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Mr McRitchie, who had joined us on deck, heaved a deep sigh. To him captivity was even more galling than to us. Darkness came on, and the corvette was lost to sight. It was a terrific night.
We now reached a wide valley, on the sides of which, far up on the mountains, we descried a number of animals, which Jerry and I concluded, without doubt, were the much-desired guanacoes. Mr McRitchie, with Simmons, the sailor, and the guide, were ahead; Fleming was with us; so we agreed, as we could not fail of being seen by our companions, we would climb the mountain in chase of the game.
Consoling ourselves for our disappointment with the hopes of getting near enough up to the next herd to fire before being seen, we scrambled on as before. Now and then we glanced behind us to mark the spot where we had left Fleming, while we kept an eye in the direction Mr McRitchie had taken; and on that broad exposed mountain-side, we did not think it possible that we could miss each other.
It had a curious appearance, standing thus alone in the ocean 500 miles from the coast of America, and 350 from the Island of Fernando Noronha the snowy pinnacle of a submarine mountain. We hove-to close to it, and a boat being lowered, Mr McRitchie, Mr Brand, Jerry, and I, went on shore. The whole rock is not three-quarters of a mile in circumference.
While the captain was speaking, Mr McRitchie came on deck, and collected in sheets of paper a quantity of the red dust. "It will be prized by some of my scientific friends at home," he observed; "and even the unscientific may value a substance which has travelled half round the globe high up in the atmosphere."
The next morning, Mr Callard, the missionary, who was an old friend of Captain Frankland's, came on board, and invited Jerry and me and Mr McRitchie, and Mr Brand, if he could be spared, to accompany him to the large island of Hawaii, round which he was going to make a visitation tour. Having to wait here for information on some important matters, he gave us the leave we asked.
"But if yonder ship prove to be what you suppose, and the schooner is captured, perhaps we may be hung as pirates," said Jerry. "How can we prove that we are honest people?" "There will be but little difficulty about that," answered Mr McRitchie.
Gerard and I were for knocking as many as we could on the head; but Cousin Silas would not allow us, observing that we did not want them for food, and that they had a far better right to the rock than we had. The booby, Mr McRitchie told us, is a species of gannet, and the noddy a species of tern. The first lays her eggs on the bare rock, but the latter constructs a nest with sea-weed.
He wagged his tail, and ran to the ship's side and barked, and looked up in our faces and looked at the land, as much as to say, "How I should like to have a scamper along the beach there!" "Yes, you may all three go, if Mr McRitchie will take care of you," said the captain, laughing.
In one corner we quickly made a bed of leaves and dry grass. Over this we spread a piece of canvas, and thus constructed a very good bed, on which we placed Silva. Dr McRitchie having examined his wounds, washed them and bound them up; but he observed that he considered his case somewhat serious.
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