CHAPTER ONE 



Arrival at Nantucket 



IN THE LATE aftemoon of an early spring day in the year 

 1 73 1 a trading sloop of some thirty tons entered the 

 harbour of Nantucket in Nantucket Island, New England. 

 Somewhere to the eastward of Cape Cod a few hours 

 before, she had emerged from a bank of fog and had 

 found a ship's boat, full of starved and half-frozen sur- 

 vivors from the wreck of the English brig Jane Seymour, 

 The brig, which had sailed from Bideford, Devon, with 

 a cargo of immigrants, had been bound full of hope for 

 Plymouth, New England. Now she lay along with two 

 thirds of her passengers and crew fathoms deep under the 

 grey Atlantic. 



Among the wretched little crowd huddled together 

 on the deck of the sloop was a boy of twelve years. He 

 clutched a blanket to his thin, shivering body and his 

 fair hair hung in salt-matted strands. 



As the sloop approached the harbour bar he rose to his 

 feet and moved unsteadily to the lee bulwarks, where he 

 stood bracing himself with one hand on the rigging. He 

 was tall for his years, and even his present bedraggled 

 state could not hide that he was a lad of good breeding. 



His sad blue eyes surveyed the long flat shorehne of the 

 island, and the scene did nothing to revive his numbed 

 spirit. The endless beaches of sand were backed by low. 



