he
contours of ivy-clad towers,--would stand reflected together upside
down in the unwrinkled water, like carved toys of ebony disposed on the
silvered plate-glass of a mirror.

The first touch of blowing weather would envelop the whole at once in
the spume of the windward breakers, as if in a sudden cloudlike burst
of steam; and the clear water seemed fairly to boil in all the passages.
The provoked sea outlined exactly in a design of angry foam the wide
base of the group; the submerged level of broken waste and refuse left
over from the building of the coast near by, projecting its dangerous
spurs, all awash, far into the channel, and bristling with wicked long
spits often a mile long: with deadly spits made of froth and stones.

And even nothing more than a brisk breeze--as on that morning, the
voyage before, when the Sofala left Pangu bay early, and Mr. Sterne's
discovery was to blossom out like a flower of incredible and evil aspect
from the tiny seed of instinctive suspicion,--even such a breeze had
enough strength to tear the placid mask from the face of the sea. To
Sterne, gazing with indifference, it had been like a revelation to
behold for the first time the dangers marked by the hissing livid
patches on the water as distinctly as on the engraved paper of a chart.
It came into his mind that this was the sort of day most favorable for a
stranger attempting the passage: a clear day, just windy enough for the
sea to break on every ledge, buoying, as it were, the channel plainly
to the sight; whereas during a calm you had nothing to depend on but the
compass and the practiced judgment of your eye. And yet the successive
captains of the Sofala had had to take her through at night more than
once. Nowadays you could not afford to throw away six or seven hours
of a steamer's time. That you couldn't. But then use is everything, and
with proper care . . . The channel was broad and safe enough; the main
point was to hit upon the entrance correctly in the dark--for if a man
got himself involved in that stretch of broken water over yonder he
would never get out with a whole ship--if he ever got out at all.

This was Sterne's last train of thought independent of the great
discovery. He had just seen to the securing of the anchor, and had
remained forward idling away a moment or two. The captain was in charge
on the bridge. With a slight yawn he had turned away from his survey of
the sea and had leaned his shoulders agains