Fortunately we had unheard-of good-luck. The trade-wind blew for us as it did for the Ancient Mariner, and we sped along the parallel of 12° south at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles a day under sail, while the Eclaireur was steaming for thirty days a little nearer the equator in a dead calm. We arrived off the island just in time, with not a day to spare. It was a narrow escape, and a warning to all of us never to sail again under sealed orders unless we knew what was under the seal.
Here we were, then, lying off the island and scanning its sparse crown of cocoanut palms, looking for a French flag among their wavy tufts. There was none in sight. We were the winners in the long race. Directly a whale-boat was lowered, and rowed around the white fringe of tremendous surf that broke ceaselessly against the vertical wall of coral rock. There was just one narrow place where the waves rolled into a sort of cleft and did not break. Here was the "landing," then.
Landing was an acrobatic feat. In you went on the crest of a wave, pointing for the place where the blue seas did not break into white. An instant after, you were in the quiet water inside of the surf. Jump out everybody and hold the boat! Then it was pick up the various instruments, and carry them for a quarter of a mile to high-water mark and beyond, over the sharp points of the reef.
In one night we were fairly settled; in another the Hartford had sailed away, leaving us in our fairy paradise, where the corals and the fish were of all the brilliant hues of the rainbow, and where the whiteness of the sand, the emerald of the lagoon, and the turquoise of the ocean made a picture of color and form never to be forgotten.
But where are the Frenchmen? The next morning there is the Eclaireur lying a mile or so out, and there is a boat with the bo'sun—maître d'équipage—pulling towards the surf. I wade out to the brink. He halloes:
"Where is the landing, then?"
"Mais ici"—Right here,—I say.
"Yes, that's all very well for persons, but where do you land les bagages?"
"Mais ici" I say again, and he says, "Diable!"