The ship was gone! All the eyes in the wide world could not have found her on that angry sea below us, or anywhere on the black and looming horizon beyond. The night had taken her. The ship was gone. Hope as we might, speak up as we might, tell each other this story or tell each other that--the one sure fact remained that the Southern Cross had steamed away from Ken's Island and left us to our fates. "He'll be running for sea-room, and come in when the gale falls," said Peter Bligh, when we had stood all together a little while, as crestfallen a lot as the Pacific Ocean could show that day; "trust Mister Jacob to be cautious--he's a Scotchman, and would think first of the ship. A precious lot of good his wages would do him if the ship were down in sixty fathoms and he inside her!" "That's true," cried Dolly Venn, "though your poor old father didn't say it, Mister Bligh. The ship's gone, but she'll come back again." And then to me he said, very earnestly, "Oh, she must come back, captain." "Aye, lad," said I, "let her ride out the gale, and she'll put back right enough. Mister Jacob isn't the one to desert friends. He'll have learned from Harry Doe how it stands with us, and he'll just say, ''Bout ship'; that's what Mr. Jacob will say. I've no fear of it at all. I'm only wondering what sort of shore-play is to keep us amused until we sight the ship again." Well, they looked doleful enough; but not a man among them complained. 'Tis that way with seamen all the world over. Put them face to face with death and some will laugh, and some will curse, and some talk nonsense; but never a man wears his heart upon his sleeve or tells you that he's afraid. And so it was that morning. They understood, I do believe, as well as I did, what the consequences of the gale might be. They were no fools, to imagine that a man could get from Ken's Island to San Francisco in any cockleshell the beach might show him. But none of them talked about it; none charged me with it; they just put their hands in their pockets like brave fellows who had made up their minds already to a very bad job; and be sure I was not the one to give a different turn to it. The ship had gone; the Lord only knew when she would come back again. It was not for me to be crying like a child for that which neither I nor any man could make good. "Well," said I, "the ship's gone, sure enough, and hard words won't bring her back again. What Mister Jacob can do for his friends, that, I know, will be done. We must leave it to him and look after ourselves far as this place is concerned. You won't forget that the crew downstairs will be ready enough to ask after our health and spirits if we give them a look in, and my word is for lying-to here until night comes or the ship is sighted. It must be a matter of hours, anyway. The gale's abating; a landsman would know as much as that." They said, "Aye, aye," to it, and Peter Bligh put in a word of his humour.