On the following morning—Friday, 14th—we tacked to the north of Southwest Bay, and found that, though there was more surf than on the previous day, landing was feasible. The boat went off under the doctor’s charge, and the tents and all the remaining stores were brought safely on board. Nothing of any value was left; we not only carried off our own tools, but also the picks that had been used by Mr. A⸺’s expedition. Only broken wheelbarrows and suchlike useless articles remained in the ravine. From the vessel the only sign of our late camp that could be seen was Powell’s disabled armchair, which he had left standing, a melancholy object, on the top of the beach.
We stowed the heavier tools and stores under the saloon floor and then sailed again to the cascade. The whaleboat went off to the pier and a quantity of water was brought on board, so that we had a sufficient supply—but not much to spare—for the voyage we now contemplated.
When the watering-party returned we had done with Trinidad; so both boats were hoisted on deck, and a melancholy ceremony was performed: our very ancient dinghy, which was too rotten to bear any further patching, and was not worth the room she used to take up on deck, was broken up and handed over to the cook as firewood.
A tot of rum was served out to each hand, we bade farewell to Trinidad, the foresail was allowed to draw, and we sailed away.
It had long since been decided that, whether the treasure was discovered or not, we should sail from our desert island to its wealthy namesake, Trinidad in the West Indies—a very different sort of a place. The distance between the two Trinidads is, roughly, 2,900 miles; but we knew that the voyage before us was not likely to be a lengthy one, for everything is in favour of a vessel bound the way we were going. In the first place, it was very unlikely that we should encounter head winds between our islet and Cape St. Roque, and from that point we should most probably have the wind right aft for the rest of the way, as the trade-winds blow regularly along the coasts of north Brazil and the Guianas. In the next place, by sailing at a certain distance from the land, we could keep our vessel in the full strength of the south equatorial current, which runs at the rate of two or three miles an hour in the direction of our course. We had, it is true, to cross the line once more, with its belt of doldrums; but we knew that we should not be much delayed by these tedious equatorial calms, as they do not prevail on the coast of Brazil to anything like the extent they do in mid-Atlantic; besides which, the favourable current would be carrying us along with it across the belt, and enable us to travel fifty miles or so a day, even in a flat calm.
This kindly current would, indeed, carry us straight to our port, for it sweeps through the Gulf of Paria as well as by the east side of Trinidad, and, as every schoolboy knows in these enlightened days, thence flows round the Caribbean Sea and ultimately emerges from it under another and better-known title—the Gulf Stream.
With the old Falcon I had sailed over a portion of this route, accomplishing the voyage from Pernambuco to Georgetown, Demerara—a distance of about 2,000 miles—in ten days, thus keeping up an average of 200 miles a day. At this rate the Alerte ought to get to Trinidad in fifteen days; but we were not fated to have such luck as that.
XXII
Homeward Bound
We had bidden farewell to the wild spot that had been our home for three months, but we did not lose sight of Trinidad for upwards of thirty hours.
We had got underway at sunset on February 14. A slight draught from the hills carried us a mile or so outside North Point, when we were becalmed and made no progress at all for many hours; and when at last the northeast breeze sprang up, it was so very light that at eight on the following morning the island was not more than twelve miles astern of us.
Throughout the day calms and light airs succeeded to each other, and at sunset the high peaks were still visible. The same weather continued during our second night at sea, and at daybreak on February 16, we could just distinguish one faint blue mountain summit behind us, the rest of the islet being below the horizon. But the wind now freshened and all signs of the land soon disappeared, and once again there was nothing to be seen round us but ocean.
It was evident that we were not to be favoured with the smart voyage I had anticipated. We had fair winds, it is true, and a fair current, but it was rare that we had fresh breezes, while long spells of calm were frequent, so that we did not double Cape St. Roque till February 22.
Our best day’s run up to this point was on the 19th, when we made 182 miles in the twenty-four hours—nothing much to boast of, seeing that the difference between our distance, according to our dead reckoning and that calculated by observation of the sun, showed that we had a two-knot current under us all the while.
At 9 a.m. on February 22, having passed between Cape St. Roque and the
