o opportunity to run aloft into the sunshine and view the place he had
talked and dreamed so much about. Other men went aloft on ship's work,
but Martin's duty kept him racing about the wet decks.

The fog pressed closer upon them as the day advanced, it seemed to
Martin. It required an effort of his imagination to admit that a few
feet above him the sun shone.

The ship seemed to be crawling blindly about in a limitless void. Anon
would come Ruth's cheering and mellow halloo, cleaving sweetly through
the drab enveloping blanket, and seeming to Martin's eager ears to be a
good fairy's voice from another world.

The screaming of the sea-birds grew in volume--but not a wing did
Martin spy. The air appeared to take on an irritating taint; the fog
tasted smoky.

Added to other sounds, slowly grew a great surging rumble. Aided by
Ruth's calls, Martin knew he heard the sea beating against the reef
that encircled the mountain; but he saw nothing overside but that dead
gray wall.

The upper canvas was clewed up and left hanging, and the brig's slow
pace became perceptibly slower.

A boat was lowered, and Little Billy was pulled into the void ahead;
and directly his musical chant came back, as he sounded their path with
the lead.

The surging thunder came from both sides, and Martin knew they were
entering the haven. The voices of Ruth and Little Billy brought echoes
from the giant sounding-board ahead.

A sharp command from Captain Dabney, a moment's rush of work to the
accompaniment of a deal of fiery swiggling on the boatswain's part, the
ship lost way and rounded up, the anchor dropped with a dull _plub_,
the chain roared through the hawse-pipe and brought a vastly multiplied
echoing roar from the invisible cliffs, and there was a sudden,
myriad-voiced screeching from the startled birds. Succeeded an
ominous, oppressive quiet, broken only by the dull thunder of the surf.

Martin drew a long breath and stared at the blank, impervious void
about him.

"So this," he thought whimsically, "is the terrible Fire Mountain!" He
was excitedly happy.

A few moments later, when he went aloft to furl sail, he saw the shore,
this unmarked, unknown rock that had filled his thoughts for months.

It was a sudden and eery transition as he mounted the rigging, from
gray night to sunshine in the space of a few ratlines. On the
foretopgallant-yard he was above the fog, the very roof of the bank
lying a dozen feet below.