Look!" Copplestone shaded his eyes and stared out across the sea.

The steamer was by that time no more than two or three miles away.

But she was coming towards them in a dead straight line, and as she was accordingly bow on, and as her top deck and lamps were obscured by clouds of black smoke, pouring furiously from her funnels, they could make little out of her appearance.

Copplestone's first notion was that she was a naval patrol boat, or a torpedo destroyer.

Whatever she was it seemed certain that she was heading direct for the island, at that very point on which the fugitives had been landed the previous night.