The Boat Finished—Farewell to Fairyland—Once more at Sea.  
At last the boat was finished. It had two masts and two lug-sails, and pulled eight oars. There was just sufficient room in it to enable the men to move about freely, but it required a little management to enable them to stow themselves away when they went to sleep, and had they possessed the proper quantity of provisions for their contemplated voyage, there is no doubt that they would have found themselves considerably cramped. The boat was named the Maid of the Isle, in memory of the sandbank on which she had been built, and although in her general outline and details she was rather a clumsy craft, she was serviceable and strongly put together.
 
Had she been decked, or even half-decked, the voyage which now began would not have been so desperate an undertaking; but having been only covered in part with a frail tarpaulin, she was not at all fitted to face the terrible storms that sometimes sweep the southern seas. Each man, as he gazed at her, felt that his chance of ultimate escape was very small indeed. Still, the men had now been so long contemplating the voyage and preparing for it, and they had become so accustomed to risk their lives upon the sea, that they set out upon this voyage at last in cheerful spirits, and even jested about the anticipated dangers and trials which they knew full well awaited them.
 
It was a lovely morning, that on which the wrecked crew of the whaler bade adieu to “Fairyland,” as the islet had been named by Ailie—a name that was highly, though laughingly, approved of by the men. The ocean and sky presented that mysterious co-mingling of their gorgeous elements that irresistibly call forth the wonder and admiration of even the most unromantic and matter-of-fact men. It was one of Ailie’s peculiarly beloved skies. You could not, without much consideration, have decided as to where was the exact line at which the glassy ocean met the clear sky, and it was almost impossible to tell, when gazing at the horizon, which were the real clouds and which the reflections.
 
The bright blue vault above was laden with clouds of the most gorgeous description, in which all the shades of pearly-grey and yellow were mingled and contrasted. They rose up, pile upon pile, in stupendous majesty, like the very battlements of heaven, while their images, clear and distinct almost as themselves, rolled down and down into the watery depths, until the islet—the only well-defined and solid object in the scene—appeared to float in their midst. The rising sun shot throughout the vast immensity of space, and its warm rays were interrupted, and broken, and caught, and absorbed, and reflected in so many magical ways, that it was impossible to trace any of the outlines for more than a few seconds, ere the eye was lost in the confusion of bright lights and deep shadows that were mingled and mellowed together by the softer lights and shades of every degree of depth and tint into splendid harmony.
 
In the midst of this scene Captain Dunning stood, with Ailie by his side, and surrounded by his men, on the shores of the little island. Everything was now in readiness to set sail. The boat was laden, and in the water, and the men stood ready to leap in and push off.
 
“My lads,” said the captain, earnestly, “we’re about to quit this morsel of sandbank on which it pleased the Almighty to cast our ship, and on which, thanks be to Him, we have found a pretty safe shelter for so long. I feel a sort o’ regret almost at leavin’ it now. But the time has come for us to begin our voyage towards the Cape, and I need scarcely repeat what you all know well enough—that our undertakin’ is no child’s play. We shall need all our bodily and our mental powers to carry us through. Our labour must be constant, and our food is not sufficient, so that we must go on shorter allowance from this day. I gave you half rations while ye were buildin’ the boat, because we had to get her finished and launched as fast as we could, but now we can’t afford to eat so much. I made a careful inspection of our provisions last night, and I find that by allowing every man four ounces a day, we can spin it out. We may fall in with islands, perhaps, but I know of none in these seas—there are none put down on the charts—and we may get hold of a fish now and then, but we must not count on these chances. Now it must be plain to all of you that our only chance of getting on well together in circumstances that will try our tempers, no doubt, and rouse our selfishness, is to resolve firmly before starting—each man for himself—that we will lay restraint on ourselves and try to help each other as much as we can.”
 
There was a ready murmur of assent to this proposal; then the captain continued:—
 
“Now, lads, one word more. Our best efforts, let us exert ourselves ever so much, cannot be crowned with success unless before setting out, we ask the special favour and blessing of Him who, we are told in the Bible, holds the waters of the ocean in the hollow of His hand. If He helps us, we shall be saved; if He does not help us, we shall perish. We will therefore offer up a prayer now, in the name of our blessed Redeemer, that we may be delivered from every danger, and be brought at last in peace and comfort to our homes.”
 
Captain Dunning then clasped his hands together, and while the men around him reverently bowed their heads, he offered up a short and simple, but earnest prayer to God.
 
From that day forward they continued the habit of offering up prayer together once a day, and soon afterwards the captain began the practice of reading a chapter aloud daily out of Ailie’s Bible. The result of this was that not only were the more violent spirits among them restrained, under frequent and sore privations and temptations, but all the party were often much comforted and filled with hope at times when they were by their sufferings well-nigh driven to despair.
 
“I’m sorry to leave Fairyland, papa,” said Ailie sadly, as the men shoved the Maid of the Isle into deep water and pulled out to sea.
 
“So am I, dear,” replied the captain sitting down beside his daughter in the stern-sheets of the boat, and taking the tiller; “I had no idea I could have come to like such a barren bit of sand so well.”
 
There was a long pause after this remark. Every eye in the boat was turned with a sad expression on the bright-yellow sandbank as they rowed away, and the men dipped their oars lightly into the calm waters, as if they were loth to leave their late home.
 
Any spot of earth that has been for some time the theatre of heart-stirring events, such as rouse men’s strong emotions, and on which happy and hopeful as well as wretched days have been spent, will so entwine itself with the affections of men that they will cling ............