be pierced, the next moment, by
a broad shaft of pure white light which shot upward far into the
delicate azure, which was now flooding the heavens and drowning out the
stars, one after the other. Then up shot another and another shaft of
light, radiating from a point just below the horizon, like the spokes of
a wheel. Suddenly a little layer of horizontal clouds, a few degrees
above the mangrove tops, became visible, rose-red and gold-edged; and an
instant later a spark of molten, palpitating gold flashed and blazed
through the ebony-black mangrove branches, dazzling the eye and tipping
the ripples with a long line of scintillating gold which stretched clear
from the shore to the boat, flooding her and those in her with primrose
light. Quickly the golden spark grew and brightened until, before one
could draw breath a dozen times, it had expanded into the upper edge of
a great throbbing, burning, golden disk, flooding land and sea with its
golden radiance--and it was day. The sea changed from purple to a clear
translucent green; the vegetation ashore, still black immediately under
the sun, merged by a thousand subtle gradations, right and left, into
olive-green of every imaginable tint, and finally into a delicate rosy
grey in the extreme distance; a multitude of trivial details of outline
and contour, tree and rock, suddenly leapt into distinctness, a flock of
pelicans rose from among the cluster of islands inshore and went
flapping heavily and solemnly out to seaward; the dorsal fin of a shark
drifted lazily past the boat--and the full extent of the bight behind
the island of Baru swept suddenly into view.

"Just in time," exclaimed Marshall, with a sigh of relief, as he rose
and stretched himself. "Round with her, lad, and head her up the bight
while the wind lasts. It will be a flat calm here in half an hour from
now."

"I hope not," said Dick, "for this bight is quite twelve miles long, by
the look of it, and it will be no joke for four of us to be obliged to
pull this heavy boat the greater part of that distance."

"There will be no need," said Marshall. "We are not in such a desperate
hurry as that amounts to. Take the boat close in under the shore of the
island, and when the wind fails us we will anchor and have breakfast.
The calm will probably last no longer than about an hour; then will come
the sea breeze, which, I should say, from the trend of the coast just
here, will probably draw right up the b