Her heart leaped into her mouth.
"A ship!" she screamed. "Where? Where?"
He came up to her, panting.
"Close under the island. Hid by the bluff; but you will see her in half an hour. God be praised! Get everything ready to go. Hurrah! This is our last day on the island."
The words were brave, and loud, and boisterous, but the face was pale and drawn, and Helen saw it, and, though she bustled and got ready to leave, the tears were in her eyes. But the event was too great to be resisted. A wild excitement grew on them both. They ran about like persons crazed, and took things up, and laid them down again, scarcely knowing what they were doing. But presently they were sobered a little, for the ship did not appear. They ran across the sands, where they could see the bluff; she ought to have passed that half an hour ago.
Hazel thought she must have anchored.
Helen looked at him steadily.
"Dear friend," said she, "are you sure there is a ship at all? Are you not under a delusion? This island fills the mind with fancies. One day I thought I saw a ship sailing in the sky. Ah!" She uttered a faint scream, for while she was speaking the bowsprit and jib of a vessel glided past the bluff so closely they seemed to scrape it, and a ship emerged grandly, and glided along the cliff.
"Are they mad," cried Hazel, "to hug the shore like that? Ah! they have seen my warning."
And it appeared so, for the ship just then came up in the wind several points, and left the bluff dead astern.