The 29th dawned overhead from out of ragged
clouds; there is no moment when a boat at sea appears
so trenchantly black and so conspicuously little; and
the crew looked about them at the sky and water with a
thrill of loneliness and fear. With sunrise the trade
set in, lusty and true to the point; sail was made; the
boat flew; and by about four in the afternoon they were
well up with the closed part of the reef, and the
captain standing on the thwart, and holding by the
mast, was studying the island through the binoculars.
"Well, and where's your station?" cried Mac.
"I don't someway pick it up," replied the captain.
"No, nor never will!" retorted Mac, with a clang of
despair and triumph in his tones.
The truth was soon plain to all. No buoys, no beacons,
no lights, no coal, no station; the castaways pulled
through a lagoon and landed on an isle, where was no
mark of man but wreckwood, and no sound but of the sea.
For the sea-fowl that harboured and lived there at the
epoch of my visit were then scattered into the
uttermost parts of the ocean, and had left no traces of
their sojourn besides dropped feathers and addled eggs.
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