The next
moment a hail reached me from the boat; and bursting
through the bushes and the rising sea-fowl, I said
farewell (I trust for ever) to that desert isle.
CHAPTER XVI
IN WHICH I TURN SMUGGLER, AND THE CAPTAIN CASUIST
THE last night at Midway I had little sleep; the next
morning, after the sun was risen, and the clatter of
departure had begun to reign on deck, I lay a long
while dozing; and when at last I stepped from the
companion, the schooner was already leaping through the
pass into the open sea. Close on her board, the huge
scroll of a breaker unfurled itself along the reef with
a prodigious clamour; and behind I saw the wreck
vomiting into the morning air a coil of smoke. The
wreaths already blew out far to leeward, flames already
glittered in the cabin skylight, and the sea-fowl were
scattered in surprise as wide as the lagoon. As we
drew farther off, the conflagration of the FLYING
SCUD flamed higher; and long after we had dropped all
signs of Midway Island, the smoke still hung in the
horizon like that of a distant steamer.
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