Looking towards his left, or in a northerly direction, Alwyn noticed a dark object lying close on high-water mark and half-buried in sand. It was the after part of the life-boat.
Thinking that by a rare slice of luck some of the provisions might have remained in the after locker, he made his way painfully towards the wreckage, conscious of a burning pain in the heel—the legacy of a violent contact with the reef. His damaged hand, swathed in a strip of his last remaining handkerchief, was throbbing excruciatingly.
As he approached his attention was attracted by the sight of a man's hand and arm projecting beyond some scrub and driftwood within a few yards of the boat. The arm was bare, brown, and muscular, and lavishly embellished with tattoo marks.
"Minalto!" exclaimed the Third Officer, and, forgetting his injuries, hurried to the spot to confirm or dissipate his worst fears.
Jasper was not only alive but conscious. He had been cast ashore in a battered condition, being flung on the crest of a wave right into a clump of undergrowth. Bruised from head to foot he had lain in a torpid state, until the warmth of the sun had roused him from his lethargy but a few minutes before Alwyn's appearance.
"Sure, 'tes a rum world," he remarked. "Didn't think tu see you agen-like, sir. And the young leddy? Where she be tu?"
"Safe," replied Burgoyne. He was going to add "and sound ", but checked himself. "You've seen nothing of Mr. Mostyn?" he added anxiously.
Minalto slowly extricated himself from his bed of scrub and driftwood.
"No, sir," he said slowly. "I aint. Fact is I've just come-tu-like, bein', in a manner o' speakin', fair-flummoxed. Ne'er clapt eyes on 'im arter the boat struck."
The two men searched the fragments of wreckage. In the stern locker they discovered two tins of beef. The rest had vanished. Two of the copper air-tanks were still intact, while wedged in between the stern bench and a broken oar was one of the two buckets.