Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/243

THE CRATES CHAPTER I. "Forthwith a guard at every gun Was placed along the wall ; The beacon blazed upon the roof Of Edgecombe s lofty hall ; And many a fishing bark put out, To pry along the coast; And with loose rein, and bloody spur Rode inland many a post." The Spanish Armada. J THE building of the houses, and of the schooner, was occupation for everybody, for a long time. The first were completed in season to escape the rains; but the last was on the stocks fully six months after her keel had been laid. The fine weather had returned, even, and she was not yet launched. So long a period had intervened since Waally s visit to Rancocus Island without bringing any results, that the council began to hope the Indians had given up their enterprises, from the consciousness of not having the means to carry them out; and almost every one ceased to apprehend danger from that quarter. In a word, so smoothly did the current of life flow, on the Reef and at Vulcan s Peak, that there was probably more danger of their inhabitants falling into the common and fatal error of men in prosperity, than of anything else ; or, of their beginning to fancy that they deserved all the blessings that were conferred on them, and forgetting the hand that be stowed them. As if to recall them to a better sense of things, events now occurred which it is our business to