Already the bank of morning mist was beginning to break up and melt away under the fervent rays of the sun. The young earl raised his glasses and gazed southwards along the face of the dissolving curtain. Through and between the ghostly wreaths and wisps of vapor he could see the winged habitants of the swamps—flamingoes, cranes, pelicans, ibises, storks, geese, all the countless tropical waterfowl—swimming and wading about the reedy lagoons or circling up to fly to other feeding grounds. Opposite the steamer the glasses showed with startling distinctness a number of hideous crocodiles crawling out on a slimy mudbank to bask in the sunshine. But nowhere could the searcher discern a trace of man or of man's habitation.
"Gad! not a sign! Rotten luck!" he muttered.
He turned and swept the four-mile curve of coast around to the north-northeast. Suddenly he stiffened and held the glasses fixed.
"Look!" he cried. "Off there to the northwards—cliffs!"
"Cliffs? Aye, a headland," confirmed the skipper.
"Put about for it immediately," directed Lord James. "If they were cast up here, they'd not have lingered in these vile bogs—would have made for the high ground."
Meggs nodded, and called the order to the steersman. The ship's bows swung around, and the little steamer was soon scuttling upcoast towards the headland, along the outer line of reefs, at a speed of seven knots.
From the first, Lord James held his glasses fixed on the barren guano-whitened ledges of the headland. But though he could discern with quickly increasing distinctness the seabirds that soared about the cliff crest and nested in its crevices, he perceived no sign of any signal such as castaways might be expected to place on so prominent a height.
When, after a full half-hour's run, the steamer skirted along the edge of the reefs, close in under the seaward face of the headland, the searcher at last lowered his binoculars, bitterly disappointed.
"Not a trace—not a trace!" he complained. "If they've been here, they've either gone inland or—we're too late! Six weeks—starvation—fever!"