A high dawn—one presaging storm—found the castaways standing beside the signal fire which swiftly smoldered into the ashes of hopelessness. The swell had increased during the morning hours. The hill now afforded a footing unsteadier than a laboring ship's deck. The breeze of the night continued light and steady.  
With the first glimmer of day Lavelle went searching the sea. His gaze swung the horizon again and again, following the withdrawing mantle of night only to confront the old bitter emptiness of all the days that had gone before.
 
Lavelle's eyes kept seeking the distance, but Emily's, untrained, sought the sea at hand. So it was that her sight was the first to discover a sail barely two miles away to the south and west.
 
At the discovery her throat closed. She could not speak. She stood breathless, half in trance. Lavelle, turned to the eastward, felt her clutch his arm. He sent a glance whither she dumbly pointed.
 
"A sail!" he cried. "Saved! This means life, you brave, brave soul!"
 
He seized her by the arms and shook her as a boy meeting a boy playmate might have done. Her whole being thrilled at his touch. A glorious light of love came into her countenance, but he saw it not.
 
As he spoke to her he dropped her arms and his glance sprang away to find the sail again. Fixing it, Lavelle could not control his amazement. Emily saw a great seriousness succeed the expression of delight in his face and manner. A chill touched her new-born hope.
 
"What do you see, captain? What is it?"
 
"I don't know what to tell you. I am not sure yet. Still there is something strange——"
 
"Why, that ship——It is moving sideways!" she cried. "It is not sailing!"
 
Lavelle, indeed, was puzzled. The strange sail was an iron or steel bark of perhaps twelve hundred tons, hove to on the port tack. Her forecourse and foretopsails were set. The foretopgallantsail hung in its clewlines and buntlines. The maintopgallantsail and topsails were set and laid full aback against the mast. The main course was clewed up. The peak of the spanker had been let go and the gaff was flailing from side to side. She carried two skysails. These and the royals were furled. All of the headsails, with the exception of the foretopmast-staysail, were down and trailing away from the bowsprit and jibboom. None of the other staysails was set. She was laden and laboring hard. It seemed that the swell must roll the sticks out of her.
 
From the height at which they stood Lavelle and Emily could see her lie down with every heave of the sea and put her lee rail under.
 
Now, for a second, rolling deeper than she had before, Lavelle, from a new angle, confirmed what he had suspected from the beginning. Her wheel was deserted! Her decks were lifeless! She was in charge of herself!
 
The b............