"I haven't the remotest notion where we are—except we are somewhere, broadly speaking, in the neighborhood of the Malay peninsula. The steamer must have drifted tremendously out of her course after we lost our rudder."
"Have you been awake for long?"
"I haven't slept."
"Have you seen or heard anything of any of the others?"
"Not a sign.... We may find some of them, landed on this island."
He had no such hope, and this she felt. She summoned a heart full of courage to meet the situation, however, and gazed off afar at the misty terra incognita enlarging imperceptibly as they drifted deliberately onward.
"It's fortunate," she said, "the steamers pass this way."
"Yes," he said, unwilling to shake this solitary hope that brightened her uncertain prospect, but he knew they were leagues from the nearest track that the ocean steamers plowed. "And I trust we'll find it entirely comfortable while we're waiting," he added. "We're sure to get dry and find something fit to eat."
She was silent for a moment. A sense of constraint was returning at last for their scene of the previous day. "It seems to be rather far away," was all she said.
"About another hour—if the breeze and tide continue favorable."