Page:White and Hopkins--The mystery.djvu/132

108 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