"Just our luck!" thought Peter. "Now we have fetched Madagascar after beating for hours against it, the wind shifts round. It would have saved us hours if it had been in this quarter for the last twenty-four hours. However, here we are, so I mustn't grouse."
None of his companions showed signs of stirring. Silence reigned in the tents. The scent of the morning air was mingled with the pleasing reek of the camp-fire. Farther along the coast a number of seagulls were hovering over some object and screeching, as they warily circled round the coveted piece of flotsam.
From where Peter stood, the landscape was rather limited. Less than a mile to the nor'ard a bluff of about two hundred feet in height served as the boundary of his vision in that direction. Southward the wall of cliffs terminated abruptly at a distance of about a quarter of a mile. Evidently beyond that the coastline receded, unless the light were insufficient to enable the more distant land to be seen.
"May as well stretch my legs," thought Peter. "I'll have a shot at getting to the top of the cliffs and see what's doing. I wonder how far it is to the nearest village?"
He had to walk a hundred yards along the beach before he found a likely means of ascent—a narrow gorge through which a clear stream dashed rapidly. Yet the rivulet never met the sea direct. The water, although of considerable volume, simply soaked into the sand and disappeared.
"We shan't need to go slow with the drinking-water," he said to himself, as he gathered a double handful of the cool, sparkling fluid and held it to his lips. "By Jove, isn't that a treat after water from a boat's keg. Well, here goes."
The ascent was steep but fairly easy. Nevertheless Mostyn was so out of training, from a pedestrian point of view, that his muscles ached and his limbs grew stiff long before he arrived at the top.
At length, breathless and weary, he gained the summit and threw himself at full length upon the grass.
After a while he stood up and looked around. The sun was just rising—and it appeared to rise out of the sea. From where he stood, Peter could see right across the ground from west to east and from north to south; and, save where the tall bluff cut the skyline, sea and sky formed a complete circular horizon.
Peter gave a gasp of astonishment. Instead of finding himself, as he had expected, upon one of the largest islands of the world, he was on a sea-girt piece of land barely three miles in length and two in breadth. In vain he looked for other land. The extent of his view, assuming that the point on which he stood was two hundred feet above the sea-level, was a distance of roughly twenty miles, and, except for the island upon which the boat had stranded, there was nothing in sight but sky and sea.