Eleanor's start was somewhat prompt, to look in the direction of 'Queen
Esther's' figure-head.
"The light is failing—I don't believe you can see it," said Mr. Amos; "not to know it from the clouds. The captain says he shall stand off and on through the night, so as to have daylight to go in. The entrance is narrow. I suppose, if all is well, we shall have a wedding to-morrow?"
Eleanor asked Mrs. Amos somewhat hastily, if what she had brought her was good?
"Delicious!" Mrs. Amos said; and pulling Eleanor's face down to her she gave it a kiss which spoke more things than her mere thanks. She was rewarded with the sight of that crimson veil which spread itself over Eleanor's cheeks, which most people thought it was a pleasure to see.
Eleanor thought she should get little sleep that night; but she was disappointed. She slept long and sweetly on her mattress; and awoke to find it quite day, with fair wind, and the schooner setting her head full on the land which rose up before her fresh and green, yes, and exceeding lovely. Eleanor got up and shook herself out; her companions were still sleeping. She rolled her mattress together and sat down upon it, to watch the approaches to the land. Fresher and fairer and greener every moment it lifted itself to her view; she could hardly bear to look steadily; her head went down for a minute often under the pressure of the thoughts that crowded together. And when she raised it up, the lovely hills of the island, with their novel outline and green luxuriance, were nearer and clearer and higher than they had been a minute before. Now she could discern here and there, she thought, something that must be a dwelling-house; then trees began to detach themselves from the universal mass; she saw smoke rising; and she became aware too, that along the face of the island, fronting the approach of the schooner, was a wall of surf; and a line of breakers that seemed to stretch right and left and to be without an interval in their white continuity. Eleanor did not see how the schooner was going to get in; for the surf did not break evidently on the shore of the island, but on a reef extending around the shore and at some little distance from it. Yet the vessel stood straight on; and the sweet smell of the land began to come with the freshness of the morning air.
"Is this Vuliva before us?" she asked of the skipper whom she found standing near.
"Ay, ay!"
"Where are you going to get in? I see no opening."
"Ay, ay! There is an opening, though."
And soon, looking keenly, Eleanor thought she could discern it. Not until they were almost upon it however; and then it was a place of rough water enough, though the regular fall of the surf was interrupted and there was only a general upheaving and commotion of the waves among themselves. It was nothing very terrific; the tide was in a good state; and presently Eleanor saw that they had passed the barrier, they were in smooth water, and making for an opening in the land immediately opposite which might be either the mouth of a river or an inlet of the sea. They neared it fast, sailed up into it; and there to Eleanor's mortification the skipper dropped anchor and swung to. She saw no settlement. Some few scattered houses were plain enough now to be seen; but nothing even like a village. Tufts of trees waved gracefully; rock and hill and rich-coloured lowland spread out a variety of beauty; where was Vuliva, the station? This might be the island. Where were the people? Could they come no nearer than this?