“We had worse luck than what you had, howsomever, Captain,” Caleb Joy resumed his story, his great booming voice all at once a trifle unsteady, as though even after these months the memories it called up were hard to face. “I lost _my_ ship, sir. We drove before the gale all night, and in the morning, just as light came, we discovered fire in the hold. You can guess the rest—she went like a tinder box. We took to the boats, but in that sea, and with the gale still blowin’, it was impossible to keep together. The other two boats I’ve never seen nor heard of from that mornin’ to this. My boat kept afloat, by some miracle, and when the sun come out I managed to lay a rough course, meaning to head for one of the West Indian islands—Cuba, by my reckonin’, was the nearest. O’ course, not havin’ means for takin’ a reg’lar sight, I had no sure way of knowin’ just how far off our course we’d driven. We rowed for two days and a night, and—well, to make a long story short—and it ain’t an easy tale, as you may imagine, to tell, sir—we finally sighted land. It warn’t Cuba, nor none o’ the islands I know by the charts, but it were land, at any rate, and mighty welcome to our eyes. We rowed halfway round her ‘fore we could find this little inlet, or bay as you might call it. We pulled in then, and landed right where you’ve come ashore today. And here we’ve remained ever since. The men are over on the other side o’ the island, where we’ve built ourselves some huts,” he added, explanatorily. “I just happened to walk over this way—I usually take a stroll ‘fore breakfast, like it’s always been my custom when ashore. And maybe I wasn’t struck all of a heap when I saw a clipper layin’ out in the bay, an’ a boat puttin’ into the beach. Naturally, I hurried as fast as I could, and come to meet you—not knowin’ I’d be meetin’ old friends,” he wound up, smiling. Captain Eric had begun looking very grave as the other neared the end of his narrative, and his expression did not lighten when it was finished. “I take it the island’s not inhabited,” he remarked. “But you never saw any ships passing in all these months?” Captain Joy shook his grizzled head. “Never a one,” he said, quietly. “Oh, there’s no doubt but what we’re well off the reg’lar lane of ship’s travel. It’s a mighty little island—no more’n a half-mile across and maybe a mile in length. She’s not on any of the charts, either, I’m pretty sure.” “No, you’re right about that,” Erica’s father agreed. “I looked this morning, before coming ashore, to make certain. Well-ll——” He frowned out at the _Sea Gull_, and fell silent. Erica knew he was wondering whether—in the tragic event that high tide should not float the clipper from her reef, how long they, too, might stay here and search the blue horizon for passing ships, as Captain Joy and his men had done for eight long months.