d, the wood was intermitted; and he could
see clear over the inconsiderable strip of land (as a man looks over a
wall) to the lagoon within--and clear over that again to where the far
side of the atoll prolonged its pencilling of trees against the morning
sky. He tortured himself to find analogies. The isle was like the rim of
a great vessel sunken in the waters; it was like the embankment of an
annular railway grown upon with wood: so slender it seemed amidst the
outrageous breakers, so frail and pretty, he would scarce have wondered
to see it sink and disappear without a sound, and the waves close
smoothly over its descent.

Meanwhile the captain was in the four cross-trees, glass in hand, his
eyes in every quarter, spying for an entrance, spying for signs of
tenancy. But the isle continued to unfold itself in joints, and to run
out in indeterminate capes, and still there was neither house nor man,
nor the smoke of fire. Here a multitude of sea-birds soared and
twinkled, and fished in the blue waters; and there, and for miles
together, the fringe of coco-palm and pandanus extended desolate, and
made desirable green bowers for nobody to visit, and the silence of
death was only broken by the throbbing of the sea.

The airs were very light, their speed was small; the heat intense. The
decks were scorching underfoot, the sun flamed overhead, brazen, out of
a brazen sky; the pitch bubbled in the seams, and the brains in the
brain-pan. And all the while the excitement of the three adventurers
glowed about their bones like a fever. They whispered, and nodded, and
pointed, and put mouth to ear, with a singular instinct of secrecy,
approaching that island underhand like eavesdroppers and thieves; and
even Davis from the cross-trees gave his orders mostly by gestures. The
hands shared in this mute strain, like dogs, without comprehending it;
and through the roar of so many miles of breakers, it was a silent ship
that approached an empty island.

At last they drew near to the break in that interminable gangway. A spur
of coral sand stood forth on the one hand; on the other a high and thick
tuft of trees cut off the view; between was the mouth of the huge laver.
Twice a day the ocean crowded in that narrow entrance and was heaped
between these frail walls; twice a day, with the return of the ebb, the
mighty surplusage of water must struggle to escape. The hour in which
the _Farallone_ came there was the hour of the flood. The s