f Flag Point, and began to
haul his flag up and down, as if he were saluting. Then he left it
half-mast high, so as to show, in the way usual with seafaring people,
that he required help and succour.

The steamer still approached to within three miles of the shore, but her
flag remained immovable at the peak, and replied not to that on Flag
Point. Godfrey felt his heart sink. He would not be noticed! It was
half-past six, and the sun was about to set!

The steamer was now about two miles from the cape, which she was rapidly
nearing. At this moment the sun disappeared below the horizon. With the
first shadows of night, all hope of being seen had to be given up.

Godfrey again, with no more success, began to raise and lower his flag.
There was no reply.

He then fired his gun two or three times, but the distance was still
great, and the wind did not set in that direction! No report would be
heard on board!

The night gradually came on; soon the steamer's hull grew invisible.
Doubtless in another hour she would have passed Phina Island.

Godfrey, not knowing what to do, thought of setting fire to a group of
resinous trees which grew at the back of Flag Point. He lighted a heap
of dry leaves with some gunpowder, and then set light to the group of
pines, which flared up like an enormous torch.

But no fire on the ship answered to the one on the land, and Godfrey
returned sadly to Will Tree, feeling perhaps more desolate than he had
ever felt till then.

CHAPTER XVI.

IN WHICH SOMETHING HAPPENS WHICH CANNOT FAIL TO SURPRISE THE READER.

To Godfrey the blow was serious. Would this unexpected chance which had
just escaped him ever offer again? Could he hope so? No! The
indifference of the steamer as she passed in sight of the island,
without even taking a look at it, was obviously shared in by all the
vessels venturing in this deserted portion of the Pacific. Why should
they put into port more than she had done? The island did not possess a
single harbour.

Godfrey passed a sorrowful night. Every now and then jumping up as if he
heard a cannon out at sea, he would ask himself if the steamer had not
caught sight of the huge fire which still burnt on the coast, and if she
were not endeavouring to answer the signal by a gun-shot?

Godfrey listened. It was only an illusion of his over-excited brain.
When the day came, he had come to look upon the apparition of the ship
as but a dream, which had commenced abou