“I hope so.”
“Can’t we land on the beach?” asked Mr. Chadwick.
“Not a chance,” rejoined Jack. “I wouldn’t dare to come down on that tiny strip of sand. A slight miscalculation would put us in the surf. The ship would be ruined and we might be drowned.”
“Well, as the poet said, ‘all as goes up must come down,’” remarked the captain sententiously, “so I s’pose we’ll find some place to drop.”
“No bird ever flew so high it didn’t have to light,” put in Dick whimsically, whereat they all had a laugh.
“Well, at all events, it looks as if we were destined to have the place to ourselves,” remarked Mr. Chadwick.
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” responded Captain Sprowl, pessimistically.
For some reason or other the old mariner did not look entirely at ease. He scanned the tree-grown coast anxiously with his binoculars.
They were just about over the crashing surf when above its roar a most peculiar sound fell upon their ears.
It came swelling over the woods and was startlingly like the cry of someone shouting out in agony.