ether out of the track of sailing vessels.

Once he saw what appeared to be a long, low cloud hovering midway
between the sky and water, and which he knew to be the smoke from a
steamer; but it was so far off that, even with the glass, he could only
make out the slow-moving line of smoke that marked her course.

His boat he kept in the channel forming the water entrance to the
grotto, and during the roughest weather he had yet experienced on the
island the tide never once rose higher than from four to six inches, and
its ebb and flow was so silent that it was never heard, no matter how
loud and tempestuously the surf was roaring without.

The rainfalls, though light, were more frequent, denoting the near
approach of the dreaded wet season, when for days together he might be
kept a prisoner in the cave, so he wisely took advantage of what
remained to him of fair weather, and was out on the reef every morning
as soon as it was light, looking, with longing eyes, for the hoped-for
sail.

What wonder, then, after all this patient watching and waiting, that his
heart leaped with indescribable joy when he saw a sail, not three miles
away, and heading directly for the island!

At first he thought it was a turtle-sloop, by its size and rig, but, as
it came nearer, it looked more like a pilot-boat, and somehow the sight
of it strongly reminded him of his old enemy, Juan Montes, the wrecker.

They were beating up toward the point where the schooner lay, and their
object evidently was to land and take a look at the stranded vessel.

A sudden fear seized Frank. It might be wreckers in search of spoils,
and, in that case, from the recent experience he had had among them, it
were better perhaps for him to retire to his cave until he knew
something more of their intentions.

This he quickly did, taking care, however, not to break or bend a
feathery fern or crush a tuft of moss, as he hastened within his
retreat.

Then he hurriedly pushed to its place the block of stone that served for
a door--or, rather, a window, for the aperture was only just large
enough to admit of Frank's crawling through--and, when this was done, he
took up his position at one of the two small loop-holes he had made, as
a precautionary means when stormy weather might make it necessary to
close the window.

Both lookouts commanded an unobstructed view of the sea and that part of
the beach where the Sea Eagle lay.

Frank watched the slow approach of th