A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed BeforeDefoe, Daniel
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A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before
Defoe, Daniel
Adventure stories; Voyages around the world -- Fiction
Upon this, they made to the first rising ground they could come at, and
there they encamped, and at night fired some rockets, and after the
third rocket was fired, they, to their great joy, saw two rockets rise
up from the westward, and soon after that a third; and in two days more
they all joyfully met.
We had been here, as I have said, impatiently expecting them a great
while; but, at last, the man at the main-top, who was ordered to look
out, called aloud to us below, that he saw a flash of fire; and
immediately, the men looking to landward, they saw two rockets rise up
in the air at a great distance, which we answered by firing three
rockets again, and they returned by one rocket, to signify that they saw
our men's signal.
This was a joyful exchange of distant language to both sides; but I was
not there, for, being impatient, I had put out and sailed about ten
leagues farther; but our ship fired three guns to give me notice, which,
however, we heard not, and yet we knew they fired too; for, it being in
the night, our men, who were very attentive with their eyes, as well as
ears, saw plainly the three flashes of the guns, though they could not
hear the report, the wind being contrary.
This was such certain intelligence to me, and I was so impatient to know
how things went, that, having also a small gale of wind, I weighed
immediately, and stood back again to our other ship; it was not,
however, till the second day after we weighed that we came up to them,
having little or no wind all the first day; the next day in the morning
they spied us, and fired the three guns again, being the signal that
they had got news of our friends.
Nothing could be more to my satisfaction than to hear that they had got
news, and it was as much to their satisfaction as to ours to be sure, I
mean our little army; for if any disaster had happened to us, they had
been in a very odd condition; and though they might have found means to
subsist, yet they would have been out of all hope of ever returning to
their own country.
Upon the signal I stood into the bay, and came to an anchor at about a
league to the northward of our other ship, and as far from the shore,
and, as it were, in the mouth of the river, waiting for another signal
from our men, by which, we might judge which side of the river to go
ashore at, and might take some proper measures to come at them.
About five o'clock in the evening, our eyes being all up in the air, and
towards the hills, for the appointed signals, beheld, to our great
surprise, a canoe come rowing to us out of the mouth of the river.
Immediately we went to work with our perspective glasses; one said it
was one thing, and one said it was another, until I fetched a large
telescope out of the cabin, and with that I could easily see they were
my own men, and it was to our inexpressible satisfaction that they soon
after came directly on board.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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