We were shaking hands while he spoke. I was not quite certain that I did hear the breakers, the noises on board the tumbling vessel making it difficult to distinguish sounds. Shortly after this there came a lull, but we thought it only the prelude to another squall.
The wind fell more and more.
“I see day breaking!” cried Jim, looking eastward.
Faint yellow and red streaks were visible in that direction under the dark mass of clouds. The light increased, and to the westward, fringed by a line of rugged black rocks, a green island gradually rose before our sight. There were grassy slopes, and cliffs, and high, steep, round-topped hills, with clear streams running between them, forming lakelets near the beach, glittering in the rays of the rising sun, now bursting through the dissolving clouds. Far as our eyes could reach not a tree was visible, nor could we discover a single cottage or other habitation of man. As the light increased we found that we were about half a mile away from the entrance of a narrow gulf, which extended apparently far inland. Not a boat floated on the surface of the gulf, not a sail was to be seen along the coast.
“I’m greatly afeared that yonder is a dissolute island,” (meaning a desolate island), “and if no help comes to us from the shore we may be blown out to sea, and be worse off than before,” said Jim.
The wind had fallen to an almost perfect calm, but what there was blew out of the gulf, so that we could not hope to take the vessel up it, while the breakers still burst in sheets of foam on the rocks, and we lay tossed up and down by the glassy rolling seas. We were utterly helpless.
While we were at breakfast a thought occurred to me.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Jim,” I said; “we’ll build a raft, put the poor old captain on it, take him ashore, and bury him. If we can find no people or houses we’ll go off again. The brig won’t drift far away in the meantime. If the wind will let us we’ll run into the gulf, or if it shifts to the northward we’ll steer along shore to the south and look out for another harbour. From what the captain said we may be sure there is one not far off where we shall find people to help us.”
Jim jumped at my proposal.
“That’s it, Peter; when once the dead man is out of the brig things will go better with us,” he answered.