n came; and dawn began
to brighten the sea-line to eastward.

As the day dawned, Felix could see more clearly exactly where he was, and
in what surroundings. Without, the ocean broke in huge curling billows on
the shallow beach of the fringing reef with such stupendous force that
Felix wondered how they could ever have lived through its pounding surf
and its fiercely retreating undertow. Within, the lagoon spread its calm
lake-like surface away to the white coral shore of the central atoll.
Between these two waters, the greater and the less, a waving palisade of
tall-stemmed palm-trees rose on a narrow ribbon of circular land that
formed the fringing reef. All night through he had felt, with a strange
eerie misgiving, the very foundations of the land thrill under his feet
at every dull thud or boom of the surf on its restraining barrier. Now
that he could see that thin belt of shore in its actual shape and size,
he was not astonished at this constant shock; what surprised him rather
was the fact that such a speck of land could hold its own at all against
the ceaseless cannonade of that seemingly irresistible ocean.

He stood up, hatless, in his battered tweed suit, and surveyed the scene
of their present and future adventures. It took but a glance to show him
that the whole ground-plan of the island was entirely circular. In the
midst of all rose the central atoll itself, a tiny mountain-peak, just
projecting with its hills and gorges to a few hundred feet above the
surface of the ocean. Outside it came the lagoon, with its placid ring of
glassy water surrounding the circular island, and separated from the sea
by an equally circular belt of fringing reef, covered thick with waving
stems of picturesque cocoanut. It was on the reef they had landed, and
from it they now looked across the calm lagoon with doubtful eyes toward
the central island.

As soon as the sun rose, their doubts were quickly resolved into fears
or certainties. Scarcely had its rim begun to show itself distinctly
above the eastern horizon, when a great bustle and confusion was
noticeable at once on the opposite shore. Brown-skinned savages were
collecting in eager groups by a white patch of beach, and putting out
rude but well-manned canoes into the calm waters of the lagoon. At sight
of their naked arms and bustling gestures, Muriel's heart sank suddenly
within her. "Oh, Mr. Thurstan," she cried, clinging to his arm in her
terror, "what does it all m