Even amid the peril, however, Professor Baffin could not but admire the heroic courage and composure of Matilda, who sat upon her trunk, wet and shivering with cold, without showing a sign of fear, but trying to encourage her father with words of hope and cheer.
When the dawn came, dim and gray, the gale abated its force, and although the sea continued rough, the raft rode the waves more buoyantly and easily. Producing some matches from his waterproof box, the Professor lighted the kerosene-lamp in the tiny stove which was in one of the boxes; and then Matilda, with water from the barrel, began to try to make some coffee. The attempt seemed to promise to be successful, and while the process was going on, the Professor looked about for the boats. They could not be seen. The Professor took out his glass and swept the horizon. In vain; the boats had disappeared completely; but the Professor saw something else that attracted his attention, and made his heart for a moment stop beating.
Right ahead, not distinctly outlined, but visible in a misty sort of way, he thought he discerned land!
At first he could not believe the evidence of his sight. The captain, an expert navigator, had assured him that they were eight hundred miles from any shore. But this certainly looked to the Professor very much like land. He examined it through his glass. Even then the view was not clear enough to remove all doubts, but it strengthened his conviction; and when Matilda looked she said she knew it was land. She could trace the outline of a range of hills.
“Tilly,” said the Professor, “we are saved! It is the land, and the raft is drifting us directly towards it. We cannot be sufficiently thankful, my child, for this great mercy! Who would have expected it? Taken altogether, it is the most extraordinary circumstance within my recollection.”
“Captain Duffer must have made a miscalculation,” said Tilly. “The ship must have been off of her course when she sprang a leak.”
“It is incomprehensible how so old a sailor could have made such a blunder,” replied the Professor. “But there the land is; I can see it now distinctly. It looks to me like a very large island.”
“Are you going ashore at once, pa?”
“Certainly, dear; that is, if we can make a landing through the breakers.”
“Suppose there are cannibals on it, pa? It would be horrid to have them eat us!”