“A sad end to all our bright hopes and ambitions,” said Young, as if speaking to himself, while he gazed far away on the rippling pathway made by the sun upon the sea.
Christian made no rejoinder. The subject was not a pleasant one to contemplate. He thought it best to confront the inevitable in silence.
Captain Carteret, the navigator who discovered the island and named it Pitcairn, after the young officer of his ship who was the first to see and report it, had placed it on his chart no less than three degrees out of its true longitude. Hence Christian cruised about unsuccessfully in search of it for several weeks. At last, when he was on the point of giving up the search in despair, a solitary rock was descried in the far distance rising out of the ocean.
“There it is at last!” said Christian, with a sigh that seemed to indicate the removal of a great weight from his spirit.
Immediately every man in the ship hurried to the bow of the vessel, and gazed with strangely mingled feelings on what was to be his future home. Even the natives, men and women, were roused to a feeling of interest by the evident excitement of the Europeans, and hastened to parts of the ship whence they could obtain a clear view. By degrees tongues began to loosen.
“It’s like a fortress, with its high perpendicular cliffs,” remarked John Adams.
“All the better for us,” said Quintal; “we’ll need some place that’s difficult to get at and easy to defend, if one o’ the King’s ships should find us out.”
“So we will,” laughed McCoy in gruff tones, “and it’s my notion that there’s a natural barrier round that island which will go further to defend us agin the King’s ships than anything that we could do. Isn’t that white line at the foot o’ the cliffs like a heavy surf, boys?”
“It looks like it,” answered John Mills, the gunner’s mate; “an’ wherever you find cliffs rising like high walls out o’ the sea, you may be pretty sure the water’s too deep for good anchorage.”
“That’s in our favour too,” returned Quintal; “nothin’ like a heavy surf and bad anchorage to indooce ships to give us a wide berth.”