A narrow stretch of beach ran from the foot of the cliff to the water's edge. The top was verdure-clad, and to the north some stunted underbrush grew along the crest. The strange crevice that I had noticed ran from the green slope, sheer and straight, to within twenty feet of the water's level. It looked as if it might have been made by the stroke of a giant's sword. The high rock at the end of the tongue of land to the southward resembled more closely than ever a moss-grown ruin; but all at once I jumped for the glass. A thin, twirling column of smoke arose from a little hollow a quarter of a mile up the shore, and by the aid of a telescope I could make out two or three huts, and some gray objects on the slope of the hill that resolved themselves into grazing sheep. I made up my mind, before I landed the prisoners and set to work stopping the seams, to row ashore and find out where we were. But hunger asserted itself, and the smell of cooking coming from the galley reminded me that with the exception of some sopped biscuit and a bit of fat meat that I had managed to worry down the night past, nothing solid had passed my lips since my struggle with the man in the passageway. Running below, I asked the carpenter in to breakfast with me in the cabin. He was my First Lieutenant, as I have said, and of course I knew, without his saying so, that he had saved my life--with my own pistol, too, I surmise. "Well, Captain Hurdiss," Chips said, "a busy day's before us. I think if we can careen the old hooker and get that opened strake so we can handle it from the outside, we can take her across, bar another such storm as we had last night." "We'll make a try for it, Mr. Chips," said I, roaring out the answer after two or three futile attempts to speak quietly. "You won't need a trumpet this voyage," was the carpenter's rejoinder to this, at which I laughed, for the hot coffee and food were restoring my spirits. The men, too, were in an even frame of mind, and when I ordered out the boat they went about it like good ones. I saw that the prisoners were fed before I left the deck, and then going over the side, I gave the orders, man-of-war fashion, to "Shove off!" "Let fall!" etc., and after a pull of a few minutes the carpenter and I landed on the beach near the hollow in which the huts were, and finding a path, we ascended to them. As we approached the door of the largest hovel, that was built of sods and stones, a nondescript figure, with just enough rags on to save it from appearing savage, emerged. The man appeared a little frightened at first, and was truly startled at the sound of my voice. His reply I could not translate, although I had merely asked him what island this was, and what was the name of the coast that we could discern to the eastward.