"She must have seen the smoke from the burning island and sailed in
that direction," exclaimed Frank.

"How can we attract their attention?" cried Billy.

"Easy enough," said Ben, pulling off his shirt, "this is a good shirt,
but I'd rather have my life than a whole trunk full of shirts. Now for
some matches and we'll make a night signal."

The matches were soon produced and the old sailor set fire to the
garment. It flared up brightly and made a fine illumination, but as
the flare died out there was nothing about the movement of the
searchlight to indicate that the signal had been seen.

"We must try again," said Ben.

It was Harry's turn to sacrifice a shirt this time, and he lost no
time in ripping it off. As Frank prepared to light it, however, an
unfortunate--or even disastrous--accident occurred.

The waterproof box of matches slipped from his fingers in his
excitement, and before any of them could recover it, it was overboard.
The rush of a great body through the water at the same instant told
them that one of the watchful sharks had swallowed it.

"I wish they'd burn his insides out," cried Billy.

"Everybody search their pockets for a match," commanded Frank. A
prolonged scrutiny resulted in yielding just one match. It came from
Ben's pocket.