ng.

However, the wind still remained in the same quarter, blowing steadily
from the south-east, which made it calm where the _Pilot's Bride_ was
lying--Captain Brown from previous experience knowing the safest berth
to take up--so she did not have to shift her berth. When morning broke,
too, the brothers had a better view of the place than on the evening
before; for then, only a hasty peep at it could be obtained before it
was hidden by night.

The small bay in which the ship was moored opened to the westward; and,
on the right, a slope of rough pasture land, about a quarter of a mile
in width, ran up from the beach to an almost precipitous wall of rock, a
thousand feet or more in height--although a sort of misty vapour hung
over it, which prevented Fritz from gauging its right altitude. On the
left-hand side, the wall of rock came sheer down into the sea, leaving
only a few yards of narrow shingle, on which the surf noisily broke. A
stream leaped down from the high ground, nearly opposite the vessel, and
the low fall with which it tumbled into the bay at this point indicated
that there would be found the best landing-place, an opinion which
Captain Brown confirmed as soon as he came on deck.

"I guess, though," said the skipper, pointing out a red flag which Fritz
could notice just being hoisted on one of the cottage chimneys in the
distance, "we needn't hurry 'bout launchin' a boat, fur some o' them
islanders are comin' off to pay us a visit an' will take you ashore.
Thet's their signal for communicatin' with any vessel thet calls in
here. Run up our ensign, Mr Dort," he added to Eric, who stood at his
station on the lee side of the mizzen mast; "an' tell 'em to fire the
gun forrud, jest to give 'em a kinder sort o' salute, you know. Uncle
Sam likes to do the civil, the same as other men-o'-war when they goes
to foreign ports!"

These orders were obeyed; and no sooner were the "Stars and Stripes" run
up to the masthead and the report of the little gun on the topgallant
fo'c's'le heard reverberating through the distant mountain tops--the
sound of the discharge being caught up and echoed between the narrow
arms of the bay--than a smart whale-boat, pulled by eight men and with a
white-bearded, venerable-looking individual seated in the stern-sheets,
was seen coming out from the very spot which Fritz had determined to be
the landing-place.

They were soon alongside the _Pilot's Bride_; when the old man--who
in