"I'll tell you at tea-time," he said. At tea-time he reappeared. "Through a break in the mists below us I'm sure I saw a town," he said, "white dots on green."
"Possibly sheep," said one.
"Or sea birds on a green sea," ventured another.
"Rot," replied he. "It is not green; why, it is the Black Sea."
Two hours later, as the twilight fell around us, we saw, as in a flash through a rent veil, the twinkling of a myriad lights. Some one suggested fire-flies. "A mirage," said an orderly from the stern raft.
Without doubt it was a town. Great excitement prevailed.
Our navigating officer believed it to be Odessa.
"I believe it's Constanty," declared Wully, and as the lights grew nearer he became more insistent. "The sea is beyond and around the lights, it must be Constanty." And half an hour later, "I tell you I can see mosques and minarets; besides, I know Constanty. I am absolutely——"
Boom! A dull billowy wave of sound reached us.