He looked around him, first confusedly and then with surprised wonder. His eyes brightened, and a cry of joy broke from his lips, for there, not a mile away, was land. A long, white line of surf marked the boundary of the beach, and beyond it he saw the feathery tops of palm and cocoanut trees, nodding in the fresh morning breeze.
Land at last!
Again Frank’s jubilant shout echoed oddly clear and solitary above the incessant booming
of the breakers and the monotonous wash of the waves.
Land, and no mistake, and the Sea Eagle was driving straight toward it with a speed that would strand her in twenty minutes, if she kept on.
And grandly determined upon her own destruction looked the staunch old schooner, in the fast brightening rays of the rising sun, as, with all sail set and never a hand at her helm, she plowed her way toward the low, sandy shore stretching away like the shadow of doom before her.
Frank meant to beach her, and take his chance on the island, for an island he felt pretty certain it was.
He flew to the cabin, and brought up the captain’s glass. He could do it now without superstitious fear. To the southward he saw a black, barren ledge of rocks, rising abruptly out of the sea, but to the north and east the shore was low, and there did not appear to be much surf.
He ran to the wheel, and gave it a turn a point or two more to the north and east. The vessel obeyed her helm splendidly. The tide was at the flood, the wind fresh but steady, and blowing directly on land.
With firm, shut lips, watchful eyes and pale, resolute face, Frank kept his small hand on the spokes, the rapid pulsations of his heart telling away the seconds so audibly that he could count them.