Carter told his bowman to haul up closer and hailed:

"Brig ahoy. Anything wrong?"

He waited, listening. The shadowy man still watched. After some time a
curt "No" came back in answer.

"Are you going to keep hove-to long?" shouted Carter.

"Don't know. Not long. Drop your boat clear of the ship. Drop clear. Do
damage if you don't."

"Slack away, John!" said Carter in a resigned tone to the elderly seaman
in the bow. "Slack away and let us ride easy to the full scope. They
don't seem very talkative on board there."

Even while he was speaking the line ran out and the regular undulations
of the passing seas drove the boat away from the brig. Carter turned
a little in his seat to look at the land. It loomed up dead to leeward
like a lofty and irregular cone only a mile or a mile and a half
distant. The noise of the surf beating upon its base was heard against
the wind in measured detonations. The fatigue of many days spent in the
boat asserted itself above the restlessness of Carter's thoughts and,
gradually, he lost the notion of the passing time without altogether
losing the consciousness of his situation.

In the intervals of that benumbed stupor--rather than sleep--he was
aware that the interrupted noise of the surf had grown into a continuous
great rumble, swelling periodically into a loud roar; that the high
islet appeared now bigger, and that a white fringe of foam was visible