Slowly the pile of cocoa-nuts lessened. Each one of them with its
sweet milk and flesh was more precious to them than a golden chalice
set with rubies. The drops of milk that dripped from them were more
than ropes of pearls.

At last eight Sundays had followed one upon another; and now at the
end of the day there was only the half of one cocoa-nut remaining.
When that was gone--all would be over. So they knelt down under the
cloudless sky on an evening calm and beautiful. They were on that
invisible line in the Great Pacific where the day ends and begins.
Those seven on the tiny craft were, indeed, we cannot but believe, the
last worshippers in all the great world-house of God as Sunday drew
to its end just where they were. Was it to be the last time that they
would pray to God in this life?

Prayer ended; night was falling. Elikana the leader, who had kept
their spirits from utterly failing, stood up and gazed out with great
anxious eyes before the last light should fail.

"Look, there upon the edge of the sea where the sun sets. Is it--" He
could hardly dare to believe that it was not the mirage of his weary
brain. But one and another and then all peered out through the swiftly
waning light and saw that indeed it was land.

Then a squall of wind sprang up, blowing them away from the land. Was
this last hope, by a fine ecstasy of torture, to be dangled before
them and then snatched away? But with the danger came the help; with
the wind came the rain; cool, sweet, refreshing, life-giving water.
Then the squall of wind dropped and changed. They hoisted the one sail
that had not blown to tatters, and drove for land.