HAZEL had risen an hour before dawn for reasons well known to himself. He
put on his worst clothes, and a leathern belt, his little bags round his
neck, and took his bundle of rushes in his hand. He also provided himself
with some pieces of raw fish and fresh oyster; and, thus equipped, went
up through Terrapin Wood, and got to the neighborhood of the lagoon
before daybreak.
There was a heavy steam on the water, and nothing else to be seen. He put
the hoop over his head, and walked into the water, not without an
internal shudder, it looked so cold.
But instead of that, it was very warm, unaccountably warm. He walked in
up to his middle, and tied his iron hoop to his belt, so as to prevent it
sinking too deep. This done, he waited motionless, and seemed a little
bed of rushes. The sun rose, and the steam gradually cleared away, and
Hazel, peering through a hole or two he had made expressly in his bed of
rushes, saw several ducks floating about, and one in particular, all
purple, without a speck but his amber eye. He contrived to detach a piece
of fish, that soon floated to the surface near him. But no duck moved
toward it. He tried another, and another; then a mallard he had not
observed swam up from behind him, and was soon busy pecking at it within
a yard of him. His heart beat; he glided slowly and cautiously forward
till the bird was close to the rushes.
Hazel stretched out his hand with the utmost care, caught hold of the
bird's feet, and dragged him sharply under the water, and brought him up
within the circle of the rushes. He quacked and struggled. Hazel soused
him under directly, and so quenched the sound; then he glided slowly to
the bank, so slowly that the rushes merely seemed to drift ashore. This
he did not to create suspicion, and so spoil the next attempt. As he
glided, he gave his duck air every now and then, and soon got on terra
firma. By this time he had taught the duck not to quack, or he would get
soused and held under. He now took the long gut-end and tied it tight
round the bird's leg, and so fastened the bag to him.
Even while he was effecting this, a posse of ducks rose at the west end
of the marsh, and took their flight from the island. As they passed,
Hazel threw his captive up in the air; and such was the force of example,
aided, perhaps, by the fright the captive had received, that Hazel's bird
instantly joined these travelers, rose with them into the high currents,
and away, bearing the news eastward upon the wings of the wind. Then
Hazel returned to the pool, and twice more he was so fortunate as to
secure a bird, and launch him into space.
So hard is it to measure the wit of man, and to define his resources. The
problem was solved; the aerial messengers were on the wing, diffusing
over hundreds of leagues of water the intelligence that an English lady
had been wrecked on an unknown island, in longitude 103 deg. 30 min., and
between the 33d and 26th parallels of south latitude; and calling good
men and ships to her rescue for the love of God.