The men in the boat shoved off, hoisting the big lug as they did so. The devils sent up a cheer, and Bol flourished his hair cap at me and the lady. I returned the salute with a cordial wave of the hand, and the lady bowed. They hauled the sheet of the lug flat aft, that the boat might look a little to windward of the landing-place, where, so far as I could distinguish, there was a sort of split, or ravine, which would provide easy access to the inland heights and flats. I watched the boat’s progress through the water with keen interest and anxiety. Flattened in as the sheet was, the little fabric swam briskly. The wind was small, yet the boat drove a pretty ripple from either bow and towed some fathoms of wake astern of her.
“We’ll chance it, all the same!” thought I, setting my teeth.
CHAPTER XXX.
MY SCHEME.
I watched the boat until she entered the tremble of surf. ’Twas a mere silver fringe of surf, so quiet was the water on this, the lee side of the island. The sail of the boat shone in that slender edge of whiteness like a snowflake; then vanished on a sudden. I looked through the glass, and saw the men on either gunwale of the boat running her up the beach clear of the wash.
I was so provoked by that sight, that I was mad then and there to start on my scheme of release. The resolution seized me like a fit of fever, and the blood surged through me in a flood of fire. I went to the lee side of the deck to conceal my face. In a few minutes I had reconsidered my resolution and was determined to wait. For, first, the afternoon was advancing; the boat was not likely to stay long ashore; her sail might be showing out on the blue water, under the dark height of cliffs, ere I was half through with what lay before me. Next, the wind was very scant; it was scarce a four-knot air of wind, though the brig should be able to spread the canvas of a Royal George to the off-shore draught. There was nothing, then, to be done but wait; to pray for a continuance of fine weather and a little more wind.
The brig lay very quiet. The swell of the sea ran softly, and the hush that was upon the island—such a hush as was on the face of the earth when it was first created—was spread, like something sensible, throughout the atmosphere; and this silence of desolation was upon the breast of the sea. I kept the deck throughout the afternoon, often looking at the landing-place. The boat lay high and dry, watched by a single figure; the others were gone inland. They had sailed away without firearms—an oversight, I reckon; or they might have asked of one another, “What was the good of going armed to a desolate island?” Yet I had a sort of sympathy for that lonely figure down by the boat when I thought of him as unarmed. Frightfully lonesome he looked, with the great face of the cliff hanging high up behind him and spreading away, huge and sullen, on either hand. I guess, had I been that man, I should have yearned for a loaded musket. Crusoe carried two, and went the easier for the burden.
The sun would set behind the island. It was sinking that way when I spied the sail of the boat. The men had their oars over, and she came along pretty fast. I calculated her speed, and cursed it. She drew alongside, some of the men halloaing answers to questions bawled by Teach and the others, who were on the forecastle. Bol scrambled up, and shouting for all hands to get the boat inboard and stowed for the night, he stepped up to me, who was standing aft with Miss Aurora, Call being at the wheel.
“She vhas all right,” said he, thick of voice with fatigue.
“What was all right?”
“Vell, first of all, she vhas der prettiest leedle islandt in der whole vorldt for hiding money in. Ve looked about us—all vhas still. Dere vhas birdts in der air, und dot vhas all, und dey vhas still too. Dere vhas no sign of man ever having landted upon dot island. Mr. Fielding, she vhas still undiscovered.”