down into it all along the edge in perfect fire. Nothing stirred on it, apparently; not a sound came from it, save the low wash of the surf on that lonely bare beach; and you only made out that part of the island was covered with trees, with the ground rising to a flat-topped hummock toward one end. So being pretty wearied by this time, impatient though I was for a clearer view of matters, most of us turned in, leaving the deck to a strong anchor watch, in charge of Jones--especially as it was towards morning, and the breeze blowing fresh over the island through our ropes. But if ever a man walked the deck overhead in a fashion to keep you awake, it was Jones that morning: faster and faster he went, till you'd have thought he ran; then there was a stop, when you felt him _thinking_, and off he posted again. No wonder, by George! I had ugly dreams! I could scarce believe it wasn't one still, when, having been called half-an-hour after daybreak, I first saw the change in the appearance of things all about us. The horizon lay round as clear as heart could wish--not a speck in sight save the little dingy islets at a distance; the broad blue ocean sparkling far away on one side, and the water to windward, in the direction we had come, showing the same brownish tint we had seen the day before, while it took the island before us in its bight, and turned off eastward with the breeze till it spread against the open sky. The top of the land was high enough to shut out the sea-line, and, being low water at the time, it was plain enough now why Jones wished to keep the white streaks over-night; for, where the dingy-coloured ripples melted on the other side toward the blue, you could see by the spots of foam, and the greenish breaks here and there in the surface, that all that coast of the island was one network of shoals and reefs, stretching out you didn't know how wide. White-water Island, in fact, was merely the head of them--the milky stream that had so startled us just washing round the deep end of it, and edging fair along the side of the reefs, with a few creeks sent in amongst them, as it were, like feelers, ere it flowed the other way: we couldn't otherwise have got so near as we were. But the island itself was the sight to fasten you, as the lovely green of it shone out in the morning sun, covering the most part of it close over, and tipping up beyond the bare break where it was steepest, with a clump of tall cocoas shooting every here-and-there out of the thick bush; indeed, there was apparently a sort of split lengthways, through the midst, where, upon only walking to the schooner's bow, one could see the bright greenwood sinking down to a hollow out of sight, under the clear gush of the breeze off a dark blue patch of the sea that hung beyond it like a wedge. As the tide made over the long reefs, till the last line of surf on them vanished, it went up the little sandy cove opposite us with