in sight, Brown steered to the north-east, a course that brought him out, after twenty-four hours of toil, under the lee of the group of the reef.  This discovery of itself, filled Waally with exultation and pride.  Here were no cliffs to scale, no mysterious mountain to appal, nor any visible obstacle to oppose his conquests.  It is true, that the newly-discovered territory did not appear to be of much value, little beside naked rock, or broad fields of mud and sea-weed intermingled, rewarding their first researches.  But better things were hoped for.  It was something to men whose former domains were so much circumscribed and girded by the ocean, to find even a foundation for a new empire.  Brown was now consulted as to every step to be taken, and his advice was implicitly followed.  Columbus was scarcely a greater man, for the time being, at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, than Bill Brown immediately became at the court of Waally.  His words were received as prophecies, his opinions as oracles.

Honest Bill, who anticipated no more from his discoveries than the acquisition of certain portions of wood, iron, and copper, with, perhaps, the addition of a little rigging, certain sails and an anchor or two, acted, at first, for the best interests of his master.  He led the fleet along the margin of the group until a convenient harbour was found.  Into this all the canoes entered, and a sandy beach supplying fresh water in abundance having been found, an encampment was made for the night.  Several hours of daylight remaining, however, when these great preliminary steps had been taken, Brown proposed to Waally an exploring expedition in a couple of the handiest of the canoes.  The people thus employed were those who had given the alarm to the governor.  On that occasion, not only was the boat seen, but the explorers were near enough to the reef, to discover not only the crater, but the spars of the ship.  Here, then, was a discovery scarcely less important than that of the group itself!  After reasoning on the facts, Waally came to the conclusion that these, after all, were the territories that Heaton and his party had come to seek; and that here he should find those cows which he had once seen, and which he coveted more than any other riches on earth.  Ooroony had been weak enough to allow strangers in possession of things so valuable, to pass through his islands; but he, Waally, was not the man to imitate this folly.  Brown, too, began to think that the white men sought were to be found here.  That whites were in the group was plain enough by the ship, and he supposed they might be fishing for the pearl-oyster, or gathering beche-le-mar for the Canton market.  It was just possible that a colony had established itself in this unfrequented place, and that the party of which he had heard so much, had come hither with their stores and herds.  Not the smallest suspicion at first crossed his mind that he there beheld the spars of the Rancocus; but, it was enough for him