ng the isle Hunilla gained the
high land in the centre, she must then for the first have perceived our
masts, and also marked that their sails were being loosed, perhaps even
heard the echoing chorus of the windlass song. The strange ship was
about to sail, and she behind. With all haste she now descends the
height on the hither side, but soon loses sight of the ship among the
sunken jungles at the mountain's base. She struggles on through the
withered branches, which seek at every step to bar her path, till she
comes to the isolated rock, still some way from the water. This she
climbs, to reassure herself. The ship is still in plainest sight. But
now, worn out with over tension, Hunilla all but faints; she fears to
step down from her giddy perch; she is fain to pause, there where she
is, and as a last resort catches the turban from her head, unfurls and
waves it over the jungles towards us.

During the telling of her story the mariners formed a voiceless circle
round Hunilla and the Captain; and when at length the word was given to
man the fastest boat, and pull round to the isle's thither side, to
bring away Hunilla's chest and the tortoise-oil, such alacrity of both
cheery and sad obedience seldom before was seen. Little ado was made.
Already the anchor had been recommitted to the bottom, and the ship
swung calmly to it.

But Hunilla insisted upon accompanying the boat as indispensable pilot
to her hidden hut. So being refreshed with the best the steward could
supply, she started with us. Nor did ever any wife of the most famous
admiral, in her husband's barge, receive more silent reverence of
respect than poor Hunilla from this boat's crew.

Rounding many a vitreous cape and bluff, in two hours' time we shot
inside the fatal reef; wound into a secret cove, looked up along a green
many-gabled lava wall, and saw the island's solitary dwelling.

It hung upon an impending cliff, sheltered on two sides by tangled
thickets, and half-screened from view in front by juttings of the rude
stairway, which climbed the precipice from the sea. Built of canes, it
was thatched with long, mildewed grass. It seemed an abandoned hay-rick,
whose haymakers were now no more. The roof inclined but one way; the
eaves coming to within two feet of the ground. And here was a simple
apparatus to collect the dews, or rather doubly-distilled and finest
winnowed rains, which, in mercy or in mockery, the night-skies sometimes
drop upon these bl