When
the sun rose we found we were on a barren island, and, what was more,
that one of the ship's life-boats had been upset on a reef which we
just missed, and had lost all her stores, though the men had scrambled
into safety. With the aid of our boat, and helped by fine weather, we
raised the life-boat, and recovered some of her fittings. The
water-casks and tins of food were hauled up by a chap who could dive
well. We have been on that lump of rock until today, when I finally
persuaded the others that unless we made for the land which we could
see in the dim distance the weather would break and our food give out.
The trouble with the Chileans was that they were afraid of the natives
hereabouts, and preferred to wait on the off chance of a ship showing
up. At last they saw that Malcolm and I were right, but we missed the
full run of the tide, and were some miles from the mainland, or
whatever it is, when night fell. We pushed along cautiously, found the
entrance to the cove we had made out before the light failed, and were
about to lay to until dawn, when we saw a rocket and heard the
fog-horn.
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