Here a long examination of the plain, beyond the
bank that hid it from the view of all beneath, succeeded, and then the
signal to come on was made to those who were still in the boat.
"Shall we venture?" cried Paul Blunt, soliciting an assent by the very
manner in which he put the question.
"What say you, dear father?"
"I hope we may not yet be too late to succour some Christian in distress,
my child. Take the tiller, Mr. Blunt, and in Heaven's good name, and for
humanity's sake, let us proceed!"
The boat advanced, Paul Blunt standing erect to steer, his ardour to
proceed corrected by apprehensions on account of her precious freight.
There was an instant when the ladies trembled, for it seemed as if the
light boat was about to be cast upon the shore, like the froth of the sea
that shot past them; but the steady hand of him who steered averted the
danger, and in another minute they were floating at the side of the
jolly-boat. The ladies got ashore without much difficulty, and stood on
the summit of the rocks.
"Nous voici donc, en Afrique," exclaimed Mademoiselle Viefville, with that
sensation of singularity that comes over all when they first find
themselves in situations of extraordinary novelty.
"The wreck--the wreck," murmured Eve; "let us go to the wreck.
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