Lord Robert Summers, daring and ardent, and much preferring danger to the lingering agonies of thirst, volunteered to command a boat, if any of the crew would venture themselves under his guidance. Three of the most experienced seamen offered to man the boat; but five hands were indispensable. His Lordship said that he himself would steer the boat, if one more seaman would venture. Philip Harley volunteered his assistance. "Any one but him!" muttered Lord Robert between his shut teeth, incensed that Philip should show that his courage was equal to his own: however, as his services were offered for the public good, he thought proper, although very unwillingly and ungraciously, to accept them, and the boat was lowered. Sir Henry Stanley bade adieu to his gallant nephew with pain; but he did not attempt to withhold him, dear as he was, from the benefit he was proposing to render the ship's company. When the boat got among the breakers, the prospect of landing appeared so hazardous, that one of the oldest of the seamen, who rowed the boat, proposed returning to the ship. Lord Robert, considering himself accountable for the lives of the men under his care, would not insist on their continuing their efforts, but said: "My brave fellows! If the attempt seem to you hopeless, I will not urge you to continue it; but if my single life only were at stake I would willingly risk it to obtain a supply of water for our famishing companions." The sailors then determined to persevere, their recent sufferings from thirst being fresh in their minds. At length, by a desperate effort, they gained the shore, and landed their water-casks. They soon found a pure spring, which gushed from a rocky hill at some little distance from the shore: there was a large wooden cross erected on an eminence, at the spring head; but they found no Portuguese guard at the spring, which is usual in a settlement in those latitudes; so they presumed the island was uninhabited. The land seemed barren, rocky, and desolate; but, after some research, they found, in a sheltered valley, a few fine lime and cocoa-nut trees, which had evidently been planted by some beneficent navigator. Gathering cocoa-nuts is no very easy operation, as they adhere in close bunches to the crown of the tree by tough ligaments; but as young Harley had brought his axe and saw to cut wood for firing, he climbed the trees, while his comrades were filling the water-casks, and expeditiously obtained a good number, both of limes and cocoa-nuts, which he considered would be an acceptable refreshment to his exhausted companions on board the Diomede. While they were thus employed, Lord Robert hailed them from the beach, where he remained to watch the boat. "Come, my lads!" said he, "the gale freshens every minute; let us get afloat, or we shall scarcely reach the ship before nightfall."