of piecing up a rabbit-skin coat and, in
the meantime, of cutting up the boat's sail into drawers and jumpers,
our clothes by this time being worse than a disgrace. But I believe
that I held out chiefly to annoy him; and, having annoyed him
sufficiently, I gave way to his final argument--that our boots were
wearing out fast and, if we didn't make the expedition at once,
likely enough we never should.

"So we started on what proved to be a two days' tramp, and thereby
came pretty near to wrecking ourselves.

"The third cone, which--in that clear atmosphere--seemed to stand
close behind the second, turned out to be separated from it by a good
five miles as the crow flies. But on the north-western shore the sea
had breached the reefs and swept in to form a salt lagoon in the
great hollow, so that we had to fetch a circuit of at least seven
miles to the southward, avoiding a tangle of forest in which the
lagoon ended, and clambering along a volcanic ridge with the sea
often sheer on our right. It was in this lagoon, by the way, that we
afterwards learned to take our wild duck, scores of which paddled
about quite tamely on its surface, their tameness promising poorly
for human hospitality on the farther side of the hill.

"We gained the side of the great cone at length and, rounding it,
beheld all the northern part of the island spread at our feet--in
form a narrow strip of land curving around a delicious bay and ending
in a small pinnacle of high tumbled cliff and wood. Quite obviously
this bay was the one anchorage in the island for any ship of burden;
and no ship could have asked for a better: for it made almost three
parts of a circle, and, while not completely land-locked, held
recesses in which any gale might be ridden out.

"Here, if anywhere, as I told Farrell, we should come upon human life
or the traces of it: here, if anywhere, if vessel ever made this
island, to water, she would drop hook. 'Fools we have been, to waste
months pitching camp on the other side, when this is the place of
places, and this hill gives the citadel prospect of all!'

"Farrell sat down on a rock and broke into curses. 'Damn you,' he
moaned, 'for bringing me so far! I wish I had never seen it.
Wasn't it comfortable enough where we were? . . . And now I can't go
back!'

"I had taken the binoculars and, engaged with the view, for a moment
paid no heed. I was accustomed to his explosions of fury, as he to
mine. But, turning a