. By this time, Captain Underwood had ascended the ratlines to the fighting top to determine the layout of lands further south. He was some time up there, and many would have ascended the ratlines to him had he not said to wait on setting the sails as he wished to be undisturbed. Yet as Adrian had been talking to Dick at the time, he of course had not heard. As it was, most of the Plymouth crew was on the main deck waiting eagerly for the news. Adrian, however, had just so happened to climb the ratlines as Mr. Moore was passing around the last bits of breakfast, and so no one saw him as he climbed up past the lower top and disappeared from sight of the main deck, and so was soon near the fighting top where his father was standing, telescope in hand and scanning the distant lands of Africa.
. Then Adrian looked down to see the thick woods, looking less dense. He could not make out much, but he caught glimpses of streaming rivers and grassy meadows, and he thought he saw some sort of wild cat, though he wasn’t sure what kind. Fields lay behind the trees and extended into the horizon, and a herd of something grazed that way. They were too small to be distinguished. The Southern Moor was only about fifty yards from the coast, and the sea looked distant and small between ship and land.
. “Come up, Adrian,” said the captain softly.
. “May I look?” asked Adrian as he ascended the last few cross ropes of the ratlines and his head peeped over the platform. Then he hoisted himself over.
. The wind was blowing in Adrian’s hair as he again looked out toward the African coast, the mast swaying slightly with the ship. The sun was shining from the east behind some distant African mountains, piercing into the thick woods below them. It lit up the beach and shown upon the waters, casting a shadow of the ship that stretched to the mouth of the bay. To the general northward were the seas they had just been sailing, and to the general southward lay the sea they were yet to sail and the lands Captain Underwood was currently viewing with his glass. He wondered then, as he would for several days to follow, what was hidden within those deep woods.
. “I could use your pair of eyes,” said Captain Underwood. “Mr. Heath was right about the mountains, as you can see them yourself. But beyond them, within a distant mountain range, I have found another harbor.”
. “Is it Horne’s Inlet?” asked Adrian, eagerness in his voice.
. “The bay curves around the mountain,” said Underwood, “though there is something there in the waters. It may be a ship. Take a look,” handing Adrian the telescope. “Do you see anything?”
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Joshua Reynolds on Conservative Cornerstones – Author of Children’s Books, Young Adult, Historical Fiction / Family Stories – Finding Conservative Thought in Olde Books. Check out my Authoring Conservatism Post. Look up my two books, The Williams House and Treasure on the Southern Moor in my bookstore!
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