‘Vhere vhas you bound to again, captain?’ said Peter Green. ‘Ach, my memory!’
‘To Cape Town,’ answered Tom, quick in his answer as the report after the flash. ‘Will that suit them?’
‘Dey vhas very grateful. Und so vhas ve. Der language of dot Captain Rotch does not always please Governor Glass. He vhas impatient, und vhas not enough thankful to Gott for his life. But, den, poor doyfil, he has a wife und shilds at home, und den again he has lost his ship, mit a goodt deal of property for a hard-verking seafaring man.’
After a little more conversation to this effect the islanders got their boat alongside, shook hands with us all, and went away. It was hard upon five o’clock. All day long a light breeze had been blowing. Now and again the water crisped friskily close off the island, as though to a down-rush of cold breeze from the giant mountain slopes; but the spread of air was local, and no break of it came within a mile of the brig. The sky was pure, cloudless blue—the rich sky of the Antipodean summer; and the ocean, flowing stately in majestic folds of swell, was at this hour of a most lovely violet colour. The beautiful tint of sea and sky was in the atmosphere, and tinged the lofty mass of mountain to its snow-line. The vapour of the morning had dissolved upon that eminence. It now stood in naked, lovely grandeur. The westering sunshine flung a faint, delicate dye of rose upon the snow on its top, and the same fair tint lived in the line of foam that boiled the length of the whole base of the bit of solitary land. The white whale-boat making for the island showed like a melting snowflake, as she rose and sank upon the blue heave.
‘We’ll head out three miles, Bates,’ said Tom, ‘and then sit down and talk.’
The maintopsail was swung, and the brig’s jibbooms slowly rounded into the north. I went to the galley to see to the fire and boil water for tea. There was nothing in sight—no feather-tip of remote ship’s canvas—nothing but that mountain of Tristan d’Acunha, now darkening low down, then strangely glowing out in snow with gleams here and there as of waterfalls.
The helm was secured. The brig was under topsails and foresail only; small need for a constant look-out on such a bright, calm, sweet evening as this. We seated ourselves at the table, but neither Bates nor Will nor myself broke the silence till Tom spoke.
‘Some wonderful things have happened,’ said he, ‘since the convicts seized the ship, but nothing so wonderful as those men being on the island I meant to hide myself in.’
‘It’s God’s doing,’ said the mate.
Tom inclined his head.