I fetched the glass, and steadied it upon the rail, and looked. The island stood up large and livid, tawny in patches, a huge cinderous heap. The hue, and even the appearance of it, somewhat reminded me of Ascension viewed at a distance. One or two parts were robed with green. There was a tremble and flash of surf at the extremities, and I guessed that when the sea ran high, it would break very fiercely and dangerously against all weather-fronting corners of that lonely rock. Greaves came and stood beside me. I was conscious of his presence, and talked to him with my eye at the telescope. “In what part of the island is the cave situated, sir?” “Do you observe a lump of land swelling above the edge of the cliff to the left?” “Yes.” “That lump or mound is the summit of the front of the rock in which lies the cave. We are opening it from the southward. I opened it, when I fell in with that land, from the westward.” “It is a volcanic pile,” said I. “I observed points of rocks like chimneys. They may have smoked once upon a time.” He took the glass from me, leisurely inspected the island, and walked the deck his earlier thoughtful posture, head bowed, hands locked behind him. I understood what was in his mind, and held off; he would have nothing to say until the wreck of the Spaniard stood before him in its dusky tomb. He mastered his anxiety, but would now and again pause and direct at the island a look that, with its accompanying play of face, expression of lip, suggestion of posture, told more of what was passing in him than had he talked for an hour. He ordered the boy Jimmy to put breakfast on the skylight; and we ate, standing or walking, but exchanging very few words. Thus slipped the time away, and so slipped we through the water. The brig bowed as she went; a long breathing spell followed her astern, and the sails came in to the mast as she rose with the heave of the dark blue brine. The sailors lay over the forecastle head, waiting for the approach of the island and for orders. Now and again one would point and one would speak, but expectation lay as a weight upon their minds. It subdued them. For there was the island, to be sure, and the cave, no doubt, was round the corner, and in that cave might be the ship. But the dollars, the dollars, ah! Lay they there still massive, good tender as the guinea, plentiful as roe in the herring, noble coins to tassel a handkerchief with, to clink out the sweetest music in the world with to the accompaniment of deck-blistered feet marching across the gangway to the wharf, to the joys of the alley boarding house, to the delights of the runner’s parlor--lay they there still in the moldering hold within the cave? So did I interpret the thoughts of the sailors, and I would have bet the last dollar of my share upon the accuracy of my construction of their several countenances and attitudes. “Let her go off,” said the captain. The man at the helm put the wheel over by two or three spokes.