I made it out myself from the
masthead, and I got enough way upon her in good time to keep her off. I
ordered a boat to be lowered and manned, and went in that boat myself to
explore the island. There was a reef outside it, and, floating in a
corner of the smooth water within the reef, was a heap of sea-weed, and
entangled in that sea-weed was this bottle."
Here the captain took his hand from the bottle for a moment, that the
young fisherman might direct a wondering glance at it; and then replaced
his band and went on:--
"If ever you come--or even if ever you don't come--to a desert place, use
you your eyes and your spy-glass well; for the smallest thing you see may
prove of use to you; and may have some information or some warning in it.
That's the principle on which I came to see this bottle. I picked up the
bottle and ran the boat alongside the island, and made fast and went
ashore armed, with a part of my boat's crew. We found that every scrap
of vegetation on the island (I give it you as my opinion, but scant and
scrubby at the best of times) had been consumed by fire.
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