He made the sentence violent by a strong forecastle oath, and, striking the table with his clenched fist, walked out of the cabin, talking loudly to himself out of his overwrought feelings. The rest of the night passed quietly. Tom bade me go to bed, and I went to my berth, but not before I had paced the deck for a quarter of an hour with him. The weather was wonderfully silent, and the darkness beautiful with stars. The light wind held; the four of us prayed it would hold till after daybreak, though Tom said the islanders at this time of the year made nothing of putting out to sea to vessels six or even eight miles distant. The large black swell rolled soundlessly; off the ocean no noise came save the low, faint thunder of the surf whitening afar at the base of the giant shadow. I slept but little; all the most tragic and startling incidents of this passage of my life, from the hour when news of Tom’s imprisonment was given to me at Ramsgate by my aunt, were as naught--were as trifles lighter than thinnest air--alongside this, our lighting upon Rotch and Nodder in yonder island, hidden away in the heart of earth’s mightiest stretch of waters. The instant I heard a movement on deck I sprang out of my bunk, apparelled myself for the day, and, going forth, found a streak of granite-coloured dawn in the east, the night still black and full of stars over our mast-heads and in the west, and Tom and the others squaring the yards to a light northerly wind that would directly float us toward the island. The sun rose; the day flashed out blue and cloudless to his beam. Will took the helm, and the island soared directly over our bow, rich with the morning dyes, to where it vanished in motionless masses of steam-white vapour. I lighted the galley fire and got breakfast. Having hove the brig to within a mile and a half of the settlement, we made a meal on deck, Tom every few minutes levelling the telescope at the beach where the whale-boat lay. At about eight o’clock the island boat put off. She came slowly, floating deep, and looked pretty full of men. When she was midway, Tom, after talking quietly and earnestly with Bates, withdrew to his cabin to feign sickness, as had been arranged. On the boat drawing alongside, I observed that all the people were strangers, saving old Daly. There were eight men, some of them young. Daly made the ninth. I had supposed whilst the boat approached that Rotch and Nodder were amongst the little crowd in her, but no faces answered to theirs, which I recollected as clearly--the handsome features of Rotch, the red locks and wall-eye of the curled, sour, drink-sodden carpenter Nodder--as though I beheld their likenesses.