the point was
hidden in a steaming cloud.

"You don't know where we are, then?"

"No, sir; perhaps the captain will know when he wakes. I've been out
here again and again, and never seen that mountain. We can't, I am
sure, be on the mainland, and it seems impossible that we can have been
driven anywhere near Java. However, we are safe ashore, and, judging
from the look of the trees and the sea, we shall not starve."

"I shall," said the major, puffing away at his bit of cigar. "If we
don't soon have food I shall either kill and eat the monkey or Master
Mark here! I must have something. By the way, don't throw your
cigar-end down--save it. Tobacco may grow scarce."

The mate nodded; and just then Mark uttered an ejaculation, for he saw
Mrs Strong move; her companions started into wakefulness at the same
time; and the next moment, as they rose painfully the major and Mark
helped them ashore, where they sank down in the warm sand.

The captain was roused by the motion of the boat; and he would have come
ashore without awaking his men, but the boat was so lightened now that
the men were roused. The least injured came ashore, and after an effort
or two ran the gig up on the sands, with the two men who were worst
lying in the bottom--Mr Morgan and one of the fore-mast men--these two
being carefully lifted out and laid on the sand in the shade of the
cocoa-nut trees, while something in the shape of breakfast was prepared.

At first everyone moved painfully, but every step in the light and
warmth seemed comforting; and before long all were busy, the men finding
shell-fish in the hollows and crevices of the coral rocks; others
collected wood, while a fire was made. Billy Widgeon, after rubbing his
legs and bathing his feet first in the sea and then in the warm sand,
volunteered to climb a cocoa-nut tree and get down some fruit; the
ladies went to a pool in the rocks to try and perform something in the
way of a morning toilet; and the major turned chef and cooked the
shell-fish, and opened some tins of preserved meat and biscuit; Mark
being the successful discoverer of a spring as he went in search of
Bruff, to find him drinking thereof.

Shortly afterwards, in earnest thankfulness, a hearty breakfast was
eaten upon that lonely shore. But when cuts had been bathed and
re-bandaged and evidences of the conflict removed, and a short
inspection made to see if there was anything to fear from savages, the
arms were e