In the mean time, Juno came confidingly on, shaping her course rather more to windward than usual even, on account of the lightness of the breeze.  This effectually prevented her seeing or being seen from the canoes; the parties diagonally drawing nearer, in utter ignorance of each other’s existence.  As for Unus, he manoeuvred quite skilfully.  After getting a couple of miles off the land, he swam directly to windward; and it was well he did, the course of the boat barely permitting his getting well on her weather-bow, when it was time to think of boarding.

Unus displayed great judgment in this critical part of the affair.  So accurately did he measure distances, that he got alongside of the Dido, with his hand on her weather gunwale, without Juno’s having the least idea that he was anywhere near her.  At one effort he was in the boat; and while the girl was still uttering her scream of alarm, he stood holding out the note, pronouncing the word “Missus” as well as he could.  The girl had acquired too much knowledge of the habits of the South Sea islanders, while passing through and sojourning in the different groups she had visited, to be overwhelmed with the occurrence.  What is more, she recognised the young Indian at a glance; some passages of gallantry having actually taken place between them during the two months Heaton and his party remained among Ooroony’s people.  To be frank with the reader, the first impression of Juno was, that the note thus tendered to her was a love-letter, though its contents instantly undeceived her.  The exclamation and changed manner of the girl told Unus that all was right; and he went quietly to work to take in the sail, as the most effectual method of concealing the presence of the boat from the thousand hostile and searching eyes in the canoes.  The moment Mark saw the canvas come in, he cried out ‘all is well,’ and descended swiftly from the Peak, to hasten to a point where he could give the necessary attentions to the movements of Waally and his fleet.

Chapter XVII.

    “Ho! strike the flag-staff deep, Sir Knight,—­
      Ho! scatter flowers, fair maids,—­
     Ho! gunners fire a loud salute—­
      Ho! gallants, draw your blades;—­”

    Macaulay.

So much time had passed in the execution of the plan of Unus, that the canoes were close under the cliffs, when the governor and his party reached the wood that fringed their summits, directly over the northern end of their line.  Even this extremity of their formation was a mile or two to leeward of the cove, and all the craft, catamarans included, were drifting still further south, under the influence of the current.  So long as this state of things continued, there was nothing for the colonists to apprehend, since they knew landing at any other spot than the cove was out of the question.  The strictest orders had been given for every one to keep concealed, a task that was by no means difficult, the whole plain being environed with woods, and its elevation more than a thousand feet above the sea.  In short, nothing but a wanton exposure of the person, could render it possible for one on the water to get a glimpse of another on the heights above him.