The dawn was just tingeing the Eastern sky with pallor when Mildmay opened his eyes and, rising from his exceedingly comfortable bed, walked over to the port and looked out. Everything was still wrapped in darkness below him; but upon gazing steadfastly into the gloom for a few minutes, he believed that he could descry certain darker patches here and there, at no great distance, which ought to be--and doubtless were-- islands. And thereupon he slid his feet into a pair of soft slippers and betook himself to the pilot-house, where, by the manipulation of certain valves, he lowered the ship to within some three hundred feet of the surface of the sea. He then proceeded outside to the deck, and carefully inspected his surroundings from that situation. The dawn was brightening fast, and objects below were beginning to show with some distinctness. Therefore, although the ship being afloat in the air, and her engines at rest, he felt no wind, the aspect of the sea beneath him, and the fact that the _Flying Fish_ was perceptibly drifting to the southward and westward, told him that a brisk, north-easterly wind was blowing. At the much lower altitude at which the ship was now floating, the surrounding islets--there were three of them--showed to the eye at something very nearly approaching their correct distances apart, and in the fast-growing light something of their true character also stood revealed. Thus the solitary observer noted that while two of them, some six miles apart, were simply extensive reefs of bare coral rock, with a multitude of narrow, intricate channels of water running hither and thither through them, the third--some nine or ten miles to the southward--was an atoll of very similar character to that of the pearl-island which they had so abruptly left on the preceding day, but considerably larger, quite an extensive grove of coco-palms growing upon it. It had all the appearance of being a very suitable spot for the purpose that he had in his mind; and he therefore retired to the pilot-house, re-started the engines, and so headed the ship that she would pass over it. And when, presently, she reached it, he turned her head-to-wind, so adjusted the speed of her engines that she would just stem the breeze, and again went out on deck to reconnoitre. He now saw that the island beneath him was about two miles long by about half a mile in breadth, well clothed with grass, bushes, and some two or three hundred coco-palms; and that there was a rivulet of--presumably--fresh water bubbling up at one point and meandering down to the lagoon, which was a spacious one of about ten miles long by some seven miles broad, with a depth of water that appeared ample enough to float anything. The islet was also uninhabited; for he had a clear view of the whole of it, and could discover nothing that even remotely resembled a hut; no, not even with the aid of his binoculars. So, satisfied at length that he