This, however, I thought very poor consolation.  The light could be of no use to us unless the tide took us near enough to it to allow of our voices being heard on shore.  Fortunately we could still distinguish the dim outline of the coast as we drifted by, or we should not have known in what direction to look out for the expected light.  Cousin Silas said very little--he was anxiously looking out for the beacon, to us of such vital importance.  How dreadful, indeed, was our situation!  I dared not think--I dared not hope to escape--still I dared not turn my eye to the future.  I waited with a sort of apathetic indifference to the result. No light appeared; the current was evidently setting us through the centre of the passage out to sea, in the direction of that storm-surrounded promontory, Cape Horn.  We must abandon even the remote prospect of being drifted on shore on one of the southern portions of the Falklands.  For some time there was a complete silence among us.  It was broken by Cousin Silas.