It came out, indeed, that, instead of hindering us, the blustering weather had given us great heaves on our course.
The wind and sea held favourable; and some ten days after, by Ouvery’s chart, we should be within forty leagues, more or less, of the Haunted Island.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE GHOST.
About four o’clock after noon, the look-out man in our foreyard cried:
“Land a-weather bow.”
This put a strange spirit into the mariners, half eager, half fearful; as might be seen from their restless demeanour and furtive converse one with another. And, as it seemed to me, the very ship began to sail faster, straining and leaping, drenching her beakhead. Soon we began to have other warrants than the testimony of the look-out man that land was nigh, tokens in the air and sea: a gaudy landfowl came and perched on a yardarm; a piece of rockweed drove along by the ship’s side.
The sun sank; but the air was clear like crystal, and suddenly a mariner standing in the bows, sang out:
“There it be! There it be! I spies it.”
And immediately I descried the land, as a blue mist, as a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, close aboard the horizon.
“Ay, there it be! there it be!” cried a score of voices. “There be the island!”