I brought the tube to bear upon the cave, and for some moments saw nothing but the darkness of the interior. A singular appearance of darkness it was, burnished to the gleam of a raven’s wing by the silver-blue atmosphere, by the azure glory floating off the surface of the natural harbor through which I viewed it. But after a little I seemed to make out a sort of intricacy of pale lines in that gloom. Well, _pale_ I will not call them. They were of a lighter hue than the dusk out of which they stole to the eye. Then, knowing very well that that complication of shadow signified the spars, yards, and rigging of a large ship, I seemed to distinguish the form of the fabric; could almost swear to her bowsprit, to the tops, to the side she showed, to the crosses of the lower masts and fore and main yards. “What do you see?” said Greaves. “A ship,” said I. “Oh, you have no doubt?” “I should have plenty of doubt,” said I, “if you had not told me how to name, how to define that bewildering muddle of shadow.” “Give me the glass!” cried he suddenly, with a change and vehemence of voice that made the abrupt note of it wild as madness itself to my ears. I started, gave him the glass, and watched him. “My God!” he cried, “I fear we are too late.” “Captain,” called Bol from the gangway, “dere vhas people valking on der beach.” The telescope fell with a crash from Greaves’ hand. He gazed at me with an ashen face. “It was my _only_ fear!” he cried. “Are we too late?” “I see three people,” said I, after looking awhile. “One of them is a woman.” “Are you sure of that?” he shouted. “One of them is a woman,” I repeated. “Two men and one woman. I see no more. One of the men is waving his hat, and now the woman is waving something white--a handkerchief. They are castaways.” Greaves snatched the glass from me. “You are right, I believe,” he exclaimed, after looking. “What should a woman be doing in a salvage or wrecking job? Yes; they are flourishing to us. I did not before observe that one was a woman. Get a boat manned, Mr. Fielding, and bring them aboard. I am mad till I learn what their business is there, who they are, what has brought them to _this_ of all the hundred rocks of the Pacific.” “Which boat shall I take, sir?” “The cutter. Let the crew go armed. Those two fellows and the woman may prove a piratical decoy, for all you know. Mind your eye as you enter the reefs, and hold on your oars to parley. There may be a big gang in ambush round the corner at the extremity of the flat there.”