ht I could perceive, through the flying spindrift
and against the darkness of the sky, a darker shadow which could
scarcely be anything else than land.

When next we turned to Murdock, to enquire whether there was anything
more that we could do for him, we found that he had fallen asleep, which
was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to him. We
therefore left him to finish his nap and fell to pacing the weather side
of the deck, between the main rigging and the taffrail, comparing notes
as to our experiences; and while we were still thus engaged we became
aware of two things. The first of these was that the gale was breaking,
while the second was that the dawn was at hand, for far away to leeward
of us the sky was paling, down to a certain point, beneath which the
shadow lay as dark as ever, but was assuming, even as we stood, a
certain definiteness of shape, ultimately resolving itself into the
outline of what seemed a distant hill, with deeper shadows between
ourselves and it, which, in turn, developed into a low, bush-crowned
cliff, out of the base of which a sandy beach presently grew as the
light gathered strength.

Then, quite suddenly, the clouds to windward and overhead broke up into
detached masses, between which a few stars twinkled transiently before
they vanished in the fast-growing light of the new day; and the cloud
masses drove away to leeward and disappeared, revealing a sky of the
deepest, richest ultramarine, softening away down in the eastern quarter
to a tone of the palest and most delicate primrose, against which the
outline of the distant hill stood out, sharp as though cut out of paper,
so deeply purple as to be almost black. Then, the light coming so
swiftly that the eye scarcely found time to note the multitudinous
changes of tint accompanying it, the sky behind the hill flushed from
palest primrose to rich, glowing amber; a few evanescent shreds of cloud
midway between horizon and zenith blushed rosy red at being caught
unawares by the sun's first rays, then vanished; a pencil dipped in
burning gold outlined the crest of the distant hill for a few seconds,
and then the upper edge of the sun's disk, palpitating with living
light, floated up into view beyond the ridge of the hill, and in an
instant the whole scene, save the beach, which still lay in the shadow
of the cliff, became a picture of brilliant, dazzling light and colour.
To seaward, about two miles distant, was the cream