Already from those islands our Salem
mariners had accumulated great wealth. Not yet are the old days forgotten,
when Elias Hasket Derby's ships brought back fortunes from Batavia, and
when Captain Carnes, by one voyage in Jonathan Peele's schooner Rajah to
the northern coast of Sumatra for wild pepper, made a profit of seven
hundred per cent of both the total cost of the schooner itself and the
whole expense of the entire expedition. I who lived in the exhilarating
atmosphere of those adventurous times was thrilled to the heart by my first
sight of lands to which hundreds of Salem ships had sailed.
It really was Java, and night was falling on its shores. Far to the
northeast some tiny object pricked above the skyline, and a point of light
gleamed clearly, low against the blue heavens in which the stars had just
begun to shine.
"A sail!" I cried.
Before the words had left my lips a deep voice aloft sonorously
proclaimed:--
"Sa-a-ail ho!"
"Where away?" Mr. Thomas cried.
"Two points off the larboard bow, sir."
The little knot of officers on the quarter-deck already were intent on the
tiny spot of almost invisible canvas, and we forward were crowding one
another for a better sight of it.
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