spot which had been selected. The towering walls of rock were rugged
with ledges, spurs, and indentations, where sea-birds in myriads gave
life to the scene, and awakened millions of echoes to their plaintive
cries. There was a pleasant appearance of sociability about the birds
which was powerfully attractive. Even Nehow, accustomed as he was to
such scenes, appeared to be impressed. The middy and the botanist were
excited. As for Sally, she was in ecstasies, and the baby seemed lost
in the profoundest fit of wonder he had experienced since the day of his
birth.

"Oh, Challie," exclaimed his nurse in a burst of laughter, "what a face
you's got! Jis' like de fig'r'ead o' the _Bounty_." (Sall quoted
here!) "Ain't they bootiful birds?"

She effectually prevented reply, even if such had been intended, by
suddenly seizing her little charge round the neck and kissing his right
eye passionately. Master Charlie cared nothing for that. He gazed past
her at the gulls with the unobliterated eye. When she kissed him on the
left cheek, he gazed past her at the gulls with the other eye. When she
let him go, he continued to gaze at the gulls with both eyes. He had
often seen the same gulls at a distance, from the lower level of Bounty
Bay, but he had never before stood on their own giddy cliffs, and
watched them from their own favourite bird's-eye-view point; for there
were thousands of them sloping, diving, and wheeling in the airy abyss,
pictured against the dark blue sea below, as well as thousands more
circling upwards, floating and gyrating in the bright blue sky above.
It seemed as if giant snowflakes were trembling in the air in all
directions. Some of the gulls came so near to those who watched them
that their black inquiring eyes became distinctly visible; others swept
towards them with rustling wings, as if intending to strike, and then
glanced sharply off, or upwards, with wild cries.

"Wouldn't it be fun to have wings?" asked Brown of Sally, as she stood
there open-mouthed and eyed.

"Oh, _wouldn't_ it?"

"If I had wings," said Young, with a touch of sadness in his tone, "I'd
steer a straight course through the air for Old England."

"I didn't know you had such a strong desire to be hanged," said Brown.

"They'd never hang me," returned Young. "I'm innocent of the crime of
mutiny, and Captain Bligh knows it."

"Bligh would be but a broken reed to lean on," rejoined Brown, with a
shrug of contempt.