The last reckoning taken on board the Northumberland had proved the ship to be south by east of the Marquesas; this was evidently one of those small, lost islands that lie here and there south by east of the Marquesas. Islands the most lonely and beautiful in the world.

As they gazed it grew before them, and shifted still more to the right. It was hilly and green now, though the trees could not be clearly made out; here, the green was lighter in colour, and there, darker. A rim of pure white marble seemed to surround its base. It was foam breaking on the barrier reef.

In another hour the feathery foliage of the cocoa-nut palms could be made out, and the old sailor judged it time to take to the boat.

He lifted Emmeline, who was clasping her luggage, over the rail on to the channel, and deposited her in the stern-sheets; then Dick.

In a moment the boat was adrift, the mast steeped, and the Shenandoah left to pursue her mysterious voyage at the will of the currents of the sea.

“You’re not going to the island, Paddy,” cried Dick, as the old man put the boat on the port tack.

“You be aisy,” replied the other, “and don’t be larnin’ your gran’mother. How the divil d’ye think I’d fetch the land sailin’ dead in the wind’s eye?”

“Has the wind eyes?”

Mr. Button did not answer the question. He was troubled in his mind. What if the island were inhabited? He had spent several years in the South Seas. He knew the people of the Marquesas and Samoa, and liked them. But here he was out of his bearings.

However, all the troubling in the world was of no use. It was a case of the island or the deep sea, and, putting the boat on the starboard tack, he lit his pipe and leaned back with the tiller in the crook of his arm. His keen eyes had made out from the deck of the brig an opening in the reef, and he was making to run the dinghy abreast of the opening, and then take to the sculls and row her through.

Now, as they drew nearer, a sound came on the breeze, a sound faint and sonorous and dreamy. It was the sound of the breakers on the reef. The sea just here was heaving to a deeper swell, as if vexed in its sleep at the resistance to it of the land.

Emmeline, sitting with her bundle in her lap, stared without speaking at the sight before her. Even in the bright, glorious sunshine, and despite the greenery that showed beyond, it was a desolate sight seen from her place in the dinghy. A white, forlorn beach, over which the breakers raced and tumbled, seagulls wheeling and screaming, and over all the thunder of the surf.

Suddenly the break became visible, and a glimpse of smooth, blue water beyond. Mr. Button unshipped the tiller, unstepped the mast, and took to the sculls.