dies, with their hair dishevelled and their wet garments clinging
to them, evoked most of the lad's pity, which was the next moment
withdrawn for his father, who looked ghastly pale, and lay back with his
head against the side of the boat, his hand resting upon that of Mr
Morgan, whose face was buried in his chest as he leaned against a
thwart.

The first-mate, too, crouched amidships in a very uneasy position, where
he had tried to settle down with the major so as to leave more room.
While the latter seemed the most placid of all, and lay back with half a
cigar in his teeth--one which had evidently been cut in two, for there
was no sign of the end having been lit.

Mark gazed round in a half-stupefied way for some minutes, hardly
realising what it all meant, and it was only by scraps that he recalled
the events since the fight in the cabin.

But by degrees all came back, even to the grazing of the reef and the
gliding into calm water, and he looked to the right, to see about a mile
away a long line of white foam, whose sound came in a low murmur, while
between them and it lay blue water quite smooth and unruffled, save that
it heaved softly, and far beyond the line of white foam there was the
sunlit sea.

Sunlit, for, save to his left, there was not a cloud to be seen. The
sky was of an intense blue, and the cloud that remained was
peculiar-looking--fleecy and roseate, and hanging over the centre of a
beautiful land whose shore was of pure white sand, rising right out of
which and close to the water were the smooth straight columns of the
cocoa-nut trees with their capitals of green.

He could see little but these beautiful vegetable productions, save
farther along the shore, and beyond the belt of cocoa-nut trees a pile
of rocks ran right down into the water; but from a glimpse here and
there it was evident that there were tall trees and high ground beyond
the palms.

Greatest boon of all to his eyes was the sun, which was not yet high,
but whose warm beams provided him with an invigorating bath and seemed
to send life and hope and strength into his cramped and chilled limbs.

He turned to look in another direction, and found that the boat was
within a few yards of the pure white sands of a sort of spit or point
which ran down into the lagoon, whose limpid waters were sheltered by
the barrier reef; and as he wondered how it was that they had not
drifted quite ashore he realised that the sail with its yard hal