As the boat's head turned they were aghast to find how far distant they were from the island. The high cliffs seemed little more than a low bank: clearly they were miles away. Elizabeth, knowing that her sculling powers could not wholly account for the great distance, suddenly remembered the current. From the time the boat passed the reef it had been subject to the full strength of the ocean stream that swept the shore. They would have to row back against it, and with the sun mounting higher, and no food or water on board, they realized that they must look forward to hours of discomfort, if not actual danger.
The boat made little headway against the current, and Elizabeth had worked so hard that now she was scarcely able to move the sculls.
"Tommy, can you take my place for a little while?" she said. "I will row again after a rest."
They exchanged places, stooping low and moving very carefully. The boat lost many yards while the exchange was being made. Tommy had quite recovered her strength, and was able to take a long spell at the sculls. But progress was very slow. Elizabeth steered with the idea of getting under the shelter of the island. She noticed by and by that Tommy was tiring, and proposed to take the sculls again; but Mary pleaded to be allowed to share in the work. Thus relieving one another, they crept gradually towards the island, not daring to cease sculling altogether, and yet finding it more and more exhausting as the day grew hotter.
By almost imperceptible degrees the cliffs heightened and objects upon them became more distinct. The girl who was steering at the time encouraged the sculler by mentioning each new landmark as it became distinguishable. Recognizing that it would be hours before they could attain their own little harbour, Elizabeth decided to make for the nearest point of the shore in the hope of finding another landing-place. At last they began to benefit by the shelter of the island, and their progress became more rapid. But when, after exertions that had tried them all severely, they came out of the current into comparatively still water near the shore, they had to row for some distance before, in a cutting between the cliffs, they discovered a broad, sandy beach on which it was possible to land. Here they pulled the boat a few yards up the sand, and then hurried along the chine in search of fresh water to assuage their burning thirst.
Within a short distance of the beach the chine was covered with vegetation, among which they saw several cocoa-nut palms. To these they hastened in the hope of finding some nuts upon the ground. But there were none. Tommy looked longingly up into the trees, but it was impossible to climb them, and the girls hurried on again, expecting to find somewhere a rill trickling from the high ground to the sea.
When they had gone some distance the trees thinned, and they saw, some hundreds of yards in front of them, a sheer wall of rock, rising to a considerable height and dotted here and there with scrub.
"Do you know, I believe that's the end of the ridge," said Elizabeth, who had a shrewder eye than the others for country, and had a better notion as to the part of the island to which they had come.
"I don't care," cried Tommy; "that's what I want." She pointed to a sparkling waterfall that plunged over a ledge a good way to their left. They ran eagerly towards it, scrambling over impediments, and soon came to the stream which the waterfall fed. Then they threw themselves down, and gulped large draughts of the cold water. After resting for a while on the grassy bank, Elizabeth looked at her watch.
"It is past two," she said; "what a time we have been!"