Frank lit it with great care. For one terrible moment, as they all hung breathless over it, it seemed as if it was going out. It finally caught, however, and flared up bravely.
"Now the shirt," cried Frank.
It was thrust into his hands and he waved the blazing garment above his head till the flames streaked out in the night.
This time a cheer went up from the castaways on the raft.
Their signal had been seen.
At least so it appeared, for the searchlight, which had been sweeping about near the island, suddenly shot its long finger of light in their direction. As the vessel bearing it neared them a bright glow enveloped the figures on the raft, who were alternately hugging each other and shaking hands over the prospect of their speedy deliverance.
A few minutes later all doubt was dissolved. The approaching vessel was the Southern Cross, and the adventurers were soon answering to excited hails from her bridge. To lower a boat and get them on board once more did not take long, and it was not till late that night that, the story of their perils having been told and retold at least twenty times, they managed to get to their old bunks.
Never had the mattresses seemed so soft or the sheets so comfortable as they did to the tired boys. Their heads had hardly touched the pillows before they were off in dreamland—a region in which, on that night at least, fires, panthers and sharks raged in inextricable confusion.
Before they retired they heard from the lips of Captain Hazzard the puzzle their disappearance from the ship had proved. The Southern Cross, it appeared, on the day following her collision with the floating island, had cruised in the vicinity in the hope of finding some trace of the castaways. Her search was kept up until hope had been about abandoned. The sight of the glare of the blazing island had, however, determined her commander to ascertain its cause, with the result that while her searchlight was centered on the strange phenomenon the boys' tiny fire signal had been seen by a lookout in the crow's nest and the ship at once headed for the little point of light.
For his part the commander was much interested in hearing of the floating island. It cleared up what had been a great mystery, namely, the nature of the obstruction they had struck, and proved interesting from a scientific point of view. Captain Hazzard told the boys that these great tracts of land were, as Ben had said, not uncommon off the mouth of the Amazon, but that it was rarely one ever got so far out to sea.