m me. This took place during one of our busy
talks--only he and I--alone in his cabin. He had been washing his hands,
making ready for tea.

"Do you know," he said, turning full on me, and wiping his fingers
carefully with a coarse towel--"do you know, I shouldn't wonder if that
schooner were not keeping watch on us, in suspicion of just some such
move on our part. 'Tis extraordinary how clever the greatest fool may
show himself sometimes. Only, with their lubberly Spanish seamanship,
they would expect us, probably, to make a whole ceremony of your
landing: ship hove to for hours close in shore, a boat going off to land
and returning, and all such pother. 'We are sure to see their little
show,' they think to themselves. Eh? What? Whereas we shall keep well
clear of the land when the time comes, and drop you in the dark without
as much check on our way as there is in the wink of an eye. Hey?...
Mind, Mr. Kemp, you take the boat out of sight up that little river, in
case they should have a fancy, as they go along after us, to peep into
that inlet. As I have said it wouldn't do to trust too much in any
fool's folly."

And now the time was approaching; the time to awake and step forth out
of the temple of sunshine and love--of whispers and silences. It had
come. The night before both Williams and Sebright had been on deck,
working the ship with an anxious care to take the utmost advantage of
every favouring flaw in the contrary breeze. In the morning I was told
there was a norther brewing. A norther is a tempestuous gale. I saw no
signs of it. The realm of the sun, like the vanished one of the stars,
appeared to my senses to be profoundly asleep, and breathing as gently
as a child upon the ship. The _Lion_, too, seemed to lie wrapped in an
enchanted slumber from the water-line to the tops of her upright masts.
And yet she moved with the breath of the world, but so imperceptibly
that it was the coast that seemed to be nearing her like a line of
low vapour blown along the water. Between Williams and Sebright Castro
pointed with his one arm, and a splutter of guttural syllables fell like
hail out of his lips. The other two seemed incredulous. He stamped with
both his feet angrily. Finally they went below together, to look at the
chart, I suppose. They came up again very fast, one after another, and
stood in a row, looking on as before. Three more dissimilar human beings
it would have been difficult to imagine.

Dazzling whi