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Grow we sick of the game, sour with our luck, weary of the hazard, and relinquish we our place at the table, we are pushed back and out elbowed, thrown, trampled. We are all treasure-seekers set on a treasure-island in a boundless sea.
There was no mistake about it, the bark had been deeply cut away with a knife, and I cannot, for the life of me, say how it was that it had never attracted my attention, unless it be that the wound was now weather- stained, and by no means so conspicuous as I had pictured it in my mind; perhaps it was in a great measure due, too, to the fact that the island we were on, though answering accurately to the description given of the treasure-island, was quite unlike the picture my imagination had conjured up.
On the evening of the day following that on which we sailed from the pirate's island, we found ourselves so near the reputed position of the treasure-island that I decided to heave the cutter to for the night, so as to avoid the possibility of running upon the outlying reef during the darkness.
We therefore filled away upon the cutter again, upon such a course as would take us up through the thickest cluster of islands; and, such is the elasticity of the human mind, before night closed down upon us we appeared to have almost forgotten everything connected with the treasure-island, and thought and spoke of nothing but the chances in favour of and against the finding of my father.
These rendezvous, I may as well mention, were Melbourne, Cape Town, Saint Helena, Saint Antonio in the Cape de Verde group, and Madeira. When this topic seemed pretty well exhausted, Ella remarked nervously, "It seems then, Harry, that you have quite given up the idea of making any further search for the treasure-island. I have not heard it mentioned once for oh! ever so long."
He remembered passing a great many islands after sighting this headland, however, and was of opinion that the average courses steered were about south-east, and he thought it was nearly a month afterwards when the ship was lost. This placed the scene of the wreck on one of the islands in the large group in which we expected to find our treasure-island.
During our ramble, which Ella shared though she at first wished to remain aloof, thinking my father and I might have private matters to discuss after so long a separation the subject of the treasure-island again came uppermost; and my father seemed to be strongly of opinion that, in spite of our failure to find it, it really existed, and that our disappointment had arisen in some error as to its exact position.
Whence the ship brought us we do not know, and whither it will carry us we do not know; there is none to prick a return voyage disclosing the ultimate haven, though pilots there be who pretend to the knowledge we cannot test them. But the marooners, when they land us, give us wherewith to occupy our thoughts. This is a treasure-island.
Whilst discussing this meal, I related, at my father's earnest solicitation, our whole story, commencing with an account of the wreck on Portland beach, and of the tale of the treasure-island told by the dying Spaniard, and then going on to relate how we had been induced, by a belief in this story, to build and fit out the Water Lily and sail in her in search of the treasure, mentioning, in due course, our meeting with the seaman who had given us a clue to the Amazon's fate, and of our resolve, therefore, to search the whole Archipelago, if need be, for the abandoned ones; and winding up with an account of our late achievement of the destruction of the Albatross and of the consequent imprisonment of her crew, upon the island we had so recently sailed from.
Our proper course was about north-west, that being the bearing of the point, the latitude and longitude of which had been given us as that of the treasure-island.
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