After walking for twenty minutes, the four castaways were suddenly brought to a standstill by the sight of foaming billows close to their feet.  The solid ground ended here.  They found themselves at the extremity of a sharp point on which the sea broke furiously.

“It is a promontory,” said the sailor; “we must retrace our steps, holding towards the right, and we shall thus gain the mainland.”

“But if he is there,” said Neb, pointing to the ocean, whose waves shone of a snowy white in the darkness.  “Well, let us call again,” and all uniting their voices, they gave a vigorous shout, but there came no reply.  They waited for a lull, then began again; still no reply.

The castaways accordingly returned, following the opposite side of the promontory, over a soil equally sandy and rugged.  However, Pencroft observed that the shore was more equal, that the ground rose, and he declared that it was joined by a long slope to a hill, whose massive front he thought that he could see looming indistinctly through the mist.  The birds were less numerous on this part of the shore; the sea was also less tumultuous, and they observed that the agitation of the waves was diminished.  The noise of the surf was scarcely heard.  This side of the promontory evidently formed a semicircular bay, which the sharp point sheltered from the breakers of the open sea.  But to follow this direction was to go south, exactly opposite to that part of the coast where Harding might have landed.  After a walk of a mile and a half, the shore presented no curve which would permit them to return to the north.  This promontory, of which they had turned the point, must be attached to the mainland.  The castaways, although their strength was nearly exhausted, still marched courageously forward, hoping every moment to meet with a sudden angle which would set them in the first direction.  What was their disappointment, when, after trudging nearly two miles, having reached an elevated point composed of slippery rocks, they found themselves again stopped by the sea.

“We are on an islet,” said Pencroft, “and we have surveyed it from one extremity to the other.”

The sailor was right; they had been thrown, not on a continent, not even on an island, but on an islet which was not more than two miles in length, with even a less breadth.

Was this barren spot the desolate refuge of sea-birds, strewn with stones and destitute of vegetation, attached to a more important archipelago?  It was impossible to say.  When the voyagers from their car saw the land through the mist, they had not been able to reconnoiter it sufficiently.  However, Pencroft, accustomed with his sailor eyes to piece through the gloom, was almost certain that he could clearly distinguish in the west confused masses which indicated an elevated coast.  But they could not in the dark determine whether it was a single island, or connected with others.  They could not leave it either, as the sea surrounded them; they must therefore put off till the next day their search for the engineer, from whom, alas! not a single cry had reached them to show that he was still in existence.