“I’ve seen more cheerful places,” Bethune declared, when Jimmy had handed him the glasses. “I suppose we bring up under its eastern end?”

Moran nodded.

“Pretty good shelter in the bight in about two fathoms. Watch out to starboard and the reef will show you where she is.”

Jimmy turned his eyes in that direction, but saw nothing for a minute. Then the swell, which ran after them in long undulations nearly as smooth as oil, suddenly boiled in a white upheaval, and a cloud of fine spray was thrown up as by a geyser.

“One can understand the old steamboat’s breaking her back,” he said. “Where’s she lying?”

“Not far ahead; but by the height of the water on the beach, there’ll be nothing to be seen of her for the next nine hours.”

“And it will be dark then!” Bethune said gloomily. Jimmy shared his comrade’s disappointment. After first sighting land they had felt keen suspense. There was a possibility that the wreck had broken up or sunk into the sand since Moran had visited her; and, after facing many hardships and risks to reach her, they must go back bankrupt if she had disappeared. The important question could not be answered until the next day.

“Couldn’t we bring up here and look for her in the dory when the tide falls?” Jimmy suggested.

“It sure wouldn’t be wise. When you get your anchor down in the bight you’re pretty safe; but two cables wouldn’t hold her outside when the sea gets up—and I don’t know a place where it blows oftener.”

“Then you had better take her in. I can’t say that we’ve had much luck this trip; and we’ve been a fortnight longer on the way than I calculated. It will be something to feel the beach beneath our feet.”

They ran into a basin with gray rocks and stones on its landward side, and a shoal on which the surf broke to seaward; and, soon after dropping anchor, they rowed ashore.

The island appeared to be two miles long, and nothing grew on it except a few patches of scrub in the hollows of its central ridge; but it had, as Moran pointed out, two springs of good water. Birds screamed above the surf and waded along the sand, and a seal lolled upon a stony beach; but these were the only signs of life, and the raw air rang with the dreary sound of the sea.

When dusk crept in they went back on board, and with 

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