Willis the Pilot | Page 9

adieus. Becker took the lead in hiding his sorrow; the three young Greenlanders tore themselves from the maternal embrace, and affectionately kissed the hand held out to them by Mrs. Wolston.
Then, between those that departed and those that remained behind, there was nothing more than the ties of recollection, the common sadness, and the endless links of mutual affection.
CHAPTER III.
WHEREIN WILLIS THE PILOT PROVES "IRREFRAGABLY" THAT EPHEMERIDES DIE OF CONSUMPTION AND HOME-SICKNESS--THE CANOE AND ITS YOUNG ONES--THE SEARCH AFTER THE SLOOP--FOUND--THE SWORD-FISH--FLOATING ATOMS--ADMIRAL SOCRATES.
When they had come within a short distance of the bay, Jack thought he saw a large black creature moving in the bushes that lined the shore.
"A sea monster!" he cried, levelling his musket; "I discovered it, and have the right to the first shot."
"No, sir," said Fritz, whose keen eye was a sort of locomotive telescope, "I object to that, for I do not want you to kill or wound my canoe."
"Nonsense, it moves."
"Whether it moves or not, we shall all see by and by; but do you not observe this monster's young ones gambolling by its side?"
"Which proves I am right, unless you mean to say your canoe has been hatching," and Jack again levelled his rifle.
"Don't fire, it is the hat and jacket of Willis!"
"What!" exclaimed Ernest, "is the Pilot a triton then, that he could dispense with the canoe?"
"Well, yes, unless the canoe has found its way back of its own accord, which would indeed make it an intelligent creature."
"The Pilot has evidently reached Shark's Island by swimming, in spite of surf and breakers--a feat almost without a parallel."
"Bah!" said Ernest, parodying Jack's witticism about the oars, "what does a pilot care about surf and breakers?"
Strongly moored in a creek of the Jackal River, and protected by a bluff, forming a screen between it and the sea, the pinnace had in no way suffered from the storm.
The swell was so violent, that they had a world of trouble in making the island; as they approached, Willis, who had made a speaking-trumpet by joining his hands round his mouth, was roaring out alternately, "starboard," "larboard," "hard-a-port," just as if these terms had not been Hebrew to the impromptu mariners.
At last, tired of holloaing, "Stop a bit," he said, "I shall find a quicker way;" with that he threw himself directly into the sea, and cut through the waves towards them as if his arms had been driven by a steam engine.
Arrived on board, he gave a vigorous turn to the tiller, laid hold of the sheet, let out a reef here, took in another there; the pinnace was soon completely at his command, and behaved admirably; true, she pitched furiously, and the gunwale was under water at every plunge. He headed along the coast till the point beyond which Fritz had first observed the Nelson was fairly doubled; some days before this point was called Cape Deliverance, it was now, perhaps, about to acquire the term of Cape Disappointment, but for the moment its future designation was in embryo.
Leaping on the poop, Willis carefully scanned the horizon as the boat rose upon the summit of the waves; but seeing nothing, he at last leapt down again with an expression of rage that, under other circumstances, would have been irresistibly comic. Abandoning the direction of the pinnace, he went and sat down on a bulk-head, and covered his face with his hands, in an attitude of profound desolation.
"Willis! Willis!" cried Jack, "I shall tell Sophia."
But there was neither the soft voice there, the caressing hand, nor the sweet fascination of the young girl's presence, and Willis continued immovable.
Becker saw that his was one of those minds that grew less calm the more they were urged, and the excitement of which must be permitted to wear itself out; he therefore beckoned his sons to leave him to his own reflections.
The wind still blew a gale, and the pinnace pitched heavily; but the sun was now beginning to break through the masses of lurid cloud, and the air was becoming less and less charged with vapor.
"I can descry nothing either," said Becker; "and yet this is the direction the storm must have driven the sloop."
"The sea is very capricious," suggested Fritz.
"True, but not to the extent of carrying a ship against the wind."
"Unfortunately," said Jack, "it is not on sea as on land, where the slightest indications of an object lost may lead to its discovery; a word dropped in the ear of a passer-by might put you on the track, but here it is no use saying, 'Sir, did you not see the Nelson pass this way?'"
"Fire a shot," said Ernest; "it may perhaps be heard, now that the air is less humid."
The two-pounder was ready charged; Fritz struck a light and set fire to a