"And I'll take a voyage with you!" cried Mr. Damon. "Bless my teaspoon, Tom, but will you kindly pass the bacon and eggs again!"
There was a jolly laugh at the eccentric man, in which he himself joined, and the little party felt better. They were seated on bits of broken boxes taken from the wreck, forming a little circle about the gasolene stove, which Tom had set up on the beach. The wind had almost entirely died away, though the sea was still heaving in great billows, and masses of surf.
They had no exact idea of the time, for all their watches had stopped when the shock of the wreck came, but presently the sun peeped out from the clouds, and, from knowing the time when they had begun to fall, they judged it was about ten o'clock, and accordingly set their timepieces.
"Well," observed Tom, as he collected the dishes, which they had also secured from the wreck, "we must begin to think about a place to spend the night. I think we can rig up a shelter from some of the canvas of the wing-planes, and from what is left of the cabin. It doesn't need to be very heavy, for from the warmth of the atmosphere, I should say we were pretty well south."
It was quite warm, now that the storm was over, and, as they looked at the vegetation of the island, they saw that it was almost wholly tropical.
"I shouldn't be surprised if we were on one of the smaller of the West Indian islands," said Tom. "We certainly came far enough, flying a hundred miles or more an hour, to have reached them. But this one doesn't appear to be inhabited."
"We haven't been all over it yet," said Mr. Damon. "We may find cannibals on the other side."
"Cannibals don't live in this part of the world," Tom assured him. "No, I think this island is practically unknown. The storm brought us here, and it might have landed us in a worse place."
As he spoke he thought of the yacht Resolute, and he wondered how her passengers, including the parents of Mary Nestor, had fared during the terrible blow.
"I hope they weren't wrecked, as we were," mused Tom.