However, as Glenarvan justly observed, this interpretation did not preclude the possibility of Captain Grant’s captivity, who, moreover, had intimated as much by the words “where they will be prisoners of the cruel Indians.” But there was no more reason for seeking the prisoners on the thirty-seventh parallel than on any other.
This conclusion, after much discussion, was finally accepted, and it was decided that, if no traces of the Britannia were found at Cape Bernouilli, Lord Glenarvan should return to Europe, relinquishing all hope of finding the object of their search.
This resolution occasioned profound grief to the children of the lost captain. As the boats containing the whole of the party were rowed ashore, they felt that the fate of their father would soon be probably decided; irrevocably, we may say, for Paganel, in a former discussion, had clearly demonstrated that the shipwrecked seamen would have reached their country long ago, if their vessel had stranded on the other, the eastern coast.
“Hope! hope! never cease to hope!” said Lady Helena to the young girl seated beside her, as they approached the shore. “The hand of God will never fail us.”
“Yes, Miss Mary,” said the captain; “when men have exhausted human resources, then Heaven interposes, and, by some unforeseen event, opens to them new ways.”
“God grant it, captain!” replied Mary.
The shore was now only a cable’s length distant. The cape terminated in gentle declivities extending far out into the sea. The boat entered a small creek, between banks of coral in process of formation, which in time would form a chain of reefs along the southern coast of the island.
The passengers of the Duncan disembarked on a perfectly barren shore. Steep cliffs formed a lofty seawall, and it would have been difficult to scale this natural rampart without ladders or cramping-irons. Fortunately, the captain discovered a breach half a mile southward, caused by a partial crumbling of the cliffs. Probably the sea, during violent equinoctial storms, had beaten against this fragile barrier, and thus caused the fall of the upper portions of the mass.
Glenarvan and his companions entered this opening, and reached the summit of the cliffs by a very steep ascent. Robert climbed an abrupt declivity with the agility of a cat, and arrived first at the top, to the great chagrin of Paganel, who was quite mortified at seeing himself outstripped by a mere lad of twelve. However, he distanced the peaceable major; but that worthy was utterly indifferent to his defeat.
The little party surveyed the plain that stretched out beneath them. It was a vast, uncultivated tract, covered with bushes and brushwood, and was compared by Glenarvan to the glens of the Scottish lowlands, and by Paganel to the barren lands of Brittany. But though the country along the coast was evidently uninhabited, the presence of man, not the savage, but the civilized worker, was betokened by several substantial structures in the distance.
“A mill!” cried Robert.
True enough, at no great distance apparently, the sails of a mill were seen.
“It is indeed a mill,” replied Paganel. “Here is a beacon as modest as it is useful, the sight of which delights my eyes.”
“It is almost a belfry,” said Lady Helena.
“Yes, madam; and while one makes bread for the body, the other announces bread for the soul. In this respect they resemble each other.”
“Let us go to the mill,” replied Glenarvan.
They accordingly started. After half an hour’s walk the soil assumed a new aspect. The transition from barren plains to cultivated fields was sudden. Instead of brushwood, quick-set hedges surrounded an enclosure freshly ploughed. Some cattle, and half a dozen horses, grazed in pastures encircled by acacias. Then fields of corn were reached, several acres of land bristling with the yellow ears, haycocks like great beehives, vineyards with blooming enclosures, a beautiful garden, where the useful and the ornamental mingled; in short, a fair and comfortable locality, which the merry mill crowned with its pointed gable and caressed with the moving shadow of its sails.
At this moment a man of about fifty, of prepossessing countenance, issued from the principal house, at the barking of three great dogs that announced the coming of the strangers. Five stout and handsome boys, his sons, accompanied by their mother, a tall, robust woman, followed him. This man, surrounded by his healthful family, in the midst of these new erections, in this almost virgin country, presented the perfect type of the colonist, who, endeavoring to better his lot, seeks his fortune and happiness beyond the seas.
Glenarvan and his friends had not yet introduced themselves, they had not had time to declare either their names or their rank, when these cordial words saluted them:—
“Strangers, welcome to the house of Patrick O’Moore.”
“You are an Irishman?” said Glenarvan, taking the hand that the colonist offered him.
“I was,” replied Mr. O’Moore. “Now I am an Australian. But come in, whoever you are, gentlemen; this house is at your service.”
The invitation so hospitably given was accepted without ceremony. Lady Helena and Mary Grant, conducted by Mrs. O’Moore,
