way again he stopped to see how
the settlement that was planted there prospered, and found the people in
great trouble of mind. They showed him that a thick black cloud hung
upon the sea to the northwest of the island, filling the air to the
very heavens and never going away; and out of this cloud, they said,
came strange noises, not like any they had heard before. They dared not
sail far from their island, for they said that if a man lost sight of
land thereabouts it was a miracle if he ever returned. They believed
that place to be the great abyss, the mouth of hell. But learned men
held the opinion that this cloud hid the island of Cipango, where the
Seven Bishops had taken refuge from the Moors and the Saracens.

"Certainly the cloud was there, for we all saw it, and when the
Commander said that he would stay to see whether it would change when
the moon changed, we liked it not, I can tell you. And when we learned
that he was minded to sail straight into the darkness and see what lay
behind it, why, there were some who would have run away--if they could
have run anywhere but into the sea.

"But we had a Spanish pilot, Morales, who had once been a prisoner in
Morocco, and there he knew two Englishmen who had sailed these seas in
time past. Their ship had been lying ready to sail for France, when late
at night Robert Macham, a gentleman of their country, came hurriedly
aboard with his lady love whom he had carried off from her home in
Bristol, and between dark and dawn the captain weighed anchor and was
off. Then being driven from the course the ship was cast on a thickly
wooded island with a high mountain in the middle, where they dwelt not
long, for the lady died, and Macham died of grief. The crew left the
island and were wrecked in Morocco and made slaves. All this was many
years before, for the Englishmen had grown old in slavery, and Morales
himself had grown old since he heard the tale.

"It was the belief of Morales that this was the island of which they
told, and that the cloud which hung above the waters was the mist
arising from those dense woods which covered it. The upshot was that the
commander set sail one morning early and steered straight for the cloud.

"The nearer we came the higher and thicker looked the darkness that
spread over the sea, and we heard about noon a great roaring of the
waves. Still Gonsales held his course, and when the wind failed he
ordered out the boats to tow the ship into th