s taking a look at the land-fall, sir," I answered truthfully.

"Then I'll trouble you to fix your mind on the lubber's-mark and hold
her straight. That's discipline, my boy, and in this business you
may want all you can learn of it."

It was not Captain Branscome's habit to speak sharply. I turned my
attention to the card, conscious of a pair of red ears.

The sky brightened, and within an hour, as we ran down upon it at
something like eight knots, the Island began to take shape.
A wisp of morning fog floated horizontally across it, dividing its
shore-line from the hills in the interior, which, looming above this
cloudy base, appeared considerably higher than, in fact, they were.
The shore itself along the eastern side showed almost uniformly
steep--a line of reddish rock broken with patches of green, which we
mistook for meadows (but they turned out to be nothing more or less
than sheets of green creepers matted together and overhanging the
cliffs). At its northern extremity, upon which we were closing down
at an acute angle, the land dropped to a low-lying, sandy peninsula
with a backbone of rock almost bare of vegetation, and beyond this we
saw the white surf glittering around the Keys.

Our course gave them a fairly wide berth; and at first I took them
for a continuous line of sandbanks running in a rough semicircle
around the low spit which the chart called Gable Point; but as we
drew level they broke up into islets, with blue channels between, and
at sight of us thousands of sea-birds rose in cloud upon cloud, with
a clamour that might have been heard for miles. One of these banks--
the northernmost--showed traces of herbage, grey in colour and dull
by contrast with the verdure of the Island. The rest were but barren
sand.

We rounded them at about three cables' length and stood due south,
giving sheet again. Southward from the neck of the peninsula this
western side of the Island differed surprisingly from the other.
Here were no cliffs, but a flat shore and long stretches of beach,
gradually shelving up to green bush, with here a palmetto grove and
there a lagoon of still water within the outer barrier of sand.
Mr. Jack Rogers had relieved me at the helm, and with the Captain's
permission I had stepped below to the saloon, where Plinny was
waiting to give me breakfast, and persuaded the good soul not only to
let me carry it on deck and eat it there, but to postpone washing-up
for a while and accompa