His reply was to point straight ahead, and we were still speeding on, when, after five or six hours’ sleep, my uncle jumped up into wakefulness, ready to partake of the waiting meal of cold fish, biscuits, and fruit; the coffee, which in a case like this I made by means of a spirit-lamp, being kept in abeyance for a time.
“Well, Nat,” he said, “is our wild-goose chase nearly at an end? Is land in sight?”
“No, uncle,” I said, after gazing carefully ahead. Just then Ebo pointed to the telescope, and made signs to my uncle to use it.
“Look through?” he said to the black. “All right, my friend, I will;” and placing it to his eye as he stood up in the boat he cried to me as I eagerly watched him, “Land ahead, Nat, and apparently a wooded shore!”
Chapter Twenty Six.
An Unknown Island.
By the time we had made a hearty meal Ebo pointed with triumph to the faint hazy speck in the distance, now growing minute by minute plainer to our eyes.
Ebo watched our countenances very intently, and then suddenly broke out with: