“What! Are you Harry, really my son Harry?” he exclaimed, throwing his arms around my neck; “I was sure that you and my good brother Jack Radburn would come to look for me if you thought I was alive, and not until yesterday, when God in his mercy had sent you to this island, did I lose hope. Ungrateful I was, after having been preserved from so many dangers; but your appearance has brought me back to life.”
“What the captain wants is some good food,” I heard Dick observe to Blyth; “if you’ll let me cook one of those pigeons it will do him all the good in the world.”
As Blyth carried a flint and steel they soon had a fire lighted in a sheltered spot, just outside the cave. While I sat by my father I was thankful to see that he appeared stronger as we conversed.
Blyth soon again came in and volunteered to carry the joyful intelligence to Uncle Jack. During his absence the pigeon was cooked and eaten. Dick brought in a shell full of water from a spring, which he said bubbled out of the hill side close at hand.
Soon I heard Uncle Jack’s voice. I need not describe the meeting between him and my father. He had left Blyth with directions to bring the boat round should the sea have gone down sufficiently to enable her without risk to reach a little cove which we found not far from the cave, where she might be hauled up if necessary. Uncle Jack, with his usual forethought, had brought tea and sugar and biscuit, luxuries to which my poor father had long been a stranger. They appeared to benefit him much. In a few hours he was able to sit up and converse freely with us. Before nightfall we had the satisfaction of seeing the boat, and Dick ran down to pilot her into the cove. Some of the party spent the night in the cave, which was of considerable size, and others under the boat.
The first thing all hands did in the morning was to cut down the tallest trees we could find to form a flag-staff, which we placed on the highest part of the hill overlooking the ocean. We then fastened together the two flags we had in the boat with a number of our handkerchiefs, which, combined, formed a flag of a size which could be seen at a considerable distance; eagerly we watched day after day for the appearance of sail.
I had never seen Uncle Jack so anxious, he could not help reflecting that during the gale some accident might have happened to the “Iris,” and that his dear Grace might be among the sufferers.
“Cheer up, brother Jack,” said my father, when he saw him thus cast down; “I have learned more than ever to put confidence in God’s loving mercy during my exile. Had I not been able to trust Him, I should have sank long ago. I have known Haiselden and Bingley all their lives, and they are not the men to desert their friends.”
Still another and another day passed. At length, one morning, I was awakened by a shout from Dick Meade, and running out of the cave, I saw the rising sun shining on the white canvas of a brig in the offing. That she was the “Lily” I had no doubt, but where was the “Iris”? What would be Uncle Jack’s feelings at not seeing her?
Dick was hoisting up the flag which he had just bent on. The breeze was from the south-east, which would enable the brig to approach the island without risk. She was standing on farther to the northward, and I began to fear that she was not the “Lily” after all. I was expressing my doubts to Dick, when I found Uncle Jack standing by me with a telescope to his eye.