booming of the breakers and the monotonous wash of the waves.

Land, and no mistake, and the Sea Eagle was driving straight toward it
with a speed that would strand her in twenty minutes, if she kept on.

And grandly determined upon her own destruction looked the staunch old
schooner, in the fast brightening rays of the rising sun, as, with all
sail set and never a hand at her helm, she plowed her way toward the
low, sandy shore stretching away like the shadow of doom before her.

Frank meant to beach her, and take his chance on the island, for an
island he felt pretty certain it was.

He flew to the cabin, and brought up the captain's glass. He could do it
now without superstitious fear. To the southward he saw a black, barren
ledge of rocks, rising abruptly out of the sea, but to the north and
east the shore was low, and there did not appear to be much surf.

He ran to the wheel, and gave it a turn a point or two more to the north
and east. The vessel obeyed her helm splendidly. The tide was at the
flood, the wind fresh but steady, and blowing directly on land.

With firm, shut lips, watchful eyes and pale, resolute face, Frank kept
his small hand on the spokes, the rapid pulsations of his heart telling
away the seconds so audibly that he could count them.

In less than ten minutes' time she struck, grounding lightly and getting
off again; then she plunged forward, driven high on the beach by an
incoming wave, and was as motionless as if she had never pitched and
tossed through mountainous billows or careened to the angry rush of the
storm-lashed sea.

Frank relinquished his grasp of the wheel, and drew a long breath of
mingled regret and satisfaction.

"Fast aground till a squall comes along and breaks you up," he said, as
if speaking to the vessel. "It's all there was left for either of us to
do, for we are death, it seems, to every one that comes near us."

Hardly a dozen yards were between him and solid earth. Frank soon had
the ladder over the side, and in two minutes more was on shore.

He ran up and down the beach a little way, shouting at intervals as loud
as he could, but there was no answer.

Scores of beautiful little paroquets were chattering in the palm trees,
and numbers of long-legged sea-fowl stalking about on the reef, but no
human being, or any sign of one, did he see.

It was necessary that he should know something about the size of the
island before deciding what next it was best to do