When they came on deck, day was breaking. The stars were still sparkling brightly in the blue zenith, and in the western quarter of the sky; but they paled away and faded out, as dawn spread over the east, and stole across the ocean in those long streaks of light that are rendered so weird, strange, and indistinct, from having only the tops of the lone waves to rest upon. There is, indeed, something glorious and impressive in the dawn of a new day, as it spreads over the unlimited space of the mighty deep; and this effect increases in its splendour, as the sun, with tropical rapidity, heaves up at the horizon, amid a burst of golden haze, and then all becomes life and light. There is no eagle there to soar towards him, with the dew on his pinions, and no lark to sing at "heaven's gate;" but the petrels trip along the brine, the huge porpoise soars through the foam rejoicingly, and the silvery flying fish flits like a little spirit from the spray. The wind was very light; the vessel was creeping along under a cloud of canvas, and as Morley came on deck the watch were busy swabbing it. No need was there to drench it first with water; there had been a rough gale in the morning watch, during which Morrison had ordered the foresail and foretopsail to be hoisted; since then, the wind had come in angry puffs, and then died gradually away. Now the ship was almost becalmed, and there, sure enough, upon her weather bow, a few miles off, lay the land which Morrison had so confidently reported, rising in dark and opaque outline, like a dusky patch of indigo, against the yellow and gold of the sky beyond, and the amber sea, that lay in middle distance. For a time it looked like a dark cloud resting on the sunlit ocean, from which it might arise and melt away, but, gradually, as the ship crept on, the form of a headland, and some tuft-like palm-trees, became defined against the sky. Higher rose the sun, and ere long the beams began to gild this headland, and to shine glitteringly on the face of a bluff, in which it terminated. "Land it is--but land here!" said Captain Bartelot. "An island, and not a very small one either," added Morley. "It is most extraordinary!" "How so?" "Bring up the chart, Morrison," said Bartelot, unheeding his friend's query, "and the log-book, too, with yesterday's reckoning and observation." Morrison dived below, but speedily re-appeared, with a chart and the ship's log. "At twelve, sir, yesterday, when we were running away from that rascally piccaroon, we were in latitude 28--25 south; longitude 35--20 west, Tristan d'Acunha bearing sixty-six miles to the eastward." "That is not Tristan, but an island about three miles long, and there is no indication of it whatever in the chart. It is covered with trees; but I can see no sign of a human habitation," observed Bartelot, as he resumed his telescope.