Long afterward—it might have been an hour and it might have been a day, for all passage of time was lost—Chutney rose to a sitting posture.
His brain was dizzy and reeling. The aching misery lay heavy on his heart, and yet one faint spark of hope lingered amid the black despair, the natural buoyancy of his nature that refused even to submit to the decrees of the inevitable.
It was he who had first spoken the words of doom to his companions, and now he told himself he would show them the way to safety. He fumbled in his clothes for a match, and striking it deliberately, lit a fresh torch.
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.