I came on deck one morning at about four bells to find the entire ship's company afoot. Even the doctor was there. Everybody was gazing eagerly at a narrow, mountainous island lying slate-coloured across the early morning.

We were as yet some twenty miles distant from it, and could make out nothing but its general outline. The latter was sharply defined, rising and falling to a highest point one side of the middle. Over the island, and raggedly clasping its sides, hung a cloud, the only one visible in the sky.

I joined the afterguard.

"You see?" the doctor was exclaiming. "It iss as I haf said. The island iss there. Everything iss as it should be!" He was quite excited.

Percy Darrow, too, was shaken out of his ordinary calm.

"The volcano is active," was his only comment, but it explained the ragged cloud.

"You say there's a harbour?" inquired Captain Selover.

"It should be on the west end," said Dr. Schermerhorn.

Captain Selover drew me one side. He, too was a little aroused.

"Now wouldn't that get you?" he squeaked. "Doctor runs up against a Norwegian bum who tells him about a volcanic island, and gives its bearings. The island ain't on the map at all. Doctor believes it, and makes me lay my course for those bearings. _And here's the island_! So the bum's story was true! I'd like to know what the rest of it was!" His eyes were shining.

"Do we anchor or stand off and on?" I asked.

Captain Selover turned to grip me by the shoulder.

"I have orders from Darrow to get to a good berth, to land, to build shore quarters, and to snug down for a stay of a year at least!"

We stared at each other.

"Joyous prospect," I muttered. "Hope there's something to do there."

The morning wore, and we rapidly approached the island. It proved to be utterly precipitous. The high rounded hills sloped easily to within a hundred feet or so of the water and then fell away abruptly. Where the earth ended was a fantastic filigree border, like the fancy paper with which our mothers used to line the pantry shelves. Below, the white surges flung themselves against the cliffs with a wild abandon. Thousands of sea birds wheeled in the eddies of the wind, thousands of ravens perched on the slopes. With our glasses we could make out the heads of seals fishing outside the surf, and a ragged belt of kelp.

When within a mile we put the helm up, and ran for the west end. A bold point we avoided far out, lest there should be outlying ledges. Then we came in sight of a broad beach and pounding surf.

I was ordered to take a surf boat and investigate for a landing and an anchorage. The swell was running high. We rowed back and forth, puzzled as to how to get ashore with all the freight it would be necessary to land. The ship would lie well enough, for the only open exposure was broken by a long reef over which we could make out the seas tumbling. But inshore the great waves rolled smoothly, swiftly-- then suddenly fell forward as over a ledge, and spread with a roar across the yellow sands. The fresh winds blew the spume back to us. We conversed in shouts.

"We can surf the boat," yelled Thrackles, "but we can't land a load."

That was my opinion. We rowed slowly along, parallel to the shore, and just outside the line of breakers. I don't know exactly how to tell you the manner in which we became aware of the cove. It was as nearly the instantaneous as can be imagined. One minute I looked ahead on a cliff as unbroken as the side of a cabin; the very next I peered down the length of a cove fifty fathoms long by about ten wide, at the end of which was a gravel beach. I cried out sharply to the men. They were quite as much astonished as I. We backed water, watching closely. At a given point the cove and all trace of its entrance disappeared. We could only just make out the line where the headlands dissolved into the background of the cliffs, and that merely because we knew of its existence. The blending was perfect.

We rowed in. The water was still. A faint ebb and flow whispered against the tiny gravel beach at the end. I noted a practicable way from it to the top of the cliff, and from the cliff down again to the sand beach. Everything was perfect. The water was a beautiful light green, like semi-opaque glass, and from the indistinctness of its depths waved and beckoned, rose and disappeared with indescribable grace and deliberation long feathery sea growths. In a moment the bottom abruptly shallowed. The motion of the boat toward the beach permitted us to catch a hasty glimpse of little fish darting, of big fish turning, of yellow sand and some vivid colour. Then came the grate of gravel and the scraping of the boat's bottom on the beach. We jumped ashore eagerly. I left the men, very reluctant, and ascended a natural trail to a high sloping down over which blew the great Trades. Grass sprung knee-high. A low hill rose at the back. From below the fall of the cliff came the pounding of surf.

I walked to the edge. Various ledges, sloping toward me, ran down to the sea. Against one of them was a wreck, not so very old, head on, her afterworks gone. I recognised the name _Golden Horn_, and was vastly astonished to find her here against this unknown island. Far up the coast I could see--with the surges dashing up like the explosion of shells, and the cliffs, and the rampart of hills grown with grass and cactus. A bold promontory terminated the coast view to the north, and behind it I could glimpse a more fertile and wooded country. The sky was partly overcast by the volcanic murk. It fled before the Trades, and the red sun alternately blazed and clouded through it.

As there was nothing more to be seen here, I turned above the hollow of our cove, skirted t............