Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/280

40 THE CRATER; the territories that Heaton and his party had eome to seek, and that here he should find those cows which he had once seen, and which he coveted more than any other riches on earth. Ooroony had been weak enough to allow strangers in possession of things so valuable, to pass through his islands; but he, Waally, was not the man to imitate this folly. Brown, too, began to think that the white men sought were to be found here. That whites were in the group was plain enough by the ship, and he supposed they might be fishing for the pearl-oyster, or gathering beche-le- mar for the Canton market. It was just possible that a colony .had established itself in this unfrequented place, and that the party of which he had heard so much, had come hither with their stores and herds. Not the smallest suspi cion at first crossed his mind that he there beheld the spars of the Rancocus ; but, it was enough for him and Wattles that Christian men were there, and that, in all probability, they were men of the Anglo-Saxon race. No sooner was it ascertained that the explorers were in a false channel, and that it would not be in their power to penetrate farther in their canoes, than our two seamen determined to run, and attach themselves to the strangers. They naturally thought that they should find a vessel armed and manned, and ready to stand out to sea as soon as her officers were apprized of the danger that threatened them, and did not hesitate about joining their fortune with hers, in preference to remaining with Waally any longer. Freedom possesses a charm for which no other advantage can compensate, and those two old sea-dogs, who had worked like horses all their lives, in their original calling, preferred returning to the ancient drudgery rather than live with Waally, in the rude abundance of savage chiefs. The escape was easily enough made, as soon as it was dark, Brown and Wattles being on shore most of the time, under the pretence that it was ne cessary, in order that they might ascertain the character of these unknown colonists by signs understood best by themselves. Such is a brief outline of the explanations that the two recovered seamen made to their former officer. In return, the governor as briefly related to them the manner in which the ship had been saved, and the history of the colony down