minutes more, and the rainbows of the
West were gone; emerald and topaz, amethyst and ruby, had faded into
silver-gray; and overhead, through the dark sapphire depths, the Moon
and Venus reigned above the sea.

"That should be Barbados, your worship," said Drew, the master; "unless
my reckoning is far out, which, Heaven knows, it has no right to be,
after such a passage, and God be praised."

"Barbados? I never heard of it."

"Very like, sir: but Yeo and I were here with Captain Drake, and I was
here after, too, with poor Captain Barlow; and there is good harborage
to the south and west of it, I remember."

"And neither Spaniard, cannibal, or other evil beast," said Yeo. "A very
garden of the Lord, sir, hid away in the seas, for an inheritance to
those who love Him. I heard Captain Drake talk of planting it, if ever
he had a chance."

"I recollect now," said Amyas, "some talk between him and poor Sir
Humphrey about an island here. Would God he had gone thither instead of
to Newfoundland!"

"Nay, then," said Yeo, "he is in bliss now with the Lord; and you would
not have kept him from that, sir?"

"He would have waited as willingly as he went, if he could have served
his queen thereby. But what say you, my masters? How can we do better
than to spend a few days here, to get our sick round, before we make the
Main, and set to our work?"

All approved the counsel except Frank, who was silent.

"Come, fellow-adventurer," said Cary, "we must have your voice too."

"To my impatience, Will," said he, aside in a low voice, "there is but
one place on earth, and I am all day longing for wings to fly thither:
but the counsel is right. I approve it."

So the verdict was announced, and received with a hearty cheer by the
crew; and long before morning they had run along the southern shore of
the island, and were feeling their way into the bay where Bridgetown now
stands. All eyes were eagerly fixed on the low wooded hills which slept
in the moonlight, spangled by fireflies, with a million dancing stars;
all nostrils drank greedily the fragrant air, which swept from the land,
laden with the scent of a thousand flowers; all ears welcomed, as a
grateful change from the monotonous whisper and lap of the water, the
hum of insects, the snore of the tree-toads, the plaintive notes of the
shore-fowl, which fill a tropic night with noisy life.

At last she stopped; at last the cable rattled through the hawsehole;
and then, carel