isen up
round it, and kept it from being washed away."

"But could an island like this have been washed away?" said Mark.

"To be sure it could, my boy," said the captain. "From what I have seen
a great deal of it is loose scoria. You saw plenty of big stones lying
about?"

"Yes," replied Mark, "but they were huge stones. Some of them must
weigh half a ton."

Mark knew that half a ton meant ten hundredweight; but his comparison
was a shot at a venture, for he had no idea how big, or rather how
small, a rock is which weighs half a ton.

"I don't think the sea would make much of a rock weighing half a ton,
Mark," said the captain, smiling. "Why, in one of our great storms it
would move that almost as easily as if it were a pebble. Mr Gregory is
quite right. Volcanic islands have before now been formed, and been in
eruption for a long time, and then been slowly swept away by the action
of the sea."

"How long to sundown, sir?" said Mr Gregory.

"Half an hour," said the captain, after a glance at the slowly
descending orb.

"And then it will be dark directly. What do you say, sir, give it up,
land and set up camp, or keep on?"

"Keep on, Gregory," said the captain, quietly. "There is a headland
away yonder. Once we get round that we may see home. Tired, my lads?"

"Tidy, sir," said Billy Widgeon. "But if it's all the same to you, we'd
rather keep on as long as we can."

"Why, Billy?" asked Mark.

"Well, sir, since you put it like that," said the little sailor, smiling
sheepishly, "it is that."

"Is what, Billy?"

"Why, what you mean, sir. You meant wittles. That's what you was
a-thinking about. You see if we goes ashore we shall have to pick they
fowls, and make a fire, and wait till they're cooked afore we can eat
'em, and to men as hungry as we, sir, that's a deal wuss than rowing a
few miles; eh, mate?"

This was to the man at the oar forward. The response was an affirmatory
grunt.

"There, Gregory," said the captain, "what do you say now?"

"Keep on," replied Gregory, shortly. "Widgeon is right."

The island never seemed more beautiful to them than now as the sun went
down lower and lower till, like a great fiery globe, it nearly touched
the sea: for rock, jungle, and the central mountainous clump, with the
conical volcano dominating all, was seen through a glorious golden haze,
while the sea was first purple and gold, and then orange, changing
slowly into crimson.

The sun dis