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Right ahead, not distinctly outlined, but visible in a misty sort of way, he thought he discerned land!

At first he could not believe the evidence of his sight. The captain, an expert navigator, had assured him that they were eight hundred miles from any shore. But this certainly looked to the Professor very much like land. He examined it through his glass. Even then the view was not clear enough to remove all doubts, but it strengthened his conviction; and when Matilda looked she said she knew it was land. She could trace the outline of a range of hills.

“Tilly,” said the Professor, “we are saved! It is the land, and the raft is drifting us directly towards it. We cannot be sufficiently thankful, my child, for this great mercy! Who would have expected it? Taken altogether, it is the most extraordinary circumstance within my recollection.”

“Captain Duffer must have made a miscalculation,” said Tilly. “The ship must have been off of her course when she sprang a leak.”

“It is incomprehensible how so old a sailor could have made such a blunder,” replied the Professor. “But there the land is; I can see it now distinctly. It looks to me like a very large island.”