The experiences of our first day out did not promise well for a smart voyage. We tumbled about a good deal on the bar at the mouth of the bay, and found that the sea outside had not yet gone down. The wind was moderate and variable, but generally south-east—that is, right in our teeth. We tacked ship three times in the course of the day, and made little progress against the head sea.
On the following day, November 15, things looked better; the wind veered to the eastward, so that the yacht could lay her course with her sheets slacked off a bit.
The next day the wind was fairer still—from the east-north-east—blowing fresh, and raising a steep, confused sea, for the south-west swell of the pampero had not yet entirely subsided. We close-reefed the foresail so as to prevent the vessel driving her nose into the seas, and during this day and the next, November 17, we were constantly tricing up the tack of the mainsail in the squalls.
On the 18th and 19th the wind was moderate, so we had all canvas on the old vessel again, including topsail and balloon foresail; and on the morning of November 20 all hands were in eager expectance of catching the first glimpse of Treasure Island.
At about 8 a.m. it suddenly appeared right ahead, a faint blue peak on the horizon, fully forty miles away.
CHAPTER IX.
TREASURE ISLAND AT LAST.
We sailed on towards the desert island under all canvas, but did not reach it for eight hours from the time we first sighted it.
As we neared it, the features of this extraordinary place could gradually be distinguished. The north side, that which faced us, is the most barren and desolate portion of the island, and appears to be utterly inaccessible. Here the mountains rise sheer from the boiling surf—fantastically shaped of volcanic rock; cloven by frightful ravines; lowering in perpendicular precipices; in places over-hanging threateningly, and, where the mountains have been shaken to pieces by the fires and earthquakes of volcanic action, huge landslips slope steeply into the yawning ravines—landslips of black and red volcanic débris, and loose rocks large as houses, ready on the slightest disturbance to roll down, crashing, into the abysses below. On the summit of the island there floats almost constantly, even on the clearest day, a wreath of dense vapour, never still, but rolling and twisting into strange shapes as the wind eddies among the crags. And above this cloud-wreath rise mighty pinnacles of coal-black rock, like the spires of some gigantic Gothic cathedral piercing the blue southern sky.