A Voyage to the Island of the Articoles. Andre Maurois

      I reminded her that we no longer had any way of knowing. God only knew how far off-course the cyclone might have thrown us.

      “The sails?”

      I showed what was left of them to her; she suggested we try to make a mainsail with one of the blankets. We were certainly near land, as birds were flying around the boat. I sat down beside her in the sun and we set to work. The strange thing was, although our situation was far from rosy, we were neither sad nor afraid; on the contrary, we both felt a kind of peaceful joy.

      Toward noon I went below to see if even one of our charts had survived. When I returned empty-handed, Anne said, “Land!” and pointed to a short, dark line in the distance. It was an island dominated by a single peak, but we were some distance from it. Climbing to the top of the mast, I waved some linen rags for a long time. Luckily the current was carrying us in the right direction; before long I could make out a cape, then a forest, and, it seemed to me, the bright roofs of a town.