ON THE DESERT ISLAND.
While the stormclouds of civil war, charged with destruction, lowered
darkly over our dear native land, all was benign repose on the Desert
Island where our young pair had been cast away.
The wreck of their ship still lay high and dry upon the rocks where she
had struck. So fast was her position, with her keel impaled upon the
sharp hornlike points of the rocks, that neither winds nor waves had as
yet power to break her up or lift her off. It seemed as if she must
remain there until she should gradually perish and go to pieces by the
drying and warping of her timbers in the blazing sunshine. This state of
affairs continued for many months.
Every day during this period Justin, Britomarte and Judith passed over
the reef of rocks from the island to the wreck, and fed the animals
there and brought away as many of the stores as they could carry. But as
the way was long and the work toilsome, and as twice in the twenty-four
hours the reef of rocks was covered with water, it was impossible for
them to make more than one trip a day; and it took them a long time to
remove all the stores; a time of much anxiety it was, for they were in
constant expectation of some terrible gale that should break up the
wreck.
At length, after many weeks of labor, they had brought away from the
wreck everything that could possibly be of use to them on their desert
island, and this, of course, included all the real necessaries of life,
and stores of provisions enough to last them for years. All these things
were carefully stowed away in the caves and grottoes of which their
mountain was full.
It was not until all the stores were secured that Justin proposed to
bring away the animals, for they had been best off on the wreck so long
as there was anything there for them to eat, and therefore they had been
left there to the last. It was a work of difficulty, almost amounting to
impossibility, to get these beasts over the causeway; but finally the
task was safely accomplished and the castaways settled down to a
monotonous existence on the lonely isle.
In the spring Justin commenced building; but on account of rough
material and imperfect tools, and for the lack of help, the work
progressed very slowly.
Thus more than a year passed since they were first cast upon the Desert
Island.
They had given up all expectation that any roving ship should come near
enough their isle to discover the signal flag that they always kept
flying from the summit of the mountain, though every day Justin paid a
visit of ceremony to that flag and took a look out at sea through his
telescope.
Nearly two years had passed, and no incident worth recording had
happened, when one night their island was visited by a most tremendous
hurricane. It raged all night, and only subsided in the morning.
At midday, when all was over, Justin, Britomarte and Judith walked up to
the top of the mountain to see what had become of the wreck that had
remained there for twenty months, high and fast upon the rocks, and
perishing slowly by the dry rot.
Justin arranged the telescope and took a sight. And what did he see?
Not the wreck! for the last vestige of the wreck was broken up and
carried away by the winds and waves in the last night’s tempest.
He saw a sail, a strange sail, with a strange flag, bearing down upon
the island.