At four o'clock in the afternoon, with the mountains of Cuba looming up bold before them, they passed a broken mast floating on the water, weighted with torn and knotted rigging. They could not go near enough to make sure whether it was part of the schooner or not. But it looked serious.
Two hours later they were in behind the reefs, and then the doubt was settled. All around them, in the comparatively smooth water, floated wreckage from some vessel that had gone to pieces, and the fragments of white-painted planks told the melancholy story.
"We must lie alongshore till dark," Will declared, "and then make a search, for they may be in hiding. I still have hopes that they may have escaped from the schooner. Then the next thing will be to escape from the Spaniards, and there we can help them with the sharpie."
Somehow it was Will who was in command now of the relief expedition. On the water Vic was confident of herself; but when the danger was from the Spanish coast-guard, she looked naturally to Will for directions.
About eight o'clock the darkness came rapidly and they started inland to search for tidings, leaving the sharpie hidden among the bushes on the shore of a little inlet. It was a desolate part of the coast, and so far they had not seen a living person. Will picked up a stout piece of driftwood for a club.
"If there is a house anywhere in the neighborhood, we must find it," he said. "The people will know whether any one was saved from the wreck. They will most likely be Cubans, and therefore friends. Keep your eyes and ears open, Vic, for we must dodge the Spaniards."
Hardly anything could have been more hopeless than such a search made by a boy and girl who knew nothing of the country, nothing of the language, but groped their way in pitch darkness through a dense forest. But they were Americans, and both knew that the sharpie might mean escape from death for their fathers, if their fathers were not already drowned. Presently they discovered a path and followed it, tripping over roots and rocks, stumbling, scratching their faces with thorns.
"Oh, Will!" Vic exclaimed, after a collision with a sharp cactus. "I can't go any further. I don't know what to do!" And she began to cry.
"Don't think of yourself at all, Vic," Will urged. "I can take care of you. Maybe your father is hiding in these very woods, and our boat may save him. We can't go back and desert them. We must push on and find somebody, even if it is a Spanish soldier. Hist!"
The prospect of finding a Spanish soldier was nearer than he thought, for the words were hardly out of his mouth before they heard the sound of men tramping through the bushes.