light of finding her manner warming
to me. But I take credit to myself that I always resisted the
temptation, fighting against it as a thing to yield to which would be
mean and unmanly on my part.

In this strange and contradictory condition of alternate peace, rendered
insipid by Miss Onslow's coolness, and anxiety converted into happiness
unspeakable by the warmth and tenderness of her sympathy, I carried the
brig toward the spot indicated in O'Gorman's document; and at noon on a
certain day my observations showed that we had arrived within sixty
miles of it. The weather was then brilliantly fine, with a gentle
breeze out from about west-north-west, that wafted the brig along over
the low, long mounds of the Pacific swell at a rate of about five knots;
consequently, if the island happened to be in the position assigned to
it, we ought to reach it about midnight. O'Gorman's desire to be made
acquainted with our exact position daily had been growing ever since we
had shifted our helm after rounding the Horn, beginning as a condition
of languid curiosity, which had strengthened into a state of feverish
restlessness and anxiety that, on the day in question, as soon as I had
conveyed to him the customary information, found vent in an order that a
man should go aloft and maintain a lookout from the topgallant yard
until the island should be sighted, the remainder of the crew being set
to work during the afternoon to rouse out and bend the cables, and to
attend to the various other matters incidental to the approach of a
vessel to a port. He also had the spare spars overhauled and suitable
ones selected for the purpose of erecting tents in conjunction with the
brig's old sails, from all of which I inferred that our stay at the
island--should we happen to find it--would be a somewhat protracted one.

As to the probability of our finding the place, I was exceedingly
doubtful; for although I was well aware that hitherto unknown islands
were still occasionally being discovered in the Pacific, I was equally
well aware that these new islands were almost invariably low, and of
insignificant dimensions, being, in fact, merely coral reefs that have
been gradually lifted above the surface of the ocean; whereas O'Gorman's
document contained mention of a _hill_, and the presence of a hill
argued a probable existence of ages, and a consequently corresponding
likelihood of comparatively early discovery.

But at two bells in the seco