All day long the emaciated convict watched eagerly. Before nightfall he was close enough to discern steep beaches on which the rollers broke in white anger, and dark spray-wet headlands glistening under their bath of seas.
The sun, with banners of scarlet and gold, sailed out through the gates of the west, lending the white rollers a faint pink blush—the sea answering to the wooing of her departing lover.
Snipe called along the edge of the sands, littered with brown sea-weed, shells, pumice, and sponges.
Across a bank of thin fleecy cloud went a moving line of black swans, going inland to the fresh water lagoons. They flew with their long necks stretched forward, and as they passed over his head the man in the boat could see the white on their wings and the scarlet of their beaks. The swans were followed by a mob of black duck and teal.
Petit noticed that all these birds followed a certain direction, and studying closely he observed a break in the surf where a narrow channel ran inland, to broaden out again in a great spread of creeks and lagoons.
A red rock showed conspicuously at the mouth of the channel, and keeping this to the port side of the boat, he came about and let the insetting tide take him through.
The keel grated on the sand, and Petit rose up gaunt and unsteady in the starlight and crawled ashore.
The escaped convict discovered that the rocks on the foreshore were covered with oysters, and he fed. Refreshed, he crossed the beach in search of fresh water. After walking some time he found it trickling from a rock—clear and cold.
And again Jean Petit growled in thanksgiving, and throwing himself full length on his back like a drought-stricken beast, he let the little rill trickle into his mouth, overflow his lips, and moisten his chest.