The two unfortunates were visibly cheered by the assurance. To do them justice, they had not quite given way to sea-sickness until then, for the weather had been moderately calm, but the nasty sea and stiff breeze had proved too much for them.
“Are you sure we shall find the island so soon?” asked Orlando of the captain in a low, earnest tone, for the poor youth’s excitement and anxiety deepened as they drew near to the place where his father might possibly be found—at the same time a strange, shrinking dread of what they might find made him almost wish for delay.
“I am not sure, of course,” returned the captain, “but if my information is correct, there is every probability that we shall find it to-morrow.”
“I hopes we shall,” remarked Waroonga. “It would be a grand blessing if the Lord will gif us the island and your father in same day.”
“Mos’ too good to be true,” observed Ebony, who was a privileged individual on board, owing very much to his good-humoured eccentricity. “But surely you not spec’s de niggers to tumbil down at yous feet all at wance, Massa Waroonga?”
“Oh no, not at once. The day of miracle have pass,” returned the missionary. “We mus’ use the means, and then, has we not the promise that our work shall not be in vain?”
Next day about noon the Sugar-loaf mountain rose out of the sea like a great pillar of hope to Orlando, as well as to the missionary. Captain Fitzgerald sailed close in, sweeping the mountain side with his telescope as he advanced until close under the cliffs, when he lay-to and held a consultation with his passengers.
“I see no habitations of any kind,” he said, “nor any sign of the presence of man, but I have heard that the native villages lie at the lower side of the island. Now, the question is, whether would it suit your purposes best to land an armed party here, and cross over to the villages, or to sail round the island, drop anchor in the most convenient bay, and land a party there?”
Orlando, to whom this was more directly addressed, turned to the missionary.
“What think you, Waroonga? You know native thought and feeling best.”