Ben lapsed into silence at this sane remark; but presently, as if a bright thought had struck him, he said—
"Anyhow, I've a mind to make a trip in the dingey and see if I can find some people. From what I can make out, these here islands must belong to Great Britain somehow; and if there's any one living on 'em, why, they'll speak our own tongue and tell us where we are, and that's something."
So when he had cooked some food and prepared a meal for himself and his companion, he set off upon his voyage of discovery. He pulled the little boat round under the tremendous cliffs of the north coast of the island, but sought in vain for a landing-place or for a sign of habitation. Sea-birds were everywhere—on the ledges of the cliffs, and in the long dark caverns; they filled the sunlit air, they speckled the sea, and the outlying skerries were white with them. The cries they made were mingled in a strange musical harmony that was like the pealing of a church organ. The short shrill treble of the auks and puffins, the trumpet cry of the wild swans, the mewing notes of the kittiwakes, the tenors of the divers and guillemots, and the deep bass croaking of the cormorants and ravens united in a prolonged symphony, and through it all was the profound roar of the sea from the throats of countless caves.
If Ben had been a naturalist, instead of an ill-informed ship's boy, he would have recognised this as a paradise of birds. But he only thought of his sick companion on board the Aurora, and of how he might find human help. He rowed along the coast for some two miles without discovering even so much as a yard of beach. Once he came upon a floating log of driftwood—the remnant of some bygone shipwreck. Once, too, he heard what he took to be the bleating of a sheep, but there were no signs of human inhabitants. His little voyage was useless. So he went about, and returned disappointed towards the brig, resolving to make his next journey of exploration by land.
As he came again into the bay where the Aurora lay at her moorings, he glanced up the little glen that led up between the hills. The land was bare of trees—a barren moor, with tufts of purple heather growing among the boulders on the higher ground, and level beds of grass marking the course of a fresh-water stream.
On the heights he saw the figure of a man.
For a moment Ben questioned within himself if it would be wise to prolong his absence from the brig and go up to the man and speak with him; but as the stranger was only a short distance away, he decided to go ashore and follow him. He brought the boat in to the beach, pulled her up a yard or two above the tide, and set off in pursuit.
When he reached the spot where he had first seen him, the man had disappeared. Ben was about to turn and walk back to the boat when a movement near him on the heather attracted his eye. A dog approached him, smelt at his heels, and then scampered away. Ben followed the animal over the brow of the hill, and at this point he came within view of the farther end of the island, and a wide bay that opened out between two great rocky headlands. He stood for a time contemplating the scene, almost forgetting the Aurora and her sick quartermaster.
A voice at his elbow startled him. It was a woman's voice, strangely gentle and sweet.
"You are a stranger here," she said. "Where have you come from?"