They had decided to eat but two biscuit apiece each day, and thus make their scanty store last them three days; after which they looked forward to two days of starving before they could hope to sight the island. Even when they should have covered the required distance, they knew how little chance there was of their finding the long, low sand-bank, which is all that Sable Island is. The probabilities were that currents or winds might carry them so far either to the north or south that they would miss it entirely. They anticipated great suffering, and nerved themselves to bear it; but, happily, they were not to be called upon to undergo it. Night had fallen, and as they could no longer see their compass, and the sky still remained overcast, they had ceased to row. Breeze, tired out with his day’s hard work, had fallen into a doze, while Nimbus sat silently gazing into the darkness. Breeze had slept for about an hour when he was awakened by a touch, and the voice of the black man saying, “Young cap’n, dere’s a light!” The boy sprang up and gazed eagerly in the direction indicated. For a while he could see nothing; then he caught a momentary glimpse of it, the red side-light of some vessel sailing past them far to the southward. Nimbus had already taken to the oars, and was pulling like a madman in that direction. Watching the light closely, Breeze soon saw that it was moving too fast for them either to intercept or overtake it. “It’s no use, Nimbus,” he said finally, “you are only wasting your strength. We can never catch that fellow. Oh for a match, though! If we could only make some kind of a flare!” “Match!” cried Nimbus. “Yes, sah; dreckly, sah!” With this he began to fumble again in his thatch of wool, which seemed almost as well supplied with articles required by shipwrecked sailors as was the famous bag in “The Swiss Family Robinson;” and in a moment he drew a brimstone match from it. Breeze was too busy cutting the oil-skin biscuit-bag into strips to notice from what a curious safe the match was produced; and when it was offered to him he only said, “Light it quick! and I believe we’ll start a flare after all.” In another moment one of the strips of oiled muslin was blazing finely; and, standing on a thwart, Breeze held it as high as he could reach above his head. Before it had burned out another was lighted, and then another, but still no answering signal was seen. The boy’s heart had almost failed him as he lighted the last strip and waved it to and fro. Suddenly a bright flame darted out of the blackness from the direction in which the red light had just disappeared, and with a great blinding rush of joy he knew that their signal had been seen and answered.