.

The ship anchored and took in coal, which was furnished at a wickedly
high price by Mr. Joshua Fullalove, who had virtually purchased the
island from Chili, having got it on lease for longer than the earth
itself is to last, we hear.

And now Rolleston found the value of Wardlaw's loan; it enabled him to
prosecute his search through the whole group of islands; and he did hear
at last of three persons who had been wrecked on Masa Fuero; one of them
a female. He followed this up, and at last discovered the parties. He
found them to be Spaniards, and the woman smoking a pipe.

After this bitter disappointment he went back to the ship, and she was to
weigh her anchor next morning.

But, while General Rolleston was at Mesa Fuero, a small coasting vessel
had come in, and brought a strange report at second-hand, that in some
degree unsettled Captain Moreland's mind; and, being hotly discussed on
the forecastle, set the ship's company in a ferment.

CHAPTER XLII.

HAZEL had risen an hour before dawn for reasons well known to himself. He
put on his worst clothes, and a leathern belt, his little bags round his
neck, and took his bundle of rushes in his hand. He also provided himself
with some pieces of raw fish and fresh oyster; and, thus equipped, went
up through Terrapin Wood, and got to the neighborhood of the lagoon
before daybreak.

There was a heavy steam on the water, and nothing else to be seen. He put
the hoop over his head, and walked into the water, not without an
internal shudder, it looked so cold.

But instead of that, it was very warm, unaccountably warm. He walked in
up to his middle, and tied his iron hoop to his belt, so as to prevent it
sinking too deep. This done, he waited motionless, and seemed a little
bed of rushes. The sun rose, and the steam gradually cleared away, and
Hazel, peering through a hole or two he had made expressly in his bed of
rushes, saw several ducks floating about, and one in particular, all
purple, without a speck but his amber eye. He contrived to detach a piece
of fish, that soon floated to the surface near him. But no duck moved
toward it. He tried another, and another; then a mallard he had not
observed swam up from behind him, and was soon busy pecking at it within
a yard of him. His heart beat; he glided slowly and cautiously forward
till the bird was close to the rushes.

Hazel stretched out his hand with the utmost care, caught hold of the
bird's feet, and drag