About half of the way had been accomplished, when, as Jack sat watching the foaming waves break upon the reef, he caught sight of something misty and weird-looking apparently just on the other side, but it was too undefined for its nature to be made out.
He pointed it out to the doctor, who gave his opinion directly.
“One of the canoes,” he said. “That’s good, Jack. It shows that they have not distanced us.”
A hail from the mate told them that they too had sighted the canoe from the boat in front; but though they gazed long and watchfully, they saw no more.
Not long after the wind dropped suddenly, came again, and then fell altogether, the appearances being so marked that the mate had the sails lowered, and stowed after the oars had been going for some time, and now they made out from the boat astern that Mr Bartlett had divided his crew into two watches, one rowing hard while the other rested.
It was all plain enough to those astern that everything was admirably arranged, so that the well-drilled men shifted their places without any confusion or difference in the speed of the boat, the men changing one at a time.
And so the afternoon wore on.
“We shall be no sooner,” said Jack at last. “In an hour it will be dark.”
“Yes,” said the doctor with a sigh. “It would not matter if the blacks are not there first, but the worst of it is, as soon as it’s dusk the captain will be lighting up that firework business for a beacon, and that will show the canoes where to steer.”
It proved just as he said. The darkness came on with awful rapidity as soon as the sun disappeared beneath the waves, all searching the edge of the reef most anxiously during the last rays which flooded the sea; but in vain; and then for a full hour they rowed steadily on, guided by the gleaming of the fireflies against the black darkness ashore, but all at once a bright star shone out.