“I think that I can make out a part of the wreck jammed in between two rocks, just flush with the water,” observed Saltwell, who had been examining the place with his glass. “An awkward place to get on.”
“Faith, indeed, it is,” said the master. “If we hadn’t come up, and another gale of wind had come on, every one of those poor fellows would have been washed away.”
“It is an ill wind that blows nobody good,” remarked the purser, who was a bit of a moralist in a small way. “Now we have been complaining of a foul wind—and if we had had a fair one, we should have run past those rocks without ever seeing the people on them.”
“No higher,” exclaimed the gruff voice of the quarter-master, who was conning the ship. “Mind your helm, or you’ll have her all aback.”
“The wind is heading us,” muttered the man at the wheel; “she’s fallen off two points.”
“Hands about ship,” cried Captain Fleetwood. “We’ll show the poor fellows we do not intend to give them the go-by. Helm’s a-lee! Tacks and sheets! Main-topsail haul. Of all, haul.”
And round came the brig, with her head to the eastward, or towards the island of Milo. She was at this time about two miles to the southward of the rock, and that the people on it might not suppose that she was about to pass them, Captain Fleetwood ordered a gun to be fired, to attract their attention, and to show them that they were seen. This appeared to have a great effect; for the officers observed them through their telescopes waving their signal-staffs round and round, as if to exhibit their delight.
“They seem as if they were all drunk on the rock there,” said Linton. “I never saw people make such strange antics.”
“I fear it is more probable that they are mad,” observed the captain. “I have known many instances in which men have been thus afflicted, who having nothing to satisfy their hunger or thirst, have been tempted to drink salt water.”
“It proves that they must have been a long time there. We must not keep on long on this tack, master, I suspect.”