It was a happy reunion, and for the moment the Rover boys did nothing but hug each other in their delight at being together again. They cared not if the raft and the steam yacht were gone, so long as all of them were safe. They walked to the spot where Ira Small lay, and each sank down to rest.
“He’s certainly in bad shape,” said Jack, gazing at the old tar, who, with closed eyes, was breathing heavily. “He said he had a cramp, or something like that.”
“I wonder what place this is?” put in Randy. “Maybe there’s some sort of village or town not far away. If so, we might be able to get a doctor for him. Now that we have all been saved from the ocean, we certainly don’t want him to pass away like this.”
After having rested for some time, it was decided among the boys that the twins should remain with the old tar while Jack and Fred set out on a tour of exploration, taking the flashlight to guide their way.
The rain had stopped entirely, but the wind blew as fiercely as ever, and the boys had no easy time of it to make their way along the sandy shore. Back of the sand they found a dense mass of bushes and trees, a veritable semi-tropical jungle.
“Gee! this doesn’t look as if there was any village or town very near,” observed Fred, after they had passed up and down the somewhat narrow beach for a goodly distance. “Do you suppose we’re on the mainland or on an island, Jack?”
“I’m of the opinion we’re on an island, Fred. It seems to me we were drifting southward most of the time.”
“Would we do that if the boat was in the Gulf Stream?”
“I think we were east of the Gulf Stream. Anyway, I’ve got a hunch that we’re somewhere in the West Indies, although, of course, I may be mistaken. I’m really and truly all at sea,” and Jack grinned grimly.
The two Rover boys walked along the beach until they came to a point where a huge wall of rock jutted out into the ocean, and here the flying spray stopped their further progress. Then they walked back along the beach to where they had left the twins and the sailor, and then continued their observations in the other direction. Here they found that the beach made a turn, and the ocean came into what formed a small bay. But at the entrance to this the jungle was so dense that progress on foot was completely cut off.