Whither was the bird going? Towards some distant shore?
Its departure produced a feeling of depression, even of anxiety. It seemed like a desertion.
But time was passing. The intermittent breeze was not strong enough to disperse the fog, whose heavy scrolls were rolling at the base of the cone. Would the night fall before the northern horizon had been laid bare to view?
But no; all hope was not yet lost. As the mists began to decrease, Fritz was able to make out that the cone dominated, not a cliff, but long slopes, which probably extended as far as the level of the sea.
Then the wind freshened, the folds of the flag stiffened, and, nearly level with the mists, everyone could see the declivity for a distance of a hundred yards.
It was no longer a mere accumulation of rocks, it was the other side of a mountain, where showed growths on which they had not set eyes for many a long month!
How they feasted their sight on these wide stretches of verdure, on the shrubs, aloes, mastic-trees, and myrtles which were growing everywhere! No; they would not wait for the fog to disperse, and besides, it was imperative that they should reach the base of the mountain before night enveloped them in its shadows!
But now, eight or nine hundred feet below, through the rifts in the mist, appeared the top of the foliage of a forest which extended for several miles; then a vast and fertile plain, strown with clumps of trees and groves, with broad meadows and vast grass-lands traversed by water-courses, the largest of which ran eastwards towards a bay in the coast-line.
On the east and west, the sea extended to the furthest limit of the horizon. Only on the north was it wanting to make of this land, not an islet, but a large island.
Finally, very far away, could be seen the faint outlines of a rocky rampart running from west to east. Was that the edge of a coast?