But in that respect, at least, he was not mistaken.

A man-of-war had entered the roadstead, and her powerful lamp was now scouring sea and coast for the missing launch.

And in that moment of fresh peril it was forgotten by all but one of the men who had survived so many dangers since the sun last gilded the peak of Fernando Noronha, that were it not for Iris having been left behind, and Philip's mad plunge overboard to go to her, and the point-blank refusal of the _Andromeda's_ captain and crew to put to sea without an effort to save the pair of them, the launch would not now be hidden behind the black mass of the Grand-pere rock.
Nevertheless, the fact was patent.

Had the little vessel sailed to the west, in the assumption that her only feasible course lay in that direction, she must have been discovered by the cruiser's far-seeing eye.

And what that meant needed no words.