Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/278

38 THECRATER; party nearly as much more time, these sailors, who heard of such visitors, could never get access to them. This was partly owing to the hostilities between the two chiefs Ooroony being then in the ascendant and partly owing to the special projects of Waally, who, by keeping his pri soners busily employed on his fleet, looked forward to the success which, in fact, crowned his efforts against his rival. At length Waally undertook the expedition which had appeared in such force beneath the cliffs of the Peak. By ihis time, Brown had become so great a favourite, that he was permitted to accompany the chief; and Wattles was brought along as a companion for his shipmate. The re maining five were left behind, to complete a craft on which they had now been long employed, and which was intended to be the invincible war-carioe of those regions. Brown and Wattles had been in Waally s own canoe when the ter rible echoes so much alarmed the uninstructed beings who heard it. They described them as much the most im posing echoes they had ever heard ; nor did they, at first, know what to make of them, themselves. It was only on reflection, and after the retreat to Rancocus Island, that Brown, by reasoning on the subject, came to the conclu sion that the whites, who were supposed to be in possession of the place, had fired a gun, which had produced the astounding uproar that had rattled so far along the cliff. As all Brown s sympathies were with the unknown people of his own colour, he kept his conjectures to himself, and managed to lead Waally in a different direction, by cer tain conclusions of his own touching the situation of the reef where the Rancocus had been lost. Bill Brown was an intelligent man for his station and pursuits. He knew the courses steered by the launch, and had some tolerably accurate notions of the distances run. According to his calculations, that reef could not be very far to the northward of the Peak, and, by ascending the i?"Duntaais on Rancocus Island, he either saw, or fancied he s, w, the looming of land in that part of the ocean. It then occurred to Brown that portions of the wreck might still be found on the reef, and become the means of effect ing his escape from the hands of his tyrants. Waally