"Yes," rejoined he; "but see how he shoves out into the offing, although the shoals he is after are running in shore. As sure as a gun, he is conscious of the danger of being embayed if the weather becomes what I fear it will be soon." "Lots of indications that a close-reefed topsail breeze, at all events, is not a thousand miles off, Master Lennox," said I. Out at sea, the swell tumbled most tumultuously; the outline of the billows seen with startling clearness by the flashes of lightning, on the verge of the horizon; while nearer at hand, the waves began to break in white foam, and roll towards us with hoarse and increasing growls; although the light air that was drifting us out came off the land, and consequently blew in the precisely contrary direction from whence the swell was proceeding. Threatening as the weather looked, right off the cocoa-nut trees at the point, we perceived a boat, rising and disappearing on the ridges, and in the hollows of the sea, like a black buoy. "So--an ominous looking morning, Toby. Still, our friends of the blue, white, and blue bunting, are determined to see us fairly off it seems; for there is their boat watching us till the last, you see." "So I perceive, sir," said the skipper; "but if it were not for their neighbourhood, Mr Brail, I would have recommended Mr Lennox to stay where he was until the weather cleared; but there is no help for it now." The morning wore on. We were now sliding along shore about a mile from the beach, and our view down to the westward, as we approached the southernmost point of the island, began to open. The higher part of the land was quite clear; the outline, indeed, dangerously distinct and _near-like_, according to my conception; but the white clouds that floated over it when we first started, like a sea of wool, and which usually rise and exhale under the morning sun, had in the present case rolled off to the southward, and lay heaped up in well-defined masses, like the smoke of an engagement floating sluggishly in the thunder-calmed air, close to the surface of the water. I was admiring this uncommon appearance, not without some awkward forebodings, when a flaw of wind off the land rent the veil in the middle, or rather opened an arch in it, at the end of whose gloomy vista rose the island as a dark background, and suddenly disclosed a small schooner lying to, so clear and model-like under the canopy of vapour, that I can compare it to nothing more aptly than a sea-scene in a theatre. "Hillo!" said I, "what vessel is that down to leeward there? It must be our friend of last night, I take it. Hand me up the glass, if you please." "Where's the small flag--where's the small flag?" sung out Toby. "Here, sir," said Chip the negro, as he bent it on to the signal haulyards. "Then hoist away," rejoined Tooraloo. "That is the Waterwraith down to leeward, sir, to a certainty."