In the whaleboat a fresh anxiety showed itself on every face as the light of day grew swiftly.
Then, as Jack passed his hand wearily across his eyes and slowly shook his head, a groan of distress broke out amongst the castaways.
"It's gone," whispered the rover hoarsely; then, groping clumsily about, he slowly sank down in the bottom of the boat and sat there miserably, with bent head and closed eyes.
A fierce oath burst from little Jim's lips, an oath such as he had not used since the first days on the Higgins, and it started a flood of lurid, blood-curdling blasphemy from the over-tried cowpuncher, whose swearing vocabulary Bill Benson ably succeeded in providing with new words.
This fiery avalanche of oaths fell unheard by the small ears of Loyola, who, crouching by Jack's side, stared at the rover with dry, piteous eyes, whilst Tari, inscrutably silent as usual, steered on with twitching lips.
In the midst of it all, the sail flapped, then filled, then flapped again; the last of the wind had gone, and the whaleboat lay rolling on a long, glassy swell, which already the sun was covering with glittering sparks, like a mass of diamonds on the Pacific's wonderful blue.
The swearing ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and nothing broke the silence in the whaleboat for some moments except the dreary flapping of the lugsail.
Then Jack lifted his head and spoke:
"It's a flat calm, eh, boys?"