Chapter Nine.
The Moluccas.
Wonderful was the change which I found had taken place when I returned on deck. The sun was shining brightly, the wind had fallen to a moderate breeze. The sea, though heaving and dancing, sparkling brightly in the sunbeams, had gone down considerably, but still blew from the same quarter as before. The ship was standing to the east.
“We have passed through the Straits of Banca, and are crossing the Molucca passage,” said Mr Thudicumb, of whom I asked whereabouts we were. “The captain proposes making for Ternate, which belongs to the Dutch. We may hope there to get new masts—at all events, it is the nearest place which we can reach with the wind as it is at present, and have any hope of getting the ship put to rights.”
All day long we were busily employed in repairing damages as far as we could. I had but little time to exchange a word with Emily. I was thankful to find, however, that she and Grace had quite recovered their spirits, though they owned that they had been greatly frightened during the hurricane.
“Still it is a comfort, Walter, to know that there is One who always watches over us, and does everything for the best. If he had thought fit to allow the ship to founder, I am very sure he would have had good reason for so doing. Still, as I know he wishes us to pray for blessings, I was praying all the time that we might be preserved, and especially that no accident might happen to you, my dear brother. Oh, how I thought of you when you were on deck, and the storm was blowing and the masts being cut away, knowing the fearful danger to which you were exposed.”
It was soon after sunrise one morning, when, a light mist clearing away, before us appeared, at some distance from each other, several lofty conical mountains rising as it were directly out of the sea, while beyond them was seen a line of blue land, extending north and south as far as the eye could reach.
“You see that peak ahead, Walter,” said Captain Davenport to me. “That is the island of Ternate, to which we are bound. To the right of it is Tidore. All those peaks are volcanic; and some of them, I believe, occasionally throw up flames. The land we see beyond is the large island of Gilolo—a strange land, I believe, but very little is known about it.”