He moved the focus slowly around the circle, and when he came to a point in the east he started violently, then sprang to his feet, every pulse leaping.
He had seen a tiny black dot upon the water, one that broke the continuity of the horizon line, and, for a little while, he was too excited to look again.

He stood, the glasses in his trembling fingers and stared with naked eyes that he knew could not see.

After a while he put the glasses back and then followed the horizon.

He was afraid that it was an illusion, that his imagination had become too vivid, creating for him the thing that was not, and now that he was a little calmer he meant to put it to the proof.
He moved the glasses slowly from north to east, following the line where sky and water met, and then the hands that held them trembled again.
There was the black spot, a trifle larger now, and, forcing his nerves to be calm, he stared at it a long time, how long he never knew, but long enough for him to see it grow and take form and shape, for the infinitesimal but definite outline of mast, sails and hull to emerge, and then for a complete ship to be disclosed.
The ship was coming toward the island.

The increase in size told him that.