At last came the dawn. Slowly the blue curtain of night lifted, lifted, until it became the blue curtain of sky, endlessly far away and far above. A twinkling star looked down on the cup of ocean, glimmered a moment and was gone. The light strengthened. A pearly, iridescent quiver came upon the waters, repeating itself wave after wave, and heralded the coming of the Lord Sun over the great murmuring sea. As the light grew, they could see a constantly widening circle of ocean, of which they were the center. As they rose and fell with the waves, the horizon fell and rose to their vision, dim and undefined. Hand in hand they floated in vaporous silver.
"The day has come at last, thank God!" breathed James.
"Yes, thank God!" answered the girl.
"Are you very cold?"
"The sun will soon warm us."
"Where did you learn to swim?"
"In England, mostly at the Isle of Wight, but I'm not half such a dolphin as you are."
"Oh, well, boys have to swim, you know, and I was a boy once," Jim answered awkwardly. Presently he asked, and his voice was full of awe: "Have you ever seen the dawn—a dawn like this—before?"
"Never one like this," she whispered.
When daylight came, they found they had not traveled far from the scene of the night's disaster; or, if they had, the Jeanne D'Arc had drifted with them. She was still afloat, and just as the sun rose they saw her, apparently not far away, tossing rudderless to the waves. There was no sign of the ship's boats.