CHAPTER XXIV.

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.