The pale, haggard faces that looked into each other as the bright light shone over the water were ghastly and unnatural. Abject misery and hopelessness were stamped on each one.
The colonel and Forbes faced Guy calmly. Canaris looked up with a shudder and then dropped his head again. Sir Arthur lay among the rugs as though asleep.
At that instant the canoe struck some obstacle with a slight tremor and stopped.
The colonel with a slight gesture pointed to the right, and there before them lay the Isle of Skeletons. A strange fatality had drifted them a second time to this awful spot.
Guy shuddered, but the colonel rose, and brushing past him stepped on shore.
Forbes followed him in silence, and then Canaris staggered blindly past.
After a brief hesitation Guy stepped out, and dragged the canoe half way up the sand. Sir Arthur never moved. He was sleeping and no one dared disturb him. They sat down in a row on the sand.
"It's as good a place as any to die," said Forbes hoarsely. "The bones will soon have company."
He paused, frightened at his own voice, and no one replied. For a while they sat in silence.
Guy stuck the torch in the sand and it blazed away with a merry light. Somehow or other the ray of hope that had animated him a little while before had vanished, leaving only a dull despair, a reluctance to face the horror of the situation.