"Why, what else can it be?" demanded Frank.
"I don't know,"—sniff,—"but it seems to me,"—sniff,—"that's a whole lot of smoke for a steamer to be making, and"—sniff—"I don't like the looks of it."
"What else could make such smoke?" demanded Harry.
For reply Ben asked what seemed a strange question.
"Did you put the fire out when we left the camp?"
In an instant they all perceived without his speaking a word, what the sailor feared.
The island was on fire!
A few minutes later the smell of the burning trees and the crash as they fell, while the flames leaped through the brushwood beneath them, was clearly borne to them.
They were marooned on a floating island, and the island was in flames.
The dense smoke of the fire had by this time blotted out the sky and all they could see above them was a thick canopy of smoke. It rose in a huge pillar blotting out the sky and poisoning the air.