You’ll suppose I gazed with passionate interest. There before me, large in the lenses of the telescope, lay my new home. I wondered which of the cottages might fall to Tom and me--whether we should have to build for ourselves. How was life spent upon that island? How did the slender community occupy and amuse themselves? Tom had talked to me of farming, seal-hunting, fishing, cultivating fruit-trees in the sunny and sleepy hollows of the several little craters. But surely the days were peaceful and to be happily spent; and if that lovely island did but give Tom the safety and heart-ease I prayed for, I’d be willing to pass my whole life upon it, and share a grave in it with my dear one. Thus ran my thoughts whilst I looked. I put the telescope in Tom’s hand again; he eyed me inquiringly and anxiously. I answered his look by saying, ‘It is beautiful and calm and grand; I can imagine no spot I would choose before it.’ When we were come within two miles of the shore, the brig’s topsail was backed and her light sails furled; by the time this was done I, who had secured the helm and gone to the deck-house top to take another view of the lava-coloured swelling places, spied a white boat making for us; by help of the glass I counted four men in her. She came along quickly. We went to the gangway to receive the boat, and Will stood by with a line. Tom, looking through the telescope, exclaimed, ‘The corporal’s not one of them! I believe I recollect the stroke oar--it’s Peter Green, a Dutchman.’ ‘The corporal may be dead,’ said I. ‘It will not matter,’ he answered. The white whale-boat swept alongside; the coil of line flung by Will was caught; three of the fellows scrambled aboard by way of the main-chains, and the fourth followed quickly after thrusting the boat, secured by the line, clear of the brig. Three of them were elderly men, and one middle-aged; they were dressed in large grass hats, blue jackets, and two of them in trousers of a fearnought. Tom stepped up to the man that had pulled stroke, and, giving his hand, said: ‘You’re Peter Green. Do you remember me?’ The fellow had an old homely Dutch face, withered by the wear of weather, the smallest eyes I ever saw in a man, lodged deep in mere gimlet-holes under the grey and white of his shaggy brows. I was pleased, however, by his look of simple kindness and good-nature. He stared with a wrinkled, smiling face at Tom, and said, ‘Yaw, we hov met; vhas it on dot island?’ Tom named the date of his visit, the ship, and was recalling one or two incidents, when Peter Green again shook hands: ‘To be sure! I remembers you now. And how vhas you, sir, after all dis time?’ and he cast his little eyes around the decks as though in search of the crew. ‘Dis vhas your lady, I expect?’ said he, looking at me and touching his hat. Tom slightly inclined his head and said: ‘This is Mr. Bates, chief mate, and yonder young gentleman, Mr. Johnstone, this lady’s cousin.’