The first step was to apprise the people at the Reef of the proximity of these dangerous neighbours.  As the boat was doubtless seen, its sails rising above the land, there was no motive in changing its course, or for attempting to conceal it.  The crater, ship and schooner on the stocks, were all in sight of the savages at that moment, though not less than two leagues distant, where they doubtless appeared indistinct and confused.  The ship might produce an influence in one or two ways.  It might inflame the cupidity of Waally, under the hope of possessing so much treasure, and tempt him on to hasten his assault; or it might intimidate him by its imagined force, vessels rarely visiting the islands of the Pacific without being prepared to defend themselves.  The savages would not be likely to comprehend the true condition of the vessel, but would naturally suppose that she had a full crew, and possessed the usual means of annoying her enemies.  All this occurred to the governor in the first five minutes after his discovery, while his boat was gliding onwards towards her haven.

Bridget behaved admirably.  She trembled a little at first, and pressed her child to her bosom with more than the usual warmth, but her self-command was soon regained, and from that instant, Mark found in her a quick, ingenious, and useful assistant and counsellor.  Her faculties and courage seemed to increase with the danger, and so far from proving an encumbrance, as might naturally enough have been expected, she was not only out of the way, as respects impediments, but she soon became of real use, and directed the movements of the females with almost as much skill and decision as Mark directed those of their husbands.

The boat did not reach the Reef until dusk, or for an hour after the savages had been seen.  The colonists had just left their work, and the evening being cool and refreshing after a warm summer’s day, they were taking their suppers under a tent or awning, at no great distance from the ship-yard, when the governor joined them.  This tent, or awning, had been erected for such purposes, and had several advantages to recommend it.  It stood quite near the beach of the spring, and cool fresh water was always at hand.  It had a carpet of velvet-like grass, too, a rare thins for the Reef, on the outside of the crater.  But, there were cavities on its surface, in which foreign substances had collected, and this was one of them.  Sea-weed, loam, dead fish, and rain-water had made a thin soil on about an acre of rocks at this spot, and the rain constantly assisting vegetation, the grass-seed had taken root there, and this being its second season, Betts had found the sward already sufficient for his purposes, and caused an awning to be spread, converting the grass into a carpet.  There might now have been a dozen similar places on the reef, so many oases in its desert, where soil had formed and grass was growing.  No one doubted that, in time and with care, those, then living might see most of those naked rocks clothed with verdure, for the progress of vegetation in such a climate, favoured by those accidental causes which seemed to prevent that particular region from ever suffering by droughts, is almost magical, and might convert a wilderness into a garden in the course of a very few years.