Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/397

Rh of a series of intermittent tides, the anchor chains creaking ominously through the holes, as the ship was buoyed upward on the waters.

Finally, all was still again, oppressively still. The clear section of the sky to west and north did not turn to turquoise with the morning, but paled to an anæmic white. From the cone, clouds came columning, like vast, revolving, powder-puffs still of soft texture, but fouled by swabbing the great chimneys of that giant's furnace below. In between their sooty masses floated little white plumes of vapour, all enveloping the island and thinning a little as they spread over the coast waters.

Through these fugitive mists the sea birds wandered on disconsolate wing, like phantom wraiths. The sun came up, not jubilant, and golden, and glorious, but a pale oxblood wafer behind the smoke clouds, like the celluloid tiddlewinks Sally remembered in her parlour.

Then sounded over the troubled waters the old command of the sea, with its long drawn vowels and hoarse musical tones.

"Aa-ll ha-aands! Up annchorr a-ho-oy!"

Through the shifting fogs it sounded, like the deep sea-warning of some brazen-throated steamer off the Banks of Newfoundland.

Already the sails were loosed, the capstan creaked, and through hawser-holes came the anchor chains, clanking.

The wheel spun, yards were braced, and sails set, and through the channel between the Twin Horn Capes, like a ghostly ship of the night, floated the North Star.