The island had passed away, painted out by distance; the sky above the horizon, paled by the indigo of the sea, lay like a ring of sparkling emerald; to southward, where the emerald passed into the living burning sapphire of the sky, lay a line of white clouds, swan-white and like a flock of flying swans, darkening with their suggestion of snow the blueness of the water, deepening with their remoteness the distance.

The warm wind blew steadily sparkling up the blue, the incredible blue of the sea; the scull-blades, immersed half a foot in the water, were tinted with azure, the floating scraps of seaweed were tinted with indigo; a man floating a yard deep would have shewn like a form of lazulite.

Gaspard had drawn in his sculls; free of the island now, what use was there in rowing? He had no idea of direction, North, South, East or West. His only chance, so he told himself, lay in his sighting a ship. He was in the hands of chance and he did not feel afraid. Not only that, but he felt in his mind a certainty that before long he would be rescued.

The relief of his escape from the island may have had something to do with this intuitive optimism, and the fact that he had provisions and water enough to last him for days. Loneliness had vanished; he had left her behind on the island, she and Yves.

54 It seemed like a bad dream, all that, and Yves was the worst part of it. He felt neither sorrow nor compunction for what had happened. Why should he? He had not meant to kill, and if he had meant to kill, would he not have been justified? He felt nothing of remorse, nothing of that pity for the dead man which had come to him yesterday, when, standing by the reefs on the eastward of the island, he had looked at the heap of raffle............