m his seat on the skylight.

"It's Look-out Peak, sir; I can make out the shape of it quite well."

"That's all right," returned Johnson. "Stay where you are, and let me
know if you see anything like a signal."

In a couple of hours more the land was distinctly visible from the deck,
the peak spoken of as "Look-out Peak" appearing first, and then the land
on each side of it, rising gradually above the ocean's brim until it lay
stretched along the horizon for a length of some half a dozen miles. As
they drew in towards the island, our friends (all of whom, excepting the
ladies, were on deck) half expected to be sent below in order that they
might not become acquainted with the navigation of the harbour-entrance;
but this idea did not appear to have presented itself to Johnson, who,
on the contrary, joined the group, and began chatting with them in what
was evidently meant to be understood as an affable manner.

When they had approached within a mile of the place, the pirate skipper
turned to Lance and asked him what he thought of the harbour, and
whether he believed he could make it tolerably safe with a dozen guns or
so.

"Harbour!" answered Lance, "I see no harbour,--no sign even of one on
that part of the coast which we are now approaching. I can distinguish
nothing but a rocky shore, against which the surf is breaking heavily
enough to dash to pieces the strongest ship that was ever built.
Perhaps the harbour lies somewhere beyond that low rocky point which
forms the western extremity of the island? But if so, why not steer
directly for it?"

"The entrance to the harbour is exactly in line with our jib-boom-end
just now," explained Johnson in high good-humour; "but I guess you would
never know it unless you was told; would you, colonel?"

"That indeed I should not," answered Lance; "and even now I scarcely
know how to believe you."

Lance might well say so, for the whole coast-line in front of them
presented an apparently unbroken face of rocky cliffs of various
heights, from about thirty to two hundred feet, backed by grassy slopes
thickly dotted with dense clumps of trees of various kinds, many of
which glowed with the most brilliant tints from the flowers with which
they were loaded. Immediately ahead, where Johnson had said the
entrance to the harbour lay, a great irregular mass of low jagged rocks
projected slightly beyond the general face-line of the cliffs, and
behind it was a gap which had the a