did her best. The wind was not very strong, yet it bore her along as fast as she was capable of going; no very great rate of speed, to be sure, yet fast enough to assure them, by sunset, that they were already far enough away from Sable Island to be out of the reach of danger; out of the grasp of its far-reaching arms, and in a pathway which brought them every moment nearer to a friendly shore.
CHAPTER V.
The wind continued fair, and during the following night the Antelope kept on her course. On the following day, by noon, they came within sight of land, and the distant coast-line running along the horizon showed them now what course they should take. Captain Corbet now headed her a few points farther to the west.
“I’m all right now,” said he. “Jest you let me see the Nova Scotia coast, and I’ll foller it. Here we go now, an our motter air, On’ard an up’ard.”
“Downward, rather than upward, is my motto,” said Bart; “for I’m bound to get to the bottom of the treasure of the buccaneers. At any rate we ought to find out the truth about it; for the saying is, that truth lies at the bottom of a well, and a money-hole isn’t very far different.”
“Do you think you can manage to find Mahone Bay, captain?” asked Bruce, with a very natural doubt about Captain Corbet’s capacity to find his way to a strange place.
“Wal,” said he, “’pears to me easy enough, with this here coast-line to guide us. You see all we’ve got to do is, to keep on along this here coast till we come to Halifax harbor. Wal, we don’t go in thar, but keep straight on. Wal, the next place is Margaret’s Bay. That’s easy enough; and then the next place is Mahone Bay. So you see it’s so plain that a child might guide his tender canoe in safety to such a place as that.”
“O, I dare say we’ll work our way sooner or later to Mahone Bay,” said Phil; “but what we are to do after we get there is a thing which, I confess, puzzles me a little.”
“O, we’ll hunt about for the island,” said Bart.
“Hunt about?” said Phil. “But how can we find it? Shall we ask people?”
“O, no,” said Bruce; “that would never do. It wouldn’t do at all to let a single soul know what we are after. They’d all follow us, and interfere with us. No; we’ve got to be very cautious.”
“That’s a fact,” said Tom; “we must keep dark.”
“O, I dare say,” said Phil; “but how can we find the island?”
“O, we’ll hunt it up,” said Bart.
“But how can we tell it from Adam, or from any other island?”
“Sure an that’s aisy enough,” said Pat. “We’re lookin for an island that’s got a hole inside of it; an if there’s a hole, sure we’ll know it by the heap it makes.”
“At any rate,” said Arthur, “we can look about, and if we can’t find any marks to guide us, why, then we can make inquiries among the people.”
With such vague plans as these, then, the boys looked forward to Mahone Bay, feeling that it was necessary to keep their purpose a profound secret, and yet not knowing how to find the island. They were unwilling to betray their errand by asking questions, and yet without asking how could they hope to learn anything? This was a difficulty which they all felt, and in the presence of it they could only conclude to be guided by circumstances.
A few days passed and the Antelope reached the entrance to Halifax harbor, which the bold captain recognized, not by any knowledge of his own, for he had never been here before; not by any chart or observation, for he did not own the former, and had not made the latter; but simply from seeing a steamer go up into the land towards a place where the sky was black with the smoke of bituminous coal. When he saw that, he said, “This is Halifax;” and, saying this, he felt secure of his position, and kept the vessel on due west.
It was morning when they passed Halifax. By noon they passed a broad bay, which they decided to be Margaret’s Bay. By evening they had reached another broad bay. At its mouth, and well out in the ocean, lay an island, with black and rocky sides, and wooded top. On sailing inside of this, they noticed that it was inhabited, and from this point of view showed houses and farms. A few miles farther on was another island, which was cultivated from one end to the other, and appeared to be thickly populated. Farther on there appeared other islands, and wooded shores, and cultivated fields, and high hills.
This, they felt sure, was their destination—Mahone Bay. The Antelope passed inside of the second island, and here dropped anchor.
It was yet more than an hour before sundown, and the boys went ashore upon the island nearest to make inquiries, not about the plunder of the Spanish Main, but merely of a general nature. The island was thickly inhabited, and on walking a short distance from the beach where they had left their boat, they found a road which seemed well travelled, and appeared to run from one end of the island to the other. In a little while an old man came along on an ox-cart, who bowed with a good-natured smile, and remarked that it was a fine evening. To this they assented.
“What’s the name of this island?” asked Bruce.
Upon being thus questioned, the old man stopped his oxen, and, looking around upon the young faces before him, he said,—
“What?”
“What’s the name of this island?”
“Tancook,” said the old man.
“Tancook?” repeated Bruce; “and what’s the name of that other one?”—pointing to the outer island, which they had first encountered.
“That thar?” said the old man, looking where Bruce pointed,—”that thar? Why, we call that thar island by the name of Ironbound.”,
It was a fine name, a sonorous and at the same time an appropriate name, and deeply impressed the boys.
“Fine farming country this,” said Bruce, once more plunging into the conversation.
“Wal, pooty so so,” said the old man. “We ain’t got no reason to complain; though, what with diphthery, an sich, it’s mighty hard on children.”
“A good many people here, apparently,” continued Bruce, in a lively key.
“Wal, pooty tol’ble,” said the old man; “’bout a hundred families on this here.”
“Farmers or fishermen?” asked Bruce.
“Wal, a leetle of the one, an a leetle of the tother.”
“You’ve got a church here too,” continued Bruce.
“Yas—a meetin-house.”
“What persuasion is that meeting-house?” asked Bruce, in an anxious tone of voice, as though the fortunes of the whole party depended on the answer.
“Wal, mostly Baptist,” said the old man, “though not all. Were kine o’ cut off, an live mostly to ourselves. But Tancook ain’t sich a bad place, arter all, and we manage to grub along.”
“It’s a fine bay around here,” said Bruce, with a grand, patronizing sweep of his right arm, which seemed meant to include all creation.
“Yas,” said the old man; “there ain’t nothin like it nowhar. We’ve got three hundred and sixty-five islands, of all shapes an sizes, in this here bay—one for every day in the year. This here’s the biggest, an the smallest isn’t more than a yard long. Yas, it’s a fine bay, an a great harbor.”
“Three hundred and sixty-five islands!” exclaimed Bruce, in a tone of surprise. “Is it possible? And one for every day in the year! How extraordinary! But is there really that exact number, or is it only fancy?”
“Really an truly,” said the old man, with whom this was evidently the deepest conviction of his mind. “O, yas, thar’s no mistake or doubt about it. They’ve all been counted, over an over; yas, over an over—over