ness is all in your favour.
I may repeat what I told you yesterday, that several expeditions have
come to this island seeking treasure; crews of merely avaricious men,
mad with greed, whom I have made it my business to baffle.
_You_, on the contrary, may almost count on my help; though whether
the treasure will do you much good when you have found it is another
question altogether. But we are not treasure-seeking just now, and I
shall grudge even the pleasure of talking if it steal your admiration
from my island."

The shore by which we steered was, indeed, entrancing, and grew yet
more entrancing as we rounded Cape Fea and, downing sail, headed the
gig for the north-east, pulling almost in the shadow of the cliffs;
for the sea lay calm as a pond, and broke in feeblest ripples even on
the beaches recessed here and there in the chasms. We passed
Try-again Inlet, and our wonder grew; for the cliffs now were mere
cliffs no longer but the bases of a range of mountains, broken into
rock slides with matted vines like curtains overhanging their scars;
and in the water, ten fathoms deep below us, we could watch the
coloured fishes at play.

Mr. Goodfellow and I were at the oars; and we had been pulling, as I
judged, for something over an hour, but easily, for the tide could
hardly be felt, when Dr. Beauregard, who had taken the tiller,
steered us in towards a beach which he announced to be the, perhaps,
very choicest in the island for a picnic.

Certainly it was a fairy-like spot, with white sand underfoot, green
creepers overhanging, and through the creepers a rill of water
splashing down the cliff; yet we had passed at least a dozen other
beaches, which to me had looked no less inviting.

"We will leave the ladies to unpack the hampers," said Dr.
Beauregard. "I speak as a bachelor, but in my experience there is a
half-hour before lunch in which that man is best appreciated who
makes himself scarce. Captain Branscome, if you will not mind a
short scramble over the rocks here, to the left, I can promise you
something worth seeing."

He led the way at once, and we followed, the Captain (who appeared
to have lost his temper again) growling that he took no stock in
views. But the distance was not far. We scrambled over two low
ledges of rock and found ourselves looking down upon a beach even
prettier and more fairy-like than the one we had left--and upon
something more--a ship's boat, drawn about thirty feet above
hi