e three patches. Quick, before
they change."

Jack took the glass and looked through.

"See it?"

"No," he said.

"Haven't got the glass straight perhaps," said the captain. "Take a
shot with it first as if it were a gun--look along the top and fix it
upon the horizon line, and then sweep it right and left till you make
the land."

"I've got it," cried Jack.

"The land?"

"No, the line of the horizon. I wasn't looking through the eye-piece.
That's it; now I can see the edge of the sea quite plainly."

"Then you are clever," said the captain, laughing. "I never did. Well,
sweep it about to right and left. See the land?"

"No," said Jack after a good long try. "Isn't it a mistake?"

"Let me try again," said the captain, taking the glass. "Yes, there it
is plainly enough, just under the little golden cloud to the right; they
are floating northward. Try again."

Jack took the glass, brought it to bear, and was silent.

"See it?"

"No. I can make out that beautiful golden cloud."

"Well, now look under it."

"Yes, I've been looking right under it, but there's nothing there but a
little hazy patch."

"Then you do see it," said the captain.

"That?"

"Yes; what did you expect to see?"

"Why, the island you talked about."

"Well, I don't say that is it, because I want to make an observation
first, but I feel pretty sure that it is the place."

"But that looks so little."

"It's a little island."

"Yes, but that looks so very small."

"So would you seem small if you were thirty or forty miles away," said
the captain, taking the glass and having another good long look. "The
air is very clear this morning, and the island looms up. But we shall
see better by and by."

They had been steadily sailing east for some days, and land had been
sighted several times since. Jack had stood gazing longingly over the
starboard rail at the tops of the Java volcanoes, which had followed one
another in succession, some with the clouds hanging round their sides
and their peaks clear, but two with what looked in the distance like
tiny threads of smoke rising from their summits, and spreading out into
a top like a mushroom.

This long island had tempted him strongly, and he had suggested to his
father that they should make a halt there, but Sir John and the doctor
both shook their heads.

"No," said the latter, "I vote against it. I believe Java to be a very
interesting country, but for our purpose