The Castaways of the Flag by Jules Verne Page A

exclaimed:—
     
                "A
breeze is coming; I can feel it! The jib by itself will do more than the
oars."
     
                The boatswain
was not mistaken. A few minutes later little flaws began to paint green the
surface of the water in the south-west, and a creamy ripple spread right to the
sides of the boat.
     
                "That
shows you are right, Block," said Fritz. "But still, the breeze is so
faint that we must not stop rowing."
     
                "We
won't stop, Mr. Fritz," the boatswain answered; "let us plug away
until the sail can carry us towards the coast."
     
                "Where
is it?" asked Fritz, trying in vain to look through the curtain of fog.
     
                "Right
in front of us, for sure!"
     
                "Is it
so certain, Block?" Frank put in.
     
                "Where
would you have it be, except behind that cursed fog up there in the
north?" the boatswain retorted.
     
                "We
would have it there all right," James Wolston said. "But that is not
surety enough!"
     
                And they
could not possibly know, unless the wind should freshen.
     
                This it made
no haste to do, and it was after three when the napping of the half-clewed sail
showed that it might now be of use.
     
                The oars were
taken in, and Fritz and Frank hoisted the foresail and hauled it in hard, while
the boatswain secured the sheet which was thrashing the gunwale.
     
                Was it
nothing more than a capricious breeze, whose intermittent breath would not be
strong enough to disperse the fog?
     
                For twenty
minutes more doubt reigned. Then the swell took the boat broadside on, and the
boatswain had to bring her head round with one of the sculls. The foresail and
the jib bellied out, drawing the sheets quite taut.
     
                The direction
they had to take was northward, until the wind should clear the horizon.
     
                They hoped
that this might happen as soon as the breeze had got so far. So all eyes were
fixed in that direction. If the land showed only for one moment, John Block
would ask no more, but would steer for it.
     
                But no rift
appeared in the veil, although the wind seemed to acquire force as the sun went
down. The boat was moving fairly fast. Fritz and the boatswain were beginning
to wonder if they had passed the land.
     
                Doubt crept
into their hearts again. Had Frank been mistaken, after all? Had he really
caught sight of land to the northward?
     
                He declared
again most positively that he had.
     
                "It was
a high coast," he declared again, "a cliff with an almost horizontal
crest, and it was impossible to mistake a cloud for it."
     
                "Yet,
since we are bearing down upon it," Fritz replied, "we ought to have
reached it by now. It could not have been more than twelve or fifteen miles off
then."
     
                "Are you
sure, Block," Frank went on, "that you have been steering the boat on
to it all the time, and that it was due north?"
     
                "It is
possible that we have got on a wrong tack," the boatswain acknowledged.
"And so I think it would be better to wait until the horizon clears, even
if we have to stay where we are all night."
     
                That might be
the best thing to do. But if the boat were close to the shore it would not be
wise to risk it among the reefs which probably fringed it.
     
                So all
listened intently, trying to detect the least sound of surf.
     
                Nothing was
to be heard—none of the long and sullen rolling of the sea when it breaks upon
reefs of rocks, or bursts in foam upon the beach.
     
                The utmost
caution had