jack with a stentorian shout. Ben Trench did his best to follow Jack’s example. Simon O’Rook uttered an Irish howl, threw his cap into the air, and forthwith began an impromptu hornpipe, in which he was joined by Bob Corkey. Baldwin Burr and his comrades vented their feelings in prolonged British cheers, and Mr Luke, uttering a squeak like a wounded rabbit, went about wanting to embrace everybody, but nobody would let him. In short every one went more or less mad with joy at this sudden realisation of “hope long deferred.” Only then did they become fully aware of the depth of anxiety which had oppressed them at the thought of being left, perhaps for years, it might be to the end of their days, on that unknown island.