There was not a soul within a couple of hundred yards of the jetty. He would arrange it thus: if anyone set foot on it before the mail-boat let go her anchor he would give life another chance; if not, well, then he would try and remember some sort of prayer and go quietly over the side, give in without a struggle, and be washed up by the next tide. From every appearance luck favoured the latter chance. So much the better omen, then, if the other came uppermost. He looked at the mail-boat and then at the shore. Not a soul was to be seen. Another five minutes would decide it all for him. Minute after minute went by; the boat steamed closer to the hulk. He could see the hands forrard on the fo'c'sle-head ready to let go the anchor, he could even make out the thin column of steam issuing from the escape-pipe in the cable range. Another minute, or at most two, would settle everything. And yet there was no sign of excitement in his tired face, only a certain grim and terrible earnestness in the lines about the mouth. The steamer was close enough now for him to hear the order from the bridge and the answer from the officer in charge of the cable. Another two or three seconds and he might reckon the question settled and the game played out. He turned for the last time to look along the jetty, but there was no hope there, not a living being was anywhere near it.
"Well, this settles it, once and forever," he said to himself, following his speech with a little sigh, for which he could not account. Then, as if to carry out his intention, he crossed to the steps leading down to the other side of the jetty. As he did so he almost shouted with surprise, for there, on the outer edge, hidden from his line of sight where he had stood before, lay a little Kanaka boy about ten years of age fast asleep. _He had been there all the time._ Ellison's luck had triumphed in a most unexpected manner! As he realised it he heard the cable on board the mail-boat go tearing through the hawsehole, and next moment the officer's cry, "Anchor gone, sir!" At the same instant the ship's bell struck eight (twelve o'clock).
With the change in his prospects, for he was resolved to consider it a change, he remembered that Murkard was on the hillside waiting for him. Instantly he wheeled about and started back on his tracks for the side of the island he had first come from. The sun was very warm, the path a rough one, and by the time he reached it his bare feet had had about enough of it. He found Murkard sitting in the same spot and almost in the same attitude as when he had left him nearly five hours before. The expression of amusement on the latter's face changed a little as he noticed that his friend carried nothing in his hand.