But as I studied the surf which beat upon the beach, I said, “Still bad, but not so bad. And now, if the gods be truly kind, we shall drift by that next headland and come upon a perfectly sheltered beach, where we may land without wetting our feet.” And the gods were kind. The first and second headlands were directly in line with the south-west wind; but once around the second,—and we went perilously near,—we picked up the third headland, still in line with the wind and with the other two. But the cove that intervened! It penetrated deep into the land, and the tide, setting in, drifted us under the shelter of the point. Here the sea was calm, save for a heavy but smooth ground-swell, and I took in the sea-anchor and began to row. From the point the shore curved away, more and more to the south and west, until at last it disclosed a cove within the cove, a little land-locked harbour, the water level as a pond, broken only by tiny ripples where vagrant breaths and wisps of the storm hurtled down from over the frowning wall of rock that backed the beach a hundred feet inshore. Here were no seals whatever. The boat’s stern touched the hard shingle. I sprang out, extending my hand to Maud. The next moment she was beside me. As my fingers released hers, she clutched for my arm hastily. At the same moment I swayed, as about to fall to the sand. This was the startling effect of the cessation of motion. We had been so long upon the moving, rocking sea that the stable land was a shock to us. We expected the beach to lift up this way and that, and the rocky walls to swing back and forth like the sides of a ship; and when we braced ourselves, automatically, for these various expected movements, their non-occurrence quite overcame our equilibrium. “I really must sit down,” Maud said, with a nervous laugh and a dizzy gesture, and forthwith she sat down on the sand. I attended to making the boat secure and joined her. Thus we landed on Endeavour Island, as we came to it, land-sick from long custom of the sea. CHAPTER XXIX “Fool!” I cried aloud in my vexation. I had unloaded the boat and carried its contents high up on the beach, where I had set about making a camp. There was driftwood, though not much, on the beach, and the sight of a coffee tin I had taken from the _Ghost’s_ larder had given me the idea of a fire. “Blithering idiot!” I was continuing. But Maud said, “Tut, tut,” in gentle reproval, and then asked why I was a blithering idiot. “No matches,” I groaned. “Not a match did I bring. And now we shall have no hot coffee, soup, tea, or anything!” “Wasn’t it—er—Crusoe who rubbed sticks together?” she drawled.