twenty-five minutes past nine when Nat Gibson, getting to his feet and looking toward land, took a few steps to port.
“A fire! There’s a fire!” he said.
“A fire?” repeated the shipowner.
“Yes, Mr. Hawkins.”
“And in what direction?”
“Toward the rock where I saw that man …”
“That’s right,” declared the captain.
“You see? I wasn’t mistaken,” Nat Gibson cried out.
A fire was burning in that direction, a wood fire that sent up good-sized flames in the middle of a thick swirling smoke.
“Gibson,” affirmed Mr. Hawkins, “it’s surely a signal for us.”
“No doubt about it!” responded the captain. “There are shipwrecked people on the island.”
Shipwrecked or whatever, human beings were surely asking for help, and how anxious they must have been, what fear they must have felt that the brig had already raised anchor! They had to reassure them, which was done in an instant.
“Nat,” he said, “take your gun and answer his signal.”
The young man returned to his quarters and came out with a rifle.
Three shots were then heard, and the shore sent their echoes back to the James Cook.
At the same time, one of the sailors waved a lantern three times,6 and it was hoisted to the top of the mizzenmast.
There was nothing further to do but await the return of dawn, and the James Cook would set out to make contact with this coast of Norfolk Island.
7
The Two Brothers
At daybreak, a dense fog covered the western horizon. The rocky shore of Norfolk Island could barely be distinguished. No doubt those mists would soon dissipate. The peak of Mount Pitt rose above the fog and was already bathed in the sun’s rays.
Moreover, the shipwrecked men were probably not worried. Although the brig was no doubt invisible to them, had they not heard during the night its signals in response to their own? The boat could not have left its mooring, and in an hour its launch would be sent to shore.
Before lowering the launch, however, Mr. Gibson preferred to wait, and with good reason, for the outcropping of land to emerge from the mist. That was where the fire had been lit, and that is where the abandoned men who called upon the James Cook for help would be found. Obviously they did not possess even a dugout canoe, for otherwise they would already have come aboard.
The breeze from the southeast was beginning to stiffen. A few clouds, reclining on the line between sea and sky, indicated that the wind would freshen during the morning. Without the reason that held him to his anchor, Mr. Gibson would have given orders to set sail.
A little before seven o’clock, the foot of the coral reef, along which foamed a whitish surf, stood out under the fog. Curls of vapor rolled by, and the outcropping of land emerged.
Nat Gibson, on top of the officer’s quarters, his spyglass to his eye, ran it up and down the shore. He was the first to cry out:
“He’s there … or rather, they are there!”
“Several men?” asked the shipowner.
“Two, Mr. Hawkins.”
The latter took the spyglass in his turn:
“Yes,” he said, “and they’re signaling to us, shaking a piece of canvas on the end of a stick!”
The spyglass passed into the captain’s hands, who confirmed the presence of two individuals standing on the boulders at the very end of the promontory. The fog, dissolved by this time, permitted them to see the men, even with the naked eye. That there were two as Nat Gibson had believed he saw the evening before, there could no longer be any doubt.
“Lower the launch!” commanded the captain.
And at the same time, by his order, Flig Balt hoisted the British flag to the top of the spanker in response to the signals.
If Mr. Gibson had said to prepare the big dinghy for launch, it was in case there was need of taking on more than two people. It was possible, indeed, that other castaways had taken shelter on the island, especially if they belonged to the crew of the Wilhelmina. There was even reason to hope that all had reached that shore after having abandoned the schooner.
The craft settled into the water; the captain and his son took their places in it, the former at the helm. Four sailors sat at the oars. Vin Mod was among them, and just as he was slipping over the gunwale he had made a gesture to the bosun that indicated his irritation.
The launch headed for the coral reef. The day before, while fishing along the reef, Nat Gibson had noticed a narrow opening that permitted passage through it. There would only be a distance of seven or eight cable lengths from there to the point.
In less than a half hour the craft reached the opening. They noticed the last puffs of smoke from the remains of the fire that had been kept up all night and beside which the two men were standing.
From the bow of the craft, Vin Mod turned around impatiently to see them, so much so that he interfered with the movement of the oars.
“Watch out you don’t go for a swim, Mod!” the captain called out to him. “You’ll have time to satisfy your curiosity when we land.”
“Yeah, the time!” muttered the sailor, who, out of rage, would have broken his oar.
The channel wound through the coral banks that would have been dangerous to approach. Those sharp ridges, as cutting as steel, would have wreaked havoc on the hull of their craft. So Mr. Gibson ordered the sailors to slow their pace. There was no difficulty, anyway, in reaching the outermost point of the promontory. The water, responding to the breeze from the sea, pushed the craft forward. A fair surf was foaming at the base of the rocks.
The captain and his son watched the two men. Hand in hand, unmoving, silent, they made no gesture, nor did they call out. When the craft turned to round the point, Vin Mod could see them easily.
One was perhaps thirty-five years old, the other a bit younger. Dressed in tatters, head bare, nothing suggested they were mariners. About the same size, they resembled each other enough to be taken for brothers, blond hair, unkempt beards. In any case, they were not Polynesian natives.
And then, even before they could disembark, when the captain and his son were still seated on the rear thwart, the older advanced to the end of the point and in English, but with an accent, cried out: “Thank you for coming to our rescue … Thank you!”
“Who are you?” asked Mr. Gibson as soon as they had pulled up on shore.
“Two Hollanders.”
“Shipwrecked?”
“Yes, shipwrecked from the
