be about south-west, they were enabled to pass
in and out of the bay with the sheet slightly eased off.

Standing through this channel, which was only about a quarter of a mile
long, they soon found themselves in the open sea, with a considerable
amount of swell, over which the raft rode with a buoyancy which was most
satisfactory to her designer. If Gaunt had any doubt whatever about the
strength of any portion of his novel construction it was in the
transverse bracing which connected the bottoms of his two pontoons, and
he was therefore rather anxious for the first ten minutes or quarter of
an hour after he found himself fairly in the open sea. But the bracing
was found amply sufficient to give the required rigidity, and this fact
once demonstrated he kept away before the wind, and coasted along the
northern shore of his island, keeping at a sufficient distance from the
tremendously lofty cliffs to prevent his being becalmed. With the wind
over her quarter the raft travelled remarkably fast, and within an hour
of the time when she passed out through the channel she was abreast of
the entrance to the river--which, by the way, was so effectually masked
that Gaunt actually ran past it, and arrived off a point which they had
seen from their original landing-place before he became aware of the
fact. Retracing his way, the engineer, after a careful search, found
the opening and passed into the river. Their course for the first two
miles was dead to windward; but the raft sailed remarkably near the
wind, and held her own even better than her designer had believed to be
possible--the long, flat sides of the two pontoons seeming to act the
parts of leeboards, and so preventing her from making any perceptible
leeway. They reached the lake, sailed round the islet, landed there,
and procured a liberal supply of fruits of various descriptions, which
seemed to grow more luxuriantly and of a finer flavour there than on the
mainland, and then embarking once more made the best of their way back
to the bay, where they anchored the raft and proceeded on shore in a
small boat, which had been built as a sort of tender to the larger
craft.

They found Henderson still busy with his examination of the cargo, and
Gaunt in particular was highly delighted with its multifarious
character. There were many articles which he foresaw would be of the
utmost use to them in the construction of their little ship, but perhaps
the find which deli