he burning shallows of the lagoon.
From a flagstaff at the pierhead the red ensign of England was
displayed. Behind, about, and over, the same tall grove of palms, which
had masked the settlement in the beginning, prolonged its roof of
tumultuous green fans, and turned and ruffled overhead, and sang its
silver song all day in the wind. The place had the indescribable but
unmistakable appearance of being in commission; yet there breathed from
it a sense of desertion that was almost poignant, no human figure was to
be observed going to and fro about the houses, and there was no sound of
human industry or enjoyment. Only, on the top of the beach, and hard by
the flagstaff, a woman of exorbitant stature and as white as snow was to
be seen beckoning with uplifted arm. The second glance identified her as
a piece of naval sculpture, the flgure-head of a ship that had long
hovered and plunged into so many running billows, and was now brought
ashore to be the ensign and presiding genius of that empty town.

The _Farallone_ made a soldier's breeze of it; the wind, besides, was
stronger inside than without under the lee of the land; and the stolen
schooner opened out successive objects with the swiftness of a panorama,
so that the adventurers stood speechless. The flag spoke for itself; it
was no frayed and weathered trophy that had beaten itself to pieces on
the post, flying over desolation; and to make assurance stronger, there
was to be descried in the deep shade of the verandah a glitter of
crystal and the fluttering of white napery. If the figure-head at the
pier-end, with its perpetual gesture and its leprous whiteness, reigned
alone in that hamlet as it seemed to do, it would not have reigned long.
Men's hands had been busy, men's feet stirring there, within the circuit
of the clock. The _Farallones_ were sure of it; their eyes dug in the
deep shadow of the palms for some one hiding; if intensity of looking
might have prevailed, they would have pierced the walls of houses; and
there came to them, in these pregnant seconds, a sense of being watched
and played with, and of a blow impending, that was hardly bearable.

The extreme point of palms they had just passed enclosed a creek, which
was thus hidden up to the last moment from the eyes of those on board;
and from this a boat put suddenly and briskly out, and a voice hailed.

"Schooner ahoy!" it cried. "Stand in for the pier! In two cables'
lengths you'll have twenty fatho