wallowing upon the oily swell outside.

This, of course, was exasperating enough; for when deeds of desperate
emprise are toward it is well to carry them through before the
enthusiasm has time to cool. But it could not be helped, the wind was
dead, and the ship could not be handled now until the sea breeze sprang
up; and, after all, the delay was not an unmitigated misfortune, for it
ensured to the crew time enough to complete their preparations for the
coming fight and take breakfast afterward; and even at that day it was
fully recognised that an Englishman fights best when his hunger has been
satisfied. So they finished the work upon which they were engaged, and
then went quietly to breakfast, which meal they were able to dispose of
comfortably before a cry from the deck apprised them of the arrival of
the sea breeze.

Yes; there it came, far away in the offing, ruling the horizon as a band
of dark blue that grew lighter and lighter still along its landward
edge, until it stopped short at a distance of about two miles from the
shore, blowing fresh right up to a certain well-defined point, between
which and the land all was gleaming, glassy swell, unruffled by even so
much as a cat's-paw. But the boundary line which divided breeze from
calm was not stationary by any means, on the contrary, it was creeping
nearer rapidly. When Bascomb came up on the poop he merely glanced at
it for a moment and then called to the seamen to trim the yards in
readiness to meet it. By the time that this had been done the line of
demarcation was so near that the musical tinkling of the advancing
ripples could be distinctly heard, although the sails still hung limp,
idly flapping to the roll of the ship. Another minute, however,
sufficed, then with a gentle preliminary rustling the canvas filled, the
blue ripples reached the ship, passed inshore of her, and she began to
draw slowly through the water and her helm was put up to keep her away
for the narrow harbour entrance.

"Starboard you may," said Dick to the helmsman, when the ship had
presently fallen square off before the fast-freshening breeze; "we must
shave that low point on the left quite closely, for that is where the
channel runs, and there is a small shoal right in the mouth of the
fairway which we must avoid. So! that will do; now, steady as you go.
Mr Bascomb, you see that dark object just opening out over the
southernmost end of Tierra Bomba? Well, that is the shore