"Because after these hurricanes, although the open sea is comparatively calm, a heavy ground swell sets in on shore. A boat would certainly be capsized, unless there happens to be a shelter formed by a barrier reef of coral. But now, up on deck. It will be daylight in less than ten minutes."
Eagerly the lads ran up the companion, and what a sight met their gaze as the tropical day quickly mastered the long hours of darkness!
The San Martin lay on the outer edge of a long, level reef of coral, against which the surf still hammered, throwing up clouds of white spray.
Less than fifty yards from the port quarter was a gap in the barrier, giving entrance to the lagoon. The doomed ship had missed the opening by half her own length.
She lay with her bows pointed diagonally towards the reef. Her funnel and foremast had gone by the board, while she showed unmistakable signs of breaking in two, for her bow and stern had "sagged" till amidships her port side was flush with the water, while, correspondingly, her starboard side, owing to the ship's list, was but five feet higher.
But it was neither the ship nor the reef that attracted the castaways' attention. Barely a quarter of a mile away was an island, rugged and precipitous, the highest point towering a thousand feet above the level of the ocean.
In several places the ground sloped towards the sea, the valley being thickly covered with luxuriant foliage, while for a distance of nearly a mile was a strand of dazzling whiteness, upon which the sheltered waters of the lagoon lapped as gently as the ripples of a mill pond in a summer's breeze. Elsewhere, so far as could be seen, the rocks rose sheer from the sea.
"Any sign of the boat?" asked Andy.
"No; but I'll get a glass," replied Ellerton, and swarming up the stanchion of the bridge—for the ladder had been swept away—he gained the chart-house.
From his elevated position he swept the shore with the telescope, but no trace of the boat was to be seen. Neither, so far as he could judge, was the island inhabited.