h the masses had been clipped out
of paper. We were to be treated to a thunder-storm, and a pretty severe
one, too, if the promise of those clouds was to be relied upon. We had
been hove-to all day, some twenty miles in the offing, under mainsail
and jib only; so that, by keeping our canvas low, we might escape
observation from the land, although I had but little fear of this unless
anyone happened to have wandered up to the top of one of the hills of
Tierra Bomba, from which it would have been possible to see us. But the
moment that the sun had fairly disappeared below the horizon, sail was
packed upon the schooner, and we proceeded to work in toward the land,
my chief anxiety now being lest the thunder-storm should gather and
break before we had succeeded in effecting a landing, in which case we
stood a very fair chance of being discovered, and of finding everybody
on the alert to give us a warm reception. We reached in, on the
starboard tack, until we were within about two miles of Punta de Canoas,
when we hove about and reached along the land to the southward. By this
time the thunder-clouds had completely overspread the sky; it was as
dark as the inside of a cavern, and the storm might burst upon us at any
moment. It hung off, however, and at length, much to my relief, we
found ourselves close to the northern extremity of Tierra Bomba, and
within half a mile of the shore. It was so dark that it was quite
impossible to see anything, the land merely showing as a slightly deeper
shadow against the intense blackness of the overcast sky. But I had so
thoroughly studied all the natural features of the harbour and its
surroundings during my day's sojourn ashore that I now seemed to be
perfectly familiar with them all. I therefore had no hesitation
whatever in hauling the schooner in under the lee of the island until we
were actually becalmed, when, the lead giving us a depth of barely four
fathoms, I let go the anchor and stripped the schooner of all her
canvas, not furling it, however, but simply passing a few turns of the
gaskets, so that everything might be ready for making sail again at a
moment's notice.

We were now, according to my judgment--for, as I have said, we could
actually see nothing,--in the shallow bay where Hoard and I had landed
three nights previously; and I believed, moreover, that we were so close
to the land as to be completely shut in and hidden, both from the north
and from the south. Ne