Five o'clock developed merely color on the water, but no sign of a sail or a funnel. Elaine still slept, while Grenville, cramped almost beyond endurance, refused to move, and thereby disturb her slumber.
But at six, as he turned for the fiftieth time to scan the limited horizon, he started so unwittingly, at sight of a tree and headland, flatly erected, like a bit of sawed-out stage scenery, above the waste of billows, that Elaine sat up at once.
"It's land!" he said. "We're drifting to some sort of land!"
She was still too hazy in her mind, and puzzled by their surroundings, to grasp the situation promptly.
"Land?" she repeated. "Oh!" and a rush of hideous memories swept confusedly upon her till she shivered, gazing at the water.
Grenville had risen to his feet, and Elaine now rose beside him. Somewhat more of the flat, wide protrusion from the sea became thus visible to both. It still appeared of insignificant extent, a blue and featureless patch against the sky, with one half-stripped tree upon its summit.
"I should say it's an island," Grenville added, quietly, restraining an exultation that might prove premature. "It is still some miles away."
"There must be someone there," Elaine replied, with an eagerness that betrayed her anxious state of mind. "Almost anyone would certainly help us a little."
What doubts he entertained of some of the island inhabitants in this particular section of the world, Sidney chose to keep to himself.
"It's land!" he said, as he had before. "That means everything!"
"Do you know of any island that ought to be in this locality?"
"I haven't the remotest notion where we are--except we are somewhere, broadly speaking, in the neighborhood of the Malay peninsula. The steamer must have drifted tremendously out of her course after we lost our rudder."
"Have you seen or heard anything of any of the others?"
"Not a sign.... We may find some of them, landed on this island."
He had no such hope, and this she felt. She summoned a heart full of courage to meet the situation, however, and gazed off afar at the misty terra incognita enlarging imperceptibly as they drifted deliberately onward.
"It's fortunate," she said, "the steamers pass this way."
"Yes," he said, unwilling to shake this solitary hope that brightened her uncertain prospect, but he knew they were leagues from the nearest track that the ocean steamers plowed. "And I trust we'll find it entirely comfortable while we're waiting," he added. "We're sure to get dry and find something fit to eat."