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"All right," replied William W. Kolderup, fixing a curious look on his nephew. Then he muttered between his teeth, "The sooner the better." At these last words came a sudden interruption from Phina.
There is, however, that inexplicable smoke which I twice thought I saw." The fact is, that Godfrey had never been able to trace any fire. As for the hot water springs to which he attributed the origin of the vapour he had noticed, Phina Island being in no way volcanic did not appear to contain any, and he had to content himself with thinking that he had twice been the victim of an illusion.
In fact, its size in proportion to its weight had assured for it sufficient buoyancy. The two inhabitants of Phina Island would for some time be kept provided in a large measure with the material wants of life, tools, arms, instruments, utensils, clothes due to the luckiest of chances. Godfrey did not dream of taking all the things to Will Tree at once.
Her dreams were when she was asleep, not when she was awake. She was not asleep now, and had no intention of being so. "Godfrey?" she continued. "Phina?" answered the young man. "Where are you now?" "Near you in this room " "Not near me, Godfrey! Not in this room! But far far away, over the seas, is it not so?"
Godfrey in tourist costume accordingly handed himself over to Messrs Stephenson and Co., photographers of Montgomery Street, and Phina, in her walking-dress, confided in like manner to the sun the task of fixing her charming but somewhat sorrowing features on the plate of those able operators.
But if Tartlet saw in the possession of the instruments, the tools, and the weapons only the means of making their life of isolation a little more agreeable, Godfrey was already thinking of how to escape from Phina Island. Could he not now construct a vessel strong enough to enable them to reach if not some neighbouring land, at least some ship passing within sight of the island?
Two miles off even the end of Flag Point could be seen; but the mouth of the river at the place where the savages had landed the evening before was not visible. Godfrey at first looked around without using his glass, so as to examine the environs of Will Tree on this side of Phina Island. All was quite peaceful. Godfrey then taking his glass swept round the coast to the promontory at Flag Point.
Godfrey easily distinguished the build of the vessel. She was a proa, and this would indicate that Phina Island was not far from Malaysia. But they were not Malays on board; they were half-naked blacks, and there were about a dozen of them. The danger of being found was thus great.
It is well known that Northern America, swept by the Polar winds, with no obstacle to check them, is one of the coldest countries on the globe. The winter there lasts until the month of April. Exceptional precautions have to be taken against it. It was the coming of the winter as it did which gave rise to the thought that Phina Island was situated in a higher latitude than Godfrey had supposed.
Godfrey resolved to defer till the morrow the task of proceeding to a new abode. But to the pressing questions which the professor propounded on the results of his exploration he ended by replying that it was an island, Phina Island, on which they both had been cast, and that they must think of the means of living before dreaming of the means of departing. "An island!" exclaimed Tartlet. "Yes!
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