rward movement at all. We
had been on deck just an hour--for two bells had barely been struck--
when the first faint suggestion of dawn appeared ahead in the shape of a
scarcely-perceptible lightening of the sky along a narrow strip of the
eastern horizon, in the midst of which the morning star beamed
resplendently, while the air, although still warm, assumed a freshness
that, compared with the close, muggy heat of the past night, seemed
almost cold, so that involuntarily I drew the lapels of my thin jacket
together and buttoned the garment from throat to waist. Quickly, yet by
imperceptible gradations, the lightening of the eastern sky spread and
strengthened, the soft, velvety, star-lit, blue-black hue paling to an
arch of cold, colourless pallor as the dawn asserted itself more
emphatically, while the stars dwindled and vanished one by one in the
rapidly-growing light. As the pallor of the sky extended itself
insidiously north and south along the horizon, a low-lying bank of what
at first presented the appearance of dense vapour became visible on the
_Barracouta's_ larboard bow; but presently, when the cold whiteness of
the coming day became flushed with a delicate tint of purest, palest
primrose, the supposed fog-bank assumed a depth of rich purple hue and a
clear-cut sharpness of outline that proclaimed it what it was--_land_,
most unmistakably. The look-out was a smart young fellow, who had
already established a reputation for trustworthiness, and he more than
half suspected the character of the cloud-like appearance when it first
caught his attention; he therefore kept his eye upon it, and was no
sooner assured of its nature than he raised the cry of--

"Land ho! broad on the port bow!"

The first luff, who had been for some time meditatively pacing the
weather side of the deck from the binnacle to the gangway, with his
hands clasped behind his back and his glance directed alternately to the
deck at his feet and to the swaying main-royal-mast-head, quickly awoke
from his abstraction at the cry from the forecastle, and, springing
lightly upon a carronade slide, with one hand grasping the inner edge of
the hammock-rail, looked long and steadily in the direction indicated.

"Ay, ay, I see it," he answered, when after a long, steady look he had
satisfied himself of the character of what he gazed upon. "Wheel,
there, how's her head?"

"East-south-east, sir!" answered the helmsman promptly.

The lieutenant sh