Again and again,
with toilful searching, I recalled that apparition.
There was no sign of any land; the wreck stood between
sea and sky, a thing the most isolated I had ever
viewed; but as we drew nearer, I perceived her to be
defended by a line of breakers which drew off on either
hand, and marked, indeed, the nearest segment of the
reef. Heavy spray hung over them like a smoke, some
hundred feet into the air; and the sound of their
consecutive explosions rolled like a cannonade.
In half an hour we were close in; for perhaps as long
again we skirted that formidable barrier toward its
farther side; and presently the sea began insensibly to
moderate and the ship to go more sweetly. We had
gained the lee of the island, as (for form's sake) I
may call that ring of foam and haze and thunder; and
shaking out a reef, wore ship and headed for the
passage.
CHAPTER XIII
THE ISLAND AND THE WRECK
ALL hands were filled with joy. It was betrayed in
their alacrity and easy faces: Johnson smiling broadly
at the wheel, Nares studying the sketch chart of the
island with an eye at peace, and the hands clustered
forward, eagerly talking and pointing: so manifest was
our escape, so wonderful the attraction of a single
foot of earth after so many suns had set and risen on
an empty sea! To add to the relief, besides, by one of
those malicious coincidences which suggest for Fate the
image of an underbred and grinning schoolboy, we had no
sooner worn ship than the wind began to abate.
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