"I tell you what it is," said Captain Bergen, in his low, determined voice, "this thing cannot continue much longer."
"You are no more weary of it than I, Jack; but show me the way in which it can be ended."
"We've got to take the risk. The tender there is large enough to carry us and a good supply of provisions--that is, enough water, to last several days. We can rig some sort of sail, and, in less than a week, by keeping to the northwest, we shall reach some inhabited island, unless we should be picked up before that time, which I consider quite likely."
"I've thought a good deal of it, Jack," said the mate, in a voice of equal seriousness. "We have been restrained heretofore by the fear that it would endanger too greatly the safety of Inez, and mainly by the feeling that we couldn't stay here long without assistance being summoned by that signal fluttering up there. And yet, three years have come and gone," continued the mate, "and not a living soul has come to us. There have been hundreds of days within this long period when we might have embarked on board the little boat and safely made our way to some other port, but we could not know it, and the result is--here we are."
"And the situation is very different from what it was when we first landed, for it is now a choice between staying here with the certainty of miserably perishing--every one of us--and of starting boldly out upon an unknown sea, as it may be called, with the chances between life and death about even."
"You have stated the case correctly," assented Mr. Storms; "and though it is your place to command, yet as you have deferred to me, I give you my promise that to-morrow we shall begin rigging the best sort of sail we can, and at daylight on the next day we will start for whatever port Providence directs us."
"That has put new life into me, Abe. I feel now as I did three years ago, when we first caught sight of those pearls. I am ten years younger. I prefer a bold stroke for life to a weak submission to fate, with this dismal waiting for help to come to us. By the great horn spoon! a thousand such pearl banks as we cleaned out wouldn't tempt me to spend another year on this hated island----"
At this instant the voice of Inez was heard, excitedly calling to them, and while they rose to the sitting position and looked inquiringly in that direction, she was seen to spring through the open door of the cabin, and to come running toward them on the beach, bareheaded and with her long, yellow hair streaming in the wind.