After a moment Sybil said, sleepily:
"Go ahead and declare it, Ris. Only, if we're drowned, please break the news to me gently!"
"How strange!" muttered Orissa, still staring.
Sybil stirred, threw off the blanket and also rose to a sitting position.
"If it's a secret," she began, "then—Oh, goodness me!"
During the night the boat with its great overhead planes had gently floated into a little bay, where the water was peaceful as a millpond. Two points of black rock projected on either side of them, outlining the bay. Between these points appeared an island—a mass of tumbled rocks guiltless of greenery. There was a broad strip of clean, smooth sand on the shore, barely covering the slaty ledge, but back of that the jumble of rocks began, forming irregular hillocks, and beyond these hillocks, which extended for some distance inland, there seemed to be a great dip in the landscape—or rockscape—far back of which arose a low mountain formed of the same unlovely material as all else.
"It's an island!" gasped Sybil, rubbing her eyes to make sure they were working properly. "Now, see here, Cap'n Ris, I want it understood right now which one of us is to be Robinson Crusoe and which the Man Friday. Seems to me, I being the passenger and you the charioteer, the prestige is on my side; so I claim the Crusoe part. I can't grow whiskers, and I'm not likely to find a parrot to perch on my shoulder, but I'll promise to enact the part as well as circumstances will permit."
"I can't see a sign of life," announced Orissa, regretfully. "There isn't even a bird hovering over the place."
"Lizards and snakes among the rocks, though, I'll bet," responded Sybil, with a grimace. "All these rocky Pacific islands are snaky, they say. I wonder if I can learn to charm 'em. You don't object to my being Crusoe, do you?"
Orissa sighed; then she turned to her cheery comrade with a smile.