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I found Yeo at the end of the quay, where round the corner to seaward open out the dunes of the opposite shore of the estuary, faint with distance and their own pallor, and ending in the slender stalk of a lighthouse, always quivering at the vastness of what confronts it. Yeo was sitting on a bollard, rubbing tobacco between his palms. I told him this was the sort of morning to get the Mona out.
The cutter coming alongside, the doctor stepped on board. "Don't desert us, Dr Davis," said several of those on board the launch. While Dr Davis was talking to the unfortunate young officer, and trying to calm him, Willy asked the boatswain how those with him had fared. "It's a mercy we were not swamped, so we ought not to complain in regard to other matters," answered Mr Bollard.
As she drew near, he heard every now and then a strange wild shout, and several persons speaking. At length the boat came close up under the stern of the launch. "Is that the cutter of His Majesty's ship `Ranger?" asked Willy. "Ay, ay," answered a voice, which he knew to be that of Roger Bollard, the boatswain. "Why, Mr Bollard, what is the matter?" he inquired.
Captain Westerway undertook, should he be able to obtain the provisions, to send them up in the cutter, under charge of Mr Bollard, One of the ship's boats, though stove in so as then to be useless, remained on deck; and the captain hoped, should she not be washed away, to repair her sufficiently to be of use in visiting the wreck.
"They must take the consequences of their foolishness," observed Bill Windy, "and, the chances are, will have to spend the best part of their days on this island." Meantime, Captain Westerway had not forgotten the party at the settlement, and sent up Mr Bollard in the cutter, laden with some of the provisions which had been saved.
He had, however, a narrow squeak of it; for a splinter had jogged his leg from the ankle to the knee, while the bollard on which he had been standing had been shot away under his feet.
They had just time to make it fast round the bollard, when the whale darted off, towing the boat at a rapid rate towards the island. It seemed in no way disposed to slacken its speed; but old Tom knew that if the harpoon held they would at length come up with it.
An hour of hard toil brought them within sight of the wreck. Keeping well to windward, the coxswain cast anchor, and the bowman, taking a turn or two of the cable round the bollard, allowed the boat to drop down to the wreck, stern foremost.
The man was standing at the extreme end of the pier, leaning against a bollard, and observing the Quernmore and her crew with a scrutiny so close as to be a little suspicious; and Murray half-turned to point him out to Drake. He need not have troubled to do so, however, for he at once perceived that the skipper was already aware of the man's presence.
"Well, mates, we have deserved our dinners, at all events," exclaimed Paul, as he commenced cutting up the seal. "Mr Bollard will have gained an appetite for his." "I had rather have gained it in a more dignified way," observed the boatswain, wiping the perspiration from his brow. "I had no notion one of these brutes would show so much fight."
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