Now Tier had heard Harry’s explanation to Rose, touching the manner in which he had waded and swum about the reef that very morning, and it at once occurred to him that the young man had too much energy and spirit to remain helpless and inactive to perish on a naked rock, when there might be a possibility of at least prolonging existence, if not of saving it.  This induced the steward to turn the glass slowly over the water, and along all the ranges of visible rock that he could find in that vicinity.  For a long time the search was useless, the distance rendering such an examination not only difficult but painful.  At length Jack, about to give up the matter in despair, took one sweep with the glass nearer to the brig, as much to obtain a general idea of the boat-channels of the reef, as in any hope of finding Mulford, when an object moving in the water came within the field of the glass.  He saw it but for an instant, as the glass swept slowly past, but it struck him it was something that had life, and was in motion.  Carefully going over the same ground again, after a long search, he again found what he so anxiously sought.  A good look satisfied him that he was right.  It was certainly a man wading along the shallow water of the reef, immersed to his waist—­and it must be Mulford.

So excited was Jack Tier by this discovery that he trembled like a leaf.  A minute or two elapsed before he could again use the glass; and when he did, a long and anxious search was necessary before so small an object could be once more found.  Find it he did, however, and then he got its range by the vessel, in a way to make sure of it.  Yes, it was a man, and it was Mulford.

Circumstances conspired to aid Jack in the investigation that succeeded.  The sun was near setting, but a stream of golden light gleamed over the waters, particularly illuminating the portion which came within the field of the glass.  It appeared then that Harry, in his efforts to escape from the rock, and to get nearer to the edge of the main channel, where his chances of being seen and rescued would be ten-fold what they were on his rock, had moved south, by following the naked reef and the shallow places, and was actually more than a league nearer to the brig than he would have been had he remained stationary.  There had been hours in which to make this change, and the young man had probably improved them to the utmost.

Jack watched the form that was wading slowly along with an interest he had never before felt in the movements of any human being.  Whether Mulford saw the brig or not, it was difficult to say.  She was quite two leagues from him, and, now that her sails were furled, she offered but little for the eye to rest on at that distance.  At first, Jack thought the young man was actually endeavouring to get nearer to her, though it must have been a forlorn hope that should again place him in the hands of Spike.  It was, however, a more probable conjecture that the