Captain Bragg believed death would soon close the lips of the one who had unwittingly learned his secret.
Ned no longer tried to act the manly part.
Anger was the first sensation after the terrible discovery that he had been sentenced to a lingering death, and he attacked the rubbish in a frenzy, throwing it on every side and stamping upon the fragments like a madman.
Then came grief and despair.
Seated on the sand by the side of what he had believed was a generous supply of provisions, he gave way to tears, and when this fit passed it was night.
He was too tired to retrace his steps to the grove, the only place where could be found the semblance of a shelter, even had he been disposed to battle against the fate which seemed to beset him on every side.
Stretching out at full length on the sand, he pulled the rubber coat over him, and finally fell asleep with a partially defined hope that death might overtake him before he could awake to consciousness.
For a boy who had just been marooned and who neither had provisions nor the means of procuring any, Ned Rogers slept remarkably well.
Although the sand was by no means as soft as the hard mattress in the state-room of the Evening Star, he did not awaken until the rays of the sun falling across his face banished the slumber from his eyelids.
For an instant he gazed around in wonderment, not knowing how such a change could have been made in his surroundings, and then the full knowledge of all that had occurred came to him once more.