Читать книгу The Blue Lagoon & The Garden of God (Sequel) онлайн

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As they gazed it grew before them, and shifted still more to the right. It was hilly and green now, though the trees could not be clearly made out; here, the green was lighter in colour, and there, darker. A rim of pure white marble seemed to surround its base. It was foam breaking on the barrier reef.

In another hour the feathery foliage of the cocoa-nut palms could be made out, and the old sailor judged it time to take to the boat.

He lifted Emmeline, who was clasping her luggage, over the rail on to the channel, and deposited her in the stern-sheets; then Dick.

In a moment the boat was adrift, the mast stepped, and the Shenandoah left to pursue her mysterious voyage at the will of the currents of the sea.

“You’re not going to the island, Paddy,” cried Dick, as the old man put the boat on the port tack.

“You be aisy,” replied the other, “and don’t be larnin’ your gran’mother. How the divil d’ye think I’d fetch the land sailin’ dead in the wind’s eye?”

“Has the wind eyes?”

Mr Button did not answer the question. He was troubled in his mind. What if the island were inhabited? He had spent several years in the South Seas. He knew the people of the Marquesas and Samoa, and liked them. But here he was out of his bearings.