The time crept away. There was a light burning in the galley; and the shapes that flitted in and out through the open door, throwing giant shadows upon the hazy square of illumination on the bulwark abreast of the galley entrance, satisfied me that most if not all of the men were awake and on the lookout. Several figures, never less than two, paced against the stars over the bows with the regular tread of sentinels, clear on the forecastle under the forecourse by the spaces of the spangled sky they blotted out as they moved. The breeze continued a pleasant air, and all about the gliding barque were the summer tinkling sounds of water gently broken. Occasionally, I would go forward, and taking my stand on the rise of the cathead where it sloped to the rail, strain my eyes into the elusive starry dusk where sea and sky seemed to melt into liquid gloom. No one accosted me as I passed to and fro. Once I heard the tones of the carpenter in the galley warm in argument. The fellows pacing the forecastle would come to a halt whenever I went forward, and stand looking at me in silence, full of expectation, no doubt, of my being able to see more than they. The very barque herself seemed to participate in the emotions, the breathless curiosity, the avid yearnings of the men who awaited the appearance of the island with restless motions and voices subdued into low growling notes: the ship herself, I say, seemed governed by the impassioned expectation of the hour, so tremulously breathless was she aloft, so still and subtle was her movement through the water, so hearkening the aspect of her forward, as though the stirless curve of her jibs were ears which she eagerly projected that she might catch the first sound of the wash of surf. All this while Miss Temple lay soundly sleeping below. It was wanting about ten minutes to four when the quarter-deck was suddenly hailed from the forecastle. The voice rang loud and startlingly upon the ear used to the continued stillness of the night. ‘Hallo!’ I cried. ‘There’s something dark right ahead,’ came back the answer. I whipped the glass out of the companion, and walked swiftly forwards where all the crew had run to the first cry, and where I found them standing in a huddle of shadowy shapes at the rail, some pointing, and all looking in one direction. ‘Where away is the object reported?’ I exclaimed. ‘Yonder,’ cried the carpenter, stepping out of the little crowd and projecting his arm almost on a line with the jib-boom end. I instantly perceived it! It was just a streak of shadow, low-lying, like a line of cloud beheld by night lifting a few fathoms of its brow above the sea-line. I pointed the telescope; and the lenses without revealing features, resolved the length of airy obscurity into the firm proportions of land. ‘Is it the island, sir?’ demanded the carpenter in a voice hoarse with excitement.