Page:Adrift in the Pacific, Sampson Low, 1889.djvu/118

 the west lay Family Lake, screened by a thick mass of verdure; to the south the country was seamed with yellow sandhills bordered by blackish firs as in the dry plains of the north; to the north the outline of the bay ended in a low cliff which formed the limit of an immense sandy plain stretching beyond. In short, Charman Island was only fertile in its central portions, here the sweet waters of the lake spread life around as they flowed off to the sea.

Briant then turned his glasses to the east, where the horizon was now as clear as could be. Any land within seven or eight miles would certainly have been noticeable.

There was nothing in that direction, nothing but the sea and the unbroken line of sky.

For an hour Briant, Jack, and Moko continued to look around them, and they were about to descend to the beach again when Moko suddenly stretched out his hand to the north-east, and asked, —

"What is that?"

Briant brought his glasses to bear on the spot indicated.

A little above the horizon was a whitish stain that the eye might have taken for a cloud, had not the sky been quite clear at the time. Briant kept it in the field of his glasses for a long time, and announced that it remained stationary, and its form did not alter.

"I do not know what that can be," he said, "unless it is a mountain, and a mountain would not look like that."

A few minutes afterwards the sun had sunk more to the west, and the spot had disappeared. Was it some high peak, or a light reflected from the waters, as Jack and Moko suggested?

Soon all three were back at the mouth of East River where the yawl was moored. Jack collected some dry wood from under the trees, and then he lighted the fire while Moko cooked the roast tinamous.

At seven o'clock Jack and Briant were walking along