“True enough, no harm can come of it, and I don’t mind going a little way,” I said, though I knew well enough that the order stood good for this place and all others. Still I wanted to see the country, it looked so very tempting.
We walked on and on; now we climbed up a hill, from which we could see the ship, and then crossed a valley, and went along a clear stream up to a beautiful waterfall. We passed a good many cottages of the sort I have described, and the people came out and offered us fruits and cooked roots, like sweet potatoes and perk. We couldn’t help going into some of the houses, the people were so kind; besides, we were tired, as we hadn’t taken such a walk since we came aboard the Rose. We neither of us had a watch, and never thought how the time went. When we were rested, we got up, and, thanking the people of the house for their kindness, went on our way, the country seeming more and more beautiful.
At last I said to Bill that I thought we ought to go back; so we turned our faces, as we fancied, towards the place we had come from.
We went on some way, and then I stopped Bill, and said, “Bill, I don’t think we are right; we are farther off than ever.”
We looked about to find a hill to climb, to judge where we were, but the trees were so thick that we could see none. One thing we saw, that the sky was changed, and that clouds were passing quickly across it, and that the tops of the trees were bending to a strong breeze.
“Bill,” I said, “we ought to be back at the boats, for they’ll be going off; we shall taste the end of a rope if we keep them waiting.”
“Never fear, we shall be in time enough,” answered Bill. “Why be put out? we can’t help ourselves.”
That was true enough, then, but I knew that we ought not to have come at all.
We went on some way till we came to another house. The people in it were very kind, but we couldn’t make out what they said, and they couldn’t what we said, though we tried to let them know that we wanted to find our way back to the boats. At last a young man seemed to understand what we wanted, for he took us by the hand and led us on.
After some time we found that we were going up a hill, and when we got to the top of it we could see the ocean. We looked, we rubbed our eyes; a heavy sea was rolling in, and far away our ship was beating off shore. For some time I could not speak a word.