"True, but she is far enough out to make herself secure. Oh, Robin, suppose she sails around us and goes on!"
"That is impossible," answered Robin. "The people on that ship are as anxious to find us as we can be to see them, if they are civilized at all. Noah and Mt. Ararat are not to be named in the same day with us."
Adam crossed the gorge and added fuel to the fire. For a time the wind increased in velocity until a stiff gale was blowing, then, as the small hours came on, it waned, and the beacon flared straight up once more.
"I wonder where's she from?" said Adam.
"I wonder where she is now," answered Robin.
"I feel sure," he said, "when morning comes we shall see her riding the waves out there; and think of it, Robin, we can go!"
Robin made no reply, and her very silence made Adam repeat, but as a self-addressed question, "Go where? Yes," he went on quickly, "go where, Robin. Suppose the ship is all right, and that she stops, and the crew are not pirates, and are willing to take us aboard, where are we to go? Is there any place on earth that can mean as much to us as this island? Suppose Asia, or Africa, or Europe are still in existence, we should not regain our friends and relatives, and life would be harder with strange people, under a strange government, far more so than we have found it here, even without so many of its luxuries."
Robin shook her head sadly. "At first, Adam. We should learn their language and their customs. New friends are speedily acquired, and as for relatives,—well, in the scheme of life relatives don't count for much. There always comes a time when they step out of our lives, anyway."
"But as to happiness?"
Her face paled a little. "Have you been happy here?" she asked, without raising her eyes to his, and then went on, not waiting for a reply, "If you have been, it has been in the care of our little family of dependents, who do not need you half so much as the great family of human dependents. Rest assured if there is a continent over there across the darkness, it is peopled with beings who need the devoted and unselfish labors of such a man as you. You would find your work easily enough,—the work you have been saved for, the work you must do."