ck
upon the cockpit bench. A stir at last awoke me, to see all the eastern
heaven dyed with faint orange, the binnacle lamp already dulled against
the brightness of the day, and the steersman leaning eagerly across the
wheel. "There it is, sir!" he cried, and pointed in the very eyeball of
the dawn. For a while I could see nothing but the bluish ruins of the
morning bank, which lay far along the horizon, like melting icebergs.
Then the sun rose, pierced a gap in these _debris_ of vapours, and
displayed an inconsiderable islet, flat as a plate upon the sea, and
spiked with palms of disproportioned altitude.

So far, so good. Here was certainly an atoll, and we were certainly got
among the archipelago. But which? And where? The isle was too small for
either Takaroa: in all our neighbourhood, indeed, there was none so
inconsiderable, save only Tikei; and Tikei, one of Roggewein's so-called
Pernicious Islands, seemed beside the question. At that rate, instead of
drifting to the west, we must have fetched up thirty miles to windward.
And how about the current? It had been setting us down, by observation,
all these days: by the deflection of our wake, it should be setting us
down that moment. When had it stopped? When had it begun again? and what
kind of torrent was that which had swept us eastward in the interval? To
these questions, so typical of navigation in that range of isles, I have
no answer. Such were at least the facts; Tikei our island turned out to
be; and it was our first experience of the dangerous archipelago, to
make our landfall thirty miles out.

The sight of Tikei, thrown direct against the splendour of the morning,
robbed of all its colour, and deformed with disproportioned trees like
bristles on a broom, had scarce prepared us to be much in love with
atolls. Later the same day we saw under more fit conditions the island
of Taiaro. "Lost in the Sea" is possibly the meaning of the name. And it
was so we saw it; lost in blue sea and sky: a ring of white beach, green
underwood, and tossing palms, gem-like in colour; of a fairy, of a
heavenly prettiness. The surf ran all around it, white as snow, and
broke at one point, far to seaward, on what seemed an uncharted reef.
There was no smoke, no sign of man; indeed, the isle is not inhabited,
only visited at intervals. And yet a trader (Mr. Narii Salmon) was
watching from the shore and wondering at the unexpected ship. I have
spent since then long months upon low