n, all at once, I saw a tear fall and another; and
she that had sung undaunted to the tempest and outfaced its fury, sat
bitterly weeping like any heart-broke maid, yet giving due heed to our
course none the less. Presently, chancing to look my way, she catches
me watching her and knits her slender brows at me:

"Get you to sleep!" says she. "O get you to sleep nor trouble my
grief!"

Hereupon (and feeling mighty guilty) I pillowed my head and, closing my
eyes, presently fell to sweet and dreamless slumber.

CHAPTER XXIV

HOW WE CAME TO BLACK BARTLEMY'S ISLAND

"Martin, Martin--look!"

I started up, and rubbing sleep from my eyes, turned to gaze whither
she pointed; and there, faint and far, above the rolling blue of the
seas rose a blue shape. "'Tis the island, Martin! Our voyaging is nigh
ended."

"Aye, 'tis the island!" says I.

"'Tis like an island of dream, Martin."

"Nay, 'tis real enough!" quoth I, "And solitary!"

"There is a perspective glass in the locker, yonder, Martin."

"Master Adam was vastly thoughtful!" quoth I, bitterly. And reaching
the glass I gave it to her.

"Will you not look at the island?" she questioned wonderingly.

"Nay, I shall see more than enough of it ere long! Do you give me the
tiller and view it as you will."

"I see rocks!" says she, after some while.

"Ha, a barren place, as I thought."

"Nay, there are trees--many trees! O 'tis wonderful!" And so she sat
viewing it all untiring, every moment discovering some new marvel; but
I fell to my old, black humour, since to me this island was no better
than a prison.

By mid-day we were come so close that I might see the place very well;
a smallish island with sheer cliffs very jagged and grim where the seas
broke in foam and crowned with many and divers trees, beyond which rose
greeny slopes with more trees that mounted up and up to a lofty summit
of rocks and brush. Being within some two miles of these forbidding
cliffs I steered to fetch a compass about the island, and so presently
opened a bay of white sand with tree-clad cliffs beyond, and before a
sheet of placid water or lagoon shut off from the sea by a semicircular
barrier-reef, such as Adam had described in his story.

And now, bethinking me that (by his account) this was the only means of
landing upon the island, I stood for this reef, against which the
foaming seas dashed with a mighty roaring, looking for that narrow
channel through the reef, th