I was some six miles from the island when I noticed a brown-sailed
fishing smack bearing out towards me. As the boat came near enough
I hailed it. Two men were aboard, and they answered me in good
Orkney dialect. They dropped alongside of the Falcon, and I threw
them a rope's end.
My first question was to ask them the name of this island. What joy
it was to me to hear once more a human voice, to see a fresh and
rosy face!
"It's the Fair Isle," said one of them. "We thought you was lost.
Where have you been, my lad, all this while past since Davie Flett
fell owerboard?"
"What!" I asked, "did Davie come ashore?"
"Ay, did he," said the fisherman; "he was picked up by his own
boat, and they brought him ashore here the next morning. We sent
three luggers out to seek you yourself, when we heard that you were
aboard the Falcon alone, but they could find you nowhere."
The men brought their boat astern and came aboard. I asked them
further about Captain Flett, and learned that he, with the mate and
Jerry, had only the evening before gone back to Orkney in a
Kirkwall fishing sloop.
The two Fair Islanders then helped me to take the Falcon into their
small landlocked haven, where, having supplied the good people with
an abundance of provisions, I engaged the services of three
fishermen to help me with the schooner back to Stromness, and on
the morning following we set sail.
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