Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/174

A LIGHT seen in the middle watch gave warning of an unexpected landfall, and calling up the Old One, who had a store of knowledge gained by much cruising in those seas, they lay off and on until dawn, when they made out an island of the Bahamas. It seemed, since by their reckoning they were still a day’s sail from land, that there was some small fault in their instruments; but to this they gave little heed, and which island it was and what occasioned the light they never knew, though some ventured one guess and some another as they bore past it and lifted isle beyond isle. For two days, with the Old One conning the ship, they worked their way among the islands, and thus at last they came to a deep bay set among hills, which offered a commodious and safe anchorage, notwithstanding that on the point that guarded the bay there was the wreck of a tall ship.

In the shallop they had taken from the fishing pink, the Old One and Jacob, with four men to row them, went out to the wreck and returned well pleased with what they had found.

“God is good to us,” cried the Old One, perceiving that Harry Malcolm waited at the waist for their coming. “Though her foremast and mainmast be sprung, yet her mizzen is sound as a nut.”

“And is it to be fetched out of her unharmed?”