And now, suddenly, the sun shone out, showing that the sea was not a level plain of water, but covered with a million dancing wavelets. The sunshine travelled westward over the sea, and Alec followed it with his eyes. It rested on the distant hills, and then the haze that covered them melted away, and they revealed themselves, dim in outline, violet-coloured, magnified in the mist. As the steamer drew nearer them it became plain that the nearer hills were much lower than those beyond, and that many of them were covered with pines up to a certain height. Above the woods they were often black--that was where the old heather had been burnt to make room for the young shoots, or light brown--that was where masses of last year’s bracken lay; sometimes they were white with glistening rocks, or green from never-failing springs. And now it could be seen that between the woods and the seashore ran a white road, and that the coast was dotted for miles with houses, of all shapes and sizes, each standing in its own ground, and sheltered by its own green leaves. There was no town anywhere--nothing approaching to one; but every three or four miles a few houses were built in a little row, affording accommodation for a grocer’s and a baker’s shop; and opposite the shops there was invariably a white wooden pier, affording an outlet to the rest of the world. Soon after crossing the frith, the _Chancellor_ made for one of these landing-places. Round the pier there swarmed half a dozen pleasure-boats of all sizes, some the merest cockleshells, navigated (not unskilfully) by mariners who were barely big enough to make the oars move through the water. The rocky shore was adorned with groups of girls who were drying their hair after their morning’s dip in the sea, and dividing their attention between their novels, their little brothers in the boats just mentioned, and the approaching steamer. The water being deep close to the edge of the rocky coast, the pier was a very short one; and Alec Lindsay, looking over the edge, through the green water swirling round the piles of the pier, could see the pebbles on the shore twenty feet below. Ropes were thrown out and caught, and hawsers were dragged ashore by their aid. With these the steamer was made fast at stem and stern, gangways were run on board, and a score of passengers disembarked. In another minute the steamer had been cast loose and had gone on her way. The pier, the pleasure-boats, the girls on the rocks, the white dusty road, the hedges of fuchsia, had disappeared. In a quarter of an hour another pier had been reached where exactly the same scene presented itself. No town, no promenade, no large hotels--not even a row of public bathing-machines, or a German band.