, and the land's swept right
up to us, and then away north-west for a dozen miles, I should say, to
the sea on that side."

"Can you make out the mountain?"

"No; there's nothing but cloud to the norrard. I expect it's there, and
not very far away."

"And how far-off is the nearest sea?" asked Oliver.

"'Bout four miles."

"And what do you make this out to be--an island?"

"Can't say, sir. Island or peninsula. Can't be mainland. But I shall
be able to settle that before long."

He reached the deck just as the men were coming up from the forecastle,
and they were soon at work swabbing the planks, squaring yards, shaking
out the sails to dry, and getting the vessel in order just as if she
were at sea, while the cook and steward attended to their work as coolly
as if nothing had happened.

At mid-day the mate had taken his observations and marked down their
position on the chart just where the map showed a broad blank in the
Arafura Sea.

"But are you right?" said Oliver, as he followed the mate's pointing
finger.

"As right as my knowledge of navigation will let me be, sir," said the
mate quietly. "That's where we are."

"But where is that?"

"Just nowhere, sir."

"But--"

"We're very cunning, sir, and think we know the whole world and
everything there is; but now and then we find out that we are not so
clever as we thought, and that there is just a little more to learn. I
said that we were nowhere just now, which isn't quite correct, because
we are here; but it strikes me that we're in a spot where no civilised
vessel ever was before."

"What, right on shore?" said Oliver, smiling.

"No, sir, I didn't mean that. I meant no vessel ever touched here
before, or it would have been marked down in the chart. Savages have
been, perhaps. Maybe they're here still, but they have been frightened
into their holes by the eruption."

Oliver looked out of the open cabin window as if expecting to see a
party of the people coming, but he only made out something living in one
of the pools left by the flood wave.

"I'm very sorry, gentlemen, the captain and I undertook to cruise with
you along the New Guinea coast; but man proposes and--you know the rest.
Here we shall have to stay till some vessel comes in sight to take us
off, and to that end I propose that to-morrow morning we begin to make
expeditions to the coast, and set up a spar here and there with a bit of
bunting showing for a signal of distress