That's discipline, my boy, and in this business you
may want all you can learn of it."
It was not Captain Branscome's habit to speak sharply. I turned my
attention to the card, conscious of a pair of red ears.
The sky brightened, and within an hour, as we ran down upon it at
something like eight knots, the Island began to take shape.
A wisp of morning fog floated horizontally across it, dividing its
shore-line from the hills in the interior, which, looming above this
cloudy base, appeared considerably higher than, in fact, they were.
The shore itself along the eastern side showed almost uniformly
steep--a line of reddish rock broken with patches of green, which we
mistook for meadows (but they turned out to be nothing more or less
than sheets of green creepers matted together and overhanging the
cliffs). At its northern extremity, upon which we were closing down
at an acute angle, the land dropped to a low-lying, sandy peninsula
with a backbone of rock almost bare of vegetation, and beyond this we
saw the white surf glittering around the Keys.
Our course gave them a fairly wide berth; and at first I took them
for a continuous line of sandbanks running in a rough semicircle
around the low spit which the chart called Gable Point; but as we
drew level they broke up into islets, with blue channels between, and
at sight of us thousands of sea-birds rose in cloud upon cloud, with
a clamour that might have been heard for miles.
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