n this announcement was made it was exactly ten minutes
after six o'clock p.m. The speed gauge showed that the _Flying Fish_
was then making her way through the water at the rate of one hundred and
fifty miles per hour; in a trifle over one hour more, therefore, if
nothing prevented, they would reach the goal of their northward journey.
Their enthusiasm became almost painful in its intensity; and as the
_Flying Fish_ rushed at headlong speed through the rippling waters,
tossing the wavelets aside in a great outward-curling fringe of
sparkling foam, and as the minutes lagged slowly away, the eyes of the
quartette in the pilot-house were strained with ever-increasing
intensity in their vain efforts to pierce the mysteries of the horizon
ahead.

At exactly twenty minutes to seven o'clock, Mildmay electrified his
companions, and put the finishing touch to their excitement, by raising
an exultant shout of:

"Land ho!"

"Where?" "Show it me!" "I can't see it. You must be mistaken!"
exclaimed his companions in chorus, after a breathless moment of vain
peering into the pearly northern horizon.

"There it is, directly ahead, looking just like the edge of a flat grey
cloud showing above the water's edge," was the reply.

Sure enough it _was_ land; for when once their eyes had been directed to
the proper point there was little difficulty in discerning it.
Moreover, as the ship sped on, it rose rapidly above the horizon, the
grey tint growing every moment darker and more distinct, and a few
minutes later other land, more sharply defined in outline and more
distinctive in colour, rose above the horizon immediately below it,
showing that the table-land first made out lay at some distance from the
southern shore.

And at this auspicious moment the sea began to exhibit signs of the life
which teemed within its depths. An accidental glance astern showed an
enormous school of whales spouting on the southern horizon; porpoises
undulated sportively to windward; a troop of dolphins suddenly appeared
for a moment alongside the ship, evidently straining every nerve to keep
pace with her; and an occasional sea-otter rose now and then to the
surface of the placid sea, to dive out of sight again the next instant
in quite a ridiculous state of consternation at so unwonted a sight as
the rushing form of the _Flying Fish_. Flocks of sea-birds of various,
and indeed some of hitherto unknown, kinds next made their appearance,
industriou