Perhaps, as one of them had said, the thing was childish, but if so, at the least it was solemn and touching.

Their cause seemed hopeless indeed; but if faith can move mountains, much more can honest endeavour attain its ends.

In that hour they felt this.

Yes, they believed that the end would be attained by one of them, though they guessed little what struggles lay between them and the Star they hoped to gain, or how strangely they should be borne thither.
On the morrow they went to London and waited there a while, but no word came from Jane Beach, and for good or ill the chains of the oath that he had taken riveted themselves around Leonard Outram's neck.
Within three months of this night the brothers were nearing the shores of Africa, the land of the Children of the Mist..