In the meantime, the plunder of the vessel was going on vigorously in all directions—above and below, in the cabin and forecastle, till, at length, as much was collected as the savages thought their canoes would safely carry. These, therefore, were now loaded with the booty; and the whole fleet, shortly after, made for the shore.
In one of these canoes was little Julia Elderslie and her new protector, who, by still maintaining his friendly charge over her, shewed that he meant to appropriate her as a part of his share of the plunder.
On reaching the shore, the kind-hearted savage, as his whole conduct in the affair shewed him to be, consigned his little protegée to the care of a female—one of the group of women who were on the beach awaiting the arrival of the canoes, and who appeared to be his wife.
The woman received the child with similar expressions of surprise and delight with those which had marked her husband's conduct on his first finding her. She turned her gently round and round, examined her with a delighted curiosity, patted her cheeks, felt her legs and arms, and, in short, handled her as if she had been some strange toy, or as if she wished to be assured that she was really a thing of flesh and blood.
For two days the natives continued their plunder of the wreck. By the third, the vessel had been cleared of every article of any value that could be carried away; and on this being ascertained, a general division of the spoil, accumulated on the shore, took place.
It was a scene of dreadful confusion and uproar, and more than once threatened to terminate in bloodshed; but it eventually closed without any such catastrophe. The partition was effected, the encampment was broken up, and the whole band—men, women, and children, all loaded with plunder—commenced their march into the interior; the little Julia forming part of the burden of the man who had first appropriated her; a labour in which he was from time to time relieved by his wife.
From three to four years after the occurrence of the events just related, a Scotch merchant ship, the Dolphin of Ayr, Captain Clydesdale, bound for the Cape of Good Hope, while prosecuting her voyage, unexpectedly run short of water, in consequence of the bursting of a tank, when off the Gold Coast of Africa.
On being informed of the accident, the captain determined on running for the land for the purpose of endeavouring to procure a further supply of the indispensable necessary of which he had just sustained so serious a loss.
The vessel was, accordingly, directed towards the coast, which she neared in a few hours; and, finally, entered a small bay, which seemed likely to afford at once the article wanted, and a safe anchorage for the ship while she waited for its reception.
By a curious chance, the bay which the Dolphin now entered was the same in which the Isabella had been wrecked upwards of three years before. But of that ill-fated vessel there was now no trace; a succession of storms, similar to that which had first hurled her on the rocks, had at length accomplished her entire destruction: she had, in time, been beaten to pieces, and had now wholly disappeared.