wrote it little thought of the miserable fate that awaited her beloved in
this remote desert.

As nothing else was visible, the party returned hastily to the beach,
where they found that Captain Truck had ended his investigation, and was
impatient to return. In the interest of the scene the Montauk had
disappeared behind a headland, towards which she had been drifting when
they left her. Her absence created a general sense of loneliness, and the
whole party hastened into the jolly-boat, as if fearful of being left.
When without the bar again, the cutter took in her proper crew, and the
boats pulled away, leaving the Dane standing on the beach in his solitary
desolation--a monument of his own disaster.

As they got further from the land the Montauk came in sight again, and
Captain Truck announced the agreeable intelligence that the jury mainmast
was up, and that the ship had after-sail set, diminutive and defective as
it might be. Instead of heading to the southward, however, as heretofore,
Mr. Leach was apparently endeavouring to get back again to the northward
of the headland that had shut in the ship, or was trying to retrace his
steps. Mr. Truck rightly judged that this was proof his mate disliked the
appearance of the coast astern of him, and that he was anxious to get an
offing. The captain in consequence urged his men to row, and in little
more than an hour the whole party were on the deck of the Montauk again,
and the boats were hanging at the davits.




Chapter XVII.