“At last they in an island did espy
  A seemly woman sitting by the shore,
  That with great sorrow and sad agony
  Seemed some great misfortune to deplore;
  And loud to them for succor called evermore.”

  “Black his eye as the midnight sky. 
  White his neck as the driven snow,
  Red his cheek as the morning light;—­
  Cold he lies in the ground below. 
        My love is dead,
        Gone to his death-bed, ys
  All under the cactus tree.”

  “Each lonely scene shall thee restore,
  For thee the tear be duly shed;
  Belov’d till life can charm no more,
  And mourned till Pity’s self be dead.”

Far to the northeast of Charles’s Isle, sequestered from the rest, lies Norfolk Isle; and, however insignificant to most voyagers, to me, through sympathy, that lone island has become a spot made sacred by the strangest trials of humanity.

It was my first visit to the Encantadas.  Two days had been spent ashore in hunting tortoises.  There was not time to capture many; so on the third afternoon we loosed our sails.  We were just in the act of getting under way, the uprooted anchor yet suspended and invisibly swaying beneath the wave, as the good ship gradually turned her heel to leave the isle behind, when the seaman who heaved with me at the windlass paused suddenly, and directed my attention to something moving on the land, not along the beach, but somewhat back, fluttering from a height.

In view of the sequel of this little story, be it here narrated how it came to pass, that an object which partly from its being so small was quite lost to every other man on board, still caught the eye of my handspike companion.  The rest of the crew, myself included, merely stood up to our spikes in heaving, whereas, unwontedly exhilarated, at every turn of the ponderous windlass, my belted comrade leaped atop of it, with might and main giving a downward, thewey, perpendicular heave, his raised eye bent in cheery animation upon the slowly receding shore.  Being high lifted above all others was the reason he perceived the object, otherwise unperceivable; and this elevation of his eye was owing to the elevation of his spirits; and this again—­for truth must out—­to a dram of Peruvian pisco, in guerdon for some kindness done, secretly administered to him that morning by our mulatto steward.  Now, certainly, pisco does a deal of mischief in the world; yet seeing that, in the present case, it was the means, though indirect, of rescuing a human being from the most dreadful fate, must we not also needs admit that sometimes pisco does a deal of good?

Glancing across the water in the direction pointed out, I saw some white thing hanging from an inland rock, perhaps half a mile from the sea.

“It is a bird; a white-winged bird; perhaps a—­no; it is—­it is a handkerchief!”

“Ay, a handkerchief!” echoed my comrade, and with a louder shout apprised the captain.